Pitfest 2022, headliners At the Gates, The Toy Dolls and more, Resort Zuiddrenthe, Erica, May 12th-14th

Nice to know when you want to return to a place, village, provence or even festival once you’ve seen any edition. Our first Pitfest held Sodom and Asphyx, that’s a no-brainer for us. This edition would bring Repulsion, one of Wanda’s all time favorite bands to Erica, Drenthe, The Netherlands. I’ve known The Toy Dolls from my 15th, 16th birthday, something, seen them on silly AND cool occasions and wanted that renewed. Same with Cryptic Slaughter, it had been 1990 since I bought Speak Your Peace and that, by now, totally grey shirt of that tour. It was white and without holes, now it hangs in my working room. OK, the leaflet says Lowlife, as there’s another conflict about band names around. Never mind, the 1990 tour setting only held one member that played on Convicted and Money Talks… Add an old promise to Ronald of Overruled to watch one of his favorite thrash bands together and buying tickets was done (Violator). In fives and sixes, that was, as we needed 2 festival tickets, maybe a third, two camping tickets, one car park ticket, maybe a shuttle bus ticket and early-bird coins. In two years the latter became wise thinking, as Covid/Ukrainian conflict made prices of many goods sky high, including diesel and beer. But Wanda’s health still isn’t up to par, she would not join me to see Repulsion… note that Repulsion was cancelled anyway… Book of Changes… >< All I need now is a detour and it’s a full blown festival to me The pre-party would be fun too, three tribute bands of known bands, but mostly new performers to do Motörhead or NOFX songs; Gorefunest is ahhhhhhnice to me But when I got halfway between Lelijkstad and Enkhuizen I thought ‘I only have one piece of paper, I need some 6! Hit the brakes, call Wanda and return to Westwoud. That’s a 70 km hobby I texted Alicia I’d be there some hour later, she’d keep an open spot for my tent, along with Tijmen (+Hugo, see 70,000Tons review 2014) and Jelle. We all hoped Jelle won’t stagedive anymore He said he wouldn’t

When I got to P2 Parking Spot a bus just drove away, full of metalheads. But where’s the next one? Good to hear some Groningers, with beer, waiting for the bus to arrive. Now we had all the room we wanted in the bus, we’d waited for 20 minutes and no one new came around, we drive. Coming to the festival meant three wristbands, a sort of credit card for the 40 first coins and golf balls? I spotted Tijmen, he was on the bus back to P2 because he’d forgotten his wallet in the car >< When I raised the tent Gorefunest was already playing so I got help: Hugo pumped the air bed for me, Kees handed the nails and Jelle got me HJ I hastily chose a denim, my camera and phone and off I was. When I entered the smallest hall (Punkhol) Gorefunest was already playing Confessions of a Serial Killer which meant it’s probably the last song… No it wasn’t, I also heard and saw Erase, got a drum stick and a set list, hug from singer Remus and now it’s time for the bar Great to see people freak out on 30+ years old music 8-)
- For the Masses
- When The Dead Walk the Earth
- You Could Make Me Kill (Tijmen looking worried at me roaring this song to my hammer and nails ^^)
- The Glorious Dead
- Get a Life
- Reality is When You Die
- Confessions of a Serial Killer
- Erase
More old music to be heard: Deaf Förever does and old school Motörhead set:
- One I already missed raising my arms soo high
- Thunder and Lightning
- Built for Speed
- Doctor Rock
- Bomber
- Shoot Them In the Back
- Killed by Death – soooooo loud!! 8-)
- Ace of Spades
- Born to Raise Hell
- Overkill – the speeeeeeeeddd of this cracker! So good!

I must have missed at least one more title but I don’t care. The band, not in three members but five, gives a hell of a show, loud as a full Messerschmidt, smooth as silk but sooo powerfull! Half the band consists of (former-)Rompeprop members so it’s PARTY time! Instantly bought two sizes shirts, got 25 stickers to spread and these guys camp next to our tents! Funny, to be instantly hailed, brought beer as I’m just fanboying Try for an idea: https://www.facebook.com/deafforever.motorheadtribute Really nice party going! The last band tonight was NøFX, a NOFX tribute. Not only I think the name is silly, but now I instantly remember why I don’t have much with punkrock. Don’t like the guitar sound, the drums are sloppy and I’m tired. Bye Bye. The night was friggin’cold and I just couldn’t warm up at all. After a while I lay under all my denims and my hoodie but still couldn’t get warm. The bread in the morning was still a bit warm and the coffee worked like it should: warm up, clear up the senses and hey, the weather picked it up too. I’d been thinking whether I’d go in shorts or in normal pants, now the shorts were welcome

Mostly I was looking forward to seeing Fleshcrawl today. I met Sven’s widow Dany and their Messiah friends Roger and Roger. Wicki exactly briefed my thoughts so far: whoever could fit in Sven’s shoes? In personality, in style, in reach, in stamina, in friendship maybe? It made me think of Bodyfarm, with Remco and Ralph doing the Thomas songs in their own way. It was a day of a lot of talk anyway, even Ryker’s had to cancel last minute, is Backfire really back? Grave had family business and instead of Grave performing, some all star band would do ancient death metal classics, featuring members of Lies!, Cryptic Slaughter, Burial Remains, Blood Red Throne, Graceless and Fleshcrawl! The all star band was called Lords of Flesh and these songs were played:
- Entombed – Out of Hand (with René Smit of Lies!)
- Sepultura – Inner Self (with Menno Verbaten of Cryptic Slaughter)
- Dismember – Casket Garden (Wim de Vries, Burial Remains)
- Grave – Soulless (Yngve Bolt Christensen, Blood Red Throne)
- Death – Pull the Plug (Remco)
- Bolt Thrower – For Victory (Borisz Sarafutgyinov, Fleshcrawl)
- Entombed – Eyemaster (Boris again)

I stood outside, talking to Mar (she bought Wanda’s ticket), Ivor, the Deaf Förever dudes (whoahh these guys can party! ^^ ) so I must confess I haven’t seen them myself. I liked the idea but it just was too busy inside, too important to speak and have a drink or two. Same happened when Blood Red Throne was on stage, I stood next to the tent . But the first band today was Mouflon, the Arnhem Sheep of Death Squad steamrolled the Crustbus to pieces. Loud and vile, just as death metal live should sound. The day passed so fast, it wasn’t until Fleshcrawl got to stage I found myself first row at a band. The band has changed again, as Olivier is gone now and the new man Apu Justin Reisch did a great job. Like said, my main focus was Borisz Sarafutgyinov. What an animal! Aggressive in sound, plenty of stamina and interaction all around. He’s one cool dude, that’s for sure and I totally think he’s the guy to do it. I got Manu’s set list (thank you!!) :
- Intro
- Carved in Flesh
- Bloodred Massacre
- Flesh Bloody Flesh
- Embraced by Evil
- Reincarnation
- Lost in a Grave
- Structures of Death
- After Obliteration
- From the Dead to the Living
- Soulskinner
- As Blood Rains from the Sky
- The Day Man Lost

Haha now it was Brammerman’s time to miss Fleshcrawl, as Maarten MsD stood next to me all the way. What a great band this still is, even though only Bastian is the only surviving member. Maarten got himself a shirt, as he outran me to the merch stand I would have liked to see The Queers and not so much Skitsystem, but I missed them both. Jelle had ‘found’ 7 (!) sixpacks of icecold HJ somewhere and we drank until The Toy Dolls got to stage. Tijmen had been feeling fuzzy all day and I haven’t eaten anything since my two buns this morning, I took the stand best and Tijmen had to be brought to a hospital! What the hell is this festival doing to any of my friends or myself, when people need to be brought to a friggin’hospital? Last time Jelle stagediving, now Tijmen totally dehydrated and down?? The Toy Dolls, hey it’s fun music but it was played sharp and direct. I have a small film about the entire Skullcrusher venue jumps and shouts ^^ to Big Bob’s Feet and of course Nelly the Elephant. Satisfied I get to the tent, have one more HJ and fall deeply in sleep, not bothered by cold anymore. Lonely, yeah, but slept like a prince. Only to awake with an eel in my stomach/upper throat and without much ado I head barefoot to the toilets. Our festival hero Tilly had it all cleaned and emptied again, cheers to her for her fanatical cleaning I had not eaten at all, so all what came was a little bit of stomach acid and I was all over it again. Clearly Tijmen hadn’t and he decided with Hugo to head back home… sorry dude, get well soon, tell your lovely Thea you love her (everyday) and hopefully recovery is on the way.

The bread and coffee went in smooth or at least more smooth than I expected beforehand In band it would be a busy day now: Burial Remains, Graceless, God Dethroned, Space Chaser, Mörser, Insanity Alert, Revel in Flesh, Gama Bomb, Cryptic Slaughter and Discharge to fill three stages. Burial Remains first, old school death metal, highly influenced by German and Swedish first round bands. The music comes to steam easily, the vocals low and deep, sharp HM2 buzzsaw sound, yeah we like this! Half an hour gone in seconds ^^ I stick around this tent, as Graceless was next in some 20 minutes. I saw the entire sound check and said to Remco ‘if you play one single chord now, you do know you’re playing it JUST for me, right?’ KERRRRRAAAANNNNNGGGG LOL \m/ so that’s clear ^^ Of course a set list is kept safe for me, thanks to Björn:
- We Will be Gods
- Malignant Seed
- Retaliation of the Wicked
- Shadowlands (was played for Pim and Trevor. It turned out Pim’s latest gf brought another part of his ashes to be spread? How many places will be used? I heard it later, Maarten even looked for me to be at the spreading but couldn’t find me. Another set of tears spread)
- Die on Demand
- Slashed and Served
- Blood of the Brave (a new song, maybe to be part of a CD release show in Baroeg?! We have tickets!!)
- Warpath (shouting contest between Remco and me, he wins )

What a powerful band! What a great sound, nice volume (it had been too loud the day before I heard some artists moan) and plain funFunFUN on stage too Again I stuck around for the next band, but more than a wink from Henri and a smile from Jeroen wasn’t up to me today. I needed food, especially after totally forgetting to eat yesterday ><) and skipped God Dethroned for my health I kept walking, buying merch (Bodyfarm hoodie needed Immolation, Death Angel and God Dethroned ) and talking, talking, drinking, drinking. The HJ still wasn’t done at the tent so that helped too. I returned to Skullcrusher venue for Revel in Flesh and totally got what I wanted: Real. German. Old. School. Death. Kult. Metal. The Grin was wide again, and often seen too. Behind me a small but violent pit was going on and my smile became wider and wider. Here’s Maggesson’s set list (THANK YOU)
- The Hour of the Avenger
- My Trial
- Fortress of Gloom (I wonder if I ever find my voice again )
- Death Kult Legions
- Shadowbreeder
- Emissary of all Plagues
- Casket Ride
- Deathblow
- Nihilistic Nothingness
- In the Name of the Flesh (why do I think about Sven now, again?)
- Rock Out (Motörhead cover)

Another great death metal show was presented to us, like said a nice pit to widen Haubersson’s smile, making him even more fanatic in his growls ^^ and even Maggesson was spotted totally confident about the coolness of this show. In the meantime I heard Insanity Alert did a great set, as the Run to the Pit sign was in the Revel in Flesh pit and Space Chaser made friends, but I both have seen just a glimpse of these bands. I’m fine with that, just like saying hello to Philly Byrns and heading out again. In a sort of the same way I also missed Discharge but really wanted to see Violator. Not with Ronald present, I was in the back he was probably in front of the stage but I liked it. Sharp thrash metal, combining Suicidal Angels vocal lines including accent, Ratos de Porão interludes and hyperspeed old Sepultura and a raging crowd. Clearly it was a good idea to put this band near headliner status, as the Punkhol was too small to hold the entire crowd going nuts. I also only glimpsed Cryptic Slaughter but didn’t have the fire to get inside once more. I heard some familiar tunes and thought ‘drive back to Wanda tomorrow’ and went back to the tent. I didn’t need Spasm nor At the Gates, leave that to Kees and Ed It was so nice to see so many friends again, I think I sent Wanda some 50 selfies of all people wishing her the best I invited some more friends to my birthday party and dozed off…

No need to lay under three denims, I could have used my airplane eye blinds but couldn’t find them so quickly. So, I awoke when the sun got up and tried to keep sleeping which thickly failed. I heard some rumbling noises but knew it wasn’t until 9 that the bus would bring us to our cars. Funnily enough Maarten’s car stood directly next to mine ^^ and I drove off, fed and watered. The bread didn’t go down well so I kept it with just one instead of two, coffee brought me to a Hoogeveen gas station where I found a full wallet on a bench. Ms. AW van Duinkerken must miss her entire stack of money, bank cards, train service, company saving cards and driver’s license… I brought it to the counter and hope she can retrieve it.

The tent is dry again, the sleeping bag swift, the Laundromat can wait till tomorrow. I have an extra day off and use that Metal Tavern filled again, a shave, shower, voetbal to be seen (last round, PEC Zwolle went down last week, see who’s the second relegated team… Metal first with a laugh, a shout and a tear. Metal.

Logon or register if you want to react to https://metal-tavern.proboards.com/thre ... -graceless

Download Festival 2022, Castle Donington, UK (Saturday)

It's been quite a while since I attended any festivals, even on a day ticket. But it's Maiden, it's Donington, you kind of have to go really. Especially considering some of their current setlist choices (read on for more details).

Stayed overnight at a friend's near Nottingham. Drove down on Saturday morning and parked the car at East Midlands Parkway station (£4 for the day, pretty reasonable) before getting the shuttle bus (£12 return, not quite so reasonable, but fuck it) to the festival gates.

After a lengthy walk to the arena, I realised that in my eagerness to beat the crowds I'd probably got in a little too early, as there were very few bands I wanted to see until after 3pm or so. Oh well... it was a nice day, and good for sitting out in the sunshine and engaging random people in conversation near the beer tent. Spent a good few hours chatting to a friendly Scottish guy and his pals. About 4pm (I meant to see Black Label Society, but was just chatting too much), my new acquaintances went off to one of the tent stages, and I went to get some food (hog roast baguette, incredibly unreasonable price), before watching Shinedown for a bit. I'm not familiar with this band at all; they seemed to be a sort of emo tinged anthemic hard rock group, and TBH they were OK. I've certainly sat through a lot worse. By now the sun was out and I fancied an ice cream, so headed over to the nearest van and enjoyed my purchase before watching some of Deftones set.

I'm not a huge fan of Deftones much and they seemed to start their set rather slowly at first. Things picked up when they played 'Be Quiet and Drive' and 'My Own Summer' back to back; these are about the only two songs of theirs I like (from what I've heard of their repertoire), so it was handy to hear them one after the other, as I could then wander off to the Dogtooth tent stage for the first band I was interested in seeing: Napalm Death.

Napalm had actually started their set early for some reason (in contrast to the main stage which seemed to be running half an hour late for most of the day), so I'm not certain how much of their performance I actually saw; being at the back of the crowd it was a little difficult to get a good view of the band as well. Still, what I saw was very enjoyable; Napalm's music across their career has an enjoyably bezerk, full on vibe to it that is only accentuated in its delivery by the sociopolitical messages in the lyrics. This was the third time I've seen them live and what always impresses me about them is how supremely on it they are across the board. It just doesn't let up from start to finish. Good cathartic, energetic stuff and the closing one two of 'Scum' and 'Nazi Punks Fuck Off' was a great way to sign off and leave the crowd invigorated.

Next up on the same stage was Sepultura. This has to be, I think, the longest gap I've gone between seeing the same band live - I've seen them three times before, but the last time was in 2007. They hadn't lost any intensity in the intervening years, however, as they came onstage and opened with 'Arise' and then 'Territory' which got me properly headbanging for the first time that day. Some newer songs off the most recent album were then played which I wasn't familiar with but which sounded pretty great, then a blistering 'Propaganda' got the hair flying again. The whole band were great but particularly Kisser and Green; I've always had respect for them both as Green is a great frontman who has now been in the band for twice as long as Max was and Kisser helped to write most of the classic songs and is a musician who has always managed to retain his integrity over the years. Regrettably, I had to leave before the set ended as I wanted to get myself in a good position to watch Maiden. But still, this was a very enjoyable performance and perhaps the most pleasant surprise I've had gig going in some time. Sepultura still very much have it. Go see them.

So then, Iron Maiden. My fifteenth time seeing them (have attended every tour since 2003), and playing Donington for the seventh time in total. I took some time getting a good spot to watch the band - near one of the sound towers, but just enough up the incline to get a good enough view of the stage and the big screens.

You know, there isn't anything quite like it in rock when the PA stops playing the interlude tunes and the first notes of UFO's 'Doctor Doctor' drift through the speakers. The anticipation builds and builds...... the audience become much more alert, and watch the stage intently.... and then it's MAIDEN time!

In all honesty, once the band took the stage, things started a little more slowly than usual. Maiden are still touring the 'Legacy of the Beast' career-spanning set, but have now rearranged things somewhat so proceedings now began with the first three songs off the 'Senjutsu' album. I don't mind the new record, but I happen to think Maiden's studio peak was 'A Matter Of Life And Death' and they aren't going to top that one any time soon. But still, 'Senjutsu', 'Stratego' and 'The Writing On The Wall' all sounded pretty good live (particularly TWOTW) - the main issue was the pacing and song placement in the context of the show as a whole. It felt like the band came out, played a three song showcase set of the new album, then spent a couple of minutes changing the backdrop and stage set before starting on the show proper.

Things then got going properly, however, with a great rendition of 'Revelations' and then 'Blood Brothers' marked the point where the show truly gained some steam. I've heard and seen quite a few renditions of 'Blood Brothers' before, but none had quite the emotional resonance of this one. As Dickinson highlighted, there's a lot of shit going on in the world, and the past few years have not been great to say the least, and Maiden is the antidote to all that. So this time, the lyrics and soaring guitar lines of the song really hit home on a deeper level with the crowd than I can remember.

But the next song was even better, and where the set basically cooked from that point on. 'Sign Of The Cross' is in this reviewer's opinion not only Iron Maiden's best song but one of the greatest metal songs ever written, and to witness it played in its full glory live is a very special treat indeed. I went wild for this one; I was either headbanging and air guitaring like crazy or drinking it all in. Definitely the highlight of the day, and as I mentioned above it was noting this song in the setlists for the tour that confirmed my decision to attend the show.

Well that was wonderful, and from then on the set just built into a classic Maiden performance. The usual setlist highlights and crowd pleasers were all present and correct, and the band's performance was (as expected from Maiden) consistently great. It was hard to pick highlights, given the general energy and vibe of the set, but I'd say a frankly joyful 'Flight Of Icarus' (which the band seem to really be energised by playing live), a stomping 'Number Of The Beast' and 'Iron Maiden' and the very welcome appearance of 'The Clansman' in the encore (screw the VXI haters, this song rocks) were the standouts on the night. 'Fear Of The Dark' got a predictably joyous reaction from the crowd, and I found it enjoyable as usual, but I really would like it if the band went back to playing this particular song as fast as possible like they did in the 90s, instead of the slightly more measured tempo it's done at today. Likewise, while it was enjoyable to hear 'Aces High' in the second encore, it was clear to me that with this particular song the band seemed slightly slower than when I'd previously seen them play it live.

This song was the exception, though. Yes, the years are advancing somewhat, but Iron Maiden's performance levels are still pretty much up there with the best of them, and frankly they still outdo most bands of the past few decades in the live arena. I hope they can keep it up at this level for a while yet.

It was hard for me to know where to rank this performance in relation to the other times I've seen Maiden; not in the top 5 but not too far outside that. Most of all, thought, it was a very enjoyable day, despite the usual issues with large scale festivals of pricing etc., though I will say the general organisation of Download seemed pretty good this year; that said I was only there for the day and not camping.

Back to my car at midnight and then back to another night on my friend's sofa bed via McDonalds; a good day out despite the sunburn.

The Graceless Hordes of Westwoud – De Schalm, June 11th 2022

A question: how many of my readers ever organized a party? Most, I guess. But how many organized a party with a band? Still, quite a few I think. But how many organized a party with a band when reaching a certain age, in a bar? I don’t think so many did, but I won’t claim originality in this hihi. Let’s say I wanted to bring an A+-band to my hometown when I turned 50. When I had my 40-Years-Metalhead-Party in my backyard (2018) I could BBQ with all my family and friends, as the band was still unknown and the first demo had or just had not been released. First question when Mutator picked up their gear was ‘Next year Asphyx?’ I know it was meant as a joke as most people do know they won’t come for, say, less than 5 grand in euros and even though we’re both mad hatters about Asphyx, this was beyond me and beyond us. I kept walking around with an idea and it was Marc Verhaar, drummer of Graceless and Soulburn that brought the idea to life: I just ask Graceless! I was rigid in my idea to get the band a gage they deserve, bring in a BBQ for them, might even organize a couple of shirts and that’s it. But, in time, when the band’s festival season was announced, it got to me a bit. I saw their name on the Into the Grave festival bill and asked again ‘will you guys play at my party?’ “Yeah, we do, just make sure you have some sort of a backline present and bring in drums. We come directly from Leeuwarden to your place and have no room for the entire drum kit, hardly any speakers, let alone a mixing board. ” Now it was time for my friends to help me once; I’d been helping hundreds of times to get people tickets, to shows, abroad and back. BUT I DON’T HAVE EQUIPMENT. Three well chosen calls later I could pick up a drum kit from Daan Vet (formerly known as KISSandCOOPER on MRU) and a vocal installation; the cabinets and wiring will be taken care of by (Mutator-)ShreddedEd and Maarten MsD! And the band did not overrun their gage, so Wanda offered to pay it for my birthday! The bar would be €25 per person, shirts will cost me some €300; that’s no big deal to me. This would be the very, very first death metal show ever in Westwoud!! We agreed not to bring in a second band as I wanted people be able to talk and with a guitarist that would start a fistfight with me… nah.

But then the great organizing still had to take place. Who do we invite? Is the bar available and what will Roel ask? I’d said I’d arrange shirts, so I had to make sure the band agreed me to use the logo. I’d said I’d arrange ear plugs in case my family’s youngest would be present… I’d rather make myself a flyer as well, easy to spread. I knew beforehand the shirts would take at least two weeks, the flyer was done in an hour and so on. I picked up Ed’s Marshall cabinet on Friday as well as the drum kit, even though I had to cross West-Friesland entirely. Marc told me they wanted a 6x3 m stage, but De Sschalm only had 6x2… so I went all over Noord-Holland but to no success.. Marc wasn’t worried. Pfoei. I even went back to De Schalm twice to make sure all work had been done from different sides – food, tables, amounts, choices of booze and (finger-) food and the likes.

Inviting friends also had a bit of a problem: it’s Summertime aka festival time! Jürgen and Sylvia – couldn’t come celebrate his and my birthday together – were on Chronical Moshers. Iris and Bernd – Bernd couldn’t get another day off. Andrée and Käthe – split up. No good idea to bring them together on my party. Martin van Drunen – out of the country with Asphyx, he certainly wanted to come! To some it was too far, unreachable by train/bus/... and the next problem: of the two B&B’s in the village one is sold to a private soul and won’t serve guests anymore. Steenwijk friends Bart and Rob got in touch the last days, they got a list of campings and B&B’s to choose. I chose to invite my voetbal- and scoutingfriends of old: the ones that got me into metal and the ones I had my first discussions about Feyenoord vs. Ajakkes with that might unite some ancient friends of my brothers as well. Bring in Hans and Hender, who brought me Exodus, Venom, Hallow’s Eve and Tyrant after my brothers had Maiden and Final Heiress. I might even invite the collectors of the Epilepsis fund, that was meant as a thank you ánd nice to my sister Marleen, as she’s befriended to Nicolet and (former punk-) Frits ^^. Invite Erik Hendriks and surprise him with a shirt nearly no one else has :cool: .

Friday was a. a busy day at work and b. a tour c. exhausting and d. gone in seconds ^^ Saturday started with Fleshcrawl – As Blood Rains From the Sky… We Walk the Path of Endless Fire – it was Sven’s first death anniversary. I wanted to hang at least one Svenson Gross shirt in the bar, bring in a picture of Pim as well, so I needed to get a few pictures printed – last minute of course. I had a hint Wanda got stressed out so I let her alone for at least an hour – swim. The drum kit had been shattered in the living room, so I got that into the car again. Wanda said ‘that speaker set can’t stay in the car, it’s too humid tonight’ so the car began the Saturday empty Maarten and Brammerman got to De Schalm in time so we unloaded his Dacia together; Roel had been there since a few minutes… he knows the Van Kampen quarter of an hour all too well ^^ and he’d set the stage… ‘oh that will do’ I thought. When an unknown car opened up we were a bit worried: a three man delegation of a four man band? Where’s Remco? Turned out he’d been texting Marc ‘when do we have to be there?’ “Actually in 20 minutes LOL he’d been so hung over of the Into the Grave show he still was in Leeuwarden. Fun fact: Maarten had to take out the back seats to ‘Tetris all equipment in’ HA HA HA. Roel’s wife made sure we had homemade burgers and self-cut fries, it was delicious. Remco just ‘stormed‘ in about five minutes before the table was set Grumpy, hungover, but he was in time..enough

I had said ‘8 PM doors, 9 PM band, 10 PM talk on’ and that didn’t really go as planned. I knew my friends of old Johannes and R-Whin had a belated wedding party so they were gone before the band started. My USB-with-feast-music was greeted by many, as I had about everything between Pé en Rinus (Z streep S. I. D. E. to Carcass (which hightened both MsD and Thirza lol). And yeah, every faze in my life passed by. My family – most of them, Rens – from Kindergarten – Normaal [brought by his wife Eke, one of my collectors for the Epilepsis fund], Scouting/Voetbal – 6 of them!, Kamiel and Marcel – they sat behind me at math class but instead of doing math work they copied the logos from my shirts to a parchment I got this birthday :cool: , an on the moment WhatsApp message from Jeroen – he’s in Scotland, my bosom friend Clemens made it in time – that was one of the reasons to bring ear plugs, he might bring his 9-year old son, the Steenwijk Clan, Jordy and Kim present – he got me a 7x2 m Neurotic Deathfest banner as gift!, my colleagues (both the from water board and Frank K from the regional environmental board – he was in a Vital Remains shirt at a nationwide seminar on pesticides and I thought ‘I have to speak to him’ in my Dynamo Open Air shirt – over 10 years of friendship, metal and beer. Now whiskey ). From Ed, who contacted Wanda as he’s totally broke but did bring in Gaby my Eastern German metal bud I got THREE hand drawn pictures of the Great Three of Serial Killers – Gacy, Bundy, Gein ; Dahmer already has been present in my kitchen for several years). Need I go on? The table with the presents nearly collapsed, and that wasn’t because of the band starting.

As for the gig and the set list I have to rely on videos sent via WA and Messenger… I refused to miss one second of the gig and had another broken camera glass… and no paper/pen. The little movies my sister Gemma made were of some help:
- Retaliation of the Wicked (headbangers and pitters united)
- Lugdunum Batavorum
- Shadowlands
- We Will be Gods (instead of We bow to no one – We bow to Herman \m/ )
- Embrace the Rain (me, Thirza, Wanda and the band remembering Sven Gross and Pim V in tears)
- Blood of the Brave (Alex and Thirza in swirl pit )
- Die on Demand (kiler pit going on)
- I have to find out a way to get to the last movies, maybe later. In what order – who cares?

But how do you grade a band that plays literally FOR YOU?? It was great to have them, on my party, in my town, on my terms, what else can you say than ‘FUCKING GREAT!!! AWESOMENESS!! KILLER!’? It was such a pleasure to me and the band, it’s hard to describe. Going into a pit with not one but two of my brothers? Wanda back on stomping ground? Thirza’s world famous swirl pit? Maarten freaking out to the fact his equipment ALL worked, even though he had to put the band’s effect box in front of the bass drum as it swirled across the tiny stage? :cool: 70 people satisfied, the band overenthusiast, metalheads freaking out, bar personnel giving compliments to us ‘they all seem so black and bearded and rough, but they’re so LOVELY’ After the band had stopped, I jumped on stage and thanked everybody around: Wanda, the band, Maarten, Daan, Ed, my family, my long time friends and colleagues (mentioning literally every period in my life, I found out emotional) and general interest. Even my former boss showed up! The Steenwijk Clan! The Bovenkarspel Boys! De Spanbroek Metalheads! Wanda’s aunt and niece! Not strange to mention the final beer at 1 AM lasted longer as there were even more scouting friends present and they NEEDED to do an afpils with my gang… Heiny after a ditch of Amstel and Skuumkoppe wasn’t the best idea LOL and even after that it didn’t end. Like Dynamo Open Air days we went on at my place, finding a crate of HJ on my doorstep. Then the light came and my lights were out. Exhausted. Maarten and Brammerman kipped at my attic, Erik Hendriks on the couch: he had freezing business early in the day and couldn’t drive without sleeping at least three hours. During the night Brammerman and Maarten had filled the Dacia again but didn’t dear driving one single meter

But… of course I still had to get my presents, the milk barrel with the envelops and the drum kit. I had agreed to be there at ten, but eleven it became. Roel wasn’t worried and thanked me again for the smooth encounter with death metal he had had. My former colleague Ronald even called some now-colleagues of mine ‘death metal virgins’ hahaha. The bill wasn’t as big as I expected, as Roel chose to keep the food out of the account and I was thankful for that. One exception: he wanted a The Graceless Hordes of Westwoud shirt as well LOL. At home we had to split the ordering of the presents in twos and threes, as it was simply too much to handle! When I emptied the milk barrel I was shy to count the money, so much was given!! The drum kit was delivered in time, as was the last cabinet. When I got the milk barrel back to Johannes, he and his wife Tanja agreed to each other, without knowing they did, they should have turned the route upside down. They had a postponed wedding party with R-Whin and Bianca, but came home sour: apart from the wedding couple and ONE mutual friend they knew NO ONE. Look at my party: half the village was present, so it seemed. Shwoah, you can’t have it all my friend but thanks for lending me the milk barrel and the ‘compliment’ you both made me and my party. The only one that was honestly bad tempered was Frits, as the low riffing and vocal abuse cut through him like a blunt blade (he later told me and I thanked him for his honesty)

In short, this was a hell of a job to get everything and everybody together, but it was friggin’worth every drop of sweat, ounce of diesel, hair of stress and short fight between that first step and the final emptying of the living room Putting down a guest book was one of the best things of it all, as people could get personal to me and I could remember who wanted another shirt and in what size. It’s so beautiful to see how people react to me, Wanda, the years and the party, it gives me the good cold shivers and goose bumps every time I look at the binding and the papers inside. Alex provided me with an USB-stick to deliver to Marc coming weekend, as we see Graceless destroy Protzen Open Air. Metal has been around for 50 years, as am I now. Metal!! And friggin’proud of it.

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Protzen Open Air 2021, June 18-20, Germany; Venom Inc, Benediction, Graceless

I don’t know if it happens a lot, but sometimes you come across a festival that a. is too good to be true,
b. awesome from A to Z,
c. not that expensive,
d. great scenery
e. many friends present so f. sold out before you can say ‘cool’. In this case it’s Protzen Open Air, within cycling distance of Berlin, only 1,000 tickets available via 7 different ticket bookings. Let’s not get grumpy about fourteen years of great line ups that passed before lobbying to get to a festival, intensive texting, fussing about triple bookings OTHERS made, abusing Wanda's FB, waiting, nail polishing (hey, I don’t bite ), thumbscrewing… we finally got the confirmation mail from organizer Mario (THANK YOU FOR THE DEAL AND THE EFFORT!!). Also a big thank you to our friends in Grand Supreme Blood Court, Graceless, Revel in Flesh and Fleshcrawl for saying nice things about us ^^ Pity the confirmation came with a storm of condolences for fellow organizer Enni, who died just the same day… R.I.P. (I think we met once, at PartySan or at Brutz&Brakel, ‘when you come to play, you leave as friends’, Martin van Drunen said in condolence). So this review is for Enni.

But as the 2020 edition had to be postponed, a lot of the most interesting bands had to be replaced… no GSBC, no Berserker Legion, no LIK, no Gods Forsaken, no Chapel of Disease and a few others… we go anyway. The camping would open Thursday at 5 PM but we might need to replace parts on our central heating system? Uhh can’t we pick a new date? I was happy not to have to drive deep into the night to get to Protzen, or even need a motel along the way, we drove at 10 AM. Coming across the border, the first Stau took place, not 5 km into Germany… all and all we had friggin’8 (!) traffic jams, taking up to three hours extra in total to get to the camping… of course including my hobby and forgetting stuff: Ceefax had told us the temperatures could reach 30 – 35 degrees Celsius, hardly a cloud to be seen and what do I forget: sun tan lotion! That’s of Friday worry, first get the tent standing. I was so sure I had packed a hammer for the tent pegs, Wanda was furious there was none… but help is never far away on a metal fest… Bea and Martine helped us and Wanda cooled down… tonight there’d only be a metal DJ but it’s a good one: sing-alongs, heavy stuff, the wrong stuff from Abba to Abbath and reversed Wanda greatly enjoyed both the Juni Käfer and the beautiful colors of sunset ^^ Bea ‘warned’ is to keep the car next to the tent so the ‘Berliners’ wouldn’t pick our space. It wasn’t that bad, as I awoke so early there wasn’t anyone but us and Protzeners around I let Wanda sleep and drove up to Fehrbellin for sun tan lotion, cucumbers, bananas, cheese and the likes. We’d need our vitamins and fluids anyhow… it was already warm.

Coffee and fennel tea made us wake up the right way. The first band did everything to undo that, as Brlabl played stoner of the wrong kind… off vocals, no lyrics but some sort of chants, no tight drumming, mixing some technical stuff in it… totally off of course. The singer COULD have improved it when he’d just shut up but alas. The Graceless boys had arrived too, they’d been cutting the trip in twos: Hannover first, hotel, off to Protzen, play twice (Remco and Jasper) and a hotel in the village. But without sun tan lotion, so to make sure no one got burnt they all used my freshly bought lotion LOL. Fun fact: Bea told us we’d be the only Dutch paying visitors this weekend and after walking the camping I know she’s right: this is an unique experience for us AND the Protzeners Protzen Open Air has a stage in the form of the Romney shed but now outside. I spoke to several visitors about previous editions and they all agreed ‘it’s better it’s in the open now, think of seeing your favorite band Napalm Death and you CAN’T enter the shed anymore… too full’. The second band today was Norkh, another newie to us. We liked it, as it was a nice cross of Nifelheim and Deströyer 666 in spikes, speed, sound and attitude. Great band; have to find something of them. Not much bands had merch to show anyway, there were two CD shops with such illegible logos and unknown bands we even skipped their patch sections Festival shirts were only available from the beginning of the evening and it was strange to see all older shirts had logos on the back but this year’s edition does not??

OK, time for a beer with two men I’ve seen several times before but can’t remember the names somehow. The third band today was Succubus from Neuruppin, Germany, only a few km away from Protzen. MA says ‘melodic death metal’, I’d say powermetal with a tiny hint of death in it. Interested? https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Succubus/11371 We’d come for Graceless and got the full experience: set up, sound check, AC/DC intro, cheers, set list, guitar picks to spread out ‘we have most of them double anyway’ :cool: and a band, once again in top form, greatly balanced set and loads of approval from the visitors. I wrote the titles but Jasper prohibited me to use the scribble ^^
- We Will Be Gods
- Malignant Seed
- Retaliation of the Wicked
- Shadowlands
- Slashed and Served
- Blood of the Brave
- Revenge Us (announced as ‘we normally don’t play this song anymore, but for you Swedes [pointing into the crowd] we have to’ – big grins from stage and audience :cool:
- Warpath

Panting, sweating, arms being put I normal position once more, dehydrated and sore-throated we retreated to the shadow of the parasols, ate, coffee, tea (‘we don’t have boiling water anymore’ said the 17-year old sniffy until co-organizer Big Bert got a kettle of water instantly “für unsere einzige Hollandische gäste” :cool: – we’d made an impression so it seemed ^^) In the meantime Purgatory (https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Purgatory/13227 ) bored the browning bile out of me. I’d seen them before on Stonehenge so many years ago, only thing I remembered was that I liked the logo but hated the music. Today it’s not different from Steenwijk. The audience must have heard me, as they managed to empty the dry grass pit in front of the stage while the band oohed an ahhhed a lot I got back to the tent to see the camping around us was filled, indeed, with Berliner cars. Some doof man called Ollie needed to remark ‘hey Dutchie, do you have something to smoke for me?’ and couldn’t even notice my ‘uhgghh-feeling’ when asking. I said I quit smoking 20 years ago ‘and not eager to start again’. Clearly Ollie had sniffed the green leaf a bit too often and the self bought cans of Warsteiner were abundantly abused. He had to show me his Graceless- and Hail of Bullets-tattoos, but both were set in haste…lines that ought to be straight were wobbly and lines that needed to be wobbly were even worse. He has his own way of apologizing to me but don’t try 17 times, hobo >< Being accompanied by Graceless members we got our share of ‘Ollie following Graceless all around Germany’-stories but agreed to avoid him where possible >< Meanwhile, the darker beer overpowered the light beer and Revel in Flesh set stage. Wanda was sitting in the shadow, telling me to fanboy Ralf my own way. I had no need to join the pit, as I just wanted to see the band from all directions. The set list revolved around my favorite RiF tunes like Fortress of Gloom, Death Kult Legion, Shadowbreeder and In the Name of the Flesh, before Rock Out finished the normal set. The band played so sharp and so fast they had time for another encore :cool: for their fourth (!) visit to Protzen. Clearly Magesson and Haubersson have made friends there, after the show their merch booth was sold out, apart from M-sized shirts. They have a very cool new shirt to sell, but with these German fans around all sizes bigger than XXL were gone halfway the set. Patches… yeah you know we’re of the sewing kind Graceless also had new patches to sell. Not the ‘hanged men’- theme luckily, but cool stuff from the split with… Revel in Flesh :cool:

I didn’t understand quite why Remco was so nervous after his own set, but it turned out I’d completely forgotten he was to perform another gig today: Just Before Dawn also played Protzen Open Air 2022!! The project, as Jasper called it (and he was right) normally does focus on creating studio music and live shows are rare to say the least. Rare as in ‘Remco needed the lyric sheet of every song’,’every song had a bump to start correctly’ and ‘guest singers abundant’. Wanda called them The Gibson Twins, featuring similar caps, beards, jackets and guitars: a Gibson Flying V and an Explorer, both painted cream – black and similar belts/buckles. They’re not related but if you see them go you’ll never be sure which person it is Kreft is clearly happy halfway the set, as he shouts he’s the ‘luckiest man alive to play with several bands on this cool festival’ I have to reply “Where’s Soulburn then?” ‘nah, two bands is enough’ LOL. Remco and Jasper move on stage like they always do, but the non-brothers Biazzi and Myrin only lose focus when people move around them. Add an hyperactive Dave Ingram to that chaos and Remco nearly lost an eye giving room to Dave. Remco manages to give a cool salute to Sven Gross once more and Just Before Dawn finishes a special, not to say unique show. How? Playing ‘Soulburner’ with Remco and Dave singing together.

Time for fanboys is plenty available. I get a compliment for my Neckwreckers set (it had been too hot to wear shirt + patches during the day, the shirt was soaking so I ended the evening bare chested with my Neckwreckers set present) in the form of a tiny bottle of schnapps and cream liqueur, some taps on my shoulders, Ollie trying to piss me off by wanting the Nailgun Massacre (!) bass pick I got from Jasper [after the JBD show; ‘it’s an old one’ “but I’m over the moon happy with it” ], and people wanting my pen to make Graceless members sign whatever they just bought. I’m cool with that, as Björn makes us all laugh wearing my Feyenoord cap… imagine a Hagenese Ajakkesfan with The Right Cap LOL. Benediction had taken the stage, after Peter Rewinksi and Dave had been providing drinks and signatures to everyone around, all day long . It’s so good to see the band on stage again, Dave on the place where he belongs, no offense to Dave Hunt nor Barney Greenway of course; but Dave Ingram is THE Benediction singer. The band does a cross of their entire career in the best way: I heard Dreams you Dread, Subconscious Terror, The Grand Leveller and Grind Bastard being mentioned before heading back to the tent. We didn’t even know another band was scheduled, but it turned out to be a Hypocrisy tribute named Chaos and Confusion. Wanda doesn’t have as much with Hypocrisy as I do, so we plug in the ear plugs and doze off. I heard several hits (Roswell, Pleasure, Disclosure and so on) before falling asleep. It had been a good day. Too warm, but good.

Ehh did I say good day? Wanda lost it entirely the following morning. She had trouble standing, sitting, walking, eating, drinking so one storm of temper made me decide to bail out and empty the tent, toss it into the car and drive… Her tears went right to my soul and all I could do was ‘I bring you home safely’ and I did. Instead of sitting in the car for another 10, 11 hours we drove some seven and a half. Only traffic jam we encountered was near Hamburg (again, but now only one instead of three) and pulling over for diesel, coffee and salami At home I could plunder my self-imported Faxe cans (with another Viking motive, yay!) and have one afpils before calling it a night. The tent hung to dry, the memory foam mattress was in its normal form, sleeping bags aired and the first Laundomat rolled. All I needed for the Sunday was a shave, Chinese, voetbal and MT, but there’s no voetbal and I can’t see Chinese happening after so much Bratwurst ^^ DEUTSCHLAND IST METAL!

Oh yeah the Saturday would hold Venom Inc., Fleshcrawl, Skeletal Remains and some bands I'm hardly familiar with. Fine. Wanda is safe, that's enough.

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Gatecreeper, Graceless, Mouflon Baroeg, Rotterdam

Gatecreeper is a band that got to me as an Iron Reagan fan. They have released a split CD together, which I liked a lot and the CD Sonoran Deprevation gets regular spins. That they would do a European tour was a good point, bringing in Graceless and Mouflon for a Baroeg date was even better! We’d sleep in Barendrecht once more and via De Pint on our way to Spinozaweg 300 In the last weeks before the show it was announced that the evening would also give place to a charity for the Neurofibromatosis fund, selling Vieze Pim’s shirts and music collection. Details would follow swiftly, was the information. Fine. With Protzen’s heat clearly remembered, we were to travel early, so we’d have all the time to recuperate from heat exhaustion… but it wasn’t that bad. I brought 4 drive shirts, but didn’t need any all the route ^^ Well-nourished at De Pint we got a taxi and his phone number for the return. In pouring rain, no heat to be found, we got to Baroeg.

Between the smokers we entered the venue, already looking to anything that might be interesting. Wanda even found a Pissectomy CD (but didn’t know about it, so she left it ) and I enlarged my collection buying CDs of Necrophobic (The Nocturnal Silence - this album used to be one of Sven Gross’favorites as well!), DeadHead, Bloodphemy and an original Persecution Mania. The shirts gave a lot of people shivers, as they were worn by Pim himself. We picked three and have some fine ideas how to use them. Wanda tried the Demolition Hammer shirt, but as he was wearing M mostly and sometimes L, nah. We have other goals for these items. In the meantime Mouflon was setting stage for another steamroller death metal show. The sound was awesome, the smoke machine might be a bit too enthusiast but the band clearly has a great set in mind for us. As if Obituary was poured into a concrete mixer and its gears jammed on maximum velocity :cool: The first solo even had a hint of blues (!) to it. Very good gig!

Just before the Graceless gig we spoke to Remco about the new CD to come. The band got an exceptionally warm welcome by means of an original Baroeg mosh pit. Between the concrete poles people of all sizes, hair lengths and some ‘spiked like Nifelheim’ gave a violent display how lively death metal is in The Netherlands :cool: An excellent gig was followed by two surprises: In Warpath Marc hit his big China to oblivion; before any sign of an encore he grabbed it and ran to me, handing it over with a big smile ‘there you go, fanboy’ :cool: and Jasper wants us to fill his new denim :cool: . He’d heard about the Erik Hendriks denim and wanted it done like that :cool: by us :cool: Details follow Wanda picked the set list off Björn’s stack:
- Die on Demand
- Malignant Seed
- Retaliation of the Wicked (simultaneous banging of the band and audience, what a great sight!!)
- Shadowlands (I get Dikke Kimberly a Graceless patch as she knows Graceless was one of Pim’s favorite bands)
- Revenge Us – oooohhh that Bolt Thrower feel makes my hairs stand up \m/
- Blood of the Brave – Remco suggests a prize poll for the new album title. First one I hear: Scream Bloody Remco
- Embrace the Rain – embraced by both Kimberly and Wanda
- Warpath – what an explosion of the good violence! [see remark on China LOL]

Gatecreeper didn’t need much to make Baroeg explode once more. The modern, American cross of Fleshcrawl, Necrophobic and Motörhead kills instantly, loud, sharp and well recognized by a nearly sold out Baroeg. I don’t have any song titles but I’m sure every song gets a real cheer and a thankful crowd. The mosh pits go on and off, we’re everywhere to be found: at the stage, at the merch stand, at the bar and near the decreasing collection of Pim. I think the Neurofibromatosis fund gets a well-earned amount of money and people move out with their hands full and their eyes watered. I felt Pim’s presence several times this night. When I got HJ for me and Weizener for Wanda I looked up and smiled. I spoke to several of his friends, including the bands performing and not a bad note was dropped. We picked up the China, our bag with ‘new’ CDs and shirts, but not the lost cap (see Thanatos review) and the gig manager refused to do anything to get a show poster for us. Fine. What irritated us as well, we’d called the taxi again and sitting in one, we got three calls where we were? By three different taxi drivers? Come on, even brushing my teeth at De Gaanderij the phone went… Screw that. I deleted the number and get another company next time we arrive at De Pint blah blah blah. After a bit of a short night we got an excellent Gaanderij breakfast and doing my hobby for the 7,968th time we drove home via Utrecht instead of Den Haag. Fine. Typing this I heard the Necrophobic- and the DeadHead CDs and know why Pim and Sven liked these so much \m/ Another surprise awaited us at home: our neighbor Julian insisted us to accept a crate full of rock, metal, kids stuff and scent candles because they’re expanding the attic soon… movies about Maja de Bij, AC/DC, Johnny Cash and more expanded our (and Thirza’s… not going to listen to Limp Bizkit any time soon >< ) collection with some 100 titles… not metal but thankful we will watch and listen those. Creep into the Graceless Gates filled with Mouflon… metal!

P.S. oh yeah, on Kreft’s birthday it was released the new Graceless CD is named Chants from Purgatory \m/ a sure buy for us. Happy Birthday to our friend!
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Stonehenge 2022, feat. Suffocation, Bodyfarm, July 30th, Stationsplein Steenwijk

This edition of Stonehenge festival would hold a novelty: not just in a few bands that had not done Steenwijk before, but I’d bring my blues-lovin’ brother Toon to his very first real metal festival ever! Note, he’d seen AC/DC, Metallica, Iron Maiden and some (mostly AC/DC-) tribute bands, but his core love is blues. R. Gallagher, S.R. Vaughan, A/B.B. King and J. Healey; he’d seen them more often than I’d seen Suffocation, for example. Some bands have frequented Stonehenge, like Suffocation, Misery Index, Beheaded, Benighted, Sinister and Bodyfarm, some are new to these grounds (Samael, LIK, Helslave and so on.) So, as a result of our Thirzastruck app group I’d get us all tickets. Early birds bought in October 2019, then some single ones for an as big as possible joining at B&B Blitterswijk; I had 7 tickets. But, in a friendly move, Tom got Maarten MsD’s ticket (vacation with the family) and Wanda would not be able to stand the temperatures and lack of shadow… FB is our friend (never tell anyone I say that quite often lately ) Johnny Amsterdam soon reacted, as did Bert Schimmel, later reactants had to be disappointed… But Johnny isn’t the best planner too, as he’d agreed to be picked up at Hoogkarspel train station, Toon would come from Ommen camping (named The Werewolf hihi) and Bert wouldn’t be in Steenwijk before halfway the afternoon… bring in the phones again >< Alex would bring Peter Lord Belial and Thirza, I thought I’d have Wanda, Toon and Johnny around but no. I drive alone this time;pick up Johnny near Lelykstad and on. 9 o’clock sharp in Scheerwolde, we’d agree. Kees and Alicia would drive early too, see if we can join taxi once more. Gezellig!

The coffee was good, family happy and a taxi was called. We arrived at the entrance at just the moment Insurrection thanked the crowd so we’d missed Black Rabbit and Insurrection. Ahh finally ‘good’ wrist bands, now linen instead of plastic paper. Good, both my Dutch Denim as my Holland Hoodie get Stonehenge, Tom immediately offered to rip off his whenever we’d return to Blitterswijk. First, get coins and my round was the first one Putrefied Corpse was the first band we did see. The death/grind of Arno and his friends sounded fresh to me, like Napalm Death; musically in ‘Enslavement’-era but then with Repulsion-like vocals. Good starter! Toon soon mentioned ‘all vocals sound alike’, but after Indominus he already softened that to ‘ahh there IS difference in style‘ ^^ By the time Sodomized Cadaver came to stage, I already had seven selfies to show Wanda Indominus sounded way to technical for my likings, but the band did get some positive respons (aka people didn’t really walk away ) Sodomized Cadaver plays some cross between Immolation and old Gorguts. But the sun was merciless, so Toon and Alex both bought a Bloodphemy cap, not knowing what to expect in this band. They got the full ‘I like Messiah Marcolin so I wear a monks’ pie too and sing anti-religiously’ It was near noon, so I didn’t stay long for Bloodphemy and was negatively surprised by what the snack car brought as ‘fricandel with fries XXL’ For three coins, such a meager portion of fries? Uhm, don’t nag, see Disquiet. I did keep nagging, as it seemed Disquiet forgot they’re on a metal festival… with some 70-ies disco tunes I walked away revolted. Helslave did get me in a good mood. The Italians play somewhere between old school death metal and some parts are pretty melodic. I thought of Carnage, Amon Amarth and a flair of faster Bodyfarm songs.

Abrupt Demise and Foetal Juice – ehh talking to friends I had not seen in 5, 6 years AND befriended to Toon – I hardly had time to notice them. During Foetal Juice we decided to hit the city, as the other food provider got out of stock… Pizza, pasta and HJ it became. Nothing bad with Grolsch, but HJ is my brand sitting beneath a huge parasol it was good to be able to talk easily. People do worry about Wanda and that’s great to notice, more pictures sent home ^^ Coming back to the venue Jurassic Park was on stage. The band sounds like Saxon, but not as fierce, as Peter Lord Belial rightfully mentioned. I sent Alex and Toon to the stage, Toon had seen Saxon with his scouting pals at the end of the eighties I had found a Bodyfarm cap for my collection and decided to buy Toon a Bodyfarm shirt, just to be sure he’d remember the name. Not that Bodyfarm got on stage after Jurassic Park, that was Cytotoxin, again way too technical and weird for me. I had seen Bodyfarm DID show up and posted us at the first row. Hell and firepower combined, here’s one of Holland’s best death metal bands:
- Intro – Into Battle
- Woods of Dismay
- Dreadlord
- Blasting Tyranny (a new song, dedicated to Thomas \m/)
- Slaves of War (still a killer song!)
- The Dark Age
- (Unbroken) – only to be played if the earlier songs were sped up?
What I noticed first, is that the volume of this stage is a lot higher than the stage further away from the train station. As far as this setting goes, I can’t remember that the volumes or sound qualities of the stages ever were different. What I noticed second, was that the sound check of Bodyfarm already better was than some of the bands that played before. Third, having my family and friends around when one of my favorite befriended bands are on stage, makes the experience even more special to me and fourth, the band is in friggin’shape, bang their heads like machine guns, have loads of fun on stage, make funny facials to their fans/friends and encourage the first pit of the festival day with all their hearts. Fifth – if the band is working on new songs that’s great news. Sixth: thank Alex Seegers for the set list. The band surely does have a future again, I truly hope this line up will last for many years!! I bought Toon a Bodyfarm shirt, as did Alex, and he bought one for himself, not knowing we'd done the same and, so he'd wouldn't forget which band is one of my favo's haha
What’s even better than a great band? At first I thought it was a rumor that the new date of the festival was announced, but now a headliner of the biggest alloy was coupled to that: AUTOPSY is indeed confirmed for the 2023 edition of Stonehenge!!! I hadn’t even noticed the new date was set just on the same page as the bands list and time schedule *supersilly Herrieman* AND: early birds were on sale already! I had plenty of cash, but hesitated to buy so soon (why shy? It’s my 11th consecutive Stonehenge in a row, YOU WANT TO RETURN) I can’t even recall why I didn’t buy instantly! Maybe because I wanted to probe who would join us next year, could be. But I really shouldn’t have worried. I now know Peter, Alex, Thirza and Tom will want to come along, as Johnny mentioned 'it's so good to see each other again, have a nice date for a return to talk again, have something to look out to and plain fun!’ Typing this I saw the 100 early birds were sold out already (on the field, of course) and our tickets are in my mailbox already. The rest of the line up is already interesting, as Vomitory will play along with Skullhog and Stoflik Omskot. NOW I understand why Gurbe walked the fields with such an enormous grin on his face!!! Wanda showed me an interview with a local metal mag, with the band telling where they would love to play… answer without hesitation ‘Stonehenge would be awesome’ \m/

But, back to now. This novelty of mine would be brought to the test: What would Toon say about Gutalax? Come to think of it, I don’t know if Alex or Thirza ever had seen the poop core before… Thirza possibly, as she visited some editions of Eindhoven Metal Meeting with me. All Van Kampens stood front row, EXCEPT ME! The beers had been so rapidly and abundant, I needed coffee, not a laxative I swerved around the pit, which was cool and enormous, but like said, without me. Later on Wanda got a FB movie of the pit, clearly with Alex, Thirza AND Toon present and a storm of confetti, blow up giraffes, toilet rolls and seats was present of course. Alex even got the set list:
- Assmeralda
- Toi Toi
- Nová – Nosím Misto Ponožky
- Nová – Poopcorn
- Nová – Diarrhero
- Šoustáni
- Total Rectal
- Fart and Furious
- Nová – Vaginapocalypse
- Jelen
- Donald
I think Nová means new, but I can’t hear any difference in old or new, but whatever. This band makes a party out of poo alone and counting three full lengths and three splits in a row that’s quite remarkable. The audience, no matter if they’re in Steenwijk, Eindhoven GoreCity, Trutnov or Copenhagen, it’s party time.
The Hannover Ladies spotted me and, to my surprise, Simone was in tears. Both ladies had suffered loss the last two years (death of the mother of the one and the father of the other) so I got quite emotional as well. It’s so good to know people from all over the continent care about each other, I insisted on getting ourselves in contact more again.
Consolation was next. I had known the band name for a long time, but never got to listen to them nor see them live. The death/grind was heavy, but I had to watch it from a distance. I can’t see it all, this day might as well have 29 bands… 27 now missing the first two. I had to use MA to find the band existed from 1989 to 2001 and between 2001 and 2005 under a different name. Fine. Time to eat. Not all of us thought they had enough cash, but all ATM’s were empty, broken or out of order. It was cozy to sit around parasols, 8 of us having a good time with HJ and Italian food.
It became time for LIK, had it not been the band has some sickness and last minute were replaced by Cryptosis. I promised myself, if I’d see them, I’d give them a fair chance of impressing me. The band, of course consisting of the late Distillator line up, now plays music in vein of bands/genres that influenced them and/or they like to play. Some interview mentioned Rush and Abbath as ‘likeable’ or ‘playable’ by Laurens, Frank and Marco, but I greatly missed the thrash energy, the guitar twang but strangely enough (remembering an Aardschok interview with Frank) mellotron and Hammond as well. I tried, I really did, but didn’t like it much.
Wanda later handed me a picture that exactly mirrored what I thought of Sinister at the moment: Aad looking angry that nobody near his stage is even interested or watching the band. Sorry guys, this is simply not your stage today. As it wasn’t on the 2014 edition, between Bodyfarm, Possessed and Obituary. I wanted to watch Malevolent Creation instead, but we were sitting at the farthest point of that stage so all I could do was a whiny picture, headbanging slightly to Eve of the Apocalypse, Premature Burial, Slaughter of the Innocent and Multiple Stab Wounds, not necessarily in this order. I liked it a lot, but as said hardly saw them. Another near miss: Misery Index. Again, I could not recall much, not because I don’t like it, but just never got to them right and they’ve played so often, I have no idea any more. In all good terms, the band got a warm welcome, just not by me because I simply wasn’t interested enough, as I haven’t been for quite some MI shows… Vader on the other hand, yeah that was great. Great to watch Toon finally getting the grunt, Alex banging his fist and head (not necessarily hitting each other ) Thirza going nuts, Tom hitting the pit again, hearing a great sound of De Profundis songs, violence around, Pjotr in good mood and so on. Vader conquered Steenwijk and didn’t take prisoners. A LOT of Vader shirts got a new and satisfied owner, so to speak \m/

None had thought it would be easy for Suffocation to top Vader, but by hell they did. With a fierce set and an amazing sound no one stands still. Thirza made a little video for FB and you see me going nuts airguitaring, but totally missing the point musically HA HA HA. Suffocation simply SLAYED. Don’t ask me for titles this time, it was all good, old, new, fast or heavy, stuttering staccatos or fluent riffing, all was present. I think I’ve seen Suffocation on Stonehenge with three different singers : Mullen, Robinson, Myers. Awesome that a band can swift so easily, even though every singer has his own unique contribution to the band’s performance. Great!!

For the Marduk gig I made sure Toon and Alex sat down during the beginning of the set. I had brought beers, even though the beer pumps had been silent for some time… huh? A metal festival miscalculating beer??? Weizener it became, as a treat they weren’t two coins each, but due to the incident of Grolsch being sold out. I wanted to warn my brothers of the hell storm that was about to happen when Morgan and Co. entered stage: Marduk is celebrating 30 years of blasphemy, anti religion, war, hate and the rest and they don’t do a half job!! The anniversary is helped by another great sound, loud as a cannonballs being thrown off stairs of glass, fast as a razor through hot soup; all I had difficulty with was the blistering light show. But I know Marduk long enough to know it fits the set. All and all they played a nice cross of their entire carreer (thank setlist.fm for that, I just smiled to my brothers surviving the onslaught). Of course, the tracks I do recognize are Werwolf, Front Schwein and Panzer Division Marduk, the rest… click yourself
Of headliner Samael I can be short: too much keys, hardly guitars, weird drum lines and way, way too much light for my likings. We rose up as one, emptied the last coins (handy for next year? I had totally forgotten to check before going >< I still have 2019 coins ><) . We could wait for a taxi, but none wanted to accept the nine of us, only put it in twos and threes for maximum gain? Oh no. Tom volunteered to drive us two times, he’s been off alcohol for two years now, and it fits him great. We split up, waiting for the second ride to have an afpils with my cousin Toon, but he didn’t show up. Fine, we were tired anyway, it had been a busy and long day full of several genres; 2,000 visitors meaning 1,000 friends, hugs, talks, beers and METAL! Great to see so many parts of my life talking by again, Marcels 1, 3, 4, 7, 8 and 11 present ^^ Thanks to Toon and Mirjam once more, the bed and breakfast were great as usual and the date is already set for next year: July 29th featuring AUTOPSY and at least six of us. Tickets bought typing this review, listening to bands I missed yesterday (…) and recalling the pictures and stories all over again. Metal!

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Party-San 2022, August 11-13, Schlotheim - Obermehler Flugplatz

At Party-San 2018 it was decided soon enough: we return to Obermehler Airport, whether 2019 or beyond. 2020 it would be, as Infernäl Mäjesty was one of the first bands announced! When such an old name of such a great band FINALLY enters my sight, I don’t hesitate. Special Sacred Reich appearance! Add Dismember, first time Germany in Blood knows how many years, yeah. Book Fleshcrawl – of course they might return to PSOA (I have seen excellent footage of a very young Sven Gross ^^) hey there’s Asphyx and friggin’Graceless!! We were informed by Remco himself with an annotation I know so well: ‘hush up, it’s the biggest surprise, we HEADLINE the tent!’ What can go wrong? Uhm, actually turn in 2020, that’s wrong. The postponement at self wasn’t a surprise, but to cancel Sacred Reich, Infernäl Mäjesty and a lot more made it sour. Minus: I’ve booked the tickets through my ancient MRU-mail address, so I can’t use the voucher option, I just have to buy new tickets >< Another minus: it would be quite more expensive to actually get to Schlotheim with band asking more, increasing fuel costs, shutting co-operating firms and having to seek newer/more expensive ones, hygiene rules added, kuttderdekut. Probably booze will be over the top now, right?? Biggest let down: Sven Gross’ death in June 2021. Thinking of that time Wanda and me met him and his lovely wife Dani on those holy metal grounds, I miss his bear hug every show I go to.

So, in the end I found the mail and the news got around: the organizers gave ticket buyers the choice:
a. return your tickets – refund
b. exchange tickets for a fee: € 25 extra due to expanding costs for bands, stage builders, catering, fuel, blah blah. 2022 tickets were sent by guarded mail – extra cost. I chose the b. option and told Bram to do the same. I already kept in mind Wanda might not join us, we’re in the middle of a health cyclus, to cope with the long-covid Wanda faces triple compared to me… she wouldn’t join (stress of driving, heat, people, sound, lights (…sounds like me ><) and the idea she’d have to recover for a month after this festival). But damned! Bram had totally forgotten to exchange his ticket!! Grumpily I offered Wanda’s fresh and not to be used/sold 2022 ticket… Still, a great line up to look forward to. We decided to stop at Wewelsburg first and have a sight at the spiritual nerve centre of the SS (I’m highly interested in the war, tactics, battles but not the ideologies). I picked up Bram at 9:45 only to find out he did get his ticket straight. Kees Bloemkool couldn’t join us at such short notice. Now I can chose to either get myself a second wrist band or try to sell it at the door. First stop was a toilet break but the normal toilets were broken, so we had to do something on over the top filled Dixies (?Where’s Gutalax now?!) and revolted we drove on. The Student hotel in Büren was really the cheapest of cheap hotels I’ve ever seen… we called it Neukbunker and drove on. Wewelsburg was interesting but also sped up… we had 20 minutes to see the entire castle and missed the last WW2 tour by five minutes… 200 pictures to be sent in due time On the terrain the tents were put on swiftly and early enough to see that the special Asphyx Krushes PartySan shirts were not sold out yet, so I got in line and scribbled the names of the shirts on my comment’s page and confused myself how dumb people can be… imagine a line of some 200 metalheads waiting for any special shirt, with people at the front moping ‘I don’t know what shirt I want yet’, or ‘should I L or XL’ to ‘I tried this shirt, still don’t like the design’ AND THEN moping the PIN doesn’t work. GRRRRRRR. I got in, three seconds later moved out with 4 shirts and € 80 lighter. So. That’s the way to do it. Fools.

Standing in line gave a nice view to see Birdflesh open this PSOA; the 26th edition, my fourth and Bram’s first. We called the band ‘the ultimate BS opening of a festival’ but the sound was good. Hello Sylvia & Jürgen!! It took me only five minutes to sell the ticket and off to Goddess’ merch stand. Hey, Jerry is here again so HJ patches to shred ^^ We might even have persuaded Bart, Rob (The Steenwijk Gang) or Leon and Brian to start patched denims this way I had chosen to bring some tributes as shirts (Bodyfarm, Fleshcrawl, Voïvod and Schoonebeek) and that turned out to be a good decision.

Second band today was Revel in Flesh. The band had a marvelous sound and were in for the Death Kult Legions to slay! I missed the first song but if they bring on Death Kult Legion as second song we’re in for a party. Shadowbreeder is not only a fan favorite, but the band easily binds people playing this killer track. Emissaries of all Plagues is the next waltz maker, the first pit of the festival happens just around me. Rest of the songs: Casket Ride, two more, In the Name of the Flesh (dedicated to Sven Gross) and ender Rock On. Great gig!!

To me the third band is Gaerea but it doesn’t ring any bell. Death? Black maybe? Doom for starters? Uhm, leave that to others. I’d rather meet the Carnation guys and our old Schlachtfest buddy Lukas for a good conversation about metal, travelling with or without loved ones and more. We agreed to watch Whoredom Rife together, he’d bought a shirt but had not seen them before, just like me. What weI heard and saw was a blistering Marduk-like show of violent black metal, bloody and dirty. I might add I was tempted to buy myself some Whoredom Rife stuff, but when I looked at the line at the official merch booth I totally forgot about that. I could not forget to watch Carnation blowing up the tent as headliner! Starting off with Reincarnation, Bram, Lukas and me already begun our headbanging contest I made a picture of the set list, gave that away and when Jonathan spotted that I got his guitar pick ^^
- Reincarnation
- Iron Discipline
- Plague Breeder
- Malformed Regrowth
- Necromancer
- Sepulcher of Alteration
- Stench of Death (a new song!!)
- Where Death Lies
- Fathomless Depths

Again, the band is in great shape, play tight and with visible pleasure. The audience is more than happy to participate in a great death metal show. Kudos to the organizers to give a relative young band (first time I saw them was in 2015) such a great spot on the bill. The band came by to thank me personally for rigging up their show, headbanging like a bull in an arena, shouting, making others see/hear this great band and more. The tent trembled… We spent quite some time in the tent anyway, as Graceless will play there tomorrow and because of the heat we’ll need the shadow most. But having heard two great bands doesn’t mean the others are good too. Mayhem totally shut me out by playing without any gizz and what I’ve heard from Cannibal Corpse was it a mess as well. Bram had seen the Mazurkewiezcs sound check (yawning and certainly not tight) and it was Paul that messed up several intros as well. OK Scourge of Iron was first and that brought a smile to my face, but in my sleeping bag already. Bram wasn’t content at all, he’d said, for his third CC show it was the least of them all. It didn’t help him to see Erik Rutan on stage instead of Pat O’Brien, but that’s beyond now. ‘Tired and overstretched’ were the terms I heard several times the next day

Friday started in the Schlotheim village and soon Warsteiner with our Leipzig- and Chemnitz-neighbors Tommy, Michael and Chris, bit early for beer haha. All five men shared Kadaverficker with a smile. Bring in pig squeals, OK, nutty circle pitting, beach balls and llama’s, brutal death and filthy grind to make a good start for this day. Like Exhumed they have an ‘extra’, wearing dirty masks, throwing orange soda ‘Leichenwasser’ like Insane Clown Posse (but with closed bottles now), plastic drolls and trolls and French fries?! Pffghhahahaha this was funny but tight nonetheless. LIK was next on main stage and they also sounded really good, but I got stung by a wasp and had not brought enough sun tan lotion to make it through the day in one piece. I’d wear a shirt on the day and an open denim on the evenings, like I’d done on PSOA 2018 as well. I returned when Malevolent Creation was on main stage. I saw most of the show with Ivor, Dikke K and Agga and all fan favorites passed by. Bram had also seen 1914, but the focus was on the nowadays war instead of the War to End All Wars. I understand an Ukranian band to want to express this, but not after every friggin’song ><. Instead of 1914 I should have seen Bütcher, Space Chaser and (more of) Onslaught, but I needed food and not just fries and burgers Onslaught began with Let There be Death and I was out

According to the schedule Misery Index was next. Uhm, sure? Maybe I’ve seen them 22 times but still to no ordeal. Messiah on the other hand was TOTALLY of my liking, me wearing my Svenson Gross Memorial shirt and the band thanked me for doing so. At least I heard Choir of Horrors (hey, that’s a long time ago they played that!) and Space Invaders. I think more than half of all Dutch festival visitors were present scattering the really last bit of Pim’s ashes at the entrance to the festival. Kimberly mentioned how difficult it would be to bring in the container, needing permits and so on and maybe not even getting it beyond security Belgian Philip filmed it, I might get it later. It was emotional, again, and again good. So many present, so real was the loss.

What I didn’t consider to be real was Heidevolk. Bram had been all over it BEFORE the show, afterwards he reacted like I did: babble about new grounds to conquer but forgetting to take their instruments warlike. ‘People who don’t sing along to us are traitors of their roots’ After a friggin’1914 show? Come on, lose it. Bram and me roamed the merch booths again, he’d bought me a Cause of Death belly bag and a pile of patches, we bought each other shirts and the belly bag was well used: I’d felt the insides of my thighs scraping with the dust, sweat and heat and wore the cotton PartySan shorts I used for driving. My normal shorts would hold my wallet, booklet, phone and so on, but the cotton shorts would have been zipping off my ass all day had I not gotten the belly bag ^^ Thanks a lot matey!

I wasn’t high on missing Uada, but I needed to rush anyway: Asphyx would be next on main stage. I knew beforehand I’d have to miss at least the final song to be able to stand first row at the Graceless show. The band... how many times have I seen them, how many different line ups, how many countries and venues combined? Everything is friggin’great concerning Asphyx, if you ask me and I wasn’t let down: the sound check was already drooping with fun and ffkk-heavy guitars and bass, big smiles all around (band, crew, PSOA crew, bar personnel, audience) and an overall eagerness to get KRUSHED AT PARTYSAN (like the special edition shirts I bought for myself and Bram) and I wrote:
- Quest for Absurdity
- Vermin
- Molten Black Earth
- Death the Brutal Way
- Abomination Echoes – was it really? No, I later recognized The Krusher
- Death Hammer
- ehh not sure which – I just kept ‘oeoeoeoeoeiiinng rrrroooaarrr MOOOOREEE’)
- It Came from the Skys
- Knight Templar Stand
- Asphyx – Forgotten War – I had to bail

Again, I was sore in throat, hangy in arms, ploink in neck and from then on I don’t have hair, I have a straw hat glued to my head. Walking to the tent I spotted Jeff Walker and Bill Steer AND Agga, so I gave him a great chance to fanboy himself to the band. To me it is still weird, three, four days later, not to have seen the entire Asphyx set. OK, I’ve been too late for a show once or twice (boys needing to eat before FortaRock as I shouted ‘come on guys, Asphyx already plays’, running beyond the bar into the tent and in The Last One On Earth I still heard ‘hee Herrieman!’ ) but that was ages ago. Now I leave with a purpose… how many can say they were with headlining friends? First Carnation, now Graceless, showing Jasper the Nailgun Massacre patch I made and Remco instantly wanting one too As for the show… totally satisfied once more. Loud as a tent can hold, sharper than Aileen Wuornos on trial, brickshitting heavy, all SOOOO FRiGINN’Graceless!!
- We Will be Gods
- Malignant Seed
- Somewhere they played Blood of the Brave, Embrace the Rain, Shadowlands, Warpath and hell knows what others, it was a massacre. A victory run. Pleasure dome. Sweatfest. Throat ache inducing. Merch buying capability.

To my own surprise, I only have one picture pre to the gig (the backdrop still hanging halfway over the drum kit) and one smoky band picture. No set list, they were long gone by the time the band came over to me and celebrate. I think I got a beer, a Lemmy, four hugs and even more hands to shake

But I won’t shake anything regarding Katatonia. Over the years the band went from doom to goth to goo and a lot of people especially DON’T understand what these guys were doing between Asphyx and Carcass. If only Asphyx and Katatonia could have changed slots XgrumbleX Such a strange idea to drastically alter the atmosphere there… OSDM – goo – technical death with grind and melodics??? I wasn’t quite sharp anymore so after Incarnated Solvent Abuse and Heartwork I called it quits and ducked into my tent. I’m sure they started with a different song but I can’t do it all.

Saturday morning started in the village again, now also a sightseeing route through Thüringen. I picked up bread for Wanda, the tiniest of Pfeffie bottle I’ve ever seen (had to hand it over at the entrance ) and water for the ride home. With Bram around you can’t always know what will happen next, so we decided to hit the village once more and get another tiny Pfeffie bottle ^^ tucked into the sides of Bram’s pants ‘everybody can lie, as long as you hide the stuff well enough’ We even brought a local metalhead for the last day. He had a huge backpack and had missed the shuttle bus, wanted to walk, but he didn’t know it would be over 6 km to get there. Missed Slaughterday by a mere 20 seconds but got the promo card signed, having a great time with Bram discovering he could talk Dutch to the Slaughterdayers From the signing booth the reactions to my Schoonebeek Deathfest 2017 shirt were already heartwarming and during Fleshcrawl I also got their approval I still don’t need Purgatory so I moved on to Nunslaughter. It’s one of Wanda’s favorite bands so I placed myself halfway the merch booth and the stage, having excellent view on both. Bram’s reaction ‘whoah, they’re really fast, right?’ Don’t ask titles, as Wanda later explained ‘they release every fart they can muster, it’s funny to see they keep up in lyrics and artwork’ Highlights to me: ‘The Smell of Burning Churches’ and Red is the Color of Ripping Death. Shirt bought for Wanda, but when I made a picture of their (four!) backpatches she said at home she’d wanted them all? Uhm miscommunication ><

Of Saor and Bözedeath I don’t have any clue, I went out for noodles and tried as hard as I could to get to Fleshcrawl. Now, from 1987 (Morgöth – Suffocation – Fleshcrawl) only Bastian is an original member, but by Jumbo, has this band a Mammoth sound or not? Beginning with Carved in Flesh I knew the band will not let me/us/them down. Shout your guts out, feel the energy, smell the rough power this band has developed over the years. Typing this I remember most clearly where my stinging throat got worse:
- Intro
- Carved in Flesh
- Bloodred Massacre
- Flesh Bloody Flesh
- Embraced by Evil
- Lost in a Grave
- Alter Obliteration (‘midtro’ it was called )
- From the Dead to the Living (I had to get beers, found a doof that didn’t know he tried to give €2 instead of € 4 so I helped the bastard ><)
- Under the Banner of Death – Death – DEATH – DEEEAAAATHH \m/
- Soulskinner – trying hard to contact Thirza ^^
- DA NEW ONE (I wrote ‘In the Dead of Night’ sp.?)
- As Blood Rains From the Sky
- The Day Man Lost (Boris didn’t introduce it as Sven did ‘this is the best death metal song ever written’ but I did )

Only a few minutes after the set list was handed to me by Manu (THANK YOU) the stage was empty and the signing booth overfilled: somehow both Fleshcrawl and Impaled Nazarene were testing the Edding 3000s – white, silver, BLACK haha. Time for another stroll, another visit to Goddess and their neighors, spilling more cash and having drinks. I think I missed three bands but I can’t help it, it was so cozy and comfortable in the shade. In the tent the temperatures were ‘doable’, due to the construction between toilets, air let in, bar and festival ground. Köstritzer will not be my favorite, but the Hell and Black versions do mix properly. Also in the tent: Cytotoxin. Bart and Rob totally freak out, nearly hitting my beer with their hand gestures (…) but this band does nothing to me. I met Roger Wicki of the Messiah club along with Dikke K and she wanted a Messiah shirt. Roger did have one of her size, but in the car so we stuck around Husky, Sabrina and Alwin and Sabrina got a call – Roger had lost his All Access Card so he wasn’t allowed in anymore. He had to get his passpord and original accreditation, so Sabrina volunteered to get the shirt. She came running, fearing we’d gone off to another band. Don’t worry hahahaha, we won’t. Never seen such a lovely woman sweat so much the sweet

In bands… heard Blood Incantation and Impaled Nazarene from the sides of the grounds, got a White Russian as first thank you to the Messiah shirt and waited for Bram to show up once more. He’s rabid about old Dark Funeral and he got exactly what he wanted (and in a way, so did I) Extreme and to the point vocals, a great sound but the band started sloppy. OK, it got better in the end, but Dark Funeral has most power in vocals, not in musical harmony A band that does get harmony, brutality, cohesion and the likes in their proper form is BENEDICTION. The band really blows speakers, tight, Dave in great shape and an overall feeling of YEAHHH GOOD!! I hear Transcend the Rubicon, Grind Bastard and a few possible reasons to buy Scriptures Benediction totally has it again (over the years they did get better, apart from one show in Bamberg, headlining over Cancer). Just like in Protzen a month ago, the band has a feel that energizes the crowd, perfectly warming them up for Dismember. To me, Dismember can’t do much wrong. My third Dismember show in 20 years and I think this is the best one. Reborn in Blasphemy already started a violent pit, Pieces cut everybody in half. Imagine the album cover – yeah something like that. Forget both Benediction and Dismember had some technical difficulties, like a total dead backline for half a song, but the fire doesn’t wane when that happens. Stronger, it seems to heat up the rabid crowd even more. Another few links to these last bands:
- Singers have great stamina
- Singers sound friggin’fresh
- Singers have fun
Skin her Alive – thanks to British censors this song is cheered to most. It seems Peter, Dave, Darren and the rest are on the side of the stage and NO ONE gets them out of there - Skinfather – only drums but hundreds of cheering fans. Estby is a funny man as well, as he announced Misanthropy as ‘now a real slow one, I need a beer’ \m/ Having missed them in Norway, Sweden and the USA is all forgotten now. KILLER SHOW!! Lights not to bright, not that much smoke, a hell of a sound and festival grounds that fit the band – all awesome. At the end I got pretty close to the stage so my pictures are worthy as well. I tuck in with a twisted smile ^^ I’m not even sure how much Bram had seen but that’s his worry, not mine.

Breaking up the tent with only a banana, one coffee and one toilet visit made me see Bram had had it. His duck feet were killing him, we’re lucky it’s only on THIS time it happened. He got swirly in the head packing his tent so sent him to a Dixie and I cleared the tent area. The German neighbors were long gone (I sent Tommy a Graceless Horde baby shirt) and we agree: drive at least 100 km in the relative cool and THEN coffee/breakfast. I drive to Kassel, 104 km from Schlotheim, nasty American kid around (what the fuck does this screamer want my keys for? >< And why doesn’t his father nor mother set him straight?? ><) but the rest is 600 km Sauna today. We agreed to stop whenever my 2 bottles of water are empty, change shirts and drive on! In Enkhuizen Vok and Joke notice how tired I am so I don’t do the entire story like I’m used to. I want my Wanda and I get her
Later on, say, Monday, Wanda got a picture of the Graceless set list from Ivor. I apparently gave the set list to Ivor and we both forgot hahah booze haha. Here it is:
- We Will Be Gods
- Malignant Seed
- Retaliation of the Wicked
- Slashed and Served
- Shadowlands
- Blood of the Brave
- Embrace the Rain
- Warpath
- Die on Demand

Next years’ PartySan has been announced for August 10th - 12th, first bands don ‘t really warm me up yet: Kataklysm, Dying Fetus, Illdisposed, Midnight, Tribulation, Endstille, PostMortem. Only appealing bands so far could be Deströyer 666, Borknagar, Gatecreeper and Spearhead (as it is a Bolt Thrower tribute or not?)

Uhm, we’ll see. Regarding Wanda’s temperature and stress issues nothing is certain right now. No Dynamo Metalfest nor Neuborn OAF for here this month. I will join plenty of people to plenty of metal, but I can hardly stand how drained she is after being alone for more than two days. I’m considering…. Metal.

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Dynamo Metalfest 2022, headliners Kreator, Testament, Kunstijsbaan Eindhoven, Aug.20-21

Of this festival you can easily say it was wanted. Needed. Just. Anticipated? Also. To visit a decent festival, even a single-day-one, was over 18 months ago! OK, we’ve had some sit-ins and those were pretty cool, but at first I didn’t even want to go. Why not? Uhm, not to be nagging, but the first line up wasn’t really tops for us. We’d see LIK, were invited by Graceless and it wasn’t until Amon Amarth was (re-)scheduled as headliner for the Sunday, it got all itchy around me. I could easily buy Alex a birthday gift, print one ticket for Tom as Municipal Waste would be there… hey now you read about it, it’s getting better and better as I write So, when the tix hit the fan, it would be the Sunday only, for Amon Amarth, for The Waste, for Alex, Thirza, Wanda and me. But it is still a crazy time, as most American bands wouldn’t risk flying into Europe at all (see second postponement of PartySan, M.I.S.E. and Protzen Open Airs) within two hours after buying tickets Amon Amarth had to cancel, the next day it got clear The Waste wouldn’t cross the ocean and what else? Testament had to cancel, but at first we’d not go to the Saturday anyway…. [namely because of Heaven Shall Burn, Jinjer, Flotsam] but all of a sudden Asphyx is announced, Kreator replacing Amon Amarth and Legion of the Damned was booked. For Saturday! At first we wouldn’t see Graceless as they’d play Saturday, but now it’s an all-weekend-fest again! OK, our tickets nearly cost double this way and another visit to Sandton would also break some budget, but at least WE GO. ALL WEEKEND. BANDS. FRIENDS. BEER. MERCH. What else do we need? hihi, name ‘early to rise, early to ride’, ‘taxi from Sandton’ and bring in sun tan lotion. Screw HSB/F&J, screw the government, screw vaccinstress, fkcu the rain if necessary, WE GO.

But another year of near-shutdown made the turmoil complete. In matter of weeks, months the names Asphyx, Amon Amarth, Obituary, Midnight, Legion of the Damned, Clutch, Municipal Waste, Unleash the Archers, Sacred Reich, Grave, TBDM and Rings of Saturn were ripped off the line up >< In favor of who? Candlemass, Lamb of God, Cannibal Corpse, Cattle Decapitation, Angelus Apatrida, Vended, Urne? Is that it? Uhm, I still have that reservation… altered four times as the Westfriesian accent doesn’t match Ehhhndhovens accent? This way, e-mail is more clear We’d drive around 9, be at Sandton around 11, taxi, first band. It wasn’t even that different, but coming to Kunstijsbaan some typical Dynamo horror occurred: lines, lines, lines. We had to wait for over an hour to have our ticket checked ‘no sir, two day tickets don’t cuntcount for a combi ticket’ and not even being searched made my frown even wider: unexperienced ticket scanners, no formal friskers, line at the lockers, line at the card booth (‘all expenses off one card, keep your status up digitally’ ) and 5 bars of 10 m each, but no single person able to let the beer ROLL?? Hand one beer in, pour another… POUR 10 in row damnit!! Unexperienced and outnumbered bar personnel, haven’t they learned shit at Loud Noise? No they haven’t. Standing in line #67 we knew we’d missed the one band I wanted to see and had not seen before: Tankzilla, sort of the youngest offspring of the Peter Pan Speedrock legacy (OK, they play again after a hiatus of several years pre-covid). First band we got to see was Dressed the Dead; modern shrill shitnoise. The sound is OK, but the grooves and breaks follow each other so fast I’m fooled. Skip. Next band skip as well: Vended, a sleaze filled cross of Mötley Fuck and Slipkut. Third band got more time to bore us: Firewind. It’s a band for people who bump each other saying ‘how heavy can you be after hearing modern Iron Maiden?’ Ggghhhh. But one thing I knew when Id missed Tankzilla: there’d be a fourth borefest: Cattle Decapitation. The singer tried to be as vegan aggressive as he could, but the (little) wind couldn’t get his vocals beyond the first barrier. Yeah, the first row, whoever there might stand. Helicopter banging OK, but the overall set is out of balls to me. Still, the band gets most cheers up to now, as folks like Steenwijk Gangmembers Bart and Jurwin totally headbutt Nice for them, I eat.

Coming to the subject of eating, there’s another typical Dynamo way: tame food for way too much money. At the start of the day the small pizzas had a bill of friggin’€ 16! Noodles of Carbonara without Nara… for €14, the sauce was so weak you needed a spy glass to find the bacon. ‘Big fries’ were served on the smallest of snackbar plates you normally pay € 1,50 for… €6. One friggin’kroket or fricandel - € 6. OK, the most expensive pizzas and Thai were downprized during the day, but not enough in my opinion. As if all two years of Covid loss had to be earned in one day? I long for those Wãldrock days… big plate of fricandel and fries for one coin… fl. 2,50…

Back to music. And music is what we get when Marc Osegueda and his nephews (… ) enter stage: Death Angel starts with the Ultra-Violence intro and Mistress of Pain and all hell is back in Kunstijsbaan. The band, most experienced of course, doesn’t need a riff-break-groove-letdown-riff-repeat every three seconds, but it’s thrash, Thrash, THRAAASSHHH from the start. Add an excellent mix and plenty of volume and Death Angel wins my metal heart once more. A hint of the set list:
- The Ultra-Violence
- Mistress of Pain
- Evil Priest
- Seeming Endless Time
- The Dream Calls for Blood
- -then a few tracks the band gets us and themselves some air—
- Thrashers
- Thrown to the Wolves
Needless to say I had a great time, maybe apart from the section in the middle. The last album I really enjoyed was, I think, The Art of Dying and have heard mostly snippets of more recent material. Osegueda tells us about the secret gig yesterday in Dynamo club, with a totally different set list (apart from Thrashers) and according to setlist.fm I don’t think I can choose between those evenings. To me, Death Angel is on the highs of 1988 again and that brings a huge smile to my face, knowing Alex and Thirza went out of their heads too, pit along, dust clouds swirling over Kunstijsbaan grounds again, people within 50 m of the stage all have a blackened grin on their faces. Dirty but satisfied.

And the dustcloud only rises higher when Exodus enters stage and I enter the pit. I simply can’t stand still, give my glasses, cap and phone to Jane and HITTTTTT. A song off Persona Non Grata or old as frig, to me it’s kill, Kill, KILLL (do I sound like Gary Ridgway now? ) See for yourself:
- AC/DC – Kicked in the Teeth as intro
- The Beatings Will Continue – first crowd surfer of the day present!
- A Lesson in Violence (no need to tell that to Dynamo \m/)
- Deathamphetamine (with a The Black Dahlia- part in it \m/)
- Blacklist (I do see several bleeding noses \m/)
- Prescribing Horror (with that awful child crying part)
- Blood In Blood Out (I get helped up, that’s my first crowd surf in what? 15 years? Could be!! \m/)
- Piranha
- Bonded By Blood
- The Toxic Waltz (I’m broken by the BBB pit but HAVE to return, big smiles from Alex, Thirza and Jane)
- Strike of the Beast (chaos to start a wall of death, but I step next to it. Can’t walk even if I have to )
The band plays without Lee Altus these weeks, as he’s home on family business, hence bringing one of TBDM-men as replacement. He’s good enough, maybe a tiny hint less sharp than Lee but for now it worked. At least until The Toxic Waltz, as the band needs a second and third start to the song, but it’s all in good fun [Toxic Waltz – Raining Blood – Toxic Waltz haha]. I’ve seen Exodus over 20 times, for a music nitwit this one could be called sloppy but FUCK NO IT WAS GREAT!!

Recuperation time: Candlemass does an integral Nightfall set with Johan Längqvist on vocals. Recuperation in slowing down music, but not in goose bumps: At the Gallow’s End ALSO brings me back to 1988 (Kompleks, Heerhugowaard, Ancient Dreams tour with Messiah Marcolin’s birthday \m/). I haven’t heard that album in a long time so it takes me up to Solitude to get a second set of goose bumps this gig. But I will never complain when a band gives me good thoughts of old or energy of new. I hadn’t heard it during the show (beer, beer ) but Thirza later mentioned a fully FALSE back ground singer hahaha.

False? No. Insecure? No. Bad mix? No. Too soft volume? NOOOO, Testament is here for bloody revenge on several bad shows in The Netherlands. The band, with Dave Lombardo back behind the kit, is ready to raise doom and hell over Eindhoven once more. The cooperation in the band (Skolnick, Peterson, DiGorgio, Billy, Lombardo) is friggin’precise, tight and a warm bath to listeners, headbangers, pitters and the occasional newie in front of the stage. I don’t think there are many people present that haven’t seen Testament before, but the reaction goes way beyond the PA and people no longer stand beneath the roof… everybody wants to hear and see a band in top form. Pity I thought I lost my Samsung so I went back on my tracks and the Goddess goddess handed it to me, smiling. Now I can make pictures and videos again and let my notes do the rest: ‘is that really Dave on drums? Cool!!’, Samsung, ‘Chuck says this song is the first cooperation between Dave and Steve ever, DNR’, Eric Peterson in his element, Night of the Witch, TFoD ‘(Chuck’s favo song)’ FSiD (too many crowdsurfers to keep the pit going ^^) DotW IntoPit (not me this time) Alone (not me haha). ‘Testament took revenge of earlier bad performances’ :cool: .
I stand by this :cool: \m/ and tired, bruised and gasping for dust-free air, we head outside just before Alone in the Dark begins. Good choice, there are plenty cabs available now, instead of what we heard Sunday morning in the hotel (hey Chrissie, great to see you!) we heard several people complain about taxis… not enough, too expensive, rude,… not our problem We had a cool driver

Was it yesterday impossible to sell the ticket due to the vast numbers of people from both sides of the gate, now it was impossible to sell the ticket because there was NOBODY at the doors when we returned. Still no wrist band ‘that’s of no use for you’ >< Do you choose for me?? Da kguc!! Good thing was the first band was on soon, bad thing it was Urne: a cross of metalcore, stoner, black metal and a terrible Primordial cover… I told Alex and Thirza to look out for LIK: blunter than the axe that was used for Nearly Headless Nick © LOL. They had to use a replacement guitarist but in sound and in performance that didn’t change much: Old. School. Swedish. Buzzsaw. Death. Metal. Funeral Anthem as second song, I went over my head headbanging. I noticed my voice wasn’t top so I kept miming my shouts haha. Pity the band had brought only one type of shirt, which I didn’t like so no LIK shirt for me now. I did thank them some hours later, roaming the grounds and thanking fans and having a beer with them. I had my hands full then, so I couldn’t share their beer so fast

Third band to us was Angelus Apatrida, but it’s all too perfect for me, especially after LIK. The guitar lines are too familiar, the shouts and jumps irritate me within a song or two. I felt miserable to begin with, like if the breakfast hadn’t fallen OK, beer was tasteless (Grolsch I hardly ever have a problem with) and the noodles I got from Alex and Thirza seemed to give a counter effect: I felt empty and full at the same time. It didn’t help Wanda wasn’t in mental top shape and I seriously considered leaving if Cannibal Corpse wasn’t in shape. I shared my thoughts to Bart and Alex, they would need to know if I’d left. But to my surprise and my delight, Cannibal Corpse was about 1,256 times sharper, louder, wittier, blunter and funnier than last week:
- Scourge of Iron
- Inhumane Harvest
- Evisceration Plague
- Death Walking Terror
- one I forgot to mention, maybe two
- Fucked with a Knife (Corpsegrinder the Stand Up Comedian )
- I Cum Blood [CLEARLY this isn’t Germany :cool: ] – of course the helicopter headbang contest.. ‘you can … TRY HA HA HA’ – funny George ^^ I just wondered when he’d fall off stage with a double brain hemorrhage once ‘good to see I’m still the King’ ^^
- Devoured by Vermin – now Corpsegrinder even made the first scream LONGER (!) than on CD
- Stripped Raped and Strangled
- Hammer Smashed Face
Meeting Frank and Laurens of Cryptosis was fun: they handed me a flyer for a tour with Vektor saying 'if we see you and Wanda in Bilbao you're on the guest list [somewhere we'd seen Jinjer too, but the modern shit, metalcore, political bull and screamo shooed me away from stage. Alex just said 'nice chick' and agreed to walk away :cool: ]
Another case of ‘revenge for an earlier show’, Cannibal Corpse gave 150 per cent and was greeted by the biggest dust cloud I’d seen all weekend; by now we can call it Dynamo Dustfest again In dust it got only worse, as Bay Area Interthrashional was up next. I had seen Harold Oimoen on the terrain already, Ted Aguilar in some merch booth and I was surrounded by many (pretty young, relatively) thrashers who would do what and when. The start was legendary already: Anestasia – Pulling Teeth!! Followed by Katon de la Pena doing vocals for Exodus Attack, Oimoen on bass and who else… I’m not the most-knowing-about-Bay-Area-third-generation-bands, but I know the old songs well: Over the Wall had a totally new line up, including a female singer. Voracious Souls – wasn’t the best idea to put Katon there, then. He’s metal from head to toe, of course, but his reach simply isn’t big enough for the Death Angel anthem. It was Phil Demmel that announced ‘no one is going to play a song of their own’ and ‘Mechanix is called The Four Horsemen on Crack from now on’^^ But with the anecdotes about writing and recording the songs, the speed is pulled out of this gig a lot… pity. Add that I’m not a Vio-Lence fan at all, my earlier thrill dampened quite a bit. 4 more songs wobble by but so far we hadn’t seen the REAL Bay Area heroes – I know you can’t simply call Hetfield, Mustaine, Araya or Beccera to do one song, but only the last couple of songs the Exodus- and Death Angel-members got to stage.. for Creeping Fucking Death! Yeah, never mind an old metalhead moping, this was cool.

By that time we’d eaten once more, still hardly any taste for a € 12 burger and faced my dilemma: I’m one of the biggest Kreator fans of Westfriesland, but I had no energy to wait for two bands I had zilch interest in and the last two Kreator albums weren’t much of my liking… what do we do? I made the decision: we go. When Alex noticed my near-depressed mode earlier the day, he told me he could drive us home but I forbade that. 1. I don’t want to give in. 2. Not using the hotel would mean costs anyway. 3. I’m me, not his son, so I decide and never turn back. 4. Up to LIK we’d been drinking like goldfish, so inevitably he’d be too tired to drive two hours+. You can cite my priorities here, but I don’t care. We also found another money-gap: if you handed in more cups than you ordered new beers, you lost one cup ‘due to adminstration’!! When we emptied the card, we needed to pay a fee for ‘adminstration of return money’!! Go fuck someone else, damned!!

We left when Lamb of God was building stage (or was it Heaven Shall Burn?), Thirza Uber’d us into a taxi in minutes. We still had all the time in the world but now we could eat properly or buy a decent-prized beer/food for now. After some bathing and freshing up I got Alex into a fresh RockHard shirt, too late noticing I had not brought any more clean ones for myself…into Hail of Bullets again and off to The Jack. We met Aardschok photographer/reviewer Gerrit Mesker and had a hilarious meeting filled with anecdotes from all over the world. Alex in Rio, me in Florida, Thirza in England and Gerrit godknowswhere I won’t say this part of the day was best, but it was fun. We meet again, Gerrit! But if that’s enough for returning to any Loud Noise event? Talking to Wanda the next day could as well mean a firm NO to these over the top money grabbing events. Separate tickets vs. combi tix, underexperienced personnel, expensive and tasteless food, horrible fees, lines, lines, lines… no. Forget the first line of this review: I call this Money Metal.

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NOAF, Aug. 26 and 27th, Wörrstadt, Germany

This is a festival my friends Brammerman and Maarten had been talking about for a long, long time and how cozy it is. They love the atmosphere, the crowd (of less than 2,000), always a varied line up and still plenty friends around. It’s been organized since 2005 by a youth worker one of Maarten’s friends Arjan has known for a long time; it’s a municipal metal festival, to give old and young something to do and look forward to. Also, Arjan mentioned, it is a highly sponsored festival in the ways of ‘organize a poll to see which bands you want to see – Doro? OK we bring in Doro, here’s 10k in euros and do it for the village community.’ Over the years some 100 bands played there, varying from Kreator and Sodom to Napalm Death, Hatebreed, Sick of it All, Deserted Fear and Paradise Lost and every year some metalcore / modern metal. The guys have been meeting there for 10 years now and we were to follow

On the road to Wörrstadt we had the fun of the easiest kind: driving past Bedburg – chanting Macabre, seeing Vulkanland – ‘do we obtain pointy ears?’ and the likes ^^ Maarten had brought three kinds of beer: the Aldi IPA for the warm evening, the Alpha Strong to wash the hangover away and the Schültenbrau – only drinkable beer warm >< so the next remark was ‘No beer in the car or we miss the LinkinPark tribute ‘ Near the festival we could unload the car if we were fast enough (?) and we chose to camp near the Dixies – for as Maarten needed his bowels from the inside We soon met the other boys and as they’ve known most of themselves for +10 years even I was surprised to blend in so easily. First meet with Arno, Arjan and Johan – ‘yeah we want to see bands but are so social we miss the LinkinPark tribute’ Cool they played AC/DC when I raised my first Veltins We ended up in the Biergarten next to the festival and had food… Arjan paid it all because he was so happy to see us THANK YOU! To be short, we didn’t miss much of this LinkinPark tribute, it sounded so hollow… the boys had seen the sound check of the Deep Purple tribute Demon Eyes and they were thrilled to see it, but ay, it was such conversation we got in when the Rainbow part started – Man on a Silver Mountain, hush the last beer (bottle) and into the grounds! How is it possible that a sound check was awesome but the actual band sucked?? We did get to see two songs, Highway Star and… Keep on Rockin’in the Free World (?Neil Young?) We got out of the grounds and ended up with 24/7-partying German neighbors… ear plugs, tooth brush, shuteye, out.

Friday started in the village, some 20 minute walk downhill. Maarten had told me they have a few favorite shops and restaurants in the village, but the ‘normal’ bakery was shut due to Covid and holidays (…) and the Italian restaurant was being rebuilt so also shut. Supermarket – cucumber, banana, melon and bread – coffee later. With the wrist bands we noticed it IS a low-budget festival, as they simply used the 2020 ones ^^ We want to see any band now, forget about the metalcore for once? First band was Saint Serpent, stoner, southern rock, mouth harp and Anselmo vocals?? The band sounds quite OK but the vocals were dissonant to say the least. First picture: me in Wanda’s Neckwrecker set :cool: No water for me now, as it was a long hose connected to a well… the water was near milk-white splashing on my hands. Uhm, beer. No beer for Skindred as well, they had to be replaced due to Covid in the band, last minute annunciation: Zebrahead will fill the headline spot. FB reactions: ‘no more metalcore please'

Nitrogods was up next. The boys were all over it, as the band had played NOAF before. I found out the organizer welcomes every band with a well-meant ‘Heee NOAF’ and gets equal cheers, no matter what band plays. OK, Nitrogods. They have a Peter Pan Speedrock feel, filled up with Stray Cats, Motörhead and Kyuss. This is good music to hang on a hot and dusty porch, poking up sun glasses, whisky and BBQ. Cool band. My highlight of the Friday was meant to be Evil Invaders. The Flemmish play songs off every release they have, so including Agent Steel-like neckbreakers, Judas Priest-like voicetwisters and Paradise Lost-like chant. Imagine PL playing As I Die on 78 RPM Hit the pit like I do (need) so often, Rheinland-Pfalz metalheads don’t know what hit them A little rain couldn’t hide the fact I was wet from cap to boot :cool: Picture of the set list:
- Hissing in Crescendo
- Mental Penitentiary
- As Life Slowly Fades
- In Deepest Black
- Sledgehammer Justice
- Tortured by the Beast
- Feed me Violence
- Die for Me
- Raising Hell
- Beeeeer

Arjan was all over Landmvrks so he joined us later for supper, paying for my food as he’d lost Wanda’s ticket. He’d been living in Germany for over 10 years so he offered my Thursday to sell the ticket to the ticket office… better in German he said. Thanks for the Thai, Arjan. All we had to do was hear him blossom up Landmvrks hahaha.

We returned, sort of, in time for Exciter. To be short, we could have emptied a few more Radeberger beers at the Thai, as the band has totally lost it. The ancient sharpness is way gone, Beehler sounds like a castrated billygoat nowadays and the songs haven’t taken time so well. We heard Violence and Force from the camping, Victims of Sacrifice sounded like Weeners of Forgiveness and Heavy Metal Maniacs sounds like old cheese. Clearly a band that hangs on their old fame too much. Not many people enjoy it… apart from the Evil Invaders guys that is, the Biergarten is over the top filled ><

Hmm, what about Callejon then? NOAF always has metalcore in the line up, to keep the young interested. Fine, every year metalcore so every year bollocks. This band… huppelkutcore. Arno, with his punk-, ska- and hardcore-past is the only of us that has ‘sort of a good time’ during Callejon. We end up in the Biergarten, making the silliest of silly two-line-jokes and nearly pass out. No time for Zebrahead, I think they played Dynamo Open Air once but I have ‘no active memory nor present fun’ to watch them. Tooth brush, out. The neighbors seem a bit quiter than yesterday… good. Arno did see Zebrahead but he was so drunk... never mind

Waking up I felt heavy in all aspects. Head full, neck a bit sore (thanks Joe ), bee- and mosquito- stung, stomach needing vitamins and water, I head into Wörrstadt alone. Bram plundered my supply of paracetamol, Maarten needed stomach pills… Another cucumber well spent, also brought a Rheinland bread for Wanda, to taste after her colostomy next Thursday… Colors of Autumn is the first band I see. Metalcore with folk elements. I pass. Bram told me ‘the Vulture sound check is already 126 times HEAVIER than the entire CoA show’ \m/ Maarten’s reaction ‘louder is always good’ and Bram’s right: the band has a fire some thrash bands no longer possess (Canada anyone ). In looks, speed, aggression and sound they are from 1985, even though they ‘only’ formed in 2015 ^^ What a powerhouse this band is! Singer Leo already starts mic-stand-airguitaring in the sound check and keeps doing that most of the show, as he’s sorry he doesn’t have an axe of his own Plus, it was EXACTLY what I needed, after a slow start this morning and nearly into a fight with Skullcrushers stating ‘oh you’re from the rival fan club and fuck off’. I don’t let that go pass me so easily, but I’m outnumbered 20:1 it’s fine to walk away, swearing. I had Metal Militia as focus point now, the Metallica numbskull-killing song of old. How I enjoyed the bumps, hits, smiles and reactions to my own evil grin destroying another circle pit :cool: Took a picture of the set list:
- High Speed Metal
- Clashing Iron
- Gorgon
- Malicious Souls
- Count your Blessings
- Adrian Toomes
- Victim to the Blade
- Metal Militia

Panting, I walked away. Couldn’t raise my arms to catch a guitar pick nor set list. I needed water and beer. Found Asphyxers Zuur, Husky and his wife Sabrina telling them about The Graceless Hordes of Westwoud shirt I wanted to give to Van Drunen. Got a hug instead and bought some merch (Vulture, Overkill, Asphyx, festival as ‘ordered’;) ) Another big hug: 3/5ths of Vulture needing a picture with me Alwin was totally not into Dool as I was, stating ‘Mother Nature hadn’t done so difficult’ but to me the band came right at the good time: I felt the melancholy the band played right to my head/heart/brain: I still hadn’t forgotten the Skullcrusher reactions, the boiling stomach and Maarten’s bad time (back, stomach and so on). Never mind song titles but one: Love Like Blood, played from 78 RPM back to 33; like a doom song on a rainy, windy day.

Strolling, drinking, talking (several times I was asked about both my Neckwreckers Sets \m/ ) I noticed two metalcore bands to be scheduled after one other: uhm, back into the village for some rest, Kartoffelpummel (fried Röstie with fat buttermilk and herbs, a local favorite). Harakiri for the Quiet? Nope hahaha. I had to be in time back on first row, two beers full in hands, for MY main NOAF show: ASPHYX. The sound check was already blistering loud, playing half of Scorbutics already but without microphone standard? ^^ I was glad Martin saw it as a RL-Pf joke ^^ and moved on. Mid sound check I heard the real Twente accent: ‘Zuur, waa mojje hem?’ No need for a set list:
- The Quest for Absurdity
- Botox Implosion
- Molten Black Earth (first crowdsurfer 8-) )
- Death The Brutal Way
- Asphyx – Forgotten War
- Deathhammer
- Templars Last Stand
- Scorbutics
- ‘etwas altes für Herrieman’ – shouts for Bismarck but it was Wasteland of Terror \m/ :cool:
- The Nameless Elite
- Forerunners of the Apocalypse
- The Rack – I felt that this song was for all that couldn’t be in my present tonight ;-(
- Last One on Earth

At least one extra cool note: Raven van Dorst (Dool) was in the Asphyx pit \m/ (no matter if Raven ever noticed Alwin’s snide comment). I had another great gig, albeit without beer halfway The Rack, but this was awesome again. Martin’s vocals seem even more haunted than before, Husky is on the Drums of Doom, Paul is a raging death metal machine and Alwin’s bass is simply crushing. One silly moment I thought Phil Campbell and his Bastard Sons Play Motörhead would do a good bass part, but fuck no. I had been warned before (Marcel V and VI had seen his band on RockHard if I remember correctly) that ‘it would not be Motörhead ever again’… and they were right The band sounded like lukewarm tea instead of Lemmy. Forget the thunder bass through over the top speakers, just imagine Iron Fist sounding like Gummybear Handshake. The bass is hardly audible! HARDLY AUDIBLE!! No roar to be found in Damage Case, Orgasmatron, Stay Clean (pff the titles suggests… yeah right), Born to Raise the Swimming Pool, We Never Were the Road Crew… from the camping we heard Ace of Spades like a flea market UGHHHGHHHH, Bomber and Going to Brazil And Stay There >< Phil TacoBell and his Bastard Dicks ><

One band especially good in kicking Phil’s ass: OVERKILL was here to the rescue. Upload all friggin Marshall stacks, pour a second HM2 Boss over the TacoBell, put them all on 11, frigg the neighbors, Kick Ass Thrash Metal New Jersey style! Really, what a great kick in the ass to Snorefest Campbell and KILLL! To my surprise, more than half the Skullcrushers were still beering at the time I got back halfway the set, to give Wanda’s Neckwrecker set a legit extra Overkill feel and I dove in again. Electric Rattlesnake, In Union We Stand, Welcome to the Garden State, name them, never bother in which order, but it was like ragged steel on sharpened anvils all the way. Loud, sharp, both serious and funny, Overkill is back in Germany and Neuborn should tremble!! Killer gig once more! OK, it was the loudest band in entire NOAF, but just to HAVE that loud volume! Can anyone imagine to play Overkill on whisper mode? I don’t!!

NOAF is over, but not to me. I met the organizer and thanked him and sort of mentioned I’d be back one day. He just smiled and did another ‘heee NOAF’ to kids in NOAF shirts, grumpy Skullcrushers and Dolers and thrashers… what a great initiative this festival! I don’t know if I make it to next year, but when I mentioned ‘apartment in town’ Wanda’s all over it. Totally happy I joined Bram and Maarten to the rest of the boys. Johan needed to see his FC Utrecht battle Ajakkes so he’d left before Asphyx (probably night blind?) and we had coffee with Arno and Arjan. Driving home was a sweet and uncomplicated ride, Maarten had plenty of energy to bring us home. I drove the last bit with a smile, but a tired one. I thought of pulling over for something cold and brewy, but couldn’t of course. I wanted to share my NOAF story to my beloved Wanda, share NOAF to MT and MA and start working on Wanda’s progress once more. Colostomy this week… mental crisis training completed, see what GGZ can come up with now… for me no Metal Experience fest now, no UK Deathfest (tickets sold!! Whahooo!) and no Schoonebeek, not even the camping. I’ve been off for 5, 6 weekends in a row and we need some quality time. In our new Asphyx-, NOAF- and Overkill-shirts, In Love We Metal! NOAF Danke schön!!

--edit-- Coming to Groesbeek at first showed I had forgotten to bring paper for my notes. Normally I put some paper in my denim first choice, but not now. I asked Bram's son to get me some printable paper and got 6 leafs at once . Coming to Wörrstadt I still thought the Death Metal Birthday would be on SUNDAY so I used one of my DMBD tickets to waggle my notes. One ticket of € 20 used, the other on hangs on the Valley of the Lost Wall; ticket bought but no show. Still, rather use a ticket for writing than to lose it entirely... but to exchange another New World Depression gig for the Asphyx one... nah. Having to choose between Asphyx and Bodyfarm-Graceless is hard enough \m/ ---end edit---
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Metal Mayhem: CD presentation by Messiah, accompanied by Fleshcrawl, Asphyx; Kiff Aarau, Switzerland, Sept. 17th

We were invited by Messiah manager Roger Wicki to witness the Messiah CD presentation for Fracmont with their special friends Fleshcrawl in Aarau, Switzerland, roughly two and a half years ago. Tried to get tickets through Swiss post, Swiss company StarTicket, but all Messiah they both knew was Händel’s I managed through an urgent call from Roger to some company there haha. Postpone blah blah.. I doubted whether we'd return to Switzerland, concerning Wanda's change in condition from day to day since November 2021. But then she made my hairs stand Einstein: along with the befriended bands and some Swiss unknown bands ASPHYX was announced... no need to tell Wanda's all over it. So, KLM dot com and Aarau tourist information filled in... we go! Good to know my sister and her hubby wanted to plan their 4-in-one-evening-party the week before and not a weekend later [married for 40 years in 2021, brother in law turned 65 and their oldest sibling 40 in 2022 and youngest turns 30 in 2022). Another proud point: even though Wanda’s been diagnosed with PTSS and autism, she managed to get the special autism treatment at Schiphol, providing her and her company not to have to wait so long, get so much impressions, so much people… no, we park the car (municipal transport strike for two weeks now ><), bash in and fly! That the Valet parking was to be € 130 to begin with, swoah, for my girl that’s doable.

Following news is not my hobby anymore, but when both Schiphol and KLM were stating they were under personnel problems, Wanda’s stress levels picked up again and yeah, travel early. But again, alone. I heard people had to be there 4 hours before flight, it turned out to be four hours before boarding (!) so I got to Schiphol at 11 AM, fly at 3:30 PM. I wasn’t even too early, but found Fabian Verweij of Legion of the Damned in line, he was flying to Norway with Disquiet. After our third meet in the lines we split ways :cool: The flight itself had two hours delay too so when I entered Zürich I was completely drained. It took me an hour to find the right ticket, platform and train to Aarau; happy that I didn’t start drinking full on yet. OK a beer beyond passport control and one in the plane The lines, the stress, the immobility… Wanda would have lost it so I didn’t text her too much >< Coming to Aarau I found out the hotel was on the same square as the train station and the bus terminal, so I’d never have trouble finding the hotel this weekend :cool: Aauraerhof Hotel is not only a paperless hotel, but also a peopleless hotel! I took a shower and went to the hotel bar for food, it had been 8 PM already, haven’t eaten much. The hotel bar has good personnel, great beers (two huge fridges with +150 beers of all kinds of countries, including Yuengling (!) but hardly food.. I got to a bar quest and ended up in a Thai take away (good, but not enough and pretty expensive), Penny Farthing is supposed to be a rock bar but it’s too English for my liking ( too much sports, lousy fingerfood and Heiny, music OK: Bowie, Berlin, The Who), The 6 Butcher Street Pub is REALLY cool. It’s a rock’n’roll bar with a 10 cm stage near the entry, plenty of forgotten rockers played there, cool music: Ramones, QotSA, latter Beatles. I went to Aarauerhof satisfied.

Breakfast was good, now it’s time for tourism. The city of Aarau predates Rome by about 500 years and has a river of great velocity. Ancient buildings, parks and newish buildings, but hardly any tourist stuff to be sold: I have a city pin, a towel from the local rugby club but no fridge magnet hahaha. Coming back for a clean shirt I met Roger and Dani, the entire band Messiah is in Aaraerhof as well; even though Roger was fighting the personless incheck they managed I got a message from Wanda: Johannes de Boom of The Shavers (real name: Hans Boomsma) had died this week, 74 years old, +40 years of heavy rheumatism and 60 operations… rest in ranzigheid, Johannes! This concert review is for him.

I decided to walk up to Kiff to see where it was, so I found it with a pizzeria nearby. More bad news: KLM simply cancelled my flight tomorrow, ‘we will find a way to contact you’ >< I was baffled but certain I’d be back, albeit with the help of Scots Sandy and John, who urged me to call myself, as the flight would be rebooked to 7 AM. I. Can’t. Be. In. Zürich. That. Early!!!! It’s friggin’Sunday then, first train from Aarau LEAVES at 7 GODDOMME. It took me 25 stressy minutes, helped to whiskey by the Scotts, to get that flight rebooked to 9 PM. It was time to head out to Kiff now. Like said I found a pizzeria, but with my big mouth I ordered a big one… not 24 cm but friggin’ 40 in diameter… I got it down 3/4ths haha. Coming to Kiff I seemed to have needed to revalue my old ticket, but as I brought the original invoice I was let in, but with one remark: ‘that second ticket is overdone now’. Huh, what, ehh, OK, € 45 down the drain and in, as the first band was already playing:

Contorsion has a logo which can confuse both a thrasher as well as a deathhead. From start on, I had no idea what to expect, just let it come. The five piece band plays some 48+-Gouda-semi fast metal with a huge reference to Mecrappica. I tried to turn away but stayed until I did find something OK: their last song was called Insurrection and had a pretty cool Death Angel – Act III vibe. I must say Act III is not my favorite Death Angel album but at least it’s no longer Hardwired or Re-Load. I got a beer and was baffled: there’s a second stage? Huh? Serial performances? It’s no Stonehenge festival, right? I was just talking to Ruth, when I found out I nearly missed Fleshcrawl this way!! The band was already halfway Carved In Flesh before I ran inside the loft stage room. I squirmed myself front row, got an instant box from Manu and Borisz and the band raged on! Another thing I noticed: VERY old songs played! Bloodred Massacre, Frenetic Tendencies (off Descend Into the Absurd!!). This way a nice variation of neckwreckers and neckmassagers was played, here’s what I read from my picture:
- 15 Years Kiff introduction (which I missed, of course)
- Carved in Flesh
- Bloodred Massacre
- Flesh Bloody Flesh
- Embraced by Evil
- Phrenetic Tendencies (hihi spelling)
- Into the Fire of Hell
- Written in Blood
- After Obliteration (midtro)
- From the Dead to the Living
- Slaughter at Dawn
- Beneath a Dying Sun
- As Blood Rains from the Skyyyyyyyyyyy (haha Borisz’ phrase is a litttttle bit different than Sven’s was ^^)
- The Day Man Lost

I am a fan for life, but I’ve stated that before. Now I state ‘I want to see Fleshcrawl in at least as many countries as I did see Asphyx’ so I have my paths set for now :cool:

When back to the cellar stage room I met a frowning Bastian, sweaty and all, he clearly had not expected me to be in Switzerland, at his show, with his Messiah friends (Roger was goofing around us ^^) and was pretty concerned Wanda couldn’t make it. Turned out, she’d been talking to Bastian in Lichtenfels already, explaining her love for me (aaaaawwww sweet) and he’d remembered. Thank you Bastian; see later remark on Bastian From the idea of serial performances can be stepped away, as I totally missed Total Annihilation’s gig, even though I was in the cellar! I got upstairs again, got my Dani-Ruth-Herrieman selfie for Wanda and Messiah was soon to start their CD-presentation of the Fracmont album. I had been wanting to buy the album, get it signed but ended up with Asphyx-shirt, Messiah-shirt and Messiah- Choir of Horrors and an empty wallet >< In the meantime Martin stepped in – facepalm seeing me . Alwin saw Martin, saw me – facepalm Paul – facepalm Husky wasn’t even in by then, all three men were complaining high and low on Amsterdam (hear hear) and Schiphol (hear hear) and Swiss border personnel (uhh, that’s up to you ) as Husky had to enter by train, taxi gone…. For once, as I still don’t have the Fracmont CD, I couldn’t care less about any Messiah setlist, but checked afterwards: half the new CD played, Choir of Horrors (no Weeping Willow? >< ), Extreme Cold Weather, Enjoy Yourself. Not by accident, but this was a very cool show to witness and just plain have fun with another Dutchie that recognized my German accents: hey Sjaak, long time no see. Last time I saw him was somewhere in Baroeg, no wedding ring present then but now married to a Swiss Morbid Maiden. He couldn’t bang his head as he had a shoulder dislocated. He let the headbanging to me, he said ^^ I got my hands even fuller with stickers presented by Roger, Manu and Borisz :cool: and got those into the sleeves of my jacket. During the day I had walked one route with jacket, too hot; then one in Wanda’s Neckwrecker set, perfectly doable and off to Kiff in jacket + Macabre denim – warm in the end. Manu gave me a guitar pick, of which I know he will never use it in Fleshcrawl – he plays bass with his fingers. Still funny to have

Now I didn’t forget to check the cellar band: Hellvetica. Uhm, should I? The band plays a mix of Heaven Shall Burn and Hatebreed, including basketball clothing, short hairs and a wayyyy to jumpy style of performing, which did have an effect on the audience: instantly it got very busy outside and in the attic stage room ^^ The curtains were drawn, I could clearly hear Martin missed the interaction with their own soundman Janosz >< but no worries: Asphyx goes 1,2,3 – off – KILL. Quest for Botox, Molten to a Brutal Forgotten Hammer, Stand from The Sky into theheadbangfest of no one alike. In other words: here’s the setlist I got from Paul (THANK YOU) but gave to the youngest visitors of the evening, accompanied by a VERY proud father :cool: ;
- The Quest for Absurdity
- Botox Implosion
- Molten Black Earth (sent out to Amsterdam - No Metal Mayhem but Amsterdam Fick Iff fest )
- Death the Brutal Way (technique failing Paul)
- Asphyx – Forgotten War (Alwin inaudible >< ON HIS PART of this song ><)
- Deathhammer
- Knights Templar Stand
- It Came from the Skies
- Wasteland of Terror
- The Nameless Elite (Martin: ‘Herrieman is part of the Elite and not nameless’ :cool: )
- Forerunners of the Apocalypse
- The Rack
- Last One on Earth

My goodness, my neck still trembles. My voice still echoes Aarau. My arms went over Swiss mountains. My sweat defrosted the snow pitches. My goose bumps covered most Alpen pitches pink.

As it hadn’t been enough, Dani and Bastian sought a way to thank me for my support over all these years. They brought me into the afterparty, yeah, including free drinks and I hadn’t actually spared myself… Martin put a liter tankard in my hands, grinned evilly and said ‘opzuipen Herrieman, ik wil je ff niet horen’ [feel free to translate, to me it was too funny to break off the thought by translating it :cool: ], Husky was worried I wouldn’t make it home so Paul put 20 CHF in my hand for a taxi, which Alwin took care of. YOU CAN IMAGINE THE HANGOVER, RIGHT!!!

Breakfast with half of Messiah (Roger nowhere to be seen; bass player Patrick and guitarist Brögi were accompanied by two gfs/wives/groupies; one mentioning I could have a beer too – uhm Nein, mein Golf ist noch immer im Amsterdam ) was fun, but I had to be careful… flight would leave at nine tonight (what to do an entire day without a room but with a bag) I went to Zürich after buying one wrong ticket and a good one >< doof herrieman >< getting Wanda’s FB messages ‘Many thanks Husky, you have leveled Kiff to the ground’ LOL, had coffee at the station bar where we sat three years ago… strange. Another demonstration going on? Oh shit it’s political now >< OK I take the train to the airport… to wait friggin’8 hours. Roger apped ‘do you have such a borderless hangover like I do?’ ^^ I’ve seen the annunciations of 4 planes leaving for Amsterdam but had to wait for nearly the last plane leaving Zürich… At Amsterdam I thought I had to pay dearly for the Valet Parking but that was ‘only’ € 7 extra.. with screaming rubber I drove on to the A9 to get back home. But I survived the Metal Mayhem of Aarau, 40 cm pizza and a liter of ‘put them all in’ and nearly more hours of waiting than walking the cities… METAL

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Saxon, Patronaat Haarlem, Oct. 13th

Over the years my ideas about Saxon were quite different, to be honest. At first I kinda liked them, but found them ‘not as heavy as Maiden or Priest’, when I first saw them I was underimpressed aka totally drunk (Graspop 2001) or ‘dinner time’ (Wãldrock 2004) and once even ‘not going to wait through Sabaton to see Biff’ (Ruhrpott). What a fool I’ve been, now I have Saxon nailed to most of my denims . The last years I’ve seen them mostly with Wanda (RockHard, Alcatraz) and we were totally blown away with the energy the band sets as a standard for so many other bands. No wishy washy talk about boring tours or shortage of money/groupies, no sir!! The band gives 200 per cent every time they enter stage, have more energy and better focused than most modernmetal bands and play goddamn sharp. After Alcatraz Wanda said ‘Saxon was my favorite band this weekend, along with Carnation, Voïvod and Demolition Hammer’. Annuciation: Saxon – Haarlem – we go. Simple as that. When September kicked in, I got messaged by Peter Lord Belial he had problems getting onto websites like Patronaat dot nl and ticketslave dot no ( ) with bull about scripts and settings. I thought he had no ticket yet, but when I pressed ‘pay’ he mentioned ‘oh kut, I’ve had saltoo’d and wriggled to get the ticket from my phone to my computer’… another extra ticket. But this one is on his account to get rid of. Over the years, as you could have read, I think I had to find extras for spare tickets for over a hundred times, now it’s his turn. He knew his buddy Rob T would be interested, the rest was up to them.

So, after 4 months of going alone to gigs and festivals (Protzen was the last one together), Wanda was all over it. She’d been calm for the entire week to save up energy to go; it’s as harsh as I mention it! As I’d seen Saxon only on festivals, I thought ‘I’m going as much un-Saxon as I can’ so I wore one of the few denims without Saxon on it, a Pitfest cap and an Extremefest shirt haha. I did use my last UK Deathfest print to have ‘something British anyway’ 8-) We picked up Peter, he has to sneak out of his house/marriage to get to gigs nowadays and drove into Haarlem in the rain. We tried to hurry as much as possible between garage and venue, but it wasn’t that bad; we got in smoothly. No need for the wardrobe, on to Diamond Head. I’ve seen them several times and was always let down because of their victim stand: ‘we ought to be a bigger band due to the bands we influenced’, ‘we’re ready for a headliner for once’ and that kinda crap no one is willing to pay attention to. In fact, I’d rather drive an hour later not to have to hear that tune Mecrappica covered and Peter’s reaction even before the first couplet ‘this doesn’t make my weener harder’. Second song: Sweet and Innocent… just as the band performs. I don’t give a shit who’s in the band now, as long as it ends soon!! We met Rob, a few Marcels and Paul (of Final Heiress and Emerald) and didn’t have to hear any DH song anymore.

When Saxon was checking sound we decided to head to the balcony to try to see ány part of the stage, that was impossible from the floor next to the big bar we first stood. At the balcony it was even worse, but now Wanda could sort of climb on a part of the bar above, hold herself and hoist herlself up to sóme vision. My pictures are fuzzy, to say the least What I wrote was this:
- Carpe Diem
- Sacrifice (Biff reaches the high notes with ease!!)
- new ones
- I thought I heard Wheels of Steel (already?) but it turned out to be Age of Steam
- entire band headbanging! Drum sound is great, but the guitar volume starts a bit too low. Gladly that got fixed soon
- You Gotta Rock To Stay Alive
- Dambusters – Peter goes out to buy the CD. It’s signed by the entire band!
- bass player – young dude compared to the rest, but such a lovely freak on stage ^^
- The Thin Red Line [my notes were deciphered as ‘The Thing that Should ehh no’
- light show is not abundant, but can flash once in a while. I’m happy.
- Living on the Limit – for Biff’s son
- Dallas 1 PM
- HMT – of course, one of their coolest songs IS Heavy Metal INDEED
- shouting contest to chose between Broken Heroes and The Eagle has Landed – EhL wins with a minimal difference
- setlist.fm says the band gave the Antwerp crowd the same choice and the same song was played
- Biff asks for fan favorites – ‘Solid Ball of Rock you say? That might take an hour, but you’ll hear it’ 8-)
- Black is the Night – now it’s my turn to buy the new CD
- Metal Head – I’d thought they meant the fans but it’s about aliens HA HA HA
- And the Band Plays On – tribute to more deceased than just Lemmy, Philthy and Würzel. Cool song no matter what
- Wheels of Steel - NOW they do play it
- singing contest between Haarlemmers and Amsterdammers – Wanda shouts ‘Westwouders can roar too’

First FB annunciations after the show: Johnny Amsterdam was happy to pick a guitar pick from out of the air, Marcel 8 has a set list and I don't use it
On setlist.fm I’d seen the band would do at least two encores or even two batches of encore, but my knees were killing me, Wanda had trouble standing and Peter saw that… we got out. Happily rephrasing Biff, happily doing my hobby – seen Haarlem by night so often, but I never, ever take the same road home than the way I came – needing food? Nah, sneak Peter back into Wognum and a nice Veltins pint waits for me… It had been a long day but I couldn’t sleep until I’d seen what my voetbal would offer – easy PushVuh win, AZ lost and a Feyenoor draw. In Feyenoord’s Europa League pool every club has 5 points out of 4 games ^^ Feyenoord and AZ first in their pool. Good. We had a great Saxon show, forget both DH and our physical imperfectons, we had BRITISH HEAVY METAL!

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Harnbarg Metalfest III, feat. Burial: Oct. 21St, 22nd, Gebouw De Hoogenweg

One of the coziest little festivals was there again: Harnbarg Metalfest. We’d been to the first two editions did not recant the promise to organizer Gertie Doctor to get the earliest of earlybird tickets for the 2022 edition. What we didn’t know, was that the return of De Heideroosjes would be the same weekend, so we gave that delayed tickets to my brother Alex and niece Thirza. I’d been Roosjes-loos long enough not to bother about this twice removed reunion. They’d go to Eindhoven, we’d be in Hardenberg. We would like to stay in Hardenbergerveld again, but as we didn’t want to bump heads with organizer Gertie, we left the use of Hardenbergerveld to one of his bands. We knew we’d return, even tried three times to book a weekend off there, but couldn’t return to this B&B so soon. We arranged B&B De Vlinder… not wanting another Christian sneer haha. It got even better, as Gertie promised to bring Master to Hardenberg! That was a big surprise and a welcome one, but somehow Paul’s not going to perform for me for the eleventh time… We heard in Drachten about promises no one could keep, but it’s a bummer after all. I don’t know if Gertie had a hint beforehand, but on the first flyer Burial is already in bigger letters? We’ll never know, as Alwin didn’t know either >< Didn’t I see a Helslave logo somewhere too? Turned out, there had been a big clash between Gertie and Alwin; Master now performed in Musicon with Stoflik Omskot. Uhh that would be the 12th missed Master show for me.

On the road to Hardenberg we had tons of trucks but managed to get there in time to have the choice between Indian or snack food and got picked up by one of Gertie’s closest friends. André said Gertie had had made a deal with me, but Gertie thought I’d worked it out with him already. Capice? HA HA no bother, it’s a small enough community to keep running into each other plenty. I think we were two of five paying visitors (including Mar and her hub) when Slaughter the Giant got to stage. I’d read about them in Aardschok and a few writers there are quite on the bandwagon for these guys. Singer shouting ‘I want to see some movement’, Wanda said ‘does he mean getting beers or hoisting up your pants?’ The band plays some technical death metal in the vein of Darkdayrising and The Black Dahlia Murder. I couldn’t make out or the drummer is real or using a trigger… soooo technical it is. Look at the singer, he’s trying to outbang Corpsegrinder.. good luck dude hahaha. The band is Belgian, for interested people

At the entry a photo list of Pim was placed between a few candles so I let my second HJ half filled there. I was asked by photographer Jacques if I’d known Pim, and yeah, he’d known him well too. I must look up his work, it seems he’d been into metal as long as I have been. It didn’t take long before the second band got to stage. I must say I’d hardly had noticed Shoot the Messiah at the Thanatos CD presentation in Baroeg but this made a hell lot more impact on us both. The band only has one guitarist, but he knows his influences, ranging from Chuck Schuldiner to Carlos Santana and back to Jimmy Page again, still playing sharp modern metal. One song as statement against herd behaviour; not your typical anti-everything lyrics to be heard. They played a new song which is a speed metal monster, sometimes they play Slayerian solos, sometimes the grunts are double as well. Note, not high pitched and ultralow in one sentence, nope, two nearly similar grunts helping each other! Wanda got the set list, I had it signed:
- Sample: Stage Entree
- Oblivion Walker
- Sample: Ka Mate
- Arise
- Sample: STM intro
- Shoot the Messiah
- Secret Path
- Adducam Infernum
- Sample: riser
- Morgellon

Wanda kept convincing me she held MY guitar pick, but I have my own, leaving her a bit confused >< No harm done, as it got time for black metal now: Fenris is a band without corpse paint, but just focus on vile, loud and pain inducing black metal, including Dark Funeral- and Primordial roots to their sound. One song, it was explained, dealt about the bombing of Rotterdam (1940) and it seemed as if the entire band had to crawl out of burning and collapsed buildings themselves, such sick music man can produce! The band has so much velocity in them, they had time to play their very first tune ever written twice: The Burning of the Non Believers. Same routing regarding set list ^^
- Black Ashes
- Suffering Predestined
- Das Boot (From Darkened Worlds)
- Ruined
- Doodenakkers
- The Burning of the Non Believers (2x ^^)
On Fenris - Encyclopaedia Metallum: The Metal Archives (metal-archives.com) you can see the band has three full lengths, but didn’t choose to play another song The wonders of metal haven’t left the world yet Having been present on all Harnbarg Metalfests it was easy to stay recognized by staff, security, organizers and bar personnel; we could walk in and out without having to bother anyone. Outside I was witness to the blood ritual predecessing the Serpent Oath gig. I heard someone talking about the blood ritual Watain had done, using 3 day old mouldy pig blood, this was ‘fresh’ pig blood and didn’t have that enormous stench (yet? How often do these guys perform and/or clean their leather coats/pants???) In short, I expected Watain-like black metal and got all that, but with more honesty than the Swedes offer. Even the corpse paint is simpler, but mostly to hilarity for Wanda: the singer looked like he had a Speedo head cap with holes for his eyes. Add that blood and it was all fun to her hihihi. Other than the Speedo the band doesn’t have much of a gimmick and once in a while I can stand such black metal. To me it was most fun to see one guitar player with an enormous forest of hair, getting tangled up in his guitar neck time after time. Add some death metal growls to convince me… I ran out of cash already I will look later if Wanda had bought anything of these bands, now the Shoot the Messiah CD plays. I hear Santana, Slayer, The Lucifer Principle and Yes. We were both tired and let Gertie’s wife/sister Joyce bring us back to the butterflies

We awoke early as we had a plan: visit Ap and Hennie, get rid of German beer crates and be in time for the first band. Action one: succeded, they had had Slaughter the Giant as bed guests haha. Action two: nah, we couldn’t get to a big enough supermarket/Getränkemarkt to exchange them. Action three: bingo. Again being picked up by André was fun, as there was another couple present too: Ronald and Sandra, once again they’ve seen me more often than I’d spotted them Facing the Madness was the opener today. We heard some tribute to DeadHead, so it seemed, but not an unpleasant one. The band only has one guitarist so it can’t be exact like the Kampener deaththrashers I only got surprised by a well placed HSB-break in the last song.

Second band today was Divine-Zero from Germany. The band has been around for over 20 years, have one guitarist more than Facing the Madness and that difference was eminent: the band sounded quite fuller and more mature than FtM. I kept thinking about the Arise-era from Sepultura and some Obituary – World Demise moods. Fast and slow, sometimes in one song, sometimes hammertime! But finding influences is sometimes hard work, so the 35 minutes the bands get to this moment is soon gone. I even forgot to pen down the name of the third band, I think it was Written in Blood, but they remind me of Sodom during their near-death metal sounding days. Cool logo but not the most excitement handed down to us. What did excite us? Circular Saw from Slowakia. The band had been driving for 10 hours, do the show, eat and returned the same day! What about speed, ey? Singer Tomáš Tóth explained ‘Fcuk my rotten English, we’re from Slovakia. What do you like most about Holland? Cheese? Windmills?’ I yelled ‘Hertog Jan! ^^ he said, with a dirty grin ‘Pestilence’ and let the onslaught commence! The band has some open-minded approach to pure death metal I had a lot of connection to. But, don’t forget heavy metal as influence as well. After half the set Tomáš throws 3 CD s into the crowd and Ivor mentions ‘I hope they have brought some more’; I agree, answer ‘then I hope we don’t have to pay them in žlotys’ HA HA HA. I get my copy signed by an astonished band. Looking at the song titles I think I have to use all ALT-key-combinations I can find to spell them right, as over half the songs are written in Slovakian. Is the very first Slovakian band I’ve ever seen? Thinkso! Tomáš gives Kam Lee a run for his money and I detect more Massacre-elements in their music. Nice detail: the words ‘Murder for All’ on the guitars

Time to eat as I wasn’t in for Insurrection at all. Nice to see Douwe again, but the vocals still sound like nails on schoolboards to me, I have use for their OK music now. We eat with Maarten MsD and Ivor, as Exoto fills the stage. Uhm, should I just call them the Belgian Morbid Angel? OK, less genericly speaking, as they lack pleasure of playing more than Vincent meets Tucker >< Azaghthots is such a better musician than those blokes combined and I’m not even Morbid Angel fan >< Singer Chris walks a little more than a regular zombie does and his skull-on-the-mic-stand makes more neck mileage than the entire band. Pffft. I’d rather wait for another Bloodphemy show, as I wasn’t overall excited about my last two Bloodphemy shows. In music and stage attire the band crosses Messiah Marcolin and Glenn Benton, but with much more fun on stage than I can ever imagine Glenn have Doom parts, speed parts, death metal sparks, yeah this is way better than Exoto ever will be again.

Musicwise Bleeding Utopia is more technical than Bloodphemy and Insurrection, but you can overact easily this way. I don’t have much with all those face tatoos, the ADHD guitars, the mastic-tight sound and predictable breaks. Riff A, riff B, 3,2,1, off, something Are we getting old? Or is modern music simply not our thing? Today, so far, we’ve had a great time with Circular Saw and Bloodphemy but modern bands like Insurrection and Bleeding Utopia simply drain us. I was even surprised how well Wanda kept herself today, being the first more-day event in nearly half a year and beers, beers beers! OK, we managed a chair soon, was used well, had great conversations (together, with Gertie, Maarten, Ivor and all the others and laughed about some clearly ‘getting drunk asap’-types she normally avoids) and we ate snack food… is that the key then? She’s been doing great, compared to, say, Protzen or the mental health division conversations in Hoorn… and it wasn’t even the last band. Burial is next but they don’t really bind us this time; we wanted to see Helslave too, but are getting tired at last. Joyce brings us to De Vlinder after a warm round of thank-you-and-have-a-great-time-we-see-each-other-soon-hopefully’s ^^ We’re wanted where we are now and to this point I’m never bothering about punkrock anymore. OK we go to The Exploited on Sunday, but that’s quite a difference to Roosjes-time WE NEED METAL. Gertie asked us to keep the info about next year’s edition under the hat: Harnbarg is expanding to the Evenementenhal, mark Friday the 13th (of October) to your death list five and be ready for Soulburn, DeadHead, Abrupt Demise, Phlebotomized and more!! Earlybirds on sale via FB: Harnbarg Metalfest | Facebook Metal!!! [cozy things to say: log on as member or sign in as guest via https://metal-tavern.proboards.com/thre ... -hoogenweg ]

Edit:
The line-up for Friday the 13th 2023 is already nearly full: It’s a Halloween edition featuring Nazghor, Provectus, Hellevaarder, Asgrauw, Purnama and something resembling Devilberg. Mostly illegible, all trve blekc metal.
I did have a Circular Saw set list and yes I needed my Alt-keys a lot:
- Légia Smrti
- Vanitas
- Intravenózne
- Trauma
- S Matkou Plače Krajina
- Prev Zactatkon Drzaí Ríttmu
- Hladom Proti Hadom
- Všetky Jazvy Sveta
- Krvavá Nedel’A (Prídavok)
- Zacïna Znova
-- my Slovakian is a bit rusty, you see? ^^

The Exploited - belated 40th Anniversary Tour, Oct. 23rd, feat. Total Chaos, Victorie Alkmaar

Has it been really three years since I last took Tom to a gig? Okay, apart from my 50th anniversary party and Stonehenge of course, but I do think so. Seeing The Exploited together was even longer ago. OK, in the meantime Tom nearly finished building his house by his own hands so the priority must have been in bricks instead of metal. Wanda had never seen The Exploited, she does like some punk, so we both hoped she could make it, just after Harnbarg Metalfest III… Coming to Alkmaar the weather was so nice none of us needed the wardrobe and we found the first comrades already: Martin Motörhead, my former colleague Ronald and his best friend Sander. Seeing the tour shirts made us realize there would be quite an extended tour for Wattie & Co., see if his heart is still up to it… The venue was nicely filled with all kinds of music lovers: the undeniable mohawks, muds, rockers, mockers, skins, rockers, deathheads, Overkill fans (us ) and passers-by like Tom and my old friend Gerrit and his lovely wife Irma. Gerrit isn’t the normal passer-by but he looked so casual I thought of that haha. I’ve known him for over +30 years, spanning from Total Loss in 1988 [he plays bass on the demo TV Zombies], Crosby Stills Nash & Young tribute and more.

Of Total Chaos I could be short, as I only ‘know’ one song off an ancient 1980 punk compilation, annoyingly filled with too much Dead Kennedies and some streetpunk stuff WITHOUT The Exploited ><. On the gig I can tell more. First song in, the guitarist stumbled over his own beer nearly causing electricution. The song they played at that point was Punks No Die (or something, I don’t see the need to search through 10 full lengths and a dozen splits and singles now) ^^ Rob Chaos is quite clear in his messages: ‘Fock politicians, politicians mean nothing to me, fock policemen, policemen mean nothing to me; but they’re human too’. Uhhh what? Turned out the band has a long history with police, border officials, city officials and who else had an opinion or crime set on them? The band themselves are pretty energetic, play tighter than I’ve seen several bigger metal bands do and stir up the crowd in a good way. The first pit begins, three songs in, with a mohawk being tossed on stage and stumbles off, hanging in the air for a minute Later on, the song Street Punx is dedicated ‘to Wattie, the biggest and loveliest streetpunk of the world’ I agree to that, but first it’s time for Warcry ‘let everyone do his own thing but do it loud’ He made a remark on Sam Kinnison I can’t relate to, but swoah, the hall went Whoopy in 1,200 ways ^^ Rob Chaos mentioned he hears a lot of Dutch on this tour as the drummer is also the drummer for Rotterdam’s punk pride Disturbance and the bass player (where have I seen him before?) has quite a word Dutch in his vocabulary. This was a pretty good gig, even though I’m hardly familiar with punk to begin with.

The venue had filled up more nicely when The Exploited started their set. Earlier in the set than during Total Chaos the fans start to freak out, but a lot friendlier than in Drachten. First intro in – bash!! Why wait for another familiar tune?

- Let’s Start a War – what an overwhelming sharp sound the band has!
- Fight Back – here’s Wattie’s street history \m/
- Dogs of War – shout my guts out
- The Massacre – fans handing out beer to the band. Wattie shares the 6 beers in the band, but professional as he is (don’t tell him HA HA) he hands out most of his pint
- UK 82 – who’ll point at his Slayer patch or shirt? ^^ - Undisputed Attitude still one of my favorite Slayer albums
- Chaos is my Life
- Dead Cities – first stagediver present
- Alternative – Crass fans fucked off haha. Note, there WERE Crass fans at the show
- Noise Annoys
- Never Sell Out – Tom still hesitates to join, but I see his ankles already dangling ><
- Troops of Tomorrow – WE NEED MORE BASS LINES LIKE THIS ONE
- I Believe in Anarchy
- Holidays in the Sun
- Beat the Bastards
- Cop Cars
- Fuck the System – Wattie forgets his lyrics, but no one bothers as they ALL want to shout along him
- Porno Slut
- Army Life – some moshers are older than the band ^^
- Fuck the USA – time for a visit to the merch stand. I only have one € 50 note but don’t want to be a cheap ass just to buy one patch… and not even for my normal denim I get a sticker and a recommendation for UB40 (form) along HA HA HA
- Punk’s Not Dead
- Sex and Violence – inviting all on stage, Wanda joins them!
- Disorder (pretty violent mosh pit, as it should be. Slayer didn’t cover this song fo’noffin’ hihihi)
- Was it Me
- Maggie
- Don’t Forget the Chaos

Wullie, Wattie’s brother and long time drummer of the band, starts shouting at the sweaty and beat-up crowd that Wattie has to be protected against himself, otherwise he’d go on until the set list is doubled and he’s in for another stroke/heart attack/haircut or whatever. Don't forget Wattie is the singer for 40 odd years!  The set list itself is impressive and certainly long enough!! Where I stand I ‘just’ can’t reach for the paper, but I gladly leave that to a mohawk with his skin(ny) wife. They’re longer fan than I am, swoah. In short: we had a great time. Great to be able to talk to Tom for a longer period than just 140 digits, see Wanda freak out to Blitzkrieg Bop with Irma, talk to Ronald about Groningen and inform people I had expected there; they missed a great evening with Wattie, Wullie and the rest! Chaos Punx No Dead Yet!

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I saw Paradise Lost yesterday for the first time since I saw them touring with Sepultura back in 1993 (!!!). They warmed up for Brazilians that time, but now it was a headlining show.

Jyväskylä, which isn't a small town in Finland's scale, but Monday... There were, I quess, 300-400 people, and I bet it was not sold out (it was at Lutakko, not a very big club), like the concerts today and tomorrow (Tampere & Helsinki).

The crowd was fucking lazy, and while the band's material isn't exactly moshpit-causing, I felt a a bit sorry for them. Over 20 songs was a hefty set, and it was built from almost every era; but nothing off the debut and late 1990's and early 2000's albums.

They certainly have catchy tunes! They delivered with style despite the lazy spectators. Only the bassist was rather rigid, but at least the bass was surely heard! Nick Holmes did some short speaks between the tracks, with dry humour.

There's a few shows after the Finnish ones, and I suggest you go see them if you like 'em. The crowds cannot get any more lazy for sure...

Bloodfest III, feat. Ancient Rites, Bloodphemy, Nov. 12th

Of this festival I didn’t know anything at all. For once it was my niece Thirza (formerly known as Terrorthirzje on MRU) that signalled Wanda, because they’ve been messaging like hell, like to do that and for all, KEEP doing it But somehow this festival, with Thirza’s friends in Bofo Kwo, completely stayed below my radar. You can also say I’d totally forgotten about this, but hey, keep friendly ^^ . The week before the festival Wanda totally lost it, as she kept thinking we’d go to an AC/DC tribute (probably Bon Scotch) nearby, but that’s on December 10th (and we’re on Eindhoven Metal Meeting then). Some stress later, we decided we’d go anyway. Find Leusden on the map, find data on the bands, how’s the venue called, I had no idea. Five bands would perform, including said Ancient Rites and Doomas, Deathmarch (with or without Quinten, who formed Bodyfarm) and Bloodphemy. Doomas is also a band Thirza knows better than I do, but they got cancelled just a few days ago. Hmmm, Bofo Kwo couldn’t make it too and not even Thirza’s friend Ted… we’d have fun anyway, we guessed. But the week was too full for Wanda again, as I wasn’t top notch either: with my company van I crashed into a wheel driving 100 km/h. I’m OK though, the van has three big dents and I have a replacement Caddy. Coming from an Amsterdam damage repair company I was delighted it’s a DIESEL Alex’car is a benzin one so no need to check environmental zones of Leusden

I drove to Leusden, Alex didn’t mind driving back. At first I had to take my hobby again but the venue is closer than we thought. I returned to the car, having bypassed a one-way-street ^^, to have it closer; we might pick up some merch Funny to see 60 Zwarte Pieten and Sinterklazen gather there. The bar man we later met told us he’d been baking fries for them, it was hard to keep up. Being Sint or Piet makes hungry and impatient hahaha. Thirza offered the ticket for Wanda to support the venue/show/festival and they have HJ on tap! First, coffee, it’s still early, maybe a kroket sandwich before the beer runs in. First band took until an hour and a half later, as said Bofo Kwo and Doomas couldn’t come; Black Rabbit was called in last minute. Black Rabbit wasn’t the first band though, that was Deathmarch, originally formed by ex-Bodyfarm drummer Quint Meerbeek. He’s already out of the band, after recording the first demo as guitarist, but this band shows it’s not only Bodyfarm that can make Amersfoort (less than 20 km from Leusden ) tremble with old school death metal! This band plays exactly halfway Entombed and Entrails with some latter Obituary style as well. Singer Olav Bus has some funny statements like ‘after this song we have to slow down a bit as our mothers told us’ and what do they do: play the fastest song I’ve heard in a long time HA HA HA. Last song is a tribute to Johan Westdijk (sp?) who was an inspiration to the band. I’m not sure if the name is correct, but rest in peace. I got the set list:
- Gastorture
- I Am Your Nightmare
- Autopsy with a Chainsaw
- Environment in Decay
- Revenge of the Outcast (‘most people know someone who has been bullied, but this song is about a bullied kid that takes revenge’ :cool: very cool song!
- Lying Scum
- Bayonet Frenzy (‘we already have a song about a chainsaw, so why not bring in knives?’ )

Really cool gig. The band shows experience, skill fun and humour in a way I like death metal so much: not too frivolous, not too much emphasis on technique, played loud, plain heavily OSSDM influenced metal. Add some 16’year olds having fun as a violent pit, I’m in. I thought I had both the demo as the EP, but can’t find it now. I’d rather have two copies than miss out either of them. A man no one could miss today was Ancient Rites singer Gunther Thys. The man greets everybody, including myself and Alex, as an old friend and has a great time ‘remembering where, who and what’ so I got some pictures with him. Same with Mathieu Westerveld, also ex-Bodyfarm. Not only is he a tree-like man but with his friends here his smile is wider than the Methusalem tree (wiki for interested ). Next band today is Black Rabbit. The band starts off with an abysmal sound, as singer Nino Thomas is inaudible, too much drums or only from halfway the set proper guitar solo sounds. The band doesn’t perform less, oh no. The interaction on stage and off is great, it doesn’t take long before a nice pit greets the band. It shows you don’t really need top notch sound when the songs are good! For a band ‘flown in’ last minute they don’t miss one single beat. Later on the sound get better balanced and even I could be found in the pit. Glasses off, phone down, cap on stage and HIT! At first I thought some skins entered the pretty violent pit, but hearing them talk later I know my prejudice was ungrounded. Pfoei. Alex and Thirza couldn’t, of course, stand still and joined me for a nice family pit meeting. Here’s the set list:
- Intro
- La Bestia
- Parasite of Minds
- Fake Blood
- Culmination of Hate (a new song, the band is working on a full length! Very brutal song!)
- Hollow Eyes
- Paradoxical
- Taken by the Devil
- A Path Profound (as a thank you for my sore throat bass player Robbin van de Bos gave me his bass pick. THANK YOU!

The band was so thrilled they joined up for a fan picture: at first just me with the entire band, than Alex creeped in and Thirza made friends as well (but with only 4/5ths of the band?). Clearly band and crew were happy with the shirts and beanies sold to us Time for a slice of bread, happily the Zwarte Pieten hadn’t eaten it all We also met one of the members of Officium Triste, who recognized me as ‘you took Pim Blankenstein’s patch off his jacket for your Dutch Denim, with a snack fork’ and sold me the new Officium Triste single Morose. Smiling I type this, as I have 7 pictures of him and me now, but don’t know which member it is (apart from Pim ). Singer Olivier from Bloodphemy spotted me as well and convinced me to buy his ‘new’ album Blood Sacrifice, on one condition: sign it Olivier didn’t have much time though, he was still in his normal metal clothing: denim, leather, boots and not as the monk he’s on stage. The band goes full throttle, clearly they’ve practised a lot lately. It was a lot more convincing than, say, Headbangers’Bash of Stonehenge! From the second song on, it’s all fans flying around, going bear barf: mosh pit, stage stepper (no one came near stage enough to catch the young dude, so he scrawled off hihihi), beer through the air, headbangers, beer drinkers and after every song: gaspers for air haha. Especially the rhythm section is loud as a cannon, but the overall sound is very good. A set list later:
- House of Souls
- Spree Killing (roughest pit of the day so far)
- Folie a Deux
- Void (KILLERRRR track!)
- Infanity
- Flock of Lambs
- Revelation (haha it looks mathmatic: every headbanger gets exactly one square meter for his own)
- Catch 23 (was that a Hypocrisy cover? No, that’s Catch-22)
- Disgusted
- Derogated
So, I bought the beanie, still thinking whether I use it as patch or as protection against the cold ><

Next up was some more-caps-and-beards-than-talent grindcore band called Cuttered Flesh. I saw the logos on the shirts and decided I wasn’t in for deathcore/grindcore/goregrind or whatever. I don’t even know how long they played, but we were happy headliner Ancient Rites was checking sound when we re-entered the venue. We’d been talking to all kinds of visitors, crew members, band members (hey Alex Seegers, telling progress on the new album! Again a remark like ‘shush, you know now’ and he clearly had done something cool. As I explained I didn’t want to wear Bodyfarm shirts to Bodyfarm Country (Amersfoort, Leusden) my brother Alex showed the Bodyfarm shirt he’d gotten when my other brother Toon ended Stonehenge with three shirts and band member Alex was happy again ^^ It didn’t help Mathieu bounced around, showing exactly the hoodie I’d gotten from Seegers HA HA HA. Mine is cooler hahaha. Seegers clearly had come (by bike ) for a nice chat with and seeing Ancient Rites. The band surely hasn’t lost its touch, as old and new material was played sharp and loud. I told Thirza of the AR fans that came to Wacken 2003 for just one night, all covered in Flemish flags, no need for a friggin’cool rest of the line up there. Ancient Rites or death! Sort of the same shouts were greeted with huge satisfaction and the line gave another hint:
- Infant Sacrifices (intro)
- Assyrian Empire
- Crucifiction Justified
- Obscurity Reigns
- Death Messiah
- Longing for the Ancient Kingdom
- Land of Frost and Despair
- Evil Prevails
- Blood of Christ
- Saefthinge
- Total Mysanthropia (now I got to the stage and made a picture of the set list. Let the fanatic AR fans have this paper, I’m OK and pretty drunk. Alex notices and after one salute we move out. No matter the band’s best songs are coming up as encores: )
- Mother Europe
- Fatherland- clearly the band welcomed this gig a lot, with such a long set. I loved it.

Alex drove like he did my hobby and I lost it, as he told me he’d been driving on my tips/hints to get home? What? Don’t you trust your own Skoda navigation ‘no, it’s simple as that’. Pfffrrrgggrrrr. Why? I’m drunk, in the back of the car and texting with Wanda, why the FUCK do I have to plan the journey home? Thirza is more clever than that and calms me by asking normal questions of how I’ve been lately, how Wanda is doing and what our effort is to get it all within parameters again. Thank you lovely niece of mine! Needed that. In short: this was a great day but with a false ending, which turned out OK reaching Hoorn again. I got dropped off, some hugs followed and we’re all metal again. Metal. Family. Needed. Metal.

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Sylvia’s Black Fest feat. a.o. Offerblok, Brutal Sphincter err it was officially called Eupen Metalfest

How often do you come across people organizing an entire black metal festival for their 60th birthday? I know bands that partied; Boltfest, Motörboat, Legion of the Damned fan days, to name but a few, but I’ve only been to Boltfest of these three. Sylvia’s 60th birthday was meant to be an all-in-party for her, just like having Graceless in Westwoud was mine, I guess. Sylvia and Jurgen couldn’t come then, as it was his birthday too and he combined that with Jens’ birthday (see 2013 Extremefest review). What I did do, was send a Kermit-green Graceless Hordes of Westwoud shirt to Eupen, where this party would take place. He even got to Aardschok with it, as my gift to her is that edition of the Aardschok with the Stonehenge 2022 review in it. Had it been perfect for Sylvia I think Sólstafir would have shown up, just to surprise the world’s biggest Sólstafir fan ^^ She’s even a bigger Sólstafir fan than I’m on Asphyx hahaha. On the bands we can only be surprised, as most of the band logos are illegible and don’t make much sense to us. It’s been a while since I went to a festival without knowing ANY band I booked a B&B some 450 m from Alter Schlachthof (nice to get bloody on black metal, eh?) At home we discussed confetti (not allowed in the venue, Jürgen cried; there IS a goregrind band present), corpse paint (‘but you have to get it off as well, right, drunk or not?’) a wigg (too tickling)… so in the end we ‘just’ go as ourselves. Bring in toilet brushes. Drive early as well, it’s a 4,5 hour drive and the doors open at 3:45 PM already. In the meantime one band had to cancel, Catalya was replaced by Brutal Sphincter. Not that I’m a goregrind fan, but at least this is a band we’ve seen LOL.

Through FB we’d suggested the name Sylvia’s Black Fest, but she wanted to keep it neutral; the flyer held her e-mail address for buying tickets and it wasn’t even announced in Aardschok’s Kom Snert list We did drive around 9:15 AM and one coffee break later we got there around 2 PM. Wanda had all the time to cool down again at the hotel while I went tourist in the town, hunting for fridge magnets or city patches, but the local administration was closed. I showed the pictures to Wanda and we might return For now, I found the venue and a restaurant that was already open, but the food wasn’t top. OK, we’re filled and the Eupen Brew wasn’t that bad. No idea what brand we’d be served, at least with Jens; I’d met him and his wife on my tour already. To my surprise it was a cash-only happening so I was happy to have used my cards before. With Wanda paying for the food the cashflow went fast… [halfway Ios Talionis Sylvia’s brother got me to an ATM, playing AC/DC in the car, explaining it is his favorite band. He was surprised it’s mine too ^^] No need to linger as the first band was scheduled at 4 PM already. They’re called Funeraria and play fast black metal. Black candles on the stage, corpses painted, loud, I kept thinking of an inverted cross between Marduk and the Norwegian Shining, but without pissing off the audience. Strange, as both Marduk and Shining aren’t bands of Wanda’s liking, but she bought the demo ‘Here Lies Mankind’ because she ‘liked a few riffs in black metal riffing I like’, OK. The band nor the demo are on MA yet. We even grabbed the set list, much to the surprise of their ‘crew’
- Ungoliant
- Nun Broken Wish
- Flesh of the Twilight Moon
- Burning Saints
- Darkness Subconscious
- Black Torture Soul
- Haunted
- Panzer Division Marduk (that one I didn’t recognize haha)

This was nice, knowing I’m by far not the biggest black metal enthusiast. We met more people surrounding Sylvia, like her parents (80+ and still going strong! Kudos for showing up! Now we know where Sylvia’s loveliness was based upon!) and Heiko. Second band today was Krähenfeld from Krefeld. This band originates fromt the same city as Blind Guardian, but of their fairy-induced power metal isn’t a hint to be found. These guys do atmospheric black metal in the vein of (of course) Primordial, latter Satyricon and a hint of Alcest. To my watery, untrained eyes it’s more smoke than recognition… this was a short gig for us. We’d rather talk to half Deaf Forever (hi Robin!) explaining about how much Sylvia pleaded Offerblok to come In the meantime the third band got to stage, called Ios Talionis. More Norwegian Shining – ehh I need cash. See above.


The band had in fact already called it quits, more or less due to all Covid restrictions, but couldn’t deny Sylvia’s wish: one of the very last shows of Offerblok! I had expected black or death metal, but it was full blown stoner! QotSA fans beware, don’t let yourselves be fooled by Foo Fighters or even Truck Fighters, this is the shit! Before band could actually start Sylvia had to announce ‘the car with license plate XG-30-NR still has the lights on’ HA HA HA. The band could see the fun in it and renamed their first song to A Car Battery Deceased Why the hell does a band we both like end so shortly?! We got the lot: shirt, stickers, demo, two guitar picks and a ton of goose bumps:
- A Sun Deceased
- Your Dying World
- Road to Ruin
- The Beginning at the End
- The Damage Done
- Sacrifice

My goodness, was this intense or what? Robin started his show with a hand box and a bottle of beer to us, saying ‘Zonder drank geen klank’ (‘without booze no soundz’) and he hit hard! The band, consisting of (ex-) members of Rompeprop, Deaf Forever (Motörhead tribute I’d seen on Pitfest and camped next to ) gave me a big smile, as I was fooled by the name of the band and got an intense mix of Melvins and Kyuss we liked a lot. When the singer Joost started using band shirts to wipe off his sweat the band started throwing besweated shirts (and CDs, ouch, one hit me on the nose) into the thrilled crowd ‘as it’s nearly our last show and these are the last anyway’ ^^

Remember the toilet brushes? They went from hand to hand, through the mosh pit, through the circle pit, through the wall of death, to Sylvia’s parents and beyond during Brutal Sphincter. The. Entire. Audience. Turned. Into. A. Sea. Of. Madness. And fun!! I thinkk Heiko, not the lightest man in the crowd, flew around 9 times through the air haha. At the end the entire band joined the stage divers, the circle pit still singing, whatever. The entire bands Offerblok and Krähenfeld joined the madness. Wanda hesitated… You’ve got to have seen to feel it. I’ve made some 40 second film with my phone but that doesn’t take in the entire feel. I didn’t even know they’re Belgian (Liège city/region) so a place on my ‘Belgian’ denim is just ^^ Wanda arranged the set list:
- Intro + Hijab
- Marc Dutroux (no need for sublety )
- N-VA
- Autistic Meltdown (‘Hype em up’, the set list says in marked words
- Anders Breivik (‘it takes 77 seconds, one second for every victim’ in coal-English)
- Infibulation Championship ([ won’t search for that word anymore! Uggghhh disgusting!!]
- The Art of Squirting (‘Female circle pit’)
- Alex Jones
- Analhu Akbar
- Make Goregrind Great Again
- Prohibit Anime
- Unvaxxed Lives Matter (‘Wall of Death’ which DOES happen)
- Raped by Elephants (‘Last song’ but there’s another on the paper: )
- Goregrind #1


Apart from my disgust at some song titles we had a good time. Aorlhac was the closing band tonight but we had had enough, thanked Sylvia and Jürgen and the Offerblok dudes and went to the Sleepwood Hotel for a well deserved rest. The breakfast was awesome and the ride home smooth, some rain and some shine. Funny to find a gas station near Amsterdam that has the same diesel price as in Belgium – within a mile, back on the A10 the diesel was 20 cents more expensive – go for an AAA+++ location – Nope!! We need metal and diesel!

Due to Wanda’s energy level we had to sell the Sepultura tickets I got from my former colleague Ronald and the tickets for the farewell show of The Shavers. Alex and Thirza will go, I don’t know if they recognize my former neighbor Pieter (had to call Johannes De Boom ‘Uncle Hans’ ). Have fun!

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Eindhoven Metal Meeting and pre-party, Dec. 8-10 2022 featuring Suffocation, My Dying Bride (or at least, that was what the leaflet said)

Of course, even my pinnacle of the metal year had to be postponed. After a full pregnancy without any baby nor much metal, we had our 2020 Eindhoven Meeting. As tourists. We found out we’re not interested (enough?) in modern art to see the entire exhibition at Van Abbe’s… but we had book shops that support theft (…) [it took over 10 minutes to get someone in charge to start up the cash register… we’re gone after some 9 minutes ><], Indian shops that don’t have spices and Turkish ones with only mega-mega-portions of… spices. Good thing on the trip: we’re out of West-Friesland for three days and got home in one piece, after meeting up my uni buddy Clemens and our metal bearded friend Erik. All in good portions haha. What I did do to support District-19 was order a bunch of EMM patches, the special edition EMM 2020 hoodie and some Fleshcrawl stuff (how did this end up in District 19? They’ve got a Fleshstore of their own?) and not press a refund… Wanda bought hardcopy tickets the first day of EMM 2019 already. The Sandton was happy to welcome us again, after some 6 sixpacks of HJ, a full showarma menu in plastic and more to fill the bin every day .

The 2021 EMM line up was the same as the 2020 one, apart from the Vltimas tour and the pre-party… no Grand Supreme Blood Court and no Distillator on a Thursday… plenty of time to pre-check Whoredom Rife, The Spirit Cabinet and no need for Theotoxin . But the growing numbers of the end of 2021 made some changes necessary as well: Theotoxin and Arch Goat tour has been postponed, replaced by Asagraum and Wesenwille. Pity Frank Mullen couldn’t come personally, but Suffocation WILL play, albeit in their current line-up. The easiest thing for me to do, is put the line up leaflets next to the hoodie and I’ll figure it out. Both God Dethroned and Legion of the Damned had been hinting about new releases, be it single songs or an album that’s a surprise to me.

As 2022 progressed, we had a lot of different ways to enjoy ourselves. I went to most shows we had tickets to, but had to cancel Sepultura, The Shavers, Rocktober and a few others for obvious reasons. We’re both working on ourselves to improve mentally, or to duck stress whenever we can. We’ve been looking forward to Eindhoven for a LONG time, that I can tell. If Wanda makes it to the last evening, hurrayyyy! Thinking of Netherlands Deathfest we agreed to bring in more stuff for Wanda to do, IF she couldn’t make it to Saturday evening… Pre party first. I’d been celebrating some nice time off (no MDF, remember, but worked anyway ) so at least I’m well rested. Pre party first? NOT IF IT IS SOLD OUT and I did nothing! I had always thought ‘with a two-day-festival-ticket the pre party is free’ BUT NOT THIS YEAR!! Wanda got on her nerves, told me 17 times to check, but I didn’t… until an hour before leaving… I called Effenaar, nothing, was advised to use TicketSwap, nothing, she lost it. Threw her phone to my head, shouting, ‘Messenger. Roman. NOW.’ OK, trembling I explained to Roman about my problem and I waited… within minutes the good news came: ‘bring in your passport and I’ll arrange you’ll get in’… I had to restrain myself from screaming of joy. Let’s say it was pretty quiet in the car to Eindhoven. Pfew. ROMAN THE HERO!!! Thanks a million!

We ate where we had sat often before, good garlic filled showarma and fries… first band would be around 7 PM tonight. It was Theotoxin… but it was a lot better than we expected. Fierce, theatrical black metal, think of a cross Urgehal – Enthroned. Add a warm light show (one specific color per song, not too sharp) and we had a good time. Funny, a man wanted his band to be let in, I told him ‘it’s sold out’, Dikke Kimberly getting Roman to talk, he said ‘I play tomorrow, my band is Final Breath and we’d like to get in.’ That man kept popping up all around the venues, during most bands I’d seen him and yeah, it’s drummer Heiko Krumpholz. Fanboy later haha. I got us some Theotoxin stickers and wait for Whoredom Rife. I’d seen the band on PartySan already and had shown that via WhatsApp back then. The band still plays fierce, no-nonsense black metal with a cross between Dissection, old Marduk and some Deströyer 666 to the mix. There was a lot of interaction between the singer and the photographers (?) but all in good fun. Even black metal musicians are human, right? Wanda went into some trance and as I thought she’d not be doing good (anymore; stress can still easily kill her off) but to my surprise and my delight she later explained she’d been engulfed in a warm black metal nest of some sort. She would have wanted that feeling to last silly herrieman I just had my own problems with the lighting… communicate, communicate, dudes! We got back inside the pretty full D19 stage for Archgoat. Strange, Wanda had just explained she was going to give away her Archgoat shirt as she didn’t like this type of black metal anymore (and it reminds her of her ex), but had a great time during both Whoredom Rife and Archgoat? The first pit of the day ended when some drüeh (true ) blakk metul heads were pissed off because some pitters entered their aura? Pff losers. I thought it was nice to hear fast, shrill black metal for a change but the feeling didn’t last the entire set. We had our BS with the lockers, none of the codes I’d gotten the day before worked. We only heard Friday night the system had been totally reset and written codes weren’t enough to retrieve our lockers???? What is this moneytrap? OK it’s only € 3,36 per day, including € 0,36 administration fee (><) but it should work!

Last band today was Helleruin from Groningen. But how do you describe black metal of a part of the genre you don’t have any knowledge of? It was smokey and full, cozy at the bar, well visited near the merch and in the foyer there was talk all around, but the music didn’t enter my head at all. OK, it’s been a crazy and long day, we’re off. No need for an afpils.

Friday started with a great breakfast and a long walk through Eindhoven city. I’d needed some time alone, as did Wanda and that feeling lasted for about an hour and a half. We’d try again if the codes for the locker worked, but we got the tip: ‘ask at the end of the evening’, OK. The first band would start at some 4:30 PM and that was Bloodphemy in D19 hall. The band had a full house in front of them, a great sound but the jokes and annunciations were business as usual. Heiko again, he wanted me to stand front row during Final Breath, but his requests made no sense to me. I know I’d seen the band before, but also that it wasn’t much of my liking. My prejudice was thinned, the band members can play, but not in a way I’m getting warm of. Sound OK, mix bad, band not getting better within time. Of Antropomorphia I don’t recall a thing at all. We were waiting for God Dethroned anyway and got the full monty: a great band, doing a 30year anniversary version of The Christhunt, plenty but doable light, a full headbanging mode and a full house. Henri isn’t such a dry dickhead anymore, he clearly enjoys what he’s accomplished with his band so far. God Dethroned is ready for the onslaught; Wanda got the set list:
- Under a Darkening Sky
- Villa Vampiria
- Soul Sweeper
- No Man’s Land
- Asmodevs [this isn’t 30 years old, it’s brand new, it’s the latest official video https://youtu.be/2FKrz3p_N9s ]
- Christ Carnage
- Hordes of Lucifer
[Necromagnon crossed out] I shouted for Illuminati, but did we get it because of me or because the set list says so?
- Illuminati
- Serpent King
- Boiling Blood (adrenaline pumps full throttle, shouting as hard as we can. No need though, as the volume went in overdrive from now on from heavy to full to loud to over the top)
- Poisson Fog (Fish fog?? LOL)
[Sigma Enigma and Spirit of Beelzebub crossed out]
- Nihilism
- Hating Life
- On the Wrong Side of the Wire
- Storm of Steel
The leaflet says ‘The Christhunt 30 years anniversary – Latin American Tour December 2022’ but only three songs of The Christhunt? OK, with the rest of the set list I won’t complain, but I’d have liked to hear “at least” their own anthem God Dethroned… Later on I spoke to ex-GD drummer Michiel van de Plicht, but he’s ‘glad to be in Pestilence now, we’d had our differences in GD, Henri’s boss but in Pestilence we’re democratic, more democratic than ever in GD’. Thank you, nothing personal, but sometimes I’m glad I’m NOT in a band haha. In the meantime we gathered for Schirenc plays Pungent Stench – van de Plicht, Magda Master, Jurgen, Sylvia, entire bands Carnation, Cryptosis, Bodyfarm, half of Hail of Bullets and so on and Suffocation’s Charly Errigo went nuts ). It. Was Loud. Nuff said? Haha, we enjoyed it a lot. First row, again a slightly different band than the previous time but some hell of a bunch of musicians doing their stuff great:
- Shrunken and Mummified Bitch
- Happy Re-Birth Day
- S.M.A.S.H.
- Brainpan Blues
- And only Hunger Remains
- Sputter Supper
- Sick Bizarre Defaced Creation
- Splatterday Night Fever
- Daddy Cruel
- Fuck Bizarre
- Extreme Deformity
- Viva La Muerte
So cool to see the band doing such a different set like the last time. And don’t give a flying fukc about who plays what hahahaha. This weekend we didn’t meet Martin, but to be honest we had hardly been to the merch tent to begin with. Roman later explained the tent gave room in the foyer, some rest as well and with Austrian Covid-rules in mind they might need the extra space in square meters to have the festival without restrictions SHOULD there be another outbreak. I only went inside the tent to get Legion of the Damned shirts but that was on Saturday. Our Friday was over, even having missed half the line up due to babbel, talks, bull, drinks, immobility, other friends and utter drunkenness. OK we missed Chapel of Disease, Rotting Christ, My Dying Bride, Mgła, Stallion, Angelus Apatrida, Ulcerate, Suicidal Angels, Djerv (no we didn’t hahaha) Unleashed, Benediction and Saor. Fine. I said it. It was to cozy and comfy in the foyer to participate in bands I’ve seen quite often or don’t like at all. Drinking Weihenstephaner instead of Bahvaria was a good idea and we continued to do so.
Saturday started, like so many times before, at my friend’s Clemens house. Talk talk talk, LEGO for a mini-city ^^, walk to Effenaar with the five of us. We were in time for Slaughterday, but the small hall was already so full I stood at the ‘old’ merch position between the little hall and the foyer. The mix was clear, the sound was blunt, the band had fun and I soon heard Ancient Death Triumph, I knew I was at the right place. We also wanted to stand first row for Carnation on main stage. No one noticed the band was to play early, but professional as they are, Jonathan and Co. smeared the venue to pindakaas. Sharp, heavy, well trained, nicely balanced between melody and harshness, not afraid to play old nor new material and all in between:
- Iron Discipline
- Stench of Death
- Sepulcher of Alteration – mi colore de saunge! So overwhelmingly heavy, soo loud, sooo tight
- Hatred Unleashed
- Serpent’s Breath
- Chapel of Abhorrence
- Reincarnation – with four feet of goose bumps and my throat clogs up. RRROOOAAARRRR!!!
- Necromancer
- Shadowless Depths
From where we stand, we clearly hear the drums, Bert’s guitar and Simon’s vocals, but hardly any solo part by Jonathan. That’s a pity, but we really want to stay first row so we don’t mind about this tiny gap in overall festival feel. We stick around in the big hall as Wanda wants to feel the entire Legion of the Damned building up and sound check. Maurice and Co. hardly need a sound check, as they’re so experienced and have been playing in the same line up for quite some time now. I hesitated to join the pit, as I had such a good time with Wanda and the band going 200 per cent and hitting HARD!! Inge got the set list:
- Son of the Jackal – directly interacting Maurice and Fabian
- Werewolf Corpse
- Doom Priest (not writing as I NEED to bang my head ánd their energy)
- Taste of the Whip
- Diabolist
- Palace of Sin
- Slaves of the Southern Cross
- Pray and Suffer
- Bleed for Me (‘It’s not a shame if you guys want to keep playing for two hours more’ – ‘uhm, we’re not the youngest anymore’ HA HA HA)
- Legion of the Damned – trying to explain to Sylvia about ‘need thrash to calm down’
- Dark Coronation

We had Benno and Leendert near us, near-Legion of the Damned newies. Leendert begged me to get him a guitar pick, I’d get plenty of beer to compensate. I got Twan’s printed guitar pick, Leendert had a non-printed version from Fabian. I swapped, telling them ‘Haha did you really think I’d need even more beer than we’d had so far?; let’s get you both some Legion shirt’. Baffled, they joined me to the tent haha. We also ate at the showarma joint I’d met nearly-all-Exodus-member there so many years ago; we had plenty of time. I like some Benediction or Unleashed once in a while but now it was quality time for us both. As we were in time for Gutalax we’d help Ineke in her wheelchair get the blow up pizza, the confetti and mostly: the circle pit! Gutalax already played a won match, as the jokes about voetbal were combined with shit humor haha. Nice to see the band members in their normal clothes before the paper overalls set place haha. Gutalax had some 50 minutes to shit out some 15 songs and burpdeburp gurgeldegurgel floodthetoilet music was spread. Jurgen and Sylvia in great mood, security wasn’t needed but they seemed to be so anxious, we guessed they were in practice term or something. Nice little party. Nuff.

Still talking so much, Wanda needed a seat badly so we missed another couple of bands. I wanted to see which singer Suffocation would bring, I guess Suffocation’s now the band I’ve seen with most different singers so far. Mullen, Robinson, Myers, Gallagher (I think) ; heh heh even Exodus had ‘only’ three singers’ hahaha. One song in, one marvellous break and I've had enough; Wanda didn't even leave the foyer for Suffocation.  No need for Ancient, Misþyrming or Saor, even though many advised us to do so… we needed sleep. We thanked Roman for the ninth time, he’s now sober (yesterday his stress level was still present and afterwards he went OFF his rocker drunk haha), emptied our locker with help from the bar personnel and walked out. Tickets bought for EMM 2023, put in agenda ‘have you bought pre party tickets yet ^^ and arranged the new deal at the Sandton. No need to drive home in silence, we had enough to talk anyway. About NOT forgetting to do stuff, trying NOT to keep such mistakes so high and stay METAL in between. Eindhoven Metal Meeting was a blast, albeit slightly different from what I’d expected in this line up. Eindhovuhh de Metalste!

For the ones without tickets (...) sign in as guest or login as member on https://metal-tavern.proboards.com/thre ... -2020-2022
Thanks to Effenaar I've got even a better review ánd awesome pictures: www.effenaar.nl/artikelen/emm-brutal-me ... ly-reunion 

Hedon Zwaar Nieuwjaar, Asphyx, Graceless, Jan. 7th 2023

A great way to start a new metal year. Of course, it had to be postponed at least once, as you don’t hold a New Year reception in June haha. Asphyx was the headliner from the start, along with Graceless so we’d be surrounded by friends ANYWAY. We could choose to drive home or pick one of my all time favorite B&B’s Hotel Fidder, some mile away from Hedon. Hotel Fidder it became, but Wanda had to bail out to another crisis again :,-( I got there early and wanted to meet Maarten MsD as he offered to rescue my old laptop from Windows haha. This way I could eat at Fidder’s at well, which was to our delight when we did our Covid-influenced citytrip back in 2020. One thing that estranged me was, silly enough, that the festival is called Hedon Zwaar Nieuwjaar now, as I thought Zwols Zwaar Nieuwjaar had a lot more bite to the name. Swoah. Also, would it be the same date as the last Kutschurft show or ‘just another Kutschurft show?’ Leiden or Zwolle makes no difference to me, but I rank Asphyx a lot higher than Kutschurft… Alex offered to take the ticket but it was on too short notice (he’s a grandfather now, congratulations to my niece Lilian and her daughter Eva) ; he had to au pair his grandchild haha. Not even a week old and she’s already ruling his agenda ^^

Indeed, I met Maarten and Brammerman even before entering the venue but couldn’t sell Wanda’s ticket. Hedon’s website mentioned there would be tickets left to sell, but I didn’t bother too much to sell it anyway and got in. After a big hustle with the new locker system (the wardrobe has been totally removed in favor of merch space) I could put in my jacket. It’s nowadays forbidden to enter the venue in your jacket??? Ridiculous policy, if you ask me. With the locker BS I was already to late to enter the small hall for Caedere, it was simply too full to enter. People were waiting outside the doors to catch one final glimp of the band AND I wanted to be first row for Graceless, who would open big stage this festival. Third reason: way too many friends around, hugs+kisses+hands+selfies (for Wanda…) so I got in just in time. I stood next to Heiko (see Graceless review in Recklinghausen :cool: ) and was accompanied by Belinda, Peter and Dikke K. Graceless started furiously, even though the sound was a bit divided, depending on where you stood. The one person standing exactly in the middle could hear all four band members and what I’ve heard was mostly Björn’s guitar, Kreft’s voice and the drums. Kreft’s guitar was best to be heard from the right side of the stage along with Jasper’s bass. I stood left but I managed to freak out as if I was the one exactly in the middle haha. The volume wasn’t a problem but the mix was out of focus… during these songs:
- Giants
- Die on Demand
- Retaliation of the Wicked
- This Ends With the World in Ruins (nów I hear Jasper’s bass excellently, what an enormous sling this song has! Such an emotionally laden song!!)
- Malignant Seed
- one title I missed due to all selfies (Bianca2, Dave, Reem, Heiko, etc haha)
- Shadowlands – such speeds accomplished \m/ both in playing and in headbanging \m/
- Warpath – strong Celtic Frost-on-high-quality-coke-vibe
- Blood of the Brave (I think, my notes were scribbly to say the least )

Panting, thirsty, heavy arms and neck in the right shape to do A LOT more headbanging I tried again to get into the small hall, but failed again. No Massive Assault for me now, so I bought Maarten the shirts I promised him (Graceless logo, new Asphyx design). He made my new laptop function without Windows and released me from the nails of any computer’s coffin McFlurryAfee and he’s going to unWindow my old laptop. This way I can do everything that I did before but now I work faster and my old laptop is for pictures and ripping music (to use in the car). Maarten was full of Cryptosis the last time he’d seen them, I clearly wasn’t that sharp (on Stonehenge I kept comparing the material to Distillator. I have discussed this with both Frank and Laurens of the band, they know me as an old school Distillator fan. No hard feelings). Then. Yeah. Then I wasn’t keen on Cryptosis, now they totally blew me out of my last hairs, shattered my earwax all over the big hall and made me think music still can be great!! The band played earsplitting loud, but eager, sharp, varied, tight and whatnot. I’m not as far as to buy the album yet, but at least I’m overwhelmed by their inventiveness, professional performing and their lust for music in whatever form you call it. Progressive thrash? Nah, that’s too thin. There’s death metal involved, punk, industrial and more. Biggest surprise of the evening so far. First reaction: yeah I bought a Cryptosis shirt for Maarten but didn’t see him the rest of the evening. Where would he be? Tucked into a corner of the small hall? Vomiting the toilet? Asleep during Fleshcrawl again? Oh no, today was Dutch metal only haha, the remark on sleeping was a pun. Intended. I got into a nice conversation with Marc of Graceless and Marco of Cryptosis afterwards and was rewarded a Graceless beany by Marc and some Cryptosis stickers from Marco. Even in different genres musicians can communicate fluently haha. Thanks a lot guys, highly appreciated!

But that wasn’t all I bought, I will start my 17th denim soon, themed UK/Ireland. I will start the cutting and sewing as my Angel Witch backpatch is delivered, from then on I can start on Motörhead (two parts of a three-patch set), Bolt Thrower, Napalm Death, Primordial and bands I’ve seen in England / Ireland / Scotland. Of course Asphyx hahaha, but Autopsy will find it’s way, Exodus and way more. Where’s my Bloodstock shirt, my Lords of the Land shirt or my Boltfest shirt? Nice to keep busy this way, my second set of bedsheets is beginning to fill as well. Cool to use shirts I can no longer wear, or else they’ll rot in the closet anyway… Found a Black Sabbath – Sabotage coffee mug and for once I was happy to have that darn e-locker at my disposal ^^ For Wanda the new red Asphyx design, they have it again in XXL…

Speaking of XXL, Kimberly followed me as long as it took her to get a picture with Martin van Drunen, relaxed as he always is just before a show. Beer in hand, one final smoke [outside], last fans satisfied, onto stage, taste the sound and OFFFFFF!!! I got a guitar pick from Paul beforehand, were introduced by Earik of The Lucifer Principle ‘remember there’s a little band I might be in, in the small hall, after this mammoth of Dutch death metal has finished’ and here they go:
- The Quest for Absurdity
- Botox Implosion
- Molten Black Earth
- Death the Brutal Way (a nice fuck off to Putin :cool: )
During the first silent part (…) of the show I started shouting for M.S. Bismarck, but got nearly kicked in the head by Martin ‘We don’t play that anymore’ hahaha creep!
- Asphyx – Forgotten War (nice pyro show, gladly the smoke machine didn’t overrun haha)
- Deathhammer
- Knights Templar Stand
- It Came from the Skies (for Theo van Eekelen, who’d been drinking my beer for some time now )
- Wasteland of Terror – Martin doing some airguitar battle with Paul
- The Nameless Elite
- Forerunners of the Apocalypse (nice pit going)
- Death the Only Immortal
- Necroceros (killer buildup!)
- The Rack (goose bumps and constant headbanging)
- Last One on Earth

Asphyx is simply in bloody good form tonight. The band has a full house in front of them, the balcony also was quite full, the volume is great, the atmosphere on stage and off is great. Just so many people together, all having a great time with this well oiled death metal machine. I think the setlist is balanced with evergreens and the best songs off the last three albums. Never mind one nagging hardcore Asphyx fan like me hahaha. With a band with such a stage attire, this sound, this fun on stage, great fans around, I will never nag. Period. I’ve been an Asphyx fan for so long now, I can appreciate all that they throw at me. From interested in death metal (my first Asphyx show was opening for Bolt Thrower) to huge band-freak, that’s how I evolved those 30 years. And we see them in three weeks again, right? \m/ Add a FB picture I got from Wanda, where you can clearly see my bald head going nuts during Asphyx and I’m all over it. Never mind Martin didn’t wear his Graceless Hordes of Westwoud shirt, at least I wore Wanda’s

Don’t forget there’s one more band haha. Like said, Earik had sort of announced his own band when Asphyx got to stage and I’m also a TLP fan. I might have to wiggle myself in, as I had not expected áll visitors would get home after Asphyx. I just had to see The Lucifer Principle, but that I couldn’t see the entire show was no problem for me. I squirled, squished and wriggled myself in, up to the first row and beyond the pit. The. Friggin’. Lucifer. Froggin’. Principle. Is. Back. And. They. Don’t. Take. Prisoners!!! My Christhunt, was this a fire of a show or what? I had not seen the band for several years, as they got into some kind of sabbatical or I missed them since 2018 I guess. First thing I notice: Giedo is back! Thomas is still there! Earik is still a madman of a frontman! Sander is still a tank of a bass player, so brutal is his sound. Mikhail is still the animal on drums. Where’s Hein? I got in during I Am The Law, which they normally don’t play or play last (…) but gladly that wasn’t the last song they played. The band went over the top in their own fast, brutal but still highly understandable death metal, loads of melody and bluntness combined. The band played I Am The Law as a tribute to Erik Nijkamp of Skãldgrim and they bashed in a lot heads this way 8-) I moshed, I banged my head, I raised my glass to him/the band and this is what Thomas’ set list (THANK YOU) says:
- Kadaver
- Eaten (probably Feeding the Land of the Dead]
- Graveyard Ave.
- Into Decay
- There Will Be Blood
- Soul Saviour Throat Cut
- Death Resort
- Monster
- I Am The Law
- Burn
There are some markings on the set list paper, so this order isn’t the real one. At least I Am The Law wasn’t the last song they played and I have certainly heard Soul Savior Throat Cut. Capice? No, but who cares? Thinking hard I probably came in during There Will be Blood and THOUGHT it was I Am The Law. Get it? No matter, I had a great time. The atmosphere was electrifying, there was a lot of sweat and beer spilled those 40 minutes of this show. Good to notice Pitch Black Dawn is still a band favorite to play songs of. I still think it’s a very special album by a band that always has been special to me. Earik, Giedo, Sander and Thomas all befriended me over the years; as did Hein before and Mikhail is a bit of a silent one I guess. This band still knows how to make an audience explode into a raging mass of flying bodies and body parts haha. I do hope the band will do more shows in the future than last 4 years, so to speak.

Time to empty the locker, be sure the coffee mug is still in one piece and peacefully retreat to the hotel. When I walked to Hedon, I thought it took me some 35 minutes to get there, now I thought I got to my room in about 20 minutes. Huh? It can’t be, as I clearly had had enough Heiny’s to swallow and don’t forget I ate in a whisky-themed restaurant before seeing any band. Anyway, I slept soon but awoke with a dry leather tongue, a stomach that was not ready for coffee yet (bad luck intestines, coffee or burst) and I ate cautiously. The sun was prickling my eyes and coming to the car first thing I did was post a smiling picture of me with the Graceless beanie and my sunglasses. ‘With so much beauty I have to use my sunshields’ [heart][kiss][repeat]. It was a comfortable ride home, had I not needed more coffee to stay awake. I had a great time, spent plenty, laughed plenty, talked even more and had METAL.

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Ronnie James Dio The Memorial Concert, Manifesto Hoorn, Jan. 20th 2023

When people want to come to visit, you usually clean your house (a bit, at least), fill up your fridge (beer, of course) and give an overall feel of welcome to your guests. Or, if after weeks of scheduling and refitting agendas you just push the doorbell and go in, give or take a few minutes to scramble up a few beers, chips and peanuts. In this case it would be fun to watch photos with Kees and Alicia, as I’ve been going to shows with Kees since 2010 and Alicia hasn’t seen half of what we got through together. We clearly remember Thrashfest 2010 and the journey home haha. But this time we were the ones planning and Alicia hinting anóther agenda pick: January 20th they would be in Westwoud, but she apped: ‘there’s a Ronnie James Dio tribute we really want to go to’. Uhh photos or Dio? That’s not a hard decision. Very cool to be able to drive home in 7 minutes once more, usually we drive for at least an hour… No hotel needed of course. Tickets were soon bought and, to my surprise, soon sold out. Alicia would bring her parents too Nice.

As the concert was in Hoorn and would start at 9 PM, we had all the time in the world to prepare ourselves easily. Wanda had had a tough week, but the calm before entering the car worked like magic. Magic is a word Dio used often in his lyrics, of course, and after this gig I clearly remember why. Metal is music magically fulfilling me, Wanda and the +10,000 friends we’ve made over the years. To me, Mr. Padovano is on the very first patch I ever bought, I wore that printed piece of cloth for years and with pride, having seen him perform in Black Sabbath (1992, Groningen), Dio (several times, different countries) and Heaven and Hell (Graspop and the very last Wãldrock concert ever). I have to admit I wasn’t always the biggest fan, but nowadays I cherish my Dio moments a lot more than say, 2004 or something. Not because he died, not because I never met him, but more in awe about his charisma, his excellent feeling for tone, reach (and noting that by one of the most a-musical metalheads ever ) and performance and his great stamina. The big little man needs to be hailed! We got to Hoorn, parked as close to the venue as possible and heard ‘anyone around with paper tickets?’, as the scan devise for the e-tickets malfunctioned HA HA HA. Greeted by Linda and one of the oldest members of the ancient Hoorn punk scene (pfft, she’s still the douche I wanted to avoid 35 years ago) we showed the paper with a big grin. Looking at the people outside, both the smokers and the ones with iKoleredingen we said to each other ‘seems like we’re the youngest around now’^^ First acquiantance we met was Serge and he’s four years my junior HA HA. The venue was sold out, within minutes we also saw my brother Toon and the Onderdijk Blues Gang, Irma & Gerrit, my practise farmer Koos and his family (nice to meet you, I’ve seen you as toddlers *blush* haha) and from a distance, Kamiël and Jolanda. There must have been plenty more people we know, but it’s so full we can hardly move. It doesn’t help people around us complain about the slow-as-tar bar personnel. We stand where we stand and stay there.

It took about 20 minutes before the band began. Ex-, live- and actual members of VUUR, Blind Guardian, Within Temptation, Stream of Passion, Praying Mantis, Focus and Textures would fill the stage. My first frowning question: would the Rainbow songs be played last? Uhm, no, not at all! First song: Tarot Woman! What I immediately noticed, was that the singer John JayCee Cuijpers has a bull of a voice and he’s got plenty of power. Even without introducing the band or just from the fourth/fifth song on, he’s a good and focused singer. The band has two experienced and tight guitarists (Ruud Jolie and Menno Gootjes [Focus, Usurper, ex-Threnody]) and a beast behind both bass and drums: Johan van Straten and Stef Broks. Only dissonant is female singer Lisette van den Berg, with her voice as thin as her hair (hihi, we both noticed that). Second song: A Light in the Black, another Rainbow song! The triple solo (2 guitars + keys [by Martijn Spierenburg]) is friggin’thrilling! Powerful, varied, loud and cool! I’m already satisfied concerning ‘feel good moments’ \m/ and that’s only two songs in! It gets to Black Sabbath – Neon Nights was one of the two songs I’d seen Dio himself perform in Groningen – long story – the other one was Paranoid before another sentiment of youth is played: We Rock!! I told Wanda this song was the first time I’d seen Dio on Dutch national TV, taken from that famous concert on Pinkpop 1984, making organizer Jan Smeets declare ‘there’s never ever going to play another heavy metal band on my festival’ Haha the doof, why bother with Metallica twice and Sepultura then? Pffft. My memory of those two heavy metal songs on TV is still valid and meaningful to me. Sort of.. ‘instantly knew I was into heavy metal’, that kind of feeling got to me then. It still is, of course.

JayCee is only willing to talk to the audience for the first time when the band started Neon Nights – a simple ‘Come on, Manifesto’ is all we get. I’m foremost happy he’s not blabbering too much about not being able to play in P3 tonight, as the venues had to be swapped due to so many changes in bands, cancellings, catching up, rebuild plans and whatnot… don’t bother us again with the virus we want to forget as hard as possible! Funny to notice the bass sound tuned totally different between Rainbow and Sabbath songs ^^ During We Rock I’m pulled by the shoulders by Jan Palenstein, the Final Heiress singer explains to his girlfriend ‘this is Herman, he’s from Westwoud, of which you know it’s next to Oosterblokker where you live’ Great man, Dumbledore ( without waistlength hair and beard of course Nice to see you Jan, great you’re doing good and still metal \m/ We also hear Don’t Talk to Strangers, Egypt (The Chains are On) and Lady of the Lake, introduced by JC as ‘the first of many surprises tonight’.

Shamefully, it’s not all metal and rosethorns tonight. When Children of the Sea is played, we both notice JC has to haul breath between nearly every song and Lisette annoys us instantly with her phrasing… her voice sounds ‘OK, but..’ in the early part of a sentence, but becomes squeaky halfway the same sentence! The lights begin to pain me as well and when Catch the Rainbow starts, Wanda told me her back is killing her and needs to sit down for a sec. We wander off to the foyer, but no chair to be found… we look each other in the eyes and say ‘the car has seats too’… we chose to leave. Fine to have been around, Kamiël even contacting us by phone ‘we’re at the bar’, ‘but we’re at the couch once more with a nice stiff drink’ - this must be the very first show ever I leave without even ordering ONE drink, let alone NO merch available AND gone before the goodies Mob Rules, Stand Up and Shout, Heaven and Hell, Holy Diver, Man on a Silver Mountain and the likes. Probably they played the same killer set as elsewhere in The Netherlands, but we leave.

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/ronnie-j ... c5dcb.html I manage to steal a concert flyer and later on Wanda notices ‘I like the poster better than the gig’ In short: songs – great, sound – good, lights – kut, male singer – good but lacks stamina and interaction, female singer – should have stayed home, rhythm section – awesome and guitars – very good. Hardly noticed the keyboards played, hence a few intros here and there. We liked the initiative, but weren’t overall pleased this show. Oh well, it’s still metal. And we spoke to people we hadn’t seen in some time. That’s metal too.

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Zwaremetalen.com presents Asphyx
The MS Bismarck sets sail on river Amstel – Asphyx + Graceless, Jan.28th, 2023, P60 Amstelveen

In a way, I think everybody grows accustomed to something everybody calls his own, be it in possession of stuff, or habits, customs, hobbies, specialities or other vagueties. My habit of the Sunday is often: go to or return from a show, shower, shave, get Chinese, write review and watch voetbal, get to bed early enough to be sharp on Mondays. Another habit: see as many Asphyx shows in as many places I can. PartySan, EMM, Stonehenge, Groningen and 013 are, thinking fast, the only places I’ve seen the band twice. If I bring in associated bands, my list is endless Another habit is lists. Not only in getting hands on set lists, but I swim with lists as well. Let me explain: If I swim, I want to swim at least one kilometer to get my daily workout. But in a 25 m pool it’s hard to keep up numbers, as so many times I get distracted and lose my count. I’ve found out that if I hammer out lists, I swim a kilometer or even a mile effortlessly. And I’ve got +++ lists to swim to, but I’ve used Asphyx often in those lists: how often have I seen them, with what bands have I seen the band, which countries I’ve been to for them, which band members play in what other bands, what shirt bought where and so on. If my calculations are correct, this is my 38th Asphyx show in some 32 places, in the first of seven countries and with the line up since 2014. I might hook you up with my Graceless lists as well, but I’ll keep that for my 25th Graceless show HA HA HA. Opener: Necrotesque; nice to have one band I don’t know yet. Yeah I’m spoiled ^^.

We drove early, as I’m used to driving with at least one mistake, that’s another often mentioned hobby of mine. We could eat wherever we want, as Amstelveen is close to Amsterdam and has plenty horeca around. We thought. Not only is Amstelveen a huge building nest, the routes I’m used to from my work are useless and we’re running out of diesel fast. Wanda didn’t freak out, but the restaurants didn’t improve her mood much. Google does not mention ‘overbooked’, ‘full’, ‘ít’s usually not this booked’ so after a full round of Stadsplein (where P60 also lies) we ended up in… FEBO. Holland’s oldest fast food chain, if I’m correct. Uhm, OK, just don’t give me fries haha. We had heard Zwaremetalen.com would surprise the first 50 people who entered, but it was so cozy with some half of both befriended bands in the café, we skipped that. Turned out it was a plectrum-and-button-set you could also buy yourself for € 5. Alwin didn’t even believe my ride to Amstelveen only took 50 minutes LOL. There’s no wardrobe anymore and the PIN machine to provide € 2 coins for the lockers was broken… so I handed out some of my own € 2 coins to the needy… mostly Alex Zwaert and Arjan haha. Kim, Steven and Lowie were there too, I got Kim a nice red Asphyx shirt to cope with Wanda’s The first band started soon: ‘We are Necrotesque and play old school death metal’, and they did. All band members are bald and wear camouflage pants and big beards, they might fit in in Master or Malevolent Creation haha. At least musically, yeah. Their old school parts certainly had a whiff of Candlemass too, but after three, four songs, two of them with ‘Sadism’ in the song title, the vocals wear off a bit. Musically OK, but the vocals lack a bit of variation and tone. The second song was announced as ‘this is perfect for a mosh pit’ and yeah, three people bash into each other as if it’s a thrash metal show Pity the moshers were so unadjusted, Wanda and me got the full beer douche of our own beer >< No need for the black-and-white nor ‘Dutch’ patches… Talking to Alex and Storm, calming Wanda down after the unvoluntary beer smell, we missed Giants by Graceless, but no worries, we got to front row in Malignant Seed. The entire set:
- Giants
- Malignant Seed
- Die on Demand – that break halfway the song makes all muscles tension up, gives me a very good feeling
- Shadowlands – bass even louder in the mix? No problem to us ^^
- Blood of the Brave – one on one contact Remco – Lowie 8-) Lowie is 12 and autistic
- Embrace the Rain – it remains an emotional song, even to the members, as Jasper later explained. So beautiful, so cool
- Warpath – killer, speedy song, violent, aggressive as an avalanche. Cool to see Lowie gets 4 plectrums, the set list and Marc’s sticks!

Wet, panting and a bit smelly we decide to keep close to the stage, as we both know Asphyx’ sound check is carnival to us. Band and crew work hard to keep the gap between live music short, but also have a load of fun doing so. ‘We are three Dutchies and one butcher of a German, we’re called Asphyx and we play fucking death metal!’ As if you think that’s a mere statement, you don’t know what to expect 8-) . I’ll try to keep it to the set list:
- The Quest for Absurdity
- Botox Implosion
- Molten Black Earth – a man behind me talks half French ‘zzaaa Bolzz Zzrowerrr feel ‘ all I can do is nod ^^
- Death the Brutal Way – Martin thanking Zwaremetalen.com, P60 for perfect organization and fans, finished off by brutal pyrotechnics some 10 feet high 8-) stage is 11 feet high 8-) The band? Like a bulldozer on rocketfuel! Joke # 84: ‘Heiny is bootleg Grolsch’ but two songs later Martin ‘has to notice Heiny is getting better in volumes’ ?? >< ^^
- M.S. Bismarck – and I thought they wouldn’t play it anymore, but Martin explains ‘we like to surprise our visitors a bit, especially the ones that witnessed us two weeks ago’- pointing at Wanda and me 8-) the ship bolts out all 50,900 tons of steel, armour, guns, shells and people at us – awesome to experience once more!!
- Deathhammer – for crew, wives and the first stagedivers
- Wasteland of Terror – for me and Wanda, bro and sis time with Martin 8-)
- Three Years of Famine
- Scorbutics – more pyro than band haha
- Necroceros – the entire stage trembles, sooooo heavy! Even the beers on the drumriser instantly start foaming
- Vermin – whoah that came in hard!! Of course it was usually played direct after the intro, it’s not even on the set list but as ‘compliment to the audience and all fuckers around’ 8-) - Martin overwhelmed by the fact that Asphyx fans bought Necroceros so sincerely, it made the band appear in the Dutch album charts!!! \m/
- The Nameless Elite – a nice fuck off to some jihad warriors being caught or killed this week
- Forerunners of the Apocalypse – ‘did you know this song is about the biggest slaughter ever seen on a battle field?’ That explains the ferocity of the song! - Paul is headbanging so rabidly and so close, I feel his sweaty hair strike my face. Fanboy! >< HA HA HA even Kim films it
- Asphyx – Forgotten War – goose bumps higher than the pyros!
Martin introduces the band saying ‘behind me is the biggest and baddest barbaric butcher a Dutch band ever had’ and ‘I’m Lee Towers’ (but where is your arm swing then? Dutch insider joke)
- Last One on Earth – we’re being asked ‘why the hell are Germans louder than the Dutch?’ so the roars have to go in three before the song starts. Entire band smiling widely, poking each other how cool it is what they do – Paul’s solo near the end of the song clots up my throat and I have to swallow a few times hard to overcome my own emotion. Wanda notices and comforts me, the sweet.

But even cool to great shows come to an end. I stumble towards the merch stand, I had bought the plectrum set already but decided I want Asphyx and Graceless on my second set of bed sheets as well; so I buy the smallest shirts I ever bought for myself , say thanks and goodbye to Alwin, René V. and B. (too drunk to know the show is over) and Graceless (I can hardly leave to the gratitude we get as fans, friends and supporters of many metal bands ^^). Kim, Steven and Lowie escort us to the parking garage, Wanda is over the top tired and needs a bit of help getting down three stairs… now the quest for (absurd? No haha) a gas station commences… the building pit still confuses me, but as I’m on Amsterdamsestraat I know we’ll eventually reach the ring Amsterdam and to a gas station nearby. At 1:30 AM we got home, I’m desperate for an afpils and want to read about voetbal.. five games, 20 goals and a few surprises. The HJ Grand Prestige fits this gig totally so I get to bed around 3:30, tired and totally satisfied. Total brutal metal!!

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Heidelberg Deathfest pt VI, headliners Asphyx, Benediction , March 18th

This review is for Marc Möller, the German über-OSDeathhead, who died three weeks ago. The first German death metal party without him, strange to say the least. R.I.P. brave fighter, pure death metal freak and above all, friend.

We were so eager to get back to Heidelberg last year, we totally and utterly forgot we could be harmed as well… so the 2023 IT MUST BE Heidelberg once more! Suggestions that it was taking VERY long for a date to be mentioned, even longer before the first band was announced (Carnation!) and then some vague hint whenever tickets could be bought… gladly we still have our 2020 hotel reservation so nearby… what to do with the money paid for the 2020 tickets? Uhm, it’s nearly three years ago… do I need cash from the Heidelberg Gang? Uhm, no. I gave the 2023 ticket for Bram’s birthday and hoped Kevin could join us again… makes a hell of a difference not to drive 6 hours straight on and be able to change the driver ^^But no, he got a work obligation he couldn’t refuse or bye bye job. We would drive on Friday, dive into the ancient city, have the festival on Saturday and home on Sunday. But did the digital voucher of the hotel still work? I had tried in March 2022, no response, March 5th 2023, no response… I called on Wednesday and it seemed I had used a blotched e-mail address… so pffft, don’t tell Wanda about my little stress and DRIVE TO HEIDELBERG Driving through Germany isn’t all racing anymore. The times I had to adjust my cruise control due to all speed signs [no limit, 130, 120, 100, 80, 60; it’s getting worse than in Holland ], road labour, idiots passing on both sides, the Dutch still proud of their NL (Nur Links, for Germans I try as hard as I can not to drive too long on the left lane) and people who should be losing their license is amazing. Driving to Heidelberg I didn’t even do my hobby I got parking spot #2 of the hotel ^^ another metalhead got to #1 LOL
We drove on Friday, for Wanda to be able to rest before any activity would take place after 524 km. Last times we wanted to find a specific shop, Heidelberg city merch, a metal bar or a rock Kneipe or specific booze but both Bram and me didn’t have any time to prepare beforehand. We ended up in a lousy but cocky Italian restaurant, too expensive and nearly tasteless. In a small mall near the rail station we were more lucky: we found bottles of Alex’Heidelberger Melon Schnapps and got that for Bram, his mother and my brother Alex That bottle went in half, it’s too friggin’delicious. But the ambulances already were around and kept going all night...

In the morning I thought I heard Bram take a shower, but it turned out to be his rain-app, the sound is so smoothing to him he sleeps better Halle02 is only a 10 minute walk from the hotel, so we had all the time in the morning to get another set of bottles At the entrance we were nearly decapitated by meeting Birgit+Andreas and Iris+Bernd, we had not met in years. Literally. Funny: Bernd wore ‘my’ The Graceless Hordes of Westwoud-shirt 8-) I still had Kevin’s ticket to sell and I heard there was no means of getting back to the festival ground after leaving? Huh, with a poison-green HDDF2023 wrist band? No, but the organizers weren’t all that harsh on me: I asked ‘how many people have bought a ticket at the door today?’ Answer: “three, but the man next to you wanted to get in.” I asked him € 40, but the smallest note he had was 50. Problem solved, he grumbled, tore the ticket out of my fingers and made me run for the € 50 note >< Douche. Turned out we were indeed not allowed to leave the place, the city had put on heavy new noise- and booze-abashments on the region; not even Iris with her allergies? The food counters had NOTHING for people with any allergy… Fun fact: Bram and me got greeted by our 2015 Death Feast neighbors But Bram wanted to get an XXL shirt, I tried to find a nice surprise for Iris (it was Bernd that got the birthday shirt, mind; we’re invited to their place instead) and the first band started soon: Legal Hate from Reinheim. Within two songs we knew: we’re not spending a dime on this band. Uhhggh so boring that groove, Pantera-dub, female singer like a bale of salt singing bored, band not tight. They’ve been around for 20 years but I don’t see how they managed that, not a hint of feel in their music nor atmosphere, ixnay on the interactinay. Forget them. Torment of Souls did a whole lot better. Old school death, influenced by all periods Sodom (blackened, thrash, deathened, back to thrash); their mayor death metal influence is Autopsy. I bought myself and Bram a patch. Very nice. Deep Dirty had a Gutalax feel to them, in vocals and stage attire and audience participation, but simply not as much fun. In the meantime the beers flew in from at least 6 sides, as we found one Venlo metalhead Peter, Heiko was there with a friend he kept introducing to all around and drank even more. Hell pils is a bit lighter (color, taste) and normal pils so we kept confusing each other who’d drink what >< I should have known, but didn’t eat.

Fourth band was a real treat: Carnation. From plug in, tone, hit to Jonathan wanting me to have the set list, it was friggin’amazing. The professionalism is bonded with a great energetic feel so all around get their heads wet: band headbanging like windmills, audience with arms, heads and an occasional foot in the air; along with the best sound of the day made this a great gig. Here’s Jonathan’s list:
- Iron Discipline
- Stench of Death
- Sepulcher of Alteration
- Plaguebreeder (Hatred Unleashed crossed out)
- Chapel of Abhorrence
- Reincarnation
- Necromancer
- Fathomless Depths (why do I think of Lovecraft these last songs? ) - Wanda bought me a Carnation broche \m/

So far we’d missed two bands (Keitzer and Necrotted) but kept outside, where most of our friends were and we were bound to miss more hadn’t Birgit mentioned ‘you like Revel in Flesh, don’t you? Why the hell do you stay outside still?’ and off I ran. I was (getting) drunk, I don’t even know if Wanda nor Bram followed and I got three songs:
- Shadowbreeder
- Emissaries of all Plagues
- In The Name of the Flesh
before Ralf needed to have a drink with me and put a full bottle of Palmbrau in my hands. I had no opener so it went in the bag and stayed there. Wanda got fed up with my boozy head and ordered us to leave, Asphyx or not, Benediction or not and to her dismay, no Pungent Stench for us. Actually it’s unique for me to miss Asphyx when I’m travelling… One shower later and I was gone, Wanda later said ‘you already slept in the elevator’ >< and the breakfast was a quiet one. I found out the seat of my car lost one spring, so I had to drive carefully. I managed to do my hobby before the BramBram worked Good thing was, there was a triple Rotterdam treat when we got home: Feyenoord beat Ajakkes in Amsterdam for the first time since August 2005, Sparta and Excelsior both won too. Pity the Sports Journal the following day only mentioned idiots NEXT to the fields, spanning from a man with a stadium ban and a youngster willing to hit his own player

Next year we’ll probably travel in a bigger group, easier for me to keep up. Bands so far: MEMORIAM, GRACELESS, Gutalax, Sinister, Guinea Pig. Tickets on sale April 1st via www.newevilmusic.de . Beer and Metal? Uhm, glad I wasn’t hung over...

---edit Oh yeah, another remark on ambulances: I don't know how or what, but also the Saturday night it seemed people riot for fun in Heidelberg or do stupid things there; getting wasted or hurt.. Wanda complained the ambulances, fire fighters and policecars were going up and down both nights.. I never noticed myself, drunk stupid. ---end edit

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Headbangers Bash 2023, feat. Asphyx, Bodyfarm, April 1st, Fluor Amersfoort

Would it come to this at last? First announcement ‘HBB feat. Asphyx’ was in 2019, already. Last Headbangers Bash Asphyx had to cancel due to Covid-infections in the band, now they would return with a hardhitter from Keistad themselves: Bodyfarm! Note, first time I saw Bodyfarm to begin with, was with Martin van Drunen, Paul Baayens and Co., when they opened for Hail of Bullets. Time flies when you have Death Metal with Capital D! We’d agreed to a hotel, as I could easily have my Asphyx fanboyship with a nice beer at hand. Hotel Keistad it became, how appropriate (first Bodyfarm shirts held the term Keistad Death Metal ) But the ThomasThomas wouldn’t really help us, as the hotel is in the middle of a pedestrian area and there are a lot of single direction roads there In the end, we’d seen certain parts of Amersfoort three times >< Add the pouring rain and a short fused people running through the rain and we arrived not only soaking wet but also highly overstimulated… good thing was we had all the time in the world, for Wanda to settle down a bit before heading out to Fluor. The rain had increased and as I’m not used to walking under an umbrella, we both got wet anyway..

When we arrived at Fluor there were some 15, 20 people waiting near the small stage for Attila. When I looked at the musicians I felt myself become younger every riff in, but the thirteen to the dozen heavy metal didn’t break any hymen to me. It sounded so old and mouldy, it might have originated from the time headbanging was still banned Add a repeating remark as ‘oh, this is our last song’, looking at his watch twice, doing one more boring song and ‘is it time already?’ we shouted ‘do you have a train to catch? If so, go!” LOL Fun fact: the flyer mentioned the band as Atilla MA helps: they originated in 1983… that was even before I went to my first concert haha.

Nice to see the entire band Bodyfarm + crew willing to sign my new Ultimate Abomination CD for me, including Jan Willem (sound engineer) and Mathieu (artwork, on my request on the sleeve where the hanged men were drawn – including explanation). What followed was a firstie: Anchillys would do their first show ever. I had to check MA for it, I’d seen the singer somewhere (Ben from amongst others Caedere and Sepiroth) and a totally new experience for many: a band taking influence from brutal, technical death metal like Suffocation to old school worship by Morgoth, bring in doom (Pim Blankestein being hailed) like Trouble and a hint of grind (old Carcass). This was pretty good! Normally I’d like a band to be somewhat straightforward, but being surprised every song is welcome too, as long as it’s done with skill and wit. More wit anyway than what followed in the small hall: Anime Torment. Figure out anything with these terms combined, I thought the show showed more flashy lights than musical talent. Call Anchillys modern, this was beyond modern to us. Gladly we took the time to eat up our Brussels sprout (!), beer sausage and apple each, as Wanda thought there would be no restaurant or snack car in the neighborhood. OK there was a snack car, but our own meal suited us fine. In beers I started with a Goose IPA with Maarten MsD, who’d also brought back my old laptop. In response to my app if he’d be able to come he had not reacted, so I didn’t know I could have brought him his well-earned Cryptosis shirt. In return, I thought ‘let’s buy him a Codex Mortis shirt if he likes the show’ AND HE DID! Not only Maarten went hobgoblin, Wanda, Kim, Steven and many more freaked out to this band!! The big hall had nicely filled up since we’d seen Anchillys and most liked the heavy, blunt and brutal show a lot. The band, playing anything between fierce death metal to melodic stuff, back to grind and from modern to stomping, raged the 40 minutes like hell was unleashed upon us. I bought two Codex Mortis shirts, one for Maarten and one to attach to my Bodyfarm hoodie. It is the one I got from Alex Seegers, now filled with most bands I’ve seen Bodyfarm with and the bands that influenced them. Merch hunt: we now have the wrist band and small-amount-Asphyx beanie to show Wanda got the set list, including these remarks:
- Intro , Horns up, Horns down = count-off - Where the Skulls Reside
- Feedbacking, count-off - Beguiled by the Devil
- Little break, J.Ro tune moment, signs you in when done - Capricious Disembodied Villain
- Dirk signs you in - Forsaken
- Let applause die out, go - Trenched in Blood
- 2nd break - Fire, Screams & Death
- Feedback into last song - It Was Satan who She Served
- dead and gone

Back to the small hall for Nephylim, another new experience for us. The Brabant band plays a mixture of folk, melodic death metal, heavy metal and deathcore stuff. It was OK for the time it lasted, we had to be on front row for Bodyfarm of course. We had to check if the banner was hung the right way ^^ and it was. Ready for the kill. The banner is slightly altered, the logo is nearly the same but it looks ‘eaten up’ a bit, as if the band has roughened up a bit too. Of course, no founding members are present anymore, but this band is as good as the Thomas days were, no matter who’s on guitar, bass, drums or vocals. The band goes in 250 per cent, plays with fire and humor, well balanced between rhythm and leads, aggressive vocals and pounding drums. It’s no zoete krentenbol this way! After the first song Blasting Tyranny Ralph announces ‘Bodyfarm is at home now’ and hits even harder! I have a picture of the set list, but it’s not right: several songs have been played in a different order, some aren’t on the list at all and some… oh what the heck, it was a great gig, first stagediver present, nice pit going on (without Maarten and me, that is, but let the young party on, we know where we came for 8-) ) and a sound, absolutely amazing. The volume is juuuuust loud enough not to blow up my ear plugs. I think it’s cool to have Maarten and Wanda around when Storming Revolution is played, see the official YT for it 8-) . This is what the photo says:
- Blasting Tyranny
- Unbroken
- The Well of Decay
- Torment
- Dreadlord
- Charlatan Messiah
- The Swamp
- Storming Revolution
- Woods of Dismay
- Dark Age
- Slaves of War – thank you Ralph for the bass pick!

Let’s state that I used every corner of my vocal chords to support this great band and my arms and neck windmilled all around four feet of my body 8-) . Never mind a 13-year old Celtic chick that bangs her head to burst and keeps trying to get between Wanda and me. There’s plenty room BEFORE a show, no need to bash ‘the old fans’ in. Bah. The doof later tried to push me away during Asphyx, has the silly chick been on LSD spiked with coke or something? Uhhgg. Standing there, with friends and beer around, we had no interest in whatever band played the small hall. With the doof durp chick around we also secured our places to our headliner: Asphyx. Funny, the time schedule had been altered three or four times, according to FB, some mentioned Asphyx as final show, others had Terzij de Horde as headliner, fine with me. In the sound check we condole Alwin as he lost his mum this week, but we don’t get any response (yet). Professional to the bone? Probably. Martin is as professional and caring as ever, as he asks me ‘Herrieman, take care of this pyro pot and please, please explain to others not to stand too close to it when it erupts’. Fine, good man, I head out to the ones next to the second and third pyro pots but those are swinging dead so bad, I think they’re off their rucker drunk. I reported that to Martin, both smiling ‘that’s their problem then, thank you for doing this for me’

After a thrilling, hard hitting, fun, professional and bock-loud show I get a crumpled piece of paper from Husky, I had written most titles already:
- The Quest for Absurdity
- Botox Implosion
- MS Bismarck
- Death The Brutal Way – for Fluor crew and the bands, thank any Messiah ‘this year it finally happened Asphyx in The City of Bodyfarm’ 8-) No thanks to any Mexican beer virus again
- Molten Black Earth – for Thomas Wouters
- Deathhammer
- Wasteland of Terror ‘we go back in time for you’- why does Martin drink friggin’Corona then? Martin explains ‘I have to drink Husky’s Corona because he has to drive home’ [rather have HJ from bottle, that was promised from Maarten to me – he’s driving home too]
- Knights Templar Standing – now I have time to get Steven a shirt
- It Came From the Skies – band goofing off the good way on stage ^^
- Necroceros – Wanda gets a full bottle of water from Paul ‘you have to take care, it’s getting warm on stage so keep drinking’ 8-) - what a great headbangfest this song is!! Both band and audience freak out and all necks get wrecked 8-)
- Asphyx – Forgotten War – Maarten need not show his goose bumps, mine are sky high as well 8-)
- The Nameless Elite – for Alwin’s mum. Rest in peace! - Now Alwin does show some emotion
- Forerunners of the Apocalypse
- Death the Only Immortal
- The Rack – those rifffffffffs, sooooo cool
- Last One on Earth

With one band to go on main stage, we do not linger too much anymore. Wanda is clearly done for today and my neck and hairs stand to 360 decrees, both sweaty and well cared for. It took me some effort to get my laptop bag out of the locker and the hoodies are still damp, but it has stopped raining so we don’t get more wet than before . The hotel was an easy find and the bed was soft… dreaming about Wanda on stage with any band we’d liked today was fun to watch. The breakfast was a story on itself, as we were ‘helped’ across the street to get into a bistro and I think the man tried to be hospitable by checking in seven times at the table. It certainly irritated a few other hotel guests, but we were nearly finished then and need not to interfere much. The bread was tasty, even if the peanut butter and regular butter were brought when we were done already ^^. Och, it might be hospitality to North Africans to guide everything, but to sober Dutchies it’s a bit overdone. We rather think of Ben’s expression, Mathieu’s serious grin, Ralph’s war cries, Martin’s jokes and Alwin’s reflection. We had DEATH METAL THE KEISTAD WAY!!!

Edit for guests (sign in) or members (log on) to https://metal-tavern.proboards.com/thre ... x-bodyfarm then you can read the aftermath:
Tart follow up to this story: in pointing in a wrong direction, not even driving into that street, I've had a fine of friggin' € 119! The explanation 'turning around is also a violation of the motordriven vehicle area restrictions'.. no need to complain nor object... KUTTERDEKUT

Overkill, Hedon Zwolle, April 14th

This review is for Alwin Schnoing, one of Wanda’s best friends who was an ancient heavy metal freak. Big on Maiden, so to say, but he could appreciate Overkill as well. He died April 6th of cancer… R.I.P. good man! It is strange to drive to Zwolle on two following days, with two independent reasons, albeit intertwined a bit, both happy and sad.

But, before that: recuperating from Eindhoven Metal Meeting Wanda got an interesting post: Overkill returns to The Low Lands! When I first met her, I never knew Overkill would be her favorite band at all, I was thinking of Burzum, Proclamation and Satan. Uhh, people change, as she later said, giving away nearly all Mayhem- and most of Burzumclothing, ‘that was Bryan’s idea to purchase all that, let people who really enjoy it have it’. But, thinking of RockHard 2018, I remembered. That’s why she asked me if there would be a possibility for another Neckwrecker set (got that!), another Overkill show (or three) and now Overkill in Zwolle. Yes of course I will arrange that, Hotel Fidder too? Yeahhh! Strange thing happened buying tickets: I got one e-mail with a link to my tickets, but printing only one? I’ve never had a download I had to do double, there were always one-file-several-tickets.pdf’s (?) OK, good that I printed it wayyy before April, I had the chance to do it properly. Not DIN A3 format haha but ‘just’ on DIN A4. Another glitch? Yeah, but when it comes to Overkill I gladly overcome such glitches

I had back office duty that Friday, so I hoped I could just drive to Zwolle without being bothered about waterquantity too much it wasn’t. I kept my phone ready, but didn’t need it. Pfew. Dinner at Fidder was as good as peaty whisky can bring me (excellent Black Bull peated edition!) and a white beer for Wanda went in smoothly. We’d walk to Hedon, knowing it’s about a 25 minute walk and as Wanda is recuperating bit by bit from long covid . Hurray!! We’re not finished though, but definitely her energy level is higher, as is her stamina. We got to Hedon with a few stops to rest, so to speak, but were greatly on time. Huge skyliner bus next to the venue, let the thrash begin! We toasted to Alwin with Erik van Riezen (Departed Souls) and Bert, the latter unable to go to the cremation due to work hours >< I’d almost say ‘forget about the first band’, but the Croatian band Keops has to be credited… how do you come up with such boring music, even though you’re in a band for odd 30 years? I heard a cross Saxon – Manowar (including posing) – latter In Flames but with a horrible German accent (…). Coming back to the foyer to drain this thought in Heiny Marusha heard Abba and instantly said ‘this is better than that band was’ What a waste of cloaks and jewelry hahaha.

Heathen is a band I’ve seen several times before, but never got the hang of them. Tonight they were at least a crate heavier and faster than that first band (go figure ) and to my surprise I kinda liked what I heard. OK, apart from the too-clean-for-thrash-tone their guitars have, it was enjoyable. I might even put on ‘something Heathen’ on the Neckwrecker set ^^. Later on I talked to David White about the first time they got across the Big Pond, touring with Sepultura and Sacred Reich. White told me he was surprised by the tough Amsterdam crowd, all standing cross armed, looking gruff and NOT wanting to bang heads at all. I told him ‘hey, what do you think, we were waiting for friggin’Sacred Reich, who can’t do ANYTHING wrong in Holland’ He smiled and said ‘the Wãldrock crowd, a week later, didn’t compare to Amsterdam at all, they freaked during the sound check already’. Eus made the pictures, thanks for that! Now it was my time to smile .. and head back to the hall. Again, a band that’s not really my cup of tea, but Exhorder is a band any thrasher should have seen, I think. The band, exceeded by Pantera without knowing themselves in so many ways, gives a solid set. I don’t remember any song titles, as I hardly played the album over the years, apart from Slaughter in the Vatican and Exhorder. Both songs are played early in the set and the audience goes flat out fingered fivefold, with a fierce pit to accompany the grooves. I had more interest in the poison-green stairs leading to the pit area, as if the green and black attack already started… Overkill doesn’t come to Holland for groceries, that I can tell from the first tones of Bring Me The Night on. This tour only has one Dutch date, some 12 in Germany, none in the UK and two in Spain, as far as I’ve seen the new shirts. On stage there were no set lists to grab, but the band plays well oiled and apparently well rehearsed; smiles all around (even Derek is having a good time, considering his whale wide grin) and the sound is amazing! The guitars are harshly put in the mix, bass thunders and the drums… I’ve complimented the band before, but this is one of the best shows I’ve seen the band do. Blitz has to explain ‘in het Nederlands, weet je dat ik Nederlands spreek?’ even though he’s no longer with his Dutch wife anymore. I had to work on the song titles, as I haven’t heard the new album yet (there must have been one new one even before Bring Me The Night, but I’ve said to Wanda I’d like to wander around, hit the pit or not and talk to more friends of Alwin). I can’t resist Electric Rattlesnake at all, so I get another big beer and head to the front, surprising Wanda a bit She had thought I’d miss half the show, wandering, but no. What I wrote is far from complete, as the new songs and golden oldies are fired upon so sharp, so fast I can hardly keep up. I wrote:
- Hello From the Gutter
- new one
- Powersurge (hey, they haven’t played that one in ages!) Along the pit goes to more extremes, I’m tempted :cool:
- Coma
- new one
- Horrorscope (now it’s time to flare up my Neckwrecker set and HITTTTT!)
- Long Time Dying
- new one
- Mean Green Killing Machine
- Ironbound (with a Skullcrusher chick doing my wet hair in a pony tail ^^ Wanda agrees ^^)
- Elimination
- Overkill (first encore, Zwolle clearly isn’t done for tonight, Blitz smiling ‘this is a 38 years old tune and you guys still freak us out :cool: )
- Rotten to the Core
- Fuck You

I can’t see anyone NOT having had a good time tonight. Wanda even got Dave Linsk guitar pick from a complete stranger! Thanks!  My Leeuwarden friends (including Belinda), the guys from Departed Souls, a few Marcels, Bert, Ami (soooo proud of his Overkill tats, telling about the 30 odd times he’d seen the band, including their very first Dutch show) and his wife, the new kids in their a-bit-too-new-denims ^^ and the old blokes in their ‘who’s got the oldest Overkill shirt of all’-contest and not forget the bar personnel, they had a great turnover tonight. There were several rounds of beers raised to Alwin and I joined in most of them I would have liked to hunt for autographs, but the band clearly thought ‘there are signed vinyls available, that’ll do’ and did not get to the eager crowd after the third encore. People also talked about an afterparty at rock café The Jack, but we were done. The walk back to the hotel went rather smoothly, apart from a bit twisted ankle I’m allright and Wanda followed without delay. I was so smucky I took a shower and did so again before breakfast, my Neckwrecker set had to hung in the sun nearly the entire day to get the beer-, sweat- and other fumes out of it. I know I hit the floor once, but it wasn’t that bad. We had a great breakfast, said goodbye to numerous Overkill fans at the hotel (the one more peaky haired than the other ) and drove home without a glitch. Rotten to Overkill!! Hail Thrash! Hail Metal! See you next time, too \m/

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