Ghost seizes the rock theater torch at Milwaukee's American Family Insurance Amphitheater

If the ghoulish makeup and musicians wearing face-concealing, ant-head-shaped gas masks weren’t the giveaway, a keytar solo during a song called “Mummy Dust” definitely was.

Ghost, whose tour swung through Milwaukee Saturday, is absurd. And also superb.

As rock has lost its dominance in recent years — and as elder statesmen retire, pass away or inch closer to their final shows — the Swedish metal band led by Tobias Forge is the rare rock group that has been steadily building its audience to significant levels.

Saturday’s concert, part of the band's “Re-Imperatour” run, was Ghost's biggest Milwaukee show yet, at the American Family Insurance Amphitheater.

They accomplished this through talent, naturally. But more crucially, Forge tuned out the self-important state of rock talk and created a group that taps into the adolescent-minded bombast that made acts like KISS, Led Zeppelin, Metallica and Def Leppard such phenomena.

There's some classic theatrical subversion, with Ghost merging Catholic imagery with ghoulish undertones, performing Saturday with a cathedral-like backdrop. For his part Saturday, Forge frequently changed his outfit — including several cardinal-like ensembles, some Vegas-style shimmering sport coats, and for "Cirice," a jacket that looked like bat wings — while sporting black-and-white corpse makeup that never smeared. Taking on multiple stage identities over the years (his current moniker is Papa Emeritus IV), the singer was surrounded by eight musicians (including three dazzling guitarists) dubbed the "Nameless Ghouls," their faces covered by those dystopian gas masks for this latest iteration.

Some would argue it's sacrilegious, but minus blood, foul language or sexual imagery, Ghost is never profane; their act is on par with Alice Cooper's decades-old antics. And as their audience has grown, they've edged away from cheeky songs like "Kiss the Go-Goat" from "Seven Inches of Satanic Panic" for an even more accessible sound.

A metal band that's always distinguished themselves with strong pop melodies inspired by late '60s and early '70s rock, Forge easily could have worked with fellow Swede Max Martin if he'd chosen a different path — the band's sound has gotten even brighter five albums in, evident by the glistening, singalong opus "Kaisarion" from last year’s “Impera” album that opened Saturday's 19-song, hour-and-50-minute show.

The bombast is so infectious, it would be tempting for Forge to ride that wave and get wild. But he's devoutly committed to his somber character, which makes Ghost much more fun live.

Whenever his Nameless Ghouls threatened to upstage him, Forge's subtle eye rolls and annoyance spoke volumes, prompting, if he was feeling gracious, polite little claps, or more frequently, driving him to push the ghouls out of his spotlight. He also was comically snide while chastising one of his roadies who'd been tasked with cleaning up the gold confetti littering the stage after "Mummy Dust" ("You're just blowing it around," he said with deliciously deadpan dissatisfaction).

And he got into an amusing back and forth with the crowd ahead of the encore, insisting they play just one song while screaming fans demanded three. He relented, but only if the audience would agree to "get the (expletive) out" when they were finished.

Those Nameless Ghouls, even with concealed faces, were pretty entertaining, too. For "Watcher in the Sky," one of the guitarists dragged out a lone note, drawing subtle ire from his bandmates, while one of the backing singers went against type to engage in a full-body shimmy, followed by fake fainting, in front of a comically perplexed Forge for "Dance Macabre."

Antics like these were just icing on the cake for an unstoppable band that conjured up the immense wall of sound required for such an exhilarating spectacle.

Next month, KISS will play what they say is the band's final Wisconsin show, and at the end of the year, retire from the road. (So they say.) The world needs new rock heroes to put on makeup, act like kids on stage and speak to the kids in all of us.

As Forge blew kisses to the crowd at the end of Saturday's show, with hundreds of fans cheering back at him sporting their own makeup and costumes, it was clear that Ghost are KISS' heir apparent.

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Viking metal band Amon Amarth opens for Ghost

Johan Hegg of fellow Swedish rockers Amon Amarth may be the only metal frontman that demands his fans take a seat during their shows. It wasn’t for a quiet acoustic ballad, mind you — but so people could pretend to row boats like “(expletive) Vikings” for “Put Your Back into the Oar.”

On Saturday, thousands in the lower bowl of the amphitheater, nearly everyone, complied, making a delightfully silly sight during a wonderfully ludicrous opening set. During “The Way of Vikings,” a couple of guys in helmets and brandishing swords got into a well-choreographed sword fight, with splinters flying from their wooden shields. And for finale “Twilight of the Thunder God,” two 25-foot-tall inflatable Viking statues with shining eyes were replaced by a giant sea serpent that Hegg fought with Thor’s hammer.

Not once did the 45-minute set slip into Spinal Tap territory. OK, just once, when Hegg’s hammer broke as he hit that sea serpent. But the reason this Viking cosplay goofiness worked so well is that Amon Amarth is seriously committed to the shtick — and when it comes to thrashing, seriously good.

3 takeaways from Ghost's Milwaukee concert

• Ghost fans were treated to the brief and funny return of a former member of the band. During instrumental “Miasma,” the body of Papa Nahil, a character who “died” a few years back, was wheeled on stage strapped inside an upright casket. A crew member “used” a defibrillator on Nahil, whose body jerked as sparks flew on either side of the casket. After a few tries, Nahil came back to life, stepped down from the box, grabbed a saxophone and played a blustery 60-second solo before he “died” again and was carried away.

• Milwaukee is a special city for Amon Amarth, frontman Johan Hegg said Saturday. He said it was the first city the band ever played in North America.

• As thousands filed out of the amphitheater after the show, there was one problem: The gates were still down at the entrance, creating a big bottleneck of confused people trapped inside Maier Festival Park. Fortunately, the gates were lifted after a few puzzling minutes — although it still took more than 45 minutes to get out of the parking lots.

Ghost's American Family Insurance Amphitheater setlist

1. "Kaisarion"

2. "Rats"

3. "From the Pinnacle to the Pit"

4. "Spillways"

5. "Cirice"

6. "Absolution"

7. "Ritual"

8. "Call Me Little Sunshine"

9. "Con Clavi Con Dio"

10. "Watcher in the Sky"

11. "Year Zero"

12. "He Is"

13. "Miasma"

14. "Mary on a Cross"

15. "Mummy Dust"

16. "Respite on the Spitalfields"

17. "Kiss the Go-Ghost"

18. "Dance Macabre"

19. "Square Hammer"

Contact Piet at (414) 223-5162 or plevy@journalsentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter at @pietlevy or Facebook at facebook.com/PietLevyMJS.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Ghost terrific at Milwaukee's American Family Insurance Amphitheater