Extreme Music Blog

We presented this event with our METAL NIGHTS event series but actually it was pulled up by the BLEEDING NOSE guys. So I was really curious. The advance sale was great and the venue was completely sold out which means more than 1500 people would attend this show.

The good soul from our event crew – Tanja – had birthday this evening and we wanted to celebrate it at the show. So I went there straight by train. After a short visit in the venue seeing DEADLOCK doing the sound check I went back to a restaurant where we had a nice meal first. Good one. Afterwards we had some bubble water and beer at the parking lot.

Now we went back to the venue which was already really crowded. There was no space for one single more person. Unfortunately we missed DEADLOCK but regarding their sound check I have to admit that front girl Sabine Weniger did a good job – and did not look metal at all during the sound check.

SWASHBUCKLE were already on stage when we finally got our place. So time for another beer! The party boat was about to sail cross the ocean of people… To be honest we always made fun of SWASHBUCKLE. Anyway they seemed to be very nice guys who simply had fun and fired their songs straight out of the boats canon into the audience. Cool gig – despite my prejudices!

SWASHBUCKLE

A lot of people were waiting for DARK TRANQUILLITY. I do not know why they were not put on the billing as co-headliners. This would have suited them much better than playing in the middle of a very modern package. Anyway Stanne seemed to have much fun on this last gig of the tour. He enjoyed standing on the crash barriers all the time. And the audience seemed to enjoy this passion as well. The only bad thing I have to point out about this gig is the sound which was very high pitched and not quite transparent.

DARK TRANQUILLITY

As CALIBAN entered the stage I thought that they could not go beyond the euphoric reactions of DARK TRANQUILLITY and I was right. Somehow this band is not that interesting anymore but at least the kids went crazy. The first crowd surfers were spotted. A solid performance – nothing more and nothing less…

The security crew was looking forward to HEAVEN SHALL BURN and to have a lot more crowd surfers. The so-called “Grabenschlampen” whom you might also see at the Summer Breeze Open Air in front of the stages (the security guys who always wear red shirts) are enjoying shows like this one themselves. Their boss “Mille” asked me to join them behind the crash barriers and pull out some surfers. New experience – so I did it. Like expected, HEAVEN SHALL BURN started very powerful and the crowd went straight. First surfers were on their way to the stage. And me? Well I was hit by the head of the bass guitar in first instance. But nothing more. The sound was great and the guys really kicked ass! Songs like “Iconoclast (The final Resistance)” simply blew the audience away – and me too. During the encore, the singer made a funny announcement: “These guys behind the crash barriers have trained with me – it did not work out for me – but for them – people – make them prove that they are strong enough for you!” BAM! Dozens of crowd surfers at the same time. The first time I had to go up and pull out some surfers – and it was hell – good feeling though because most people give you a “Thank you!” when you have put them on the ground smoothly. After just a few minutes I was out of breath. But I could have kept going forever. Cool side note: at the end of the show, the singer was standing behind me and mixing up my hairs – now that is what I call a nice boy, hehe.
Great show, guys – and I am really looking forward to see this band again!

HEAVEN SHALL BURN

After the show is before the show. So we had to put down the light and get everything loaded in different vans. HEAVEN SHALL BURN left off to Leipzig and the rest of the tour package was leaving for home as well.

Finally, at 4 in the morning I could go home – not to mention the short stop at the SCR office where we had to unload some shirts (the new AGRYPNIE shirts for their upcoming “16[485]” album).

HEAVEN SHALL BURN – MySpace – Merchandise
CALIBAN – MySpace – Merchandise
DARK TRANQUILLITY – MySpace – Merchandise
SWASHBUCKLE – MySpace – Merchandise
DEADLOCK – MySpace – Merchandise

Thanks to Simon for taking me and the shirts “home” and to Björn for helping unload the shirts.
Thanks to Gregor for the pictures!

After some days of silence I am back with a new report – this report is about an event I organized together with my live crew as part of the METAL NIGHTS concert series. The preparation of this and other events were also the reason for no new updates.

I was really nervous about this day although it must be something like the 50th show I did as organizer. But this time was different – a sold out small venue with a capacity of 300 people as upper limit. I was afraid about the space in the concert room so together with the venue we decided to change the stage to give the poeple more room. It was okay for the bands as well and it should crop up that this decision was right…

When I arrived at the Club Zentral in Stuttgart city centre about 2pm the nightliner of the tour was already parked aside of the building, everything was already unloaded so I welcomed all the people. The funny thing was that I knew most of them.
Of course AHAB can be entitled as quite good friends now (not only because half of the band is signed to Supreme Chaos Records with DEAD EYED SLEEPER) and because Heci was staying at home to await the birth of his son (who saw the light of the world the day before this show b.t.w. – his name is Jonas), Markus – guitarist of my band THE EXORIAL and A&R at Supreme Chaos Records – joined the nautik team as live session member.
Then there were the guys of FJOERGYN who I have not seen for years. With my band KARKADAN I have played with them on the legendary Nightmare Before Summer festival 2006 in Thuringia (before this festival has to call it quits – unfortunately! – one of the best locations you can imagine – an old summer camp in the mountains in East Germany) and I only have seen them once since this time.
And last but not least DORNENREICH with whom I am in close contact since the plans for this tour started beginning of the year. Very nice people. I hope that I can work together with them in the future, again…

As time went by everything was plugged in, built up and prepared. My crew did an awesome job, again!
When the first people arrived I had to realize that the new barcode scanner I have bought does not work as well as the old one (which was stolen) because of different quality of the barcode print outs depending on the printer it was printed with – but the new e-Ticket system was great anyway and we got everything flowing after a while. Hope to get the scanner problem fixed until the Secrets Of The Moon show…

FJOERGYN

Speaking of the music… Is there something you can do wrong with a great audience in a packed, nice small club with great sound due to a very good sound engineer? FJOERGYN proved that you can do it even better than just doing a decent job. The audience was really enthusiastic about the music of these charismatic guys who had to concentrate to play their well arranged pagan and folk influenced extreme metal underlayed by a lot of symphonic additions which came from tape. And I have to admit that the guys rocked this evening which was rewarded by the attendees with a great applause and with a rush on their merchandise.

AHAB

Now it was time to slooooooooooow down! With sounds of water as intro AHAB entered the stage to spread their nautik mournfulness. You could see fascinated listeners everywhere in the audience. And it surely was a great show they did – pure funeral doom madness. Have to attest a great job to my guitarist as well. Slowly and heavily the fog was flowing on the stage just like the heavy doom riffs out of the PA. The new stuff from the new “The Divinity of Oceans” album and the old songs were harmonizing very well. The higher amount of clean vocals on the new songs were performed almost perfectly. It is always a pleasure to attend an AHAB show.

DORNENREICH

The headliner of the evening – DORNENREICH – seemed to have an advantage over the other bands judging from the shirts of the visitors. I guess a third of the crowd was wearing a DORNENREICH shirt. And the band knew how to use this advantage. They played a kind of best of set but with some surprises and with a really good sound (better than the last show I attended in Würzburg / Posthallen in March). Their truely loyal fans of course went crazy despite of the temperatures in the club which must have climbed over 40 degrees celsius at this time. Not to mention that the band had to play one extra song.

What an evening. Everything worked out in the end. Fears of the venue being too packed or some other problems turned out to be gratuitous. I am very happy about this success and the bands were too. And like expected they were really crazy about the catering, the club and the atmosphere. I want to say THANK YOU to all the guys in my live crew, to the tour package including sound engineer, light technician, bus driver and everyone who was attending the show!

The Crew

You can find other pictures here: METAL NIGHTS GALLERY

DORNENREICH: Homepage – MySpace – Merchandise
AHAB: Homepage – MySpace – Merchandise
FJOERGYN: Homepage – MySpace – Merchandise