| << archive |
|
 |
2006-12-09
NL – Arnhem - Musis Sacrum |
| Immolation - Arch Enemy - Anathema - General Surgery - Tankard - Necrophobic - Skyforger - Moonsorrow - Pungent Stench - Antaeus - Melechesh - Ancient Rites - Aeternus - Flesh Made Sin - Thronar [Seb] On December 9th 2006, the ARNHEIM METAL MEETING saw its second installment, this time completely sold out! And this year we could actually manage to get there, since in 2005 weather (shitloads of snow) has thwarted Cals appearance. However, it wasn't really clear of obstacles, as first the car did not want as we wanted, and later on we almost got mad because of the Arnhem traffic management. Due to the combination of both, we missed the whole THRONAR show and almost the entire FLESH MADE SIN gig, of which we could only hear the last two songs in the next room. :: pics :: [Seb]
The show burg Musis
Sacrum is normally used as a theatre and concert
forum, not in the sense of metal, ya know? ;) For the Metal Meeting,
it was parted into three stage areas: at the ground floor was
the main stage called Nuon Stage. One floor above was another
quite big hall (Van Wijnen Stage), and at the half basement the
third one called D&T Stage, seems to be usually used as wardrobe
and bar. Next to it at the same floor was the Metal Market. Especially because Cal needed some good place in front of the stage to take photos, we always started with the bigger stage and then moved downstairs, when two bands played at the same time. It was the easier way to bustle through the packed crowd downstairs in direction to D&T stage, as the other way round.
[Seb]
First band we saw performing was ::
ANCIENT
RITES :: on second stage. We had seen them
around half a year ago under unfavorable circumstances at Ultima
Ratio II, so I was curious how the show would turn out under better
circumstances. To the intro of Crusade from the most
recent album Rvbicon, ANCIENT
RITES entered the blue illuminated stage. As on the CD,
they continued with Templar as opener. One could immediately
notice the Belgians acted much easier and more relaxed than they
did as we saw them back in May. Vocalist Gunther and his mates
did not need much time, until the first people raised their hands,
and when they arrived at the great melodic sing-along-numbers
Mother Europe and And The Horns Called For War,
the crowd was really on fire. Gunther was obviously more than
just pleased about the audiences' reaction that he even forgot
to stare as grim as it would fit to his military outfit, and showed
a big smile instead. The next two songs were my favorite tracks
and the centre part of the new album, the title track Rvbicon
and Invictus. Both songs turned out a bit straighter
and harder, what I really liked a lot. Too bad it was time to
move to the D&T stage after these tracks, but what I have
seen until now, was a worthy start into the Metal Meeting!
[Seb]
Due to attending Ancient Rites before, I just saw the last third
of the :: AETERNUS
:: gig. As expected, at the smaller stage were
not that many fans... The Norseman used to play black metal in
earlier days, and switched over to mainly death metal nowadays.
But what I got to listen to, seemed to be older material, at least
it sounded rather black. Singer Ares was like screaming his soul
out, while bass player V'gandr was on permanent movement and rampaged
all over the stage. The second guitar player, Dreggen, acted not
that furious but seemed to like posing on his knees a lot while
playing his solos. After I saw two or three songs, AETERNUS
had to finish on time, and made their farewell with an outstanding
death/thrash monster, posing with crossed guitars at the last
tunes. A pity that they could only play seven songs and that I
only was able to see like three of them.
[Seb]
Without time to take a break, we went off to the main stage after
this, where :: MELECHESH
:: just entered the stage. As expected, it was
fucking crowded now, but fortunately there was a photo pit in
front of the stage. MELECHESH started their program
with two older songs, right from the start proving their technical
skills. By the sound of the oriental inspired tunes, they got
the crowd easily in movement. But when they came up with two tracks
of the recent album Emissaries, they
raised the fans spirits to a maximum. Unfortunately, the two songs
where the only ones from Emissaries,
and MELECHESH stepped back in time to their 2003
release Sphynx.
[Seb]
And again we had to hurry, upstairs again, to attend the Austrian
death metallers :: PUNGENT
STENCH :: First thing they did, was to announce,
that they really liked to be back in the Netherlands, of course
"especially because of the weed"... Well, the power
trio is notoriously known for its kind of strange sense of humor.
Not everybody may like that, but as overdrawn as they do that,
it's funny in my opinion ;) They opened the show with Fuck
Bizarre, and then, PUNGENT STENCH, led by
front man Don Cochino, thrashed and battled through all of their
albums. Even such old goodies as Splatterday Night Fever
and Pus & Gastric Juice could be found on the setlist.
During the break some sound engineer seemed to have worked on
the sound, at least here the riffs sounded very tough and clean.
And again, we sadly had to leave a good show, but the D&T
stage was waiting.
[Seb] Downstairs
:: ANTAEUS
:: were right in the middle of their set. The
five French hell spawns where playing their last ever gig at AMM,
after they originally wanted to quit the stage forever when they
finished the tour with Secrets Of The Moon. Hardly to recognize
at a first glance, but among the four guys on the stage, there
was a female bass player. Maybe that was a bit difficult to realize
because of the unified stage outfit and the corpse paint. ANTEAUS
presented themselves all wearing a black battledress with studded
belts and armlets with the band logo. The drummer was flanked
by two banners showing a Jesus portrait with halo and the band
logo on his forehead. The music was mainly high speed raging,
raw black metal, here and there broken up by some somber and sluggish
parts. While contributing his screeching, vocalist MkM mostly
stood still and looked through his hair like a zombie. Due to
the narrow space on the stage, the other band members did not
move much either, but banged their heads instead. Opening with
Rot and later on followed by Gates To The Outside,
ANTAEUS performed only two songs of the very
strong most recent album Blood Libels,
but compensated that by playing the top three of the Y2K release
Cut Your Flesh And Worship Satan. A
very good show, but nevertheless, for the last gig ever, ANTAEUS
should probably have done something more spectacular than just
stretching the end of Blood War III to two minutes.
[Seb]
:: MOONSORROW
:: was the next band to perform on the Nuon stage,
and they really explored the given space. Apart from the keyboarder
and of course the drummer, the other guys where at non stop action.
The audience was immediately over the moon with their performance!
By the way, interesting too see which fans where obviously attending
the AMM specifically for MOONSORROW:
The front row of the audience consisted approx. 90% of girls,
of which the same percentage was most likely less than 20 years
of age ;)
[Seb]
Next band on schedule was :: NECROPHOBIC
:: and the one I especially was looking forward
to. Their current album Hrimthursum
and their performance at Hellflame Festvial were both fully convincing.
Lead by shouter Tobias, the band entered the stage one after the
other to the tunes of the album-intro The Slaughter Of Baby
Jesus, and while the music came from tape, Tobias threw in
the „Destruction… death… death to all“
part live. The live show opened, as on the album, with the first
highlight Blinded By Light, Enlightened By Darkness.
Simply a great song, particularly the refrain with the lyrics
„As I walk through the gateway“ is stunning. Not even
the not so great and slightly indifferent sound could screw up
that opening. Following the question, if the crowd was finally
"ready to listen to some real metal", the first classic,
Into Armageddon from The Third Antichrist
was the second song. After that one, there was a short break due
to some technical problems, which gave Tobias time to pose around
with a bottle of Jack Daniels ;) After a short time, everything
was all right again, and with another of my favorite songs from
new latest release, I Strike With Wrath, the show continued.
Fortunately, from this point on, the sound was better, and everything
else fitted as well. Pin point drumming by Joakim, and also Sebastian
and Johan on strings showed up in best shape. The whole rest of
the show was simply good, and NECROPHOBIC managed
to play at least one song of each studio album, although they
had only 45 minutes to play. The only downer was, that I had to
leave again at the beginning of Dreams Shall Flesh, and
that the uber song Eternal Winter still isn’t on
NECROPHOBICs live set.
[Seb]
:: SKYFORGER
:: from Latvia were the next act on D&T stage.
I was really upset that they had to "share" their playing
time with Necrophobic, as they were one of the bands at AMM I
have never seen live before. When I arrived, SKYFORGER
were already performing their seventh song, Kavi. And it's for
sure that they really gave anything they had until there, especially
singer Peter already looked a bit exhausted. With their Pagan/Folk
based black metal rhythms and melodies, they kept themselves and
the fans in steady movement. According to the music, the Latvians
were of course and as usual dressed in historical costumes and
utilized historical and folkloristic instruments as well. Because
the last studio album features nothing but traditional Latvian
song material, SKYFORGER performed only songs
from their three earlier releases. After the last chords and flute
tunes of Dzîves Vismelnâkâ Stundâ
marked the end of the regular set, the fans vehemently chanted
SKYFORGER! for an encore, but when the band wanted
to play one or two additional songs, the AMM
crew simply turned the power supply off. That was really annoying;
the stage wasn't scheduled to be used within the next 60 minutes,
so why didn't they let them play five more minutes when anyone
down in front of the D&T stage wanted to see more??? Well,
anyhow, a really impressive show by a very likeable band! [Seb] Up next was the German Thrash combo :: TANKARD :: They had already started to play on the main stage when I arrived. Sorry, but we don't have any pictures from that part of the evening, because Cal had to do an interview with Melechesh at the same time. So I only took a look at the German Beer & Liquor - worshipers for some minutes. TANKARD had just presented their new album Beauty And The Beer, and as packed as the hall was, many people in our neighboring country seemed to know it or at least the band. Musically, the old school thrash was nothing groundbreaking, but it’s always funny to see singer Gerre acting on stage. Sometimes he hopped over the stage, then he danced affectedly around, or he showed his remarkable beer belly or even pretended to completely dress off his shirt. The whole thing was even funnier when he stood next to the guitar player while making his pranks, being almost double sized as him *g* So, at all, funny to view, but not that remarkable considering the music. But regarding the reactions, the crowd had a lot of fun.
[Seb]
Ok, only few words concerning ::
ANATHEMA
:: from me. In my opinion, the band is, at least
when only playing newer material, nothing but a great booking
mistake for a festival like this. So, maybe this should be something
for the girls, and that's exactly why Dajana may write this part
*g*
[Seb]
:: GENERAL
SURGERY :: where the absolute contrast program
to Anathema. Although the D&T stage had the biggest attendance
of all bands that played there, at 9pm when GENERAL SURGERY
should begin, nothing happened. The Swedish arrived about 20 minutes
later! But when they started to grind, no one cared any longer,
that was a shitload of brutality! All songs but one came from
the 2006 album Left Hand Pathology.
By the way, it might be rare that a band comes up with the first
full length release 17 years after their founding days... ok,
as an explanation: they took a break for 11 years... Dressed in
the typical, blood blurred hospital clothes and with a new bass
player in their ranks, the Scandinavians grinded through 15 songs
(encores included) in less than 35 minutes. And from those 35
minutes, you have to subtract the helpless tries of "Dr."
McWilliams, to bring out an understandable announcement. Obviously,
the Doc had anaesthetized himself with overwhelming success *lol*
At the left side of the stage, you could see a completely drunk
fan wobbling around and spitting beer fountains on guitarist Joacim.
He seemed kind of unimpressed by that, but took revenge by grabbing
his baseball cap at a time. The whole theatre was accentuated
by technically clean Goregrind that gave the crowd in front of
the stage hell - and provided much pleasure for photographing
Cal. I guess no one who was in front there left the AMM
without a hurting neck and a bunch of bruises (I of course had
both - Cal). After 12 songs and only 30 minutes, there was still
time for three encores, and the show ended with the Carnage cover
The Day Man Lost.
[Dajana]
In the run-up to the :: ARCH
ENEMY :: gig, people were already joking if
the death metal divas would actually play. Well, they did, but
not without some kind of "special treatment"... again.
Nevertheless, the gents and the German growl gal mastered the
crowd in a twinkling of an eye and delivered once more a breathtaking
and brutal show. No one can stop ARCH ENEMY live
;) As expected, all the songs were from the Gossow era, especially
from Doomsday Machine, and the set was
completed by some classics from Anthems Of Rebellion
and Wages Of Sin. Everybody should see
an ARCH ENEMY show in his life! That’s
for sure!
[Dajana]
The New York based death metal veterans ::
IMMOLATION
:: actually turned out to be the highlight of
the night - at least for me. Supported by a brutal and punching
sound (probably the best sound this evening) fans got powerfully
slept on ears. The audience was already notably lifted, but anyone
who was still there paid vociferous respect. Much to the delight
of IMMOLATION, who went through an almost 24
hour sleepless trip from NY to Arnhem, and that was not the only
story they had to tell the audience... Singer and bass player
Ross was chatting a lot. So he told the audience that they are
just recording the follow-up to Harnessing Ruin,
which should be entitled World Agony.
And after that announcement, they presented the title track of
the album, great! The also stated, that a 2007 tour is planned,
finally! Great show! [Dajana]
Resume: Yeah, ARNHEM METAL MEETING
is really a great festival. But... two bands playing at the same
time with a seamless changeover to the main act is very exhausting.
And of course, it was really a pity, that we could not watch the
complete show of many of the bands. It would be really great if
the organizer could change that for next year.
|
| stories © Seb & Dajana • pics © Dajana |
