October, 11th – Ludwigsburg, Rockfabrik – Tankard, Hatred

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!

Extreme Music Blog