The opening band for this evening was actually the reason why I was here. This German oriental death metal from Necrophagist had caught my attention some time ago, and I felt like this night was the perfect occasion to check them out.

The PA wasn’t sounding that good, but you could very well make up what the hell was going on. High speed death metal accompanied by some very interesting guitar shredding solo parts, blasting drums and deep grunts were all the ingredients needed to get some fire started in the crowd. They were received with loud screams after every song, but the best part was that the vocalist said no more than thank you and the next song title. Just shut up and play, the way I like it. It was an extremely tight show that I enjoyed very much. The only thing really bothering me was that you could hardly hear the bass guitar, except when he played alone. Pity, but still a great show! (D)

 

This band is a new hype in the Gothenborg-oriented style of Death Metal which covers bands like: Children of Bodom, In Flames and Dark Tranquillity. I’m not so impressed by this kind of music, but Nightrage was really doing it well on stage. The band stood like a concrete building, but the vocalist overacted his role and was jumping up and down and making handshakes. Not really my thing at all, but the music sure was nice to listen to! (M-C)

 

Now the time had come for some real old-skool pounding thrashing death metal. I had seen these guys at the Graspop festival in 2004 and it was all right back then. They started out with two songs that completely didn’t interest me, could be that I was very tired though. But like halfway the third song a grooving riff flew out of the speaker, I immediately woke up and started to smile. I paid close attention to the show from that moment on and I heard a whole lo more of those incredibly grooving death metal riffs come along. I loved that shit!

The only things that weren’t that cool were the drummer losing power in long-lasting blastbeats and the vocalist in general. He had a pretty basic voice that in my opinion could easily be replaced. But anyway, this was a great show from a great professional band. (D)

 

This band was the reason for driving that whole fucking way to the Baroeg in Rotterdam. The last time I saw Bolt Thrower live was in the 013 a year or 2 ago. I remembered that the sound there was so loud that I had a beep in my ear for 4 days! Tonight, Bolt Thrower started out with At First Light, which is the opening song of the Those Once Loyal record. Many well-known songs were played tonight, mixed with new songs like The Killchain, which is my favourite of the new album. Tracks like Mercenary and No Guts, No Glory weren’t forgotten and my evening was complete! After No Guts, No Glory, my hearing was again damaged and the familiar beep returned. Hell yeah, what a really great show! (M-C)