Ghost Impera Tour Brings A Ghoulish Dance Party To New Jersey

The Impera Tour 2022

Sweden’s occult rockers Ghost are back with their 5th studio album Impera and after a brief warm-up run in the states back in February and the album’s release in March, Papa IV, and the Nameless Ghouls are back and they’re dressed to impress for The Impera Tour!

With every album and tour, Tobias Forge and company seem to get bigger and better. Impera is no different. Led by singles “Kaisarion,” “Call Me Little Sunshine,” and the Hollywood film track “Hunter’s Moon” which was used on the big screen for the latest Halloween Movie, Ghost can do no wrong, and recently they’ve even hit the mainstream with “Mary on a Cross” becoming a viral sensation on TikTok. Did you ever think you’d hear that?

Friday night the Ghouls and Papa made their stop in Trenton, NJ at Cure Insurance Arena and as always they brought some friends with them. 

Joining Ghost this run are the mighty Mastodon and the new, but already household name Spiritbox. Fans lined up in Trenton bright and early. Some upfront on the barricade arrived around 9 AM to secure their spot for the evening’s ritual. Both Mastodon and Ghost had special VIP Meet and Greets which included early entry, meeting the band, signed merch, and special VIP-only items. 

Spiritbox kicked off the night led by vocalist Courtney Laplante and former As I Lay Dying bassist Josh Gilbert. The Spiritbox gang has been making huge noise among metal and rock fans for quite some time now, even prior to the release of their debut album Eternal Blue. Tracks like “Holy Roller,” “Circle With Me,” and more rocked airwaves around the world and the rest is history. 

Now Spiritbox is back with more new music just in time for their live run. The band released a 3 song single set titled “Rotoscope” back in June which got the music world buzzing once again. The band kicked off their set with “Circle With Me,” Laplante sounding flawless right from the start, her abilities to transfer from singing to screaming are top-notch and in a league of their own amongst metal vocalists. They continued the set with fan favorite “Hurt You” drenched in deep blue and pink lighting. 

The 6 song set included 4 tracks from Eternal Blue and two new songs “Rotoscope” and “Hysteria” which closed out the set and left us wanting more new music. I’m so looking forward to seeing these guys again and hearing what they bring to the table next. There is no doubt they have a bright future ahead. 

Next up was Mastodon, the stage set with massive screens and bright vibrant, psychedelic-like imagery flashing on the back of the stage. The guys of Mastodon are out on the road in support of their latest record, 2021’s explosive rock masterpiece Hushed and Grim, which in my opinion is one of the group’s best yet!

The band kicked off their 11-song set with the heavy-hitting “Pain With an Anchor” covered in saturated and vibrant lighting and at times just shadows. The band brought the weird and the heavy song with a stellar laser light show that for many fans in attendance was a first. 

Singer Brann Dailor’s screams mixed with chunky bass and funky guitar riffs left the crowd hypnotized by the band’s set. Tracks like “Teardrinker,” “Pushing The Tides,” and the band’s final song “Mother Puncher” kept the energy going and the crowd’s heads banging getting the crowd ready for the night’s final act, headliner Ghost.

Now if you’ve been to a ritual, you know how it starts and how to tell when the time is near. The venue fills with haze from the burning incense, the stage is draped with a curtain waiting for the changeover, and the heavenly or hellish church music is blaring over the arena pa system. Ghost always was, is, and always will be a complete experience. 

Part concert and part theater, Tobias and company merge the best of both those worlds to create an unforgettable evening for all lucky enough to be present. As I speak with fans in the crowd while we are waiting, they’re visibly excited. For some, this is their first introduction to Ghost life and for many others like myself, we have crossed well into the double digits. For me, Ghost is a very important band. I’ve been covering them long before the many outfit changes and before the arena shows. I myself and Shutter 16 Magazine even covered their first-ever arena show in NYC’S Barclay Center. We’ve seen this band’s devotion to the art and the fans first hand and we will always support them. 

Ghost kicked off the night with “Kaisarion” the heavy-hitting hair metal reminiscent new song from Impera. As the stage curtain drops and the ghouls make their way to the front of the stage kicking the show off with a literal bang, the crowd goes absolutely wild with screams. You know the moment Papa IV hit the stage because if you’re not wearing earplugs you can go deaf from the cries of admiration from the fans. 

Papa greets the almost sold-out crowd with a hello and then proceeds to rip through the night’s opening track. By the time we hit song 2 “Rats,” the energy in Cure Insurance Arena is electrifying. The 19-song setlist is as impressive as ever and even features some new music in the set like “Spillways” and “Watcher in The Sky.” Ghost’s set also sees Forge bringing back some long missed Ghost tracks like “Prime Mover,” “Con Clavi Con Dio,” and “He Is” which had the crowd delighted at their return. 

Stand-out moments of the show were the hellfire during the satanic anthem “Year Zero” and the always anticipated Ghost money or “Mummy Dust” which has become an anticipated and favorite part of the show among fans. But maybe the coolest moment is during “Miasma” with the resuscitation of Papa Nil just in time for his sax solo. Papa gives the crowd the ever-so-loved banter in between songs as well, at times hilarious like when he introduces “Mary On A Cross” as the song his Papa used to sing. The night comes to a bittersweet end with the fist pumping and ground stomping “Square Hammer” in which Papa tells the crowd, “After this, you have to get the F*ck out of here” to which they obliged out of respect. 

Ghost is a little more than halfway through their North American tour but there is still time to see them if you’re in Canada, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and Illinois check out the remaining tour dates on the band’s website HERE! 

Click Here to See the Full Gallery of the Evening!

If you happened to capture any shots of the night, feel free to tag us on social media at Shutter 16 Magazine and throw in #Shutter16 and #TwitFromThePit for the world to see.