Prog-Death Legends Opeth Bring Pompeii Back to Life for One Night

On the southern slope of mount Vesuvius lies the archaelogical park of Pompeii, the Roman settlement that was swept over by a volcanic eruption in 79 A.D. The excavation of the site didn’t begin until the late 18th century and Pompeii became a staple destination for noblemen and intellectuals alike on their ‘grand tours’ throughout the 19th century.

The archaeological park is probably one of the most visited tourist destinations in Italy and in Europe and its popularity has been steadily increasing. In popular culture, Pompeii is known to have hosted the famous Pink Floyd recordings Live at Pompeii from 1972 directed by Adrian Maben. The film gained cult status amongst music lovers and especially prog-heads to the point of being a collective dream for both musicians and fans to be part of a live performance at the Amphitheatre of Pompeii. This was only possible in 2016 when David Gilmour returned to the Amphitheatre for his Rattle That Lock tour. Local and international acts have been performing in Pompeii since, including the likes of Elton John, King Crimson, Andrea Bocelli, Jean-Michel Jarre and Dream Theater.

Tonight the Progressive-death metal powerhouse Opeth are playing as part of the 2026 edition of the BOP — Beats of Pompeii festival as part of their The Last Will and Testament tour with support from Blood Incantation.

When I got to the venue at 7.30pm, I was absolutely shocked by the length of the queue, especially considering it’s a seated venue. Visitors from all over the world had flocked to Pompeii for this generational event including attendees from Portugal and even Chile. By the time I got in it was clear that the magnificence of the venue made everyone want to enter the premises early just to wander about the park a little before the show. The entrance to the amphitheatre is through a long descending stone tunnel ad the end of which the elliptical parterre opens up with an out of this world sight of the stage sitting on the opposite side of the floor and the tip of mount Vesuvius peeking behind it.

I hadn’t heard of Blood Incantation, and I was really curious about them when I was told their photo policy was, “first song no flash, but don’t worry it’s 20 minutes long anyway.” The band consists of founding members Paul Riedl on voice and guitars and Isaak Faulk on the drums, and Morris Kolontyrsky on lead guitars, Jeff Barret on bass, and John Gamiño on keyboards. The band got on stage just as the sun was setting and played their latest album Absolute Elsewhere (2024), consisting of two songs “The Stargate” and “The Message” in full.

The band loosely fits the progressive death metal subgenre, but they make it their own with a psychedelic-rock and space rock twists and visual inspired by ancient egypt having two full-size obelisks on the sides of the stage. The audience was really invested in their set and single members of the audience standing up from their seats to shred a solo with the band on their air guitar.

Opeth comes on stage at 9.30 sharp and without hesitation goes straight into the first song of their set “§1” (reads as ‘paragraph one’) from their latest record The Last Will and Testament. In the album, the first para,graph serves as an introduction to the story that will be untold throughout the album is unveiled, similarly as an opening track it builds into the sounds and the themes of their set. Throughout its five minutes it presents all the sonical themes of Opeth’s career. Martin Méndez’s groovy bass lines and Waltteri Väyrynen technical drumming are the foundations on which Joakim Svalberg’s orchestrations on the keys and Fredrik Åkesson’s riffing guitars interplay. Mikael Åkerfeldt’s transitions smoothly between melodic singing and his characteristic growl that sounds like a lion’s roar.

Their musicianship is superb and the night progresses swiftly as the band plays a constellation of songs from their endless catalogue. Oh, by the way, it was a moonless night and the constellations of the Plough and Draco were clearly visible along with Polaris as the band was playing. The setlist included “Heart in Hand,” sang in swedish as “Hjärtat vet vad handen gör,” and “Godhead’s Lament.”

Åkerfeldt is an incredible frontman: an impeccable musician and a fine comedian. Throughout the evening he kept on cracking jokes, perhaps to alleviate the nerves, including mentioning that there’s only been one single day in Pompeii’s history that was hotter than today. In between songs the crowd kept shouting “Michele” in unison, the italianisation of Åkerfeldt’s name (Mikael). He appeared to be quite confused by it at first, but then he really played into it. The same happened with all the members of the band as they were introudced: Martin Méndez became “Martino,” Joakim Svalberg became “Gioacchino,” and Frederik Åkesson became “Federico,” I didn’t manage to catch what nickname was Walterri Väyrynen given.

The audience was blessed with fan favourites including “Windowpane” from their 2003 album Damnation making its tour debut, “The Grand Conjuration” from Ghost Reveries and “Hex Omega” from their 2008 album Watershed at its first appearance in almost a decade.

Upon audience request Opeth also played, twice, a 2-seconds long cover of Napalm Death’s “You Suffer” with Åkerfeldt congratulating their capability of writing hermetic lyrics that convey the exact same message that he struggles to convey in a song that is sometimes longer than 10 minutes: “You suffer, but why?”

The band left the stage after “Hex Omega” only to return to the stage to perfom one final act as the crowd was chanting for more: “Deliverance” was beautifully executed with the crowd that couldn’t sit in their seats anymore and erupted standing for one last song. Talking about eruptions, I couldn’t help but giggle as I saw plumes of smoke produced by cigarettes and vapes coming up through the crowd. Pompeii had come back to life and the bowl-shaped amphitheatre had become incandescent just like the mouth of the smoking volcano that tried to end its history almost 2000 years ago.