Avenged Sevenfold Is Returning to Bangkok, So the City Can Resume Shouting Cathartically

Bangkok has once again demonstrated its gift for emotional range. On the one hand, the city is preparing to drench itself for Songkran; on the other, it is making room for Avenged Sevenfold, who will arrive at Thunder Dome on October 6 and 7 to remind everyone that hydration and existential gloom are not mutually exclusive.

Time Out Bangkok notes that this will be the band’s first Thailand appearance since 2014, which in local concert terms counts as a proper absence rather than one of those yearly 'comebacks' that somehow happen every nine months. The California outfit, still lugging around the theological baggage of its Genesis-derived name and the full weight of two decades of arena melodrama, remains oddly well suited to Bangkok: loud, excessive, sincere, and slightly sleep-deprived.

There is also the practical matter that Avenged Sevenfold know how to put on a show for people who prefer their music with a bit of ceremony attached. Their catalogue has long bounced between metalcore punishment, grandiose choruses and the occasional bout of musical self-importance, which, to be fair, is rather the point. The city’s faithful Deathbats have waited eleven years; by October they will be in no mood for restraint, and Bangkok rarely needs much encouragement on that front anyway.

Tickets are already on sale, according to the announcement, and one suspects they will move briskly among the office workers, veteran rock nostalgists and younger fans who enjoy a band capable of making apocalypse sound weirdly uplifting. In a city that treats traffic, weather and bureaucracy as daily heavy-metal experiences, Avenged Sevenfold may find they are simply providing the soundtrack.