Metal Meltdown III
Asbury Park Convention Center - NJ, USA
Friday April 6th, Saturday April 7th 2001
Review by EvilG
Photos by Imaginessa & EvilG
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DAY 2 - SATURDAY APRIL 7, 2001 |
Saturday began much the same as Friday -
wandering between stages for a bit and getting annoying with noisy bands
followed by looking through the vendor booths and CD's again. One band
that caught my ear was NECROCIDE. I didn't catch their full set,
but I stuck around and watched what was left of it. They played what
sounded like raw old school thrash...and I mean RAW. I think they could do
with some improvement but they have the right things happening and
hopefully will stick around!
TEMPERED STEEL (www.temperedsteel.net)
Late in the afternoon we got to see this band. We wanted to see them based
on the band name alone. I know you can't judge a band based on it's name
but with the word "steel" in the name I figured it had to be
METAL and not some hardcore band. Tempered Steel do not sound like a power
metal band to me though, that was kind of disappointing. They play melodic
thrashy traditional heavy metal. Their strong point is the vocals which
are clear, strong and melodic. He doesn't sing very high, but he can go up
there in places. Since this was my first time checking them out I didn't
know any of the songs at all. I managed to get a copy of their newest
self-produced release IN YOUR FACE. When I put it on I recognized many of
the songs from their setlist such as "My Disease", "In Your
Face", "In My Hour of Freedom" and "The Shadow
People." The band has apparently opened up for a number of bigger
bands across the States so if you see their name on the bill for a band
you are going to check out make sure you catch them live.
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IMPALER
This band has been around and has remained underground for
years. Their sound mixes punk with rock and traditional metal. The band's
image is like a more bloody/gory Alice Cooper. While their music is not
exactly my style seeing them live was entertaining! The show began with
two "mascots" bringing out a body bag. The music for the first
song was cranking away while this was happening. One mascot was dressed
like a doctor (after a bloody surgery) and the other dude looked like a
mental patient. Anyway, they unzipped the body bag and the doctor
proceeded to pound on the chest of the person inside. Thus arose the lead
singer from Impaler form the dead once again. He gets off the stage floor
and kicks and beats the two mascots and then grabs the microphone and cuts
into the song. All the while singing he continued to beat on the mascots
and while he wasn't doing that they were attacking one another. The show
continued on like this with punk tinged traditional metal roaring away. A
memorable moment was when the singer introduced the song "In Won't
Die." He got everyone to give the "metal salute" \m/ and
proclaimed that metal will never die! Near the end of Impaler's set the the "mental patent" looking mascot held the up
"the doctor" and
the singer chewed open his stomach and hauled out his "liver."
SICK! He then goes to the edge of the stage and sprays blood over
all the people in front of him and those in the photo pit. He holds
up the liver and chews a couple pieces off and spits them into the crowd.
A couple of what must of been diehard Imapaler fans were right in front of
the stage. This one guy leans back with open mouth and the singer spits
some raw meat into his mouth. YUCK! haha. After that he threw the dripping
wet liver way out into the crowd - thankfully nowhere near me!
GUARDIANS OF THE FLAME (Featuring
Jack Starr - www.jackstarr.com)
This band features on guitar a founding member of Virgin
Steele. As well, Guardians of the Flame is the name of Virgin Steele's
second album. Jack proved himself to be a good player and even did a short
solo! The problem with this band was that something or another had happened and their
vocalist could not make the show. They therefore had a friend of theirs on
stage with a lyric sheet struggling his way through many of the songs. I felt
bad for the guy when he would get lost in the song. He was not a bad
singer and the band was not that bad it was just hard to enjoy with that distraction.
I guess I also expected a little more in the way of flash and
professionalism from Jack Starr considering he's been in the US metal
scene since about 1982!
RED RIGHT HAND
Basically the only reason I sat through this band was because I
didn't want to lose my seats. If it wasn't for that, I would not of
watched them. They were not horrible, just too plain sounding. I can't
remember a thing about them except for their shaved head singer who looked
pretty intense. The music came off to me as a cross of hardcore and metal
and left no impression upon me whatsoever.
EINHERJER (www.einherjer.com)
Hailing from Norway, Einherjer put on an amazing live show! Sadly, I had
not even heard of the band prior to seeing them on the line-up list for
the festival. That however was not the case with a devout contingent of
Einherjer fans! As for the style of metal these guys play - imagine
Manowar traditional metal mixed with black metal. Some call Einherjer
"Viking Metal." The majority of the
songs they played live were mid tempo and the vocals were mainly clean yet
gruff sounding in a Sentenced kind of way,
thus the black metal influence is minimal. The strongest element that
impressed upon me after watching them play, besides their stage show, was
the melody. The lead singer had everyone into it, people standing up
everywhere, fists pumping, heads banging, etc. The singer, guitarist and
bassist were continually coming to the edge of the stage and swinging their
2 foot mops in circles...insane looking and what made them look even more
insane was the blood smeared and running down their faces - KILLER!!! This
is a band I'd love to see live again and one who's CD's I have got to
track down!
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PRIMAL FEAR (primalfearr.rocks.de)
Anyone who knows me knows that Primal Fear are one of my
favorite bands. They also know that I've never really seen one of my favorite
bands live before...until now! Watching Primal Fear on stage was THE
highlight of the entire festival. The theatre was pretty packed for Primal
Fear and when the lights went down you could feel the excitement in the
air. Then the apocalyptic intro "Angel In Black" began rumbling
through the speakers. People were cheering everywhere. The short drum
intro was about to kick in, the drummer (Klaus Sperling) took to his seat
then bang - the intro...finally! Next the guitars and bass come in and out
onto the stage bursts Mat Sinner (bass), Stefan Leibing (guitar) and Henny
Wolter (guitar). Seconds later Ralf Scheepers himself struts out onto the
stage and lets rip the mighty scream that introduces "Angel In
Black." "Feeling the anger inside me...." OH MY GOD!
The band was totally on, every note, every double kick, every scream, pure
heavy metal ecstasy!!!!!! :-)~~~~
After the first or second song Ralf said something about
how it was good to be in the USA for the FIRST time to which someone
shouted out "it's about fucking time" - AMEN!!! Three albums after
the band began they have finally made it and I was there thank the metal
gods. Even if it was only for one gig
- it's one I will remember forever. Crowd response to the band was
awesome. I think the band might have been a bit surprised. Ralf peered out
into the crowd with a big grin and gave the thumbs-up a number of times.
I'm sure he was grinned back at by countless power metal maniacs! After
the first couple songs I made my way into the photo pit...standing mere
feet away from metal gods I was freaking out!!! I should of wrote down
their setlist, but I probably would of been to excited to bother writing
anything down. So what else did they play? Well this isn't in order and
for sure I'm leaving something out but these are the ones that stuck in my
mind. From their 1998 self-titled CD they played "Chainbreaker"
and "Silver and Gold." From 1999's JAWS OF DEATH they played
"Final Embrace" and from 2001's NUCLEAR FIRE they played
"Angel In Black", "Eye of an Eagle" and "Nuclear
Fire." At the end of their set they seamlessly jumped pack into the
chorus for "Angel In Black" to close off. People were screaming,
myself included...the band exited the stage for about 20secs - the
screaming continued. Some big dude strut out and said "do you wanna
hear one more?" - D'uh!! Ralf walked out and said "this is a
song from a band from the UK." One guess who it was? JUDAS PRIEST!
They did a kick ass cover of "You've Got Another Thing Comin'" A
fitting way to end what was about one hour of godly metal. Although the
following bands were good, I knew it was going be all downhill from there.
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EXCITER
This Canadian band has been around since the early 80's and are
cited by many bands as an influence. That said they are not as well known as
you'd expect. Of course I
was hoping that Exciter would bring out the the classic "Violence and Force" which they
thankfully played! The guy on vocals now is not their original singer, but to a casual listener of Exciter's music the differences are minor. The
vocalist had a wicked Halford vibrato laden scream which he put to good
use in most songs. For a bunch of relatively older metalheads these guys
still have an energy and fire about them that was great to witness live. Their no nonsense brand of
traditional metal was well executed and appreciated by many!
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HOLOCAUST
This band traveled all the way from Scotland to be at Metal
Meltdown. However, it seemed as if only a few people knew much about them. I myself don't
know anything about them except for the fact that Metallica covered their
song "The Small Hours" on GARAGE DAYS
RE-REVISITED. So of course Holocaust played that song and it was the only
song I hard heard by them. As for their other stuff - well it didn't grab
one way or the other. Its was decent, but pretty much standard NWOBHM. I
think if I
had been more familiar with their stuff I could of appreciated them much
more!!
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ANVIL (www.anvilmetalonmetal.com)
Today's line-up of Anvil consists of Ivan Hurd (lead guitar), Robb Reiner
(drums), Lips (lead vocals, lead guitar) and Glenn Five (bass,
backing vocals). Anvil are Canadian METAL LEGENDS! That's right, whether or not you
have heard of them it's still the truth as I see it. The band has been at
this since (at least) 1984!!!I So needless to say I was really looking forward to
seeing these guys. Thanks to Imaginessa, who managed to meet the band
prior to hitting the stage, Anvil agreed to add "Metal
On Metal" to their setlist! Can you imagine an Anvil gig without that
song?? I know they might be sick of it but thanks to Imaginessa they did realize there
were fans in the audience who might have never seen them live and that's their
favorite song by them. I met Lips earlier in the day - he was all smiles
and seemed like a very easy going guy. I must say Anvil's treatment by
whomever at the metalfest did not seem to be very professional.
First off, they left the main house lights above the stage on during their entire set.
Therefore the light show looked very lame. But the show went on and it was
the music that counted. They played a newer song which Lips introduced by
saying (and I am paraphrasing here!) "I have a new addiction, and
that's computers. I spend so much time on the internet or in front of the
computer..." etc. "This one is COMPUTER DRONE." It
was one of
the better "newer" songs they played along with the killer "Speed of
Sound" - way cool! During the live set, Lips is VERY
entertaining to watch. He keeps gritting his teeth and doing this silly
grin looking out at you. If you have a camera held up he'll stand there
and pose for it too - giving you one of his goofy grins!! About
20mins into the set Lips was called to the side of the stage. He returned
seconds later looking pretty unhappy. He said (and again I am
paraphrasing) "We just had out set cut short. We were supposed to
play for 45mins now were cut down to 25mins. We had all kinds of
other stuff lined up to play for you, but this is going to be our last
song. Thank you to those of you who came out to see Anvil play and fuck you
to those that didn't and fuck you to the monitor guy because he just said
fuck you to me, this is Metal On Metal." hahaha...METAL! So began the
last song...during the song Lips was kicking the monitors around the
stage. For a minute there I thought he was gonna lose it and shove 'em off
the stage entirely...but he didn't. They did do an awesome job of the song
and though they were cut short I was pretty happy to of finally seen them
live.
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FLOTSAM & JETSAM
After a LONGGGG wait between bands and shouts of "YOU CUT
ANVIL FOR THIS?" (referring to the long wait) Flotsam & Jetsam
tore onto the stage! They played many of what I'd call there more obscure songs and they
began the set off with 2-3 songs from their new album MY GOD which is
coming out soon. So right away I was just watching them waiting to hear
something I recognized. The new stuff was however very good and VERY
heavy. When I was looking at the band I was having a hard time recognizing
the guys in the band. They looked so fucking tiny! The singer with his
hair and goat was easily recognizable but the 2 guitarists and bassist all
had short hair. I had been used to seeing pics of them with longer
hair...well most of them. Their guitarist was wearing what looked like a soccer
uniform on stage...what's with that dude?! You play awesome and all, but I
dunno - you don't goto a soccer game and see a player decked out out in
leather and a metal shirt do ya?? I know it's a stereotype, but it was still bizarre. The
two highlights of their set was the classic thrasher
"Hammerhead" and the grooving "Smoked Out." I would of
liked to hear more songs from CUATRO or from DRIFT but at least I was
finally seeing them live! One other thing worth pointing out is the bass
playing of Jason Ward. Out of the countless bass players I saw this
weekend he was the only one that made me look at the bass and hear
something and be impressed. Excellent tone and sound accompanied by some
very fancy fretwork.
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All Good Things...
A weekend of metal. Two days filled with some great moments,
metal and new friends. I
have to make just one negative comment, and that is - the Metalfest organizers
should of had less death metal and hardcore(ish) bands on the bill. Of course,
some of it was welcome but during the daytimes especially, the bands sounded
very generic. I think there is more room for melodic and power metal
bands. For those of you that don't like that style of metal please
understand this. The only power metal band on the bill was PRIMAL FEAR - we
could of used 3-4 others. I won't end on a sour note though. While the
Metal Meltdown series is not on the same scale as the European metal
festivals, it is the biggest REAL METAL event that we in North America
have. I did have a
great time in NJ and I don't regret flying down there for a
second!! Long live metal!
\m/ METAL FOREVER!
\m/
Me in my moment of glee...can't you tell?