Culture
Ghost’s ‘Skeletour’ showcases a band at the height of its powers
By: Nicholas Kobe
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COLUMBUS, Ohio (WOUB) – Ghost’s Skeletour show at Nationwide Arena (200 West Nationwide Blvd.) on Monday showcased the Swedish hard rock band continuing the upward trajectory they’ve been on for the last half-decade. Now fully realized arena rock gods, the band fills those massive shoes with ease, as the dramatic, bombastic, and electrifying qualities embedded in Ghost’s DNA shine brighter than ever.
I’d affectionately describe Ghost as one of the silliest bands in modern rock. Their “satanic parody of the Catholic Church” gimmick offers pointed religious commentary without hiding the inherent absurdity of frontman and creative leader Tobias Forge performing in papal robes and referring to himself as “Papa.”
It’s the look and edge of a black metal band paired with the theatrics and songwriting sensibilities of Kiss. The combination contradicts itself and, frankly, shouldn’t work, but it has soared under Forge’s pinpoint creative direction.
The “ritual” included fake stained glass windows depicting Satan paired with ominous Latin chanting. Elsewhere, a statue of Mother Mary stood in contrast with rainbow disco lights and dancing statues during Dance Macabre, as Forge rose from the ground holding a cowbell aloft with the intensity of a superhero.
On top of a truly spectacular production, Ghost sucks you in with their incredible acting. Not only did every one of the “Nameless Ghouls” have incredible stage presence, fan interaction, and chemistry with each other, but they also conveyed all of that under a mask. With no facial expressions or talking, all the acting was done through body language, making their hypnotic charisma even more impressive.
I’ve seen bands perform in costume, like Sleep Token or Gwar. The difference is that those acts are either entirely serious or fully ironic. Ghost blends the two approaches, and that nuance is hard to pull off. Yet they do it so effortlessly that I barely noticed it the last time I saw them perform, when I covered their Madison Square Garden show for People last summer—a testament to the quality of the performance.
Ghost isn’t just a feast for the eyes, however.
Mirroring the incredibly tight visual production, the Skeletour features an incredibly tight setlist.
As a fan of this band for half a decade and change, there’s pretty much no misses here. Even if I longed for Ritual, Life Eternal or Watchers in the Sky, I understand that tough decisions must be made to keep a setlist as fat-free as this. Considering the band now has six albums, they’ve also got a diverse set of songs to pull from to suit whatever mood or tone the set was going for.
Live, with a full band, Ghost is forced to maintain a consistent level of grit that, in the studio, has gradually faded on the band’s last two releases. As a metal fan, I appreciated this. Hearing the loud grooves of Satanized and Lachryma played live made those songs sit better with me.
I also think the live production brought some of the necessary gravitas to the band’s first two albums, which were written with the intent to be played as loud as the new records, but were clearly lacking a production budget. Year Zero, Satan Prayer, and Per Aspera Ad Inferi popped live in a way they simply do not on record.
This also worked thanks to generally top-notch musicianship. Ghost did a good job at filling the arena with sound while accounting for the fact that they are still indoors. The tone and mixing of the concert were also great. Technically, the Nameless Ghouls were all incredibly proficient musicians, able not just to strut their stuff, as mentioned above, but also to play with precision. They all embellished their studio parts by a noticeable amount without ever breaking the flow or the general quality of the studio composition.
Tobias Forge is probably the band’s most significant musical point of contention. His vocal delivery sounds noticeably more nasal live than it does on record. It never reaches “Billy Corgan level” but the quality is certainly present.
Luckily, he has two backup singers/percussionists to help him out. This layering of “classically good” background vocals, with Forge’s more stylistic vocals, allows Ghost to have their cake and eat it too. It’s also just nice that these singers are women, and the unique tone they provide to Ghost songs that traditionally don’t have female vocals.
Despite being “Nameless Ghouls,” seeing Ghost live made them feel much more like a “band” than ever before. Considering Ghost is pretty much the solo project of Forge, it’d be easy for the Ghouls to just fade into the background. Luckily, they don’t, and, as I’ve mentioned earlier, through their great acting and musicianship, Ghost feels more cohesive than ever.
Considering the no-phones rule in place, Ghost’s connection to the fans felt way more intimate than most artists of any genre, let alone masked arena rock titans.
The real conclusion I came to after seeing Ghost on Monday was that the Skeletour is the “most Ghost” Ghost show I could imagine. For new fans who discovered the band in recent years through the viral success of Mary on a Cross, this tour delivers the clearest possible message about who Ghost is and what the band is about.
As a rock fan, when I pack into an arena, I’m typically seeing bands past their prime—legacy acts that, for better or worse, have at least somewhat faded from relevance.
Monday night’s show felt like seeing one of those bands in its prime, because in a live sense, Ghost most certainly is in their prime. It’s Ghost cranked up to eleven, and as someone who loves nothing more than committing to the bit, I couldn’t be happier.