Something else than metal kicked off tonight; Discharger played a mix of streetpunk and hardcore and it was full with all the possible clich�s: from all the four guys shouting �HEY HEY HEY� to lame song titles as �Our Hate is Justified�. One song was even simply called �Skinhead�. And skinheads there were enough at their show! It was clear that they all came tonight just to see this band, so lyrics were sung along and the party was going strong. That wasn�t just because it was �their� party, because Discharger put up a steady and good show, the use of all the clich�s was the only notable point of critique, but that�s just how it works with this scene.

 

The other band from Amersfoort, Baneblade, was supposed to open this night, but for some reason they changed that. You could clearly see that most of these guys were far less experienced than Discharger, but these guys were pretty young so that wasn�t much of a surprise. Taking into consideration that they did their first gig just a few months ago their mix of thrash and death sounded pretty solid. The only �established� member was the singer who sung in Pleurisy, but also he couldn�t raise the band above a level of just-a-fun-beginning-band-to-watch. I had quite a good laugh when they started what I thought was the cover of Metallica�s�One�. It turned out to be a song of their own, but with a way too high copycat factor, ha-ha! Always fun to see these beginning bands�for ten minutes that is.  

 

When The Psyke Project began there were about 20 people in the audience left, at maximum! Remarkably the band didn�t drown in the venue which has a capacity of 400 people, that�s quite an effort I�d say! It seemed like all the skinheads had to get to bed earlier, because all of them were gone by this time, or they must have been in the caf� or something. Either way, they really missed something! I was happy to see that the frontman really acted as a frontman. He knew how to deal with such an empty venue and did his very best to involve the audience in the show; a little beer drinking contest was one of those ways. Also the other guys of The Psyke Project didn�t seem to be bothered by the empty venue either; with arms and legs flying everywhere they played as if the show was sold out. The mix of mathcore and Deftones-like, almost ambient, hypnotising parts was played subliminally tight by these Danes. They really got to me, but I�m unsure whether the other 19 people could fully understand it. Amersfoort once again proved to be a very sucky place for metal, way to go! But all that really matters is that The Psyke Project let that small audience witness a very special and convincing show.