Tag Archive for 'thrash-metal'

02
Jan

December, 12th – Lengerich, Gempt Halle – Satans Convention with Arch Enemy, Destruction, Taake, God Dethroned, Deströyer 666, Unlight, Abigail Williams, Triosphere

My decision to go to the so called SATANS CONVENTION (what a stupid name by the way) was based on the fact that I would reside in Lengerich this weekend anyway.

First shock was the fact that SIX FEET UNDER had cancelled the show. This alone would have been no issue for me because it was in no means one of the bands I wanted to see. But to to me this is a reason to lower the ticket prices. To still ask for 35 Euros for a show where the headliner is missing is a rip-off in my opinion. Including the fact that the

Unfortunately we missed the first three bands TRIOSPHERE, ABIGAIL WILLIAMS and UNLIGHT. But we met our friends from UNLIGHT later who were of course absolutely surprised about my appearance on this festival. Concerning other reports TRIOSPHERE managed to do quite well but did not fit in the billing with their sophisticated power metal music. ABIGAIL WILLIAMS seemed to be a matter of taste. UNLIGHT were claimed to be the best black metal band this evening.

We were quite in time to see the start of DESTRÖYER 666, a band which I wanted to see for ages but always missed. The black thrash mix of the Australian band surely met my taste. To be honest I had expected a bit more stage action from this four piece. Quite nice show and maybe the first highlight for me this evening although I had expected a bit more power.

DESTROYER 666

I have seen GOD DETHRONED already several times and last time was in October with Endstille, Hollenthon and others. As far as I can recall they never had a weak show so far and this should not change on Satans Convention as well. Again, female guitarist Susan was eye candy. But of course a metal show is about the music. GOD DETHRONED covered almost all of their albums and played a powerful set.

GOD DETHRONED

TAAKE singer Hoechst was still in my mind with his misbehaviour the last time TAAKE played in Essen. Showing up with a Swastika on your breast in Germany is not even rudimentary funny. This time he seemed to concentrate on the music instead. But rumors spread that he had made some strange statements in the backstage area which resulted in a close fight which Hoest lost against Schmier from DESTRUCTION. Maybe TAAKE should think about the quality of their performance instead of wasting time with bullshit… this was for sure the worst performance this evening.

Thrash metal veterans DESTRUCTION was a pleasure for my ears after the black metal vacuum cleaner (and do not take me wrong – I like black metal and even like the TAAKE recordings). Hell yeah what a power. I have not seen a strong performance of them for a long time. Maybe it was more powerful this evening than ever before. The audience seemed to agree as there was a circle pit and a lot of headbanging, in one word – enthusiastic responses. And DESTRUCTION enjoyed this show as well. Well done – winner of the evening!

A huge task for ARCH ENEMY to cheer the people up again after this intoxicating thrash metal set. Of course I expected a lot from the guitar front as ARCH ENEMY have two great talented guitar players in their line up. Maybe Michael Amott might be little bit more known due to his work with CARCASS but his younger brother Christopher is a bit more varied and plays insane lead stuff. It is always a blast to see this guy play. Turning up the volume for the (renewed) headliner is a common thing to do but if this leads to a bad sound it might be something you should NOT do. Unfortunately the second case happened to come true this evening. Being really tired and being not able to hear the sole guitar sounds from the mush of sounds made us leave the venue after 3 songs from ARCH ENEMY.

So we went home in an icy winter night with approx. minus 15 degrees Celsius with both, good and bad memories in our mind.

29
Oct

October, 24th – Stuttgart, Jugendhaus Anna – Nuclear Warfare, Legion of Fate, Frames of Mind

Well actually no real live report but a kind of short side note about a small concert.

On Saturday I wanted to have a relaxing evening but somehow a friend of mine send me a text message that there is a small concert and if I would like to join them. As the venue is just 10 minutes away from my apartment I decided to leave. As expected there were only 20 or 30 people visiting the concert. I missed FRAMES OF MIND. It was just too spontaneous. Would have been funny to see them again after we have shared the stage with them one week before.

So I joined LEGION OF FATE and saw a very nice band playing a mix of death and thrash metal. This was just the style I remembered of our gig together with them. A little bit more talking with friends and the organizer / local social education worker of the youth centre. He is the singer of PSYCHOTRON, a local thrash metal act. We were talking about the future for this youth centre because the city is planning to demolish it and build a new one at a different place.

NUCLEAR WARFARE play old school thrash in the vein of old Sodom and the sorts. Apparently nothing new. Funny to watch though. So I had a good time with friends and maybe will contribute some vocals for their next album – who knows. My favourite was of course “Dosenpfand”, a song complaining about the deposit for (beer) cans. Naturally I was enjoying the free beer as well.

After this short concert interruption of the evening I went to the park, having a walk finding some geocaches. A nice one was a lost place: an old mini golf court. Reminded me of the virtual mini golf matches I have played this day. Eventually I really liked the fresh air and the calm park in the midst of the night…

MySpace Links: NUCLEAR WARFARELEGION OF FATEFRAMES OF MIND

12
Oct

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)

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: MySpaceMerchandise
HATRED: MySpaceMerchandise

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!

28
Sep

September, 26th – Neckarbischofsheim, Stadthalle – Agoraphobia, Karkadan, Abstinenz, Skepsis, Licksalt

This is kind of a different live report from me as a musician. First I had to prepare everything because I am the one who is always coping around with the business things of the band like merchandise etc. This was also the first time we went to a gig with my car which has enough space for the equipment stuff – well sometimes it is very headstrong but at least it is big for harbouring all the equipment.

When we arrived at the town hall (which should be renamed to village hall because Neckarbischofsheim is quite small but nice) LICKSALT had already finished their set and SKEPSIS were preparing the stage for the show. I made some shots with my cam (EOS 300D body with the kit zoom lens). Again I am not satisfied but there are some good pictures – I need to get a fast lens for live photography – and maybe a new cam (if this was not so expensive – damn!).

Thrash deathers SKEPSIS had the handicap of a session guitarist who had two or three weeks to learn the songs. But he did a good job although you could hear that there is no perfect harmony and sometimes the songs seemed to break up. But the band tried its best and the vocalist showed his energy. Nice side note is that they had a female guitar player who was like the rest of the band still very young. Guess she will be a very talented musician in the future. The songs were a quite usual mix of death and thrash but at some parts you could see me nodding my had because they grooved. So a nice to see band for sure.

SKEPSIS

SKEPSIS

After a really long changeover ABSTINENZ showed up on stage. They have build up an image of a typical black metal band on stage. The micro stand was a cross turned upside-down with barbed wire (whichs setup took half of the time for the change over except of beer drinking on stage). But no drummer. So they were playing with drums and keyboards from tape. The sound was very undifferentiated but the black metal they played was not too bad although I prefer more sophisticated black metal at the moment. After a guitar string broke they stopped playing asking for someones guitar – too bad because it was already late.

ABSTINENZ

ABSTINENZ

So it was up to us now to enter the stage. The micro stand with barbed wire was still standing there and the singer of ABSTINENZ did not seem to care. Well we did a fast change over like we always use to do – concentrated work – do not keep the last band waiting. Short line up check and go for it! We had decent problems with the sound on stage. No kick on the drum monitor (it was not possible to have it louder) so Hannes was somehow trying to play without hearing what happens on the drums except cymbals. Tommy used his new guitar which is a hybrid for distored and clean sound (with two separate pick ups and electronic ways). He used two amps (one for clean and one for distorted sound). Like expected there were some technical problems with effects etc. I could not hear my voice on the monitors because I had suggested to take it completely away to avoid the feedbacks we had during the line check. So it was really a blind flight. After some songs the bass drum mic went straight off the drum raiser. The drum “carpet” was just a blanket so the whole drum kit was sliding forward and we had to adjust everything from time to time.
To come to a conclusion about our gig I have do say that it was fun dispite of the technical problems and not played too bad if you keep in mind that we only rehearsed one time after the first gig with this line up in June…

Last band of the day were the local heroes AGORAPHOBIA – fortunately they were chosen to be headlineres because they are quite known in this area, although it looked different on the spread flyers. Straight forward old school hardcore combined with (thrash) metal is something you can not call special these days. But AGORAPHOBIA were active for a very long time in the underground so they knew what to do and the people went crazy. I hate violent dancing so it was difficult for me to judge if the crowd was happy or just trying to abreact. Anyway AGORAPHOBIA were filling in the right slot and put up a decent headliner show.

AGORAPHOBIA

AGORAPHOBIA

My guys wanted to leave already so we put everything back in the van. I was happy with this evening but the headache during the drive home was horrible. And today German elections. I almost was too late for using my right to vote…

A special thank you goes off to the two guys driving almost 200 kilometres to this concert just to see us – you rock! There is no better compliment for a band like us!




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Next show I will attend

16.07.2010 Balingen
Bang your Head Festival

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