Uriah Heep:

Another band I really wanted to see playing live. I just love their early works. The performance was great. At the beginning there were some little problems wit the sound, but they fixed it and the sound was very good, and it was very obvious they liked to play for this audience. Although the gig only had a duration of 1 hour, which is really not enough for such a great band, it was a very nice party with great songs like ‘Lady In Black’, ‘Sunrise’, ‘Gypsy’ and of course ‘Easy Livin’’. (Arcane)

 

After a tremendous show of Uriah Heep, I was presented with Whitesnake. Well, I’m not one of the oldest people on this festival with my 22 years, but this is one of those bands that have songs which you always recognize, but never know from which artist it is. Well, when they played ‘Crying In The Rain’ I had one of those moments. It was quite funny when David Coverdale announced this song…. in a temperature of 34 degrees Celcius. More songs which I instantly recognized were ‘Fool For Your Lovin’ and ‘Love Ain’t No Stranger’ The rest was sounding familiar, and I have undoubtably heard these songs before, but I just can’t remember. (M-C)

 

George who? I said when I read this in the schedule. After a close inspection I learned that this man was responsible for the monster hit ‘Bad To The Bone’, which he played. The time he had to play was very badly timed, because us Metalrage reporters get hungry you know… So far George Thorogood. (M-C)

 

Status Quo:

Who doesn’t know this band? I was very happy about the fact they were playing as well on this great festival. As the technicians were building up the amps and drums I was quite amazed about the huge amount of guitar amps Quo brought to Arrow.

This band really wrote some great classics, like ‘Down Down’ or ‘Roll Over Lay Down’. But after a while I was getting a little bored. The songs sound too much the same for me. The sound was again great, damn the sound engineers at this Festival are really good. (Arcane)

 

Many people went to the tent for this one, because it was the first time since 1978 that this band performed again. You can imagine MANY fat, bald prog people getting their way inside and stamped around for a good spot. The tent was literally puking out people, so Arcane and I decided to stay outside for a quick look, because we were more anxious to watch Deep Purple and let Journey be. The songs they played did say nothing to me, and I wasn’t really charmed by their music. We sat down and rolled a joint, waiting for Purple. (M-C)
 

 

Deep Purple:

Which rocker doesn’t like Deep Purple? Well I surely do, and damn I couldn’t wait to see them live. It’s just the same with all those other great artists on this festival. If you would wait a few years longer you would not be able to see them live because they kicked the bucket. But although the average age of the members of Deep Purple is the same as my dad’s, Deep Purple still knows how to make a party. They played some great songs, like the great songs with the very well known riff (the one that is probably the 1^st riff a guitarist ever plays in his life) you know, ‘Smoke On The Water’, was really great. The audience was also treated on a very nice synths solo. Children Of Bodom can learn something from Don Airey. It’s a pity they didn’t play the über classic ‘Child In Time’. (Arcane)

 

This pretty much concluded the first evening for us on this festival. There was a pre-party on Thursday, but I had to go to school, and Arcane was not available as well. I was quite stunned by Deep Purple and the immense sound of that beautiful Hammond synthesizer, goddamn what a monstrous sound that was! The next day promised some very nice artists, with the best dessert thinkable… Roger Waters with his Dark Side Of The Moon tour, a must-see for a dopehead like me. 

Along the old rockers there was this band with youngsters, Riverside. I never heard of this band before, so what are they doing at a this festival with all those old guys? Well the German Metal Hammer gave this band the title of Debut of the year 2004. I really understand that. Damn their performance was great. The band is much heavier as the average band on this festival. Riverside plays progressive metal. This was really a nice opener in my opinion for the second day of the festival. The people in the tent really liked this band. The audience gave them loud applause. This band really should, and probably will be, very proud that they had the chance to play on a festival like this. (Arcane)

Pavlov's Dog:
Another band I’d never heard of before was Pavlov’s Dog. Also none of the songs they played rang a bell. Nice music though. 30 years ago this band recorded 2 albums and then they broke up. In 2006 they reunited. Hmm, is that enough to play on this Festival, I’d rather like to see a local unknown band. (Arcane)

There was some shuffling through the line up, which caused that Porcupine Tree had to perform in the open sun, and not in a tent, with darker atmosphere, which is better for a band like this. I really admire these artists with their creativity, but to be honest, I wasn’t really hearing anything clear now. I guess we just were shocked and stunned by Riverside. I also think that we weren’t the only ones, who thought this. Pity. (M-C)

Okay, this is really a musician that could appeal my dad or something. I don’t really care that this man is a legend and all, but the music was just lame. We had some cold drink and a joint during this performance, and I must confess I only glimpsed on the videoscreen twice during his performance. Not really my thing. (M-C)

 

Yeah!!!! This was a performance I was screaming for, after something like Davies. Dio is quite well-known in heavy metal world, with hits like ‘Holy Diver’, ‘Rainbow In The Dark’, ‘Stand Up And Shout’ and of course ‘We Rock’ These songs were all played and although this was the first time I saw Dio perform, I noticed something mechanical in this show, like he’s doing it for ages now. Well, I don’t care though, because I never saw a show of him, so I banged my head and screamed along. There was some decent guitar shredding being done by Craig Goldy, which I really liked to hear. Yeah, this show gave me some new life force or something like that. I felt revitalized. (M-C)
 

 

Def Leppard:

A name I’d heard quite often, but I never knew any song titles. When they were on stage I heard many well known songs and every time I thought, is this a leppard song? I found out I knew more songs as I expected by this band. Good songs like ’Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop)’, ‘Let It Go’ and ‘Make Love Like A Man’. We agreed this was some nice relaxing music to chill, so we chose not to stand in the audience but to sit on the grass a little back from the stage. Nice music for the background in my opinion, but Leppard will never be my favourite. Many other people enjoyed the performance which made the leppards to play an extra song, ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’ (Arcane)

 

This is music for musicians, I always said when I first heard this band, together with some prog metalfreaks. They were very positive about the “Operation: Mindcrime” record which I also like very much. The always charming Geoff Tate was leading his army and show with an iron fist, which really marks him as a great performer. This performance was quite obvious when the audience was treated with a theatrical show with a lady and Geoff holding a gun (Geoff Tate was arrested on Schiphol 2 days after this show, because he was carrying illegal firearms! hahaha). Anyways, the performance was shockingly beautiful and I really loved seeing this band.
 

This was the very reason I said ‘Yes’ to the request of doing a live review of the Arrow Classic Rock festival. Roger Waters is one of the brains of Pink Floyd, a very well-known progressive/psychedelic rock band. Roger Waters and David Gilmour were the stars back then, but the two got in a feud and never played a show together, until last year, with Live 8, where Pink Floyd was finally re-united. For the people who read this and still don’t have a clue, Mister Waters was responsible for such psychedelic albums like “The Dark Side Of The Moon” and the probably even better known “The Wall” album. 
Roger Waters stopped touring and did not tour again after the break-up, but since a few years the performers blood flows rapidly again, which is only better for the public. Roger Waters was playing his “The Dark Side Of The Moon” set. Well, I was loaded on enough interesting chemicals to enhance the spaced out sounds, which were interesting. Roger Waters played his set through a quadrophonic soundsystem, which is basically a blasted version of the Dolby Surround systems. The Dark Side Of The Moon was played entirely, which means they played: ‘(a)Speak To Me(b)Breathe’, ‘On The Run’, ‘Time’, ‘The Great Gig In The Sky’, ’Money’, ‘Us And Them’, ‘Any Colour You Like’, ‘Brain Damage’ and ‘Eclipse’. This was one complete set and especially the intro on ‘Time’ really freaked me out, but owh man! This really kicked ass! I really can’t describe the unique feeling I got when hearing these superb sounds, with a superb soundsystem. 
I must confess I don’t remember if they played this set first or second, but it was phenomenal. The other set was a collection of different well-known Pink Floyd songs like ‘Hey You’, ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ and of course ‘Another Brick In The Wall’. It was really nice to hear 40000 people scream: “Teacher! Leave those kids alone!!” I’m going to conclude this review with saying that this show really made an impact on me, an experience I won’t easily forget. (M-C)

 

The festival was coming to an end, and we both enjoyed Roger Waters to the max. He played for 2,5 hours and everybody was still screaming for more. Everything must come to an end, and it was very good to close up the 70’s and focus again on some decent gore grind.