HammerFall Storm Toronto’s Phoenix on the Freedom World Crusade Tour

There are plenty of ways to spend a Tuesday night in Toronto, but on September 22, a packed room at The Phoenix Concert Theatre had somewhere better to be.

The venue was full from the floor back to the Front of House board, balcony open, yet there was still room to move on the floor itself. Fitting, since this was another Heavy Metal Tuesday in Toronto, with HammerFall headlining alongside Evergrey and local thrash outfit Profligator on the Freedom World Crusade tour.

There was something a little strange about being back in the room at all. The Phoenix was originally set to close after its Sherbourne Street property sold for redevelopment, but an extension kept the doors open into 2026 while the venue’s owners look for a new downtown location. The building is still standing and the shows are still happening, but nights like this one feel worth paying closer attention to.

It was cold outside that night, and somehow it felt just as cold inside. Nobody seemed to mind.

Profligator opened, tearing through “Call of the Beast,” “F.Y.F.,” “Death & Taxes,” “Victim of Circumstances,” “Space of Aids,” “Blood Guts & Glory” and “False Surrender.” The Toronto thrash and speed metal band, self-described as “murky sewertime thrash metal,” formed in 2024 and released their self-titled debut in August 2025. Fronted by Adam Cooper on vocals, with Cyrus Shokoohideh and Tim Smith on guitars, David Catanus on bass and Stephan Stanciu on drums, the band stepped in as local support after Elvenking, originally slated to join the tour, had to cancel their North American dates when their U.S. work visas came through too late to make the trip. It made Profligator’s slot a late addition, but you wouldn’t have known it watching them set the tone early. The lighting was dark for their set, which made shooting from the floor tougher than usual. There was no photo pit for this show at all. Instead of the usual first three songs from the pit before moving into the crowd, everything had to be shot from the floor from start to finish, putting me right in the middle of the room instead of separated from it.

Evergrey followed, and the lighting opened up immediately, giving their sound the space it needed.

The Swedish progressive metal band leaned on material from their newest record, Architects Of A New Weave, working through “Heaven,” “Architects Of The New Weave,” “Leaving The Emptiness” and “OXYGEN!” This run of shows came together under difficult circumstances. Visa issues left the band without its usual drummer and keyboard player, so Chris Quirarte, borrowed from Redemption, stepped in behind the kit, learning the set in only a few days. Keyboards were handled on tracks for the tour since Vikram Shankar couldn’t make the run. Stephen Platt filled out the lineup on guitar.

Frontman Tom S. Englund pointed at the empty space where a keyboard player would normally stand and joked that the band hadn’t suddenly stopped liking keyboards, they just didn’t have a USB slot to spare. It got a laugh, and it also happened to be true, just not in the way the joke made it sound.

Englund had the room working during “Heaven,” teaching the crowd a call and response and making them repeat it until it was loud enough for him. Before “Leaving the Emptiness,” he referred to it as a song from the band’s next album, caught himself, and corrected it to their last one. Small moment, but it landed the way an honest mistake does live.

After their set, Evergrey came out to the merch table to meet fans, take photos and hang around with the people who stayed. Nice way to close out their part of the night.

Then came the wait for HammerFall. Iron Maiden’s “2 Minutes to Midnight” played over the PA and the whole room sang along, which rolled straight into chants of “HammerFall! HammerFall!” from the floor. By the time the lights dropped, Toronto was more than ready.

HammerFall took the stage at 9:25 and didn’t let up for 90 minutes, opening with “Avenge the Fallen,” the title track off their 2024 album, before moving into “Heeding the Call” and “Any Means Necessary.” Joacim Cans had the room in his hand almost immediately, the kind of control that only comes from decades of doing this. He wasn’t content to just stand up front and run through the setlist. He wanted Toronto in on it.

“This is Tuesday, right?” he asked, before deciding every day was a party and tonight wasn’t going to be the exception.

The set continued through “Hammer of Dawn,” “Freedom” and “Renegade,” building toward one of the night’s biggest crowd moments during “Hammer High.” Cans told everyone to raise their left hand, then close it into a fist, their own personal hammer, something to bring to work, to school, and to every metal show. Hundreds of fists went up across the floor as the song kicked in, turning it into one of those moments that sticks with you after the show ends.

HammerFall pushed through “Last Man Standing,” “Fury of the Wild” and “Chapter V: The Medley,” then into “Let the Hammer Fall,” “The End Justifies” and “(We Make) Sweden Rock.” Between songs, Cans kept the crowd talking to him as much as he talked to them, asking how many people were seeing the band for the first time, then how many had seen them before, getting a lot of the same hands both times. That led into a bit about fans buying tickets, showing up, passing out at the bar, and waking up the next day with no memory of the show they’d just been to.

He also introduced the band one by one, turning it into its own bit rather than a formality. Drummer David Wallin got called out from behind the kit, bassist Fredrik Larsson got his turn next, and guitarist Pontus Norgren got a particularly entertaining introduction that somehow worked in a German hotel room, The Simpsons, a German Bible and Yngwie Malmsteen. Then came Oscar Dronjak, playing his custom hammer-shaped guitar, the guitarist who started the band more than 30 years ago, and finally Cans introduced himself, proud to say he’s the singer of HammerFall.

The encore was “Hail to the King” and “Hearts on Fire,” with “Dreams Come True” closing the night. With about five minutes left, Cans started to tell the story of his own birth, “born in 197…,” then stopped and joked that the crowd must be bored. Then he asked how they could possibly leave without playing “Hearts on Fire.”

The Freedom World Crusade tour continues across North America through October.

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Drew Osborne

I’m Drew, the founder and editor of Front of the Stage. I have a strong love for music and photography, which started at a very young age. There’s just something I love about experiencing live music and capturing memories that will last a lifetime, and that’s how Front of the Stage came to be.