Extreme Music Blog

As promised I keep you posted and add all the reports for the concerts I have recently visited. Today we are going back to my birthday which – what else? – was celebrated on a concert.

I made an appointment with the event manager of the new venue called “Arena” which was mainly build for basketball because the EnBW Ludwigsburg team is in the premier league. But the concept was also to build a small arena for other sports events and for concerts. So Markus (A&R of SUPREME CHAOS RECORDS), Tanja (Catering management for the METAL NIGHTS event series) and I wanted to check out the new venue and its possibilities. Yet, this venue might be too large for any kind of events in the size we are doing but it is always good to know what range of venues we can possibly offer as local promoter. Thomas showed us even the smallest amenity of the venue and was quite patient in answering all our questions. At some points it was kind of hard to keep cool for us when we were next to Micheal Akerfeldt who was sitting around there phoning or when standing next to the gear of John Petrucci.

Anyway after the inspection of the Arena Ludwigsburg we picked up some beers to celebrate and bridged the time gap to the concert with boozing and talking about music.

I wanted to see UNEXPECT because I liked their myspace stuff. Unfortunately they were not able to transport it onto stage. Sure, they did a great job but simply did not meet my expectations. After approx. 20 minutes they had to leave the stage. Good and very progressive start for this night. Complex, sometimes even weired songs garnished with melodic female vocals and grunts. Interesting music.

After getting another beer and meeting some people, I was surprised by the clear sound that came from the stage. BIGELF blew me straight to the wall. Not with any kind of aggression but with sheer musicality and maybe a bit of nostalgia. 70s inspired rock with a modern progressive touch convinced me with its pure authenticity. Loads of analogue synthesizers and Hammond sounds played by the singer who was surrounded by various old fashioned keyboard instruments. The four piece was dressed up in proper style with bell-bottoms. And you could see and almost feel that they were breathing this kind of music every day. Great!

BIGELF

One reason to visit this concert was eventually to see OPETH. The Swedes have disappointed me on the last club shows with the new line up (Frederik on guitar). But after the furious show on Rockhard festival this year I was really curious if they could prove themselves this evening. And they could! “Windowpane” is nothing but a great start for a very soulful set followed by “Lotuseater”, maybe one of the best OPETH songs ever. OPETH abstained from most extreme parts this evening and concentrated on the more progressive rock songs – maybe to fit better to the other bands. Good playing, great and this time very funny announcements from Mikael who could emphasize his great voice with these songs. The only downer was that they missed out either of their hits “Deliverance” or “Demon of the Fall”.

Setlist OPETH:
1. Windowpane
2. The Lotus Eater
3. Reverie/Harlequin Forest
4. Burden
5. The Leper Affinity
6. Hex Omega

OPETH

Last time I saw DREAM THEATER they played in the Beethoven Saal of the Liederhalle in Stuttgart which is built for opera and classical concerts. The sound there was really bad because of all the reflecting walls. But in the Arena everything sounded right. Even James LaBrie did a good job and was showing a solid performance although I could not get the idea out of my head that he was behaving like a diva stepping off the stage all the time he had no vocals to do. DREAM THEATER is of course also about the musicians and their abilities. John Petrucci showed some good guitar solo stuff but he tried to keep it short. He got my sympathies for this and also for the fact that he had long hair again. And he must have done a lot of muscle training the last two years. Somehow he looked like he got out of prison right before the tour started. Of course Jordan Ruddess had his special show but looked really absurd with his wizard hat he put on for some songs. John Myung kept in the back mostly and you could hardly see anything of him. Too bad. Mike Portney of course was posing like always. My real highlight of the show was “The Mirror” / “Lie” from the “Awake” album which was played as the fluent combination like you can hear it on the album. Simply amazing. Because I am not into the “newer” stuff I cannot point out any other highlight. This might be also due to the fact that their real one and only hit song “Pull me under” was missing.

Setlist DREAM THEATER:
1. A Nightmare to Remember
2. The Mirror
3. Lie
4. Prophets of War
5. Wither
6. The Dance of Eternity
7. One Last Time
8. In the Name of God
9. The Count of Tuscany

What a nice evening and maybe the best birthday present for a music enthusiast like me. Although OPETH did not play “Deliverance” and DREAM THEATER threw aboard their hit “Pull me under” this was a great experience musical wise. But also the inspection of this new venue which was opened 1st of October made this evening unforgettable maybe even added an adventurous note.

Be sure to keep coming back. The next days I will put up the interview I did with Peter (OPETH) back in 2005…

DREAM THEATER: Homepage – MySpace – Merchandise
OPETH: Homepage – MySpace – Merchandise
BIGELF: Homepage – MySpace – Merchandise
UNEXPECT: Homepage – MySpace – Merchandise

Arena Ludwigsburg: Homepage

I know that it has been silent for some days again. First I was replacing the server with the NAS which finally arrived Tuesday customizing the whole piece which took about two days. Then surprisingly the power supply fucked up as I wanted to switch over to the UPS. I was so happy before this happened, upgraded the whole net to gigabit LAN.

But let us get back to the music. I want to report about the last shows I attended and will start with the latest which was today. I really had a full schedule these days and it will not stop until Tuesday.

Today it was time to get some old school feeling back into my mind. Why old school? There has not been a big death metal show in the good old Rockfabrik for ages! And it was Cannibal Corpse which I saw there about 10 years ago. Of course some of the old metal heads showed up…

Arriving a bit too late because OBSCURA started quite early at 7 pm I got at least the chance to see some of their songs. I had the Summer Breeze show in mind where the sound was a bit fucked up in my opinion. Maybe it was also because of the fact that a band like OBSCURA is made to play in clubs. Today the sound was better although the guitars were very quiet and hardly to hear sometimes. Anyway it was a pleasure to see them playing mostly songs from their latest output “Cosmogenesis” with a lot of joy and with a technical level of their own (although singer/guitarist Steffen later told me that everyone in the band was about to get really sick). This was a great start for an evening with four very different death metal outfits.

2009 was a great year for Swedish deathers EVOCATION so they had the chance to join this tour as well. To be honest I only saw one song because I have seen the bands so many times the last months that I was not really curious about the show. Additionally the sound today was really weak – no power at all – so I preferred to talk to some friends and have a beer instead. I also met EVOCATION singer Thomas and he was somehow confirming that this was a bad day sound-wise. We met in a quite funny situation. I was talking with some guys from their label Cyclone Empire with whom I work together very closely,  and Thomas seemed to remember me from some extreme festival boozing sessions which I obviously can hardly recall… a really a nice guy – if you are around and see these guys – have a beer with them!

How long was I waiting for this to happen? Back in the times when I used to work as DJ in the Rockfabrik (which must be more than 10 years ago) I have listened a lot to DYING FETUS and now I finally got the possibility to see them live. A friend of mine was later asking how anyone could like this music. I have not found any decent answer. They just kicked my ass like hell! Having in mind their “Destroy the Opposition”, “Killing on Adrenaline” records and the “Grotesque Impalement” EP they just left me without any wishes. I had to go really crazy on them. Bass player Sean Beasely looked like a beast holding a full scale bass guitar which looked like a toy in his hands. He shared the vocals with guitar player John and Tray showed up from time to time behind his drums to cheer up the crowd. Their precisely played high speed death grind resulted in the first circle pit of the evening, some crowd surfers were flying off the stage and the people went mad. Great live band – finally I got the proof that I missed something – nothing to add!

Rockfabrik and CANNIBAL CORPSE have something like a long-term relationship. Seems like they like to play in this venue. As I guessed from the CORPSE shirts every second attendee was wearing everyone was waiting for the real headliners. Maybe I have seen them live too often, maybe I should have listened a lot more to the last albums, but I  simply cannot say more than that it was a good show with a moderate sound. But it was also nothing less. The venue was really crowded and the people really enjoyed the headliners of this evening. After all those years some songs being censored CANNIBAL CORPSE could perform titles like “Hammer smashed face” or “Fucked with a knife” which was of corpse dedicated to all the women out there.

As conclusion I can state that this was a very nice death metal evening with 4 killer bands, maybe the perfect mix of different styles. I have to add that the audience was really great and caring this day which I miss on some concerts with extreme music these days…

I will keep you posted with new goodies and reports every day of this week and try to get some pictures for the reports – promise!

The links:
CANNIBAL CORPSE: Homepage – MySpace – Merchandise
DYING FETUS: Homepage – MySpace – Merchandise
EVOCATION: Homepage – MySpace – Merchandise
OBSCURA: Homepage – MySpace – Merchandise

Just got home and will post this blog with the fresh impressions I have in mind. Although I have to go to work on 12th of October and was working till three in the morning the day before with organizing the concert (where we got very low attention – this time at least) you can read about a kind of compensation of the misfortune with some old school thrash metal which reminds me of my youth, some 17 years ago (and it also was a chance to put on my old school vest). I have to state in advance that there will be no pictures of bands because it was just about having fun this evening. But I cannot resist writing a few lines…

I did not know if there was any band playing as support but it turned out that it was HATRED from Bavaria filling in the support slot for this tour. They played an awesome show with some sing-alongs and decent thrash metal songs garnished with some heavy metal screams. They seemed to be quite experienced from the previous dates of the tour and the singer was communicating confidently with the audience. I had some fun with this band and I will pay attention to future live activities of these guys…

We finished a bottle of wine in my car listening to IRON MAIDENs “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son” at my car during the change over. And I also got a short introduction to the light system Sasha (light jockey of the Rockfabrik) is controlling with his laptop. But now it was time for TANKARD. I have seen these guys live for about a dozen time and last time they disappointed me a little bit. But I put the blame on the festival setting for this – TANKARD are simply a band which is made for playing in clubs. And this evening proved me right. They started with “Morning After”. I do not know if any younger metal heads really had this feeling of going back some years. I immediately had the LP (yes – this cover HAS TO BE in vinyl size!) in my mind and went straight crazy with my friends. Everything seemed perfect – perfect sound, the band was in a perfect mood, the audience was great – everyone seemed to have fun. Not to mention such classics as “Zombie Attack”, “Spacebeer”, “Chemical Invasion”, “Alien”, “Freibier” or (the unavoidable) “Empty Tankard”. After “Freibier (für alle)” (which means free beer for everyone in English), Hasche (Rockfabrik booking agent) came on stage and brought a free bottle of Jägermeister for everyone – this was amazing if you keep in mind that TANKARD have played in the Rockfabrik for the last 25 years (of 27 years of band history) so this is a close relation ship. I remember the last time when TANKARD played in the bigger club downstairs and the bass player of my band KARKADAN (progressive melodic death metal) was doing a crowd surf, came back on stage and Gerre held him with one foot up so that he could not move (imagine that picture – still a running gag). I really enjoyed this gig with both, new and old songs. Headbanging was not that much fun for years!

I said before that there was no pictures – this is not the full truth. A friend of mine is currently living in Dresden and cannot attend this TANKARD tour because its route is not even near this area. Against my usual intention (I do not like all the autograph or photo shit) I tried to get the band to have a photo with me to send it to Maik (the friend in Dresden – we met 13 years ago both listening to thrash metal like TANKARD and metal in general). Here it is:

Me with TANKARD (left to right: Tankard sound engineer, Frank - bass, Olaf - drums, in the back - me, Gerre - vocals, Andi - guitars)

Nice shoot, isn’t it? Thank you guys for this one!

Here we go with the band pages:
TANKARD: MySpace – Merchandise
HATRED: MySpace – Merchandise

Now – finally off to bed (after organizing a show and attending another I am tired as hell) – got to work and rehearse tomorrow – I will keep you posted!

I was really looking forward to this one. LONG DISTANCE CALLING had a great new album out entitled “Avoid The Light”. This album is pure atmospheric post rock with a wide range of dynamics. Although the band usually prefers to avoid it you can find a song with vocals on this album. “The Nearing Grave” features Jonas Renkse (also singer from KATATONIA) as guest musician. Apparently KATATONIAs sound is not that much different from the LONG DISTANCE CALLING sound because this song would perfectly fit onto any newer KATATONIA album.

Speaking of KATATONIA I have to post a little side note about their upcoming album “Night Is The New Day”. Peaceville have published a teaser some days ago with excerpts from some of the songs which simply blew me away. You can check the album teaser for “Night Is the New Day” HERE (click on “Listen to album” on the left side). Enjoy it!

Back to topic. We teamed up at the club with some friends again and there were really a lot people I know who were attending the show. NIHILING had just begun their quite long set (must have been one hour) of their post rock which had an obvious list to alternative rock. There were three guitar players and a female bass player, three of them sharing the vocals with very different vocal shades. They had some really interesting moments but that was especially the moments when they abstained from any dissonant vocals. The basis of the songs was typical post rock but partly with the mentioned alternative rock influences and maybe they should emphasize this basis even more instead of trying to get into any vocal oriented genres. Good set though and the audience demanded for more and they were allowed to play three more songs.

Now it was up to the headliner. I have seen LONG DISTANCE CALLING live in January 2008 in Weil der Stadt / Kloster and already there I was impressed by the impact of their music. Listening to the new album I was, again, blown away by the intensity of the combination between samples, forcing and sometimes fragile guitars and the varied drumming. Now I wanted to see how the songs work out on a stage of course with high expectations! The approximately 150 people were yearning for the moment LONG DISTANCE CALLING would enter the stage. What happened when the band began with the first song was really remarkable for the Stutttgart audience which sometimes seems to be a bit paralyzed. The band was surprised as well and stated after the show that this was the best gig so far on this tour (I know that Karlsruhe will be great as well – but they will be playing there on Thursday). And you could see them grinning all the time – they seemed happy which made the crowd go totally enthusiastic.
Atmospheric songs were building up on simple guitar licks by all other instruments joining the scene, some parts underlaid with samples of speeches and of course most albums played were taken off the new album. It was just the perfect mix of everything, the right moment to play just these songs so I could again totally dive into the sheer beauty of this music.

LONG DISTANCE CALLING

What a great night with each other…

Go and check out the bands:
LONG DISTANCE CALLING: MySpace – Homepage – Merchandise
NIHILING: MySpace – Merchandise

P.S.: This time I did not forget my money – so finally I could buy the vinyl version of the new LDC album – yesss!

It has been some days since I posted the last life sign. But well – there were a lot of things going on during that days. First of all we had to prepare everything for this show out of our METAL NIGHT series I am going to report about now. It was a great possibility for both, seeing three very talented extreme metal bands and for meeting old friends again.

I started some work a day before and was satisfied with the amount of completed tasks. The next day everything looked totally different. I had a stiff back due to a light air going through my appartment and I guess I have slept in a totally terrible position. No way of moving fast. All the tasks that were left were mainly about packing and carrying things. I had no time for the pain in my back. I picked up a friend who is part of the crew (last METAL NIGHT show he was playing as guitarist of AHAB). And we got to the venue 2pm. The tour baggage arrived later and after putting everything up we felt confident that the show will be a success.

First on the stage was the Norwegian / English cooperation CODE which always reminded me of Arcturus. This should change a little bit with their appearance at the METAL NIGHT show. The sound turned out to be more unique in the live version. Anyway after a bit of problems at the beginning the bands performance was growing with every minute they played. Apparently there were three or four really huge fans in the audience knowing the lyrics and every single note of the songs. Later on the fact would emerge that there is really dedicated fans for every single band of this evening among the crowd. But what I did not get was were all the flour has gone… (no explanations why I made this statement here)

CODE

The first time SÓLSTAFIR are seriously touring Germany was of course one reason why almost 150 people were showing up this evening. Like expected the club was packed when they started their set with an instrumental intro which would be followed by four very long and intense tracks. Like the new album is promising the songs were heavy live versions but without going back to SÓLSTAFIRs old aggressiveness and instead building up a somtimes very opressive, sometimes very liberating atmosphere. The great light show added a mysterious aspect to this show and at the same time emphasized the vibe of the music. Awesome – and everyone who was there would agree.

SÓLSTAFIR

I heard a lot of complaints that SECRETS OF THE MOON became even more boring with the new album. Others might say they are trying to bethink theirselves of their strengths. Being a fan from both, their early days and their newer albums, I would agree with the latter. But I was a bit disappointed with their show on Summer Breeze Open Air 2009 which the band itself stated as a very weak show due to technical problems. The new songs are a lot slower but still heavier than everything they did before. And they need time to develop. On this evening the songs were unfolding with their full power and really convinced the audience as I heard from some people later that evening. For me I was blown away by “Queen among the rats” and of course the unavoidable “Lucifer speaks”. The only song I really missed was “Bleak star” – still one of my favourites.

SECRETS OF THE MOON

Amazing – in an own world – this is what describes the musical experiences of this evening best. All three bands were contributing heavy and atmospheric shows with no room for any improvement. My crew was fascinated and enthusastic and so was the rest of the audience…

More pictures at the
METAL NIGHTS GALLERY.

CODE: Homepage – MySpace – Merchandise
SÓLSTAFIR: Homepage – MySpace – Merchandise
SECRETS OF THE MOON: Homepage – MySpace – Merchandise