There\u2019s something almost liturgical about a Ghost concert. The lights go down, the phones go into Yondr pouches, and very quickly, twenty thousandish people stop being strangers and start being a congregation. Saturday night at the Honda Center, that congregation was enormous, multigenerational, and utterly committed. Where else can you see aging boomers in full Papa cosplay standing shoulder to shoulder with pre-teens who probably learned the words to \u201cCirice\u201d on TikTok. Ghost has always attracted an unusually wide flock, and on the Skeletour that flock has never looked larger or more devoted.<\/p>\n
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The evening began in shadow. A dark, shredded curtain hung over the stage while Papa Emeritus V Perpetua appeared only as a voice and a silhouette on the side screens, delivering the opening notes of \u201cPeacefield\u201d like a sermon delivered from behind a veil. When the curtain finally dropped, it gave way to a blinding wall of white backlight, a theatrical birth that set the tone for everything that followed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Frontman Papa V and the Nameless Ghouls moved through the new album *Skelet\u00e1* with confidence early on, pairing \u201cPeacefield\u201d with \u201cLachryma\u201d before the setlist began pulling in the deeper catalog. The staging evolved accordingly, what started with a relatively simple Grucifex shaped lighting rig slowly grew into something genuinely stunning, with towering stained-glass church imagery, looming demonic figures, and waves of thick fog that made the backing vocalists appear to float suspended over an abyss.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Papa, dressed initially in black leather with a matching hat, quickly established his rapport with the crowd, even though he spent the better part of the evening asking \u201chow are we feeling, Los Angeles?\u201d The Honda Center is technically in Anaheim, but Papa\u2019s geography was forgivable given that he was busy changing outfits approximately every twenty minutes. Cycling through everything from a sparkly skull mask, sequin jackets, and even the full pope robe and mitre before an incendiary \u201cYear Zero\u201d buried the room in pyro and pageantry.<\/p>\n
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The mid-set stretch was where the night hit its highest voltage. \u201cCirice\u201d drew the kind of collective roar that reminds you how deep these songs have burrowed into people\u2019s lives. \u201cDarkness at the Heart of My Love\u201d landed with real emotional weight, and \u201cSatanized,\u201d the new album standout. \u201cUmbra\u201d featured a rare spotlight moment with all three guitar players stepping to the front, and \u201cHe Is\u201d provided a perfect time for the crowd to sing along.<\/p>\n
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Between songs, Papa\u2019s banter was characteristically sharp. Before \u201cKiss the Goat,\u201d he mused wistfully about wishing he could be out on the streets near Disneyland getting to third base with everyone, but that it would be illegal and he\u2019d risk deportation \u2014 so a kiss would have to do. Before \u201cMonstrance Clock,\u201d the tone shifted, and he grew almost tender, reminiscing about the band\u2019s early Los Angeles shows, calling back their first appearance at the Roxy, and genuinely thanking the crowd for showing up year after year. It was a rare moment of sincerity that the audience received warmly.<\/p>\n
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\u201cMummy Dust\u201d arrived an animated backdrop of a satirical sequence of a greedy machine churning out cash, and ended with confetti cannons launching fake Ghost currency over the entire arena, many of which will surely be traded online for other Ghost related souviners.<\/p>\n
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The encore delivered everything it needed to. \u201cMary on a Cross,\u201d \u201cDance Macabre\u201d, with rainbow lights pouring out of the Grucifex in every direction, and the inevitable \u201cSquare Hammer\u201d closed the night with the kind of communal euphoria that feels increasingly rare in live music. At the very end, Papa stood front and center, arms stretched wide in that familiar cruciform pose, sparks raining down around him, the Ghost logo glowing behind him, bidding everyone a good night like a priest dismissing mass.<\/p>\n
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The Skeletour is Ghost doing what Ghost does at the highest level they\u2019ve ever done it. The phone-free environment locks the audience into the ritual in a way that feels increasingly countercultural yet hauntingly beautiful. Everyone present, everyone singing, no one filming it for an audience that isn\u2019t there. Ghost has spent fifteen years building something genuinely magical: a theatrical metal band with a devoted, diverse community that comes together in harmony to sing about Satan. ABBA would be proud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s something almost liturgical about a Ghost concert. The lights go down, the phones go into Yondr pouches,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":{"0":"post-192050","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}