Swedish melodic death metal pioneers Dark Tranquillity paid a powerful on-stage tribute to their fallen friend and fellow Gothenburg icon, Tomas “Tompa” Lindberg, during their hometown show on Saturday. The band performed a surprise cover of the At The Gates classic “Blinded By Fear,” a deeply personal gesture from frontman Mikael Stanne, who recently described Lindberg as the single most important figure in their scene’s history.
The tribute took place on October 18 at Filmstudion in Gothenburg, the city both bands famously put on the global metal map. In a recent interview, Stanne reflected on his nearly 40-year friendship with Lindberg and his immeasurable impact.
Stanne said earlier: “Without him, there would be no Gothenburg death metal scene; that’s just a fact.” He remembered meeting Lindberg when he was just 14 years old and being immediately inspired. “More than anything, I think Tompa really inspired the scene, because he was kind of that central figure for everything that kind of went on in Gothenburg at the time,” he said.
He credited Lindberg with teaching him that extreme metal could be taken seriously, with lyrics that “matter.” “He showed me what music could and should be,” Stanne explained.
The tribute comes just over a month after Lindberg passed away on September 16 at the age of 52, following a courageous battle with a rare and aggressive form of oral cancer. Stanne shared the pain of watching his friend’s health decline.
“It’s been a horrible two years knowing that he was struggling and kind of battling this disease,” he said. “And everybody thought, of course, ‘Yeah, it’s gonna be fine. [He’s] gonna power through [it].’ But a couple months ago we realized that it’s worse than we thought. And now this happened. And, yeah, it’s devastating.”
As a co-founder of At The Gates, Lindberg‘s influence is monumental. His band’s 1995 album, Slaughter of the Soul, is widely considered a genre-defining masterpiece. His legacy will have one final, powerful chapter, however, as he revealed earlier this year that he recorded vocals for a new, unreleased At The Gates album the day before his major surgery.
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