Sabaton talk setlist difficulties

Sabaton frontman Joakim Broden says choosing a setlist from 10 year’s worth of material is tough as some fans will inevitably go home disappointed.

They’ve just wrapped up a North American tour with Nightwish, and Broden says although they were given almost an hour on stage, it was difficult to pick what songs to play.

He tells The Age Of Metal: “When supporting, we’ve got 50 minutes which is very generous. But it’s so hard, because you know people are going to be disappointed.

“At least when you’re headlining you are going to play 15 songs and you spread them out between the albums.

“On our European headline tour we had a minimum of one song from every album but it does get harder. We noticed that if something disappears from the setlist for a year or two, it doesn’t really get brought back up.”

The band’s released their seventh album Heroes in 2014 and last month issued a limited-edition deluxe edition via Nuclear Blast.

They’ll play at this year’s Bloodstock at Catton Park, Derbyshire on August 6-9 and will then headline their Sabaton Open Air festival in their hometown on Falun, Sweden on August 13.

Scott Munro
Louder e-commerce editor

Scott has spent 35 years in newspapers, magazines and online as an editor, production editor, sub-editor, designer, writer and reviewer. Scott joined our news desk in the summer of 2014 before moving to the e-commerce team in 2020. Scott keeps Louder’s buyer’s guides up to date, writes about the best deals for music fans, keeps on top of the latest tech releases and reviews headphones, speakers, earplugs and more. Over the last 10 years, Scott has written more than 11,000 articles across Louder, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog. He's previously written for publications including IGN, the Sunday Mirror, Daily Record and The Herald newspapers, covering everything from daily news and weekly features, to tech reviews, video games, travel and whisky. Scott's favourite bands are Fields Of The Nephilim, The Cure, New Model Army, All About Eve, The Mission, Cocteau Twins, Drab Majesty, Marillion and Rush.