Opening tonight was a small local band called Slashback. I had seen them once before (like all the bands this evening) and they sucked ass then. They still did now, only not as worse anymore. All musicians had improved in mastering their instruments, but were still obviously playing on an amateur level. The vocals sounded awful throughout the entire show, that guy has such an uncomfortable scream to listen to.

There were some nice riffs here and there, but very often used in the wrong context. A dozen or so angry nu-metal like compositions blew from the speakers until they stopped tormenting the already bored crowd. They did try some variation with some funky parts, but that only made people scratch their heads. And when they played ‘Head Up’ from Deftones the drama was quite complete.

 

Thank god it was time for San Andreas afterwards. I had played together with them with my band once, and their vocalist used to go to the same school as me. Real nice guys. Anyway, as soon as they kicked off it was mayhem on stage. You could really see the bandmembers enjoying the show, smiling at one another, trying to irritate each other. Their PA was sublime, very loud and aggressive so a big part of the crowd caught on immediately.

I think their music can best be described as screamo, but it is also the first band in that genre that I can actually listen to. With a drummer that also sings and a band that jumps up and down on and of stage this is quite a show to see. The main vocalist also has a pretty funny way of communicating with the crowd. Definitely a band that has potential to go places.

 

As I said, the last show in Limburg for Holland’s biggest nu-metal band. To be honest, I only watched the first and the last couple of songs, otherwise I would have probably hated it like hell. Now it was pretty much all right. The band was playing tight and vocalist Pat sounded good too. In the end a lot of the older DP songs came by, the ones with more screams and moshable parts. The PA was sounding great too, so for the real fans this must have been one hell of a goodbye show (and it showed with some people).

They came back with a three song encore which were a couple of the loudest songs played, the last one being ‘Choke’. That started quite a moshpit, and I decided to join in the Pussy pit as well. All in all I had a fun evening, and I guess all the old-skool DP fans had a great time as well. Especially if they came in after the first band!