January 2002:
What was your personal highlight of 2001 as far as metal was concerned?
"What was your personal highlight of 2001 as
far as metal was concerned?"
Michael De Los Muertos
The personal highlight of 2001 for me was, of course, Wacken. The
yearly festival in northern Germany during the first week of August can
rightfully be called the "world congress of metalheads," and
such an event almost by definition must count as the highlight of the
year. I won't rehash the highs and lows (far more of the former than the
latter) because I already droned on for several pages about Wacken
earlier in the year, and EvilG was nice enough to grace my text with Ice
Maiden's stunning photos of the event. Check
my review if you haven't read it!
For me 2001 was a year that was defined by metal, or by people and
events that were connected with metal. From AVANTASIA
at the beginning of the year to the release of the Lord of the Rings
film at the end, metal was everywhere during my 2001, despite the fact
that the year's triumphs (and tragedies) left me with much less time to
listen to metal than in any previous year. 2001 brought me the
opportunity to share metal with someone I love, someone whom I met
precisely because of a mutual interest in metal. During 2001 I said
goodbye to a dear friend of mine - a die-hard metalhead - whose untimely
demise seemed best mourned by listening to metal. During 2001 I traveled
thousands of miles, spent thousands of dollars, and crossed the Atlantic
Ocean four times for reasons (including Wacken) inexorably intertwined
with metal. 2001 showed me many memorable faces, and the vast majority
of those faces belonged to fellow metalheads.
That being said it's intellectually dishonest, and even somewhat
unfair, to narrow down the metallic experiences of the first year of the
21st century to one specific, finite event. Even if the choice is easy
(and it is, given the magnitude of Wacken), analyzing that event out of
context diminishes everything else that happened during the year for me.
Clearly there is a summit to every mountain. But that summit does not,
and cannot, stand there alone. That's how I look at 2001. On to 2002!
"What was your personal highlight of 2001 as
far as metal was concerned?"
Rick
With another new year in front of us it is time to take a look back
at the year in metal that was 2001. As always we are doing our top
CDs of the year but for this editorial Luxi came up with the great
idea of choosing our personal highlight of the metal year that was 2001.
For me that was easy. It was Metal
Meltdown III in Asbury Park, New Jersey that myself and EvilG took
in this past April. It was a great festival where I got to see some of
my favourite past and present metal bands including Anvil, Exciter,
Cathedral and Flotsam and Jetsam. Anvil and Exciter are metal legends
and ripped through some of the most memorable metal tracks ever laid to
vinyl. "Metal on Metal" and "Forged in Fire" by
Anvil and "Violence and Force" by Exciter are some of my
favourite songs ever bar none and to see then played by the these metal
legends was spectacular. Cathedral put off a great set that, though
unfortunately cut short by archaic noise bylaws, sent shivers down my
spine with some of their most memorable tracks including "Hopkins:
Witchfinder General" and "Midnight Mountain". I had the
pleasure of meeting Lee Dorian and Leo Smee and they were really nice,
down to earth guys. I also took in some bands that were new to me such
as Pain, Mimic, Einherjer, Tempered Steel and Necrocide. Pain put one
the most energetic sets of the festival. Peter Tatgren, encased in
leather, was a whirling dervish as he ran and stomped around the stage
like a mad man. If bands want to see a template of how a group is
supposed to act in a live setting then they should take in a Pain show!
The high point of the whole festival and for my metal year was seeing
the first North American performance from Primal Fear! They tore the
place apart and put on one of the best shows I have seen in a long time.
From the opening chords of "Angel in Black" to the closing
strains of the encore "You've Got Another Thing Coming" ,
Primal Fear ripped through some of their best songs and showed why they
are one of the premier metal bands on the scene today. Ralf Scheepers
stalked the stage like a great cat and at every opportunity got the
crowd into the show while at the same time showing why he is one of the
best metal vocalists ever! He was awesome and wailed through great
renditions of "Chainbreaker", "Nuclear Fire",
"Final Embrace" and "Battalions of Hate". I had a
goddamn sore neck after that set. Energetic, amazing and TOTALLY
METAL!!!!! A spectacular show and a high point to see them for the first
time in North America!
"What was your personal highlight of 2001 as
far as metal was concerned?"
Pete
It's great to see that old school bands (Saxon and Savatage for
example) get better with age and turn out great CD's in 2001. Hat's off
to Jeff Water's for taking a dark period of his life and turning it into
one the best releases of the year, Annihilators, CARNIVAL DIABLOS.
Another highlight was Primal Fear's NUCLEAR FIRE and a big thanx to
Ralph Scheepers for showing the world that, yes, you can still kick
peoples asses with an amazing voice!!! And last but not least, the
contributions of the fellow Metal Rules staff, the readers, and the
endless dedication to the cause, EvilG. Looking forward to a heavier
2002!!! Rock on!!!!
My Favorite Metal Moment in 2001---My Nuclear Fire
by Ice Maiden
I'm sure it goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway: Wacken, this
year or any other, serves as the metal pinnacle of the year of any
metalhead who attends it. An entire town in Europe awash with true
metalheads, long hair and leather everywhere you look, metal-related
garb and paraphernalia of every form available for purchase, and metal
of virtually every genre blasting out to an appreciative crowd. I miss
more metal bands I want to see in a day at Wacken than are available for
me to see all year in my hometown. It is hard to describe if you haven't
been, but to have virtually every sight and sound for days straight be
true metal-related is simply awesome. It just doesn't get much better
than that.
In the midst of the metal bliss that is Wacken, I did, however, have
one supreme metal moment for the year: Primal Fear's set. Imagine, if
you will, that it is the first full day of Wacken-Friday, August 3,
2001. You've already experienced a relatively solid day of metal-Lacuna
Coil, Holy Moses, Exciter, and Kamelot, to name a few. You've had a
chance to reunite with metal friends from around the globe, and share
some food and drink with them backstage surrounded by folks who are the
backbone of the metal scene. You've purchased a few albums you've been
looking for. Better yet, with the sun lowering on the horizon at 5 pm,
you realize that you still have about 8 hours of metal listening
pleasure that await you before you fall into your bed, including
Overkill, Therion, Helloween, Desaster and Saxon.
By this point in the day, people have fallen into the groove of
Wacken. They are happy, not yet tired, and ready for what will come.
There is a vibrant buzz of energy in the air. This is when Primal Fear
exploded onto the Double Mega-Stage-the largest stage of the venue. Ralf
Scheepers and his gang seized and shook each note for all that it was
worth, turning their trademark brand of classic/power metal into a
finely tuned aural assault. Looking around, dancing to the music, packed
in with my fellow fans, I see what had to be at least 15,000 faces all
turned towards the stage, fists in the air, most singing along. And that
is what created my supreme metal moment for the year-not just the
incredible sounds I was hearing, not just the day I had already had and
the night I was facing, not just being surrounded by friends who I care
for, not just realizing that I was surrounded by strangers who share a
common love-it was the confluence of all of these at the same time that
lit this girl's nuclear fire and made her glow.
"What was your personal highlight of 2001 as
far as metal was concerned?"
CrashTest
This topic is a no-brainer for me. My metal highlight was
Rocktoberfest, which took place on October 20th on the Outer Banks of
North Carolina. Let me be more specific, it wasn't the entire festival
that did it for me, it was one particular band that played there ...
ICED EARTH! The show featured a slew of "mallcore" bands whom
I ignored for most of the day and the not-so-grand finale was Megadeth.
Don't get me wrong, I've been a fan of Mustaine & Co. for a long
time and I still am, but Iced Earth flat-out stole the show nearly
halfway into the festival.
So what specifically made this my year's highlight, especially
considering that Iced Earth only played a 45 minute set? Well, besides
seeing one of the greatest metal bands in the world, I also had the
opportunity to talk to Jon Schaffer after the show. The man is a class
act and very congenial to his fans. Jon spent at least two hours mixing
it up with the crowd as the other bands played. I also learned from
other fans who were standing in other parts of the festival grounds that
Matt Barlow and other band members did the same thing.
While seeing the band play and then meeting some of them was killer,
the icing on the cake was that the festival took place within a short
drive of Camp Lejeune (Marines) and Fort Bragg (Army), which is where
most of the US troops who were being deployed to Afghanistan were
stationed. There were a ton of Marines there and they were indeed fired
up for Iced Earth. Matt Barlow dedicated "Ghost of Freedom" to
the soldiers and "Vengeance is Mine" to Osama bin Laden. Hell,
even Mustaine sent a salute out to the guys, but then hypocritically
followed it up later in the show by singing the words "military
intelligence are two words combined that can't make sense." It was
cool to hang out with these guys though, slapping each other five
throughout the show and then going around embracing one another while
screaming, "I can't believe I just saw Iced Earth" at the top
of our raspy voices as the set ended. I made a few friends whom I have
kept in touch with since then and we are making plans to trip to other
metal shows in the future. Hey, I'll take all the metal friends I can
get, because there aren't too many to be found around these parts.
On a non-metal note, my other highlight of 2001 was the birth of my
third child and second son, Noah. Within a week of his birth I
introduced him to Iced Earth!
Best thing in Metal 2001
Thiago
I'm going to talk about Brazil. This year seemed to be the best one
for heavy metal here in a long time. Lots of gigs and heavy metal has
proved to be alive out here, even without any support from the big
media. Even MTV had canceled its heavy metal show to put a 'rock
oriented' one instead -- it plays metal, but it's not a metal show.
In January, we had seen the third edition of Rock
in Rio festival and one day was completely dedicated to heavy metal.
There were about 150,000 people there to watch Iron Maiden, Halford, and
Sepultura. It could have been even more people, if the promoters weren't
afraid of the "metal rebel vandals" and had put more tickets
to be sold (for Britney Spears, there were 250,000 tickets available).
Anyway, the 'metal day', as it was called, was the one with the minor
number of problems.
This year we had lots of great concerts over here, even with the
problems in our currency (it has devalued about 50%. This fact made the
international gigs a lot more expensive, so were the tickets). Bands
like Dio, Judas Priest, Savatage, Overkill, Helloween, Rhapsody,
HammerFall, Nevermore, Children of Bodom, Therion, Yngwie Malmsteen
played here, and they all had a very good attendance, even most of them
without a reasonable promotion and a high ticket price. As a result,
venue Via Funchal has announced that in 2002 they will put heavy metal
as a top priority for scheduling gigs - at least one per month. This
means that heavy metal bands will have a great venue to play here. And
also there is the expectation for a new edition of the Monsters of Rock
festival in 2002.
Our local heavy metal scene also had a great year. The release of HAMLET
seemed to start a new age for heavy metal in this country, with the
bands helping each other and starting truly to make a united metal
scene. Sepultura did a great gig at Rock in Rio Festival and Brazilian
media started to respect them again. After the split up, Angra proved to
be strong with a successful new album -- more than 100,000 copies sold
-- and a great Brazilian tour. Krisium has established their names as
one of the biggest death metal bands in the world. Brazilian underground
bands have released great albums, with a very good production -- the
biggest problem around their releases in the past.
And now the big media is starting to notice it. Last Tuesday (January
2nd), Brazilian biggest newspaper had an article talking about how metal
was becoming bigger again. Today (Jan 4th) I was interviewed at Galeria
do Rock (our rock mall) for a report that will be broadcasted in the
second biggest Brazilian TV channel. But the best fact out of it is that
heavy metal is strong again not because of the media, but due to the
fans, who really make it happen here. It's something that comes from the
underground and it's rising again. We are making ourselves noticed by
the big media. Step by step, metal is becoming strong here again.
2001 was really an year for Brazilians to remember. Well, it is still
not perfect. There aren't good venues established for smaller Brazilian
bands to play. We need to find this space, so Brazilian bands can become
bigger. A good start was the second edition of Brasil
Metal Union, which had a good attendance, meaning that the Brazilian
fans are giving each year more recognition to Brazilian underground
bands. But we need to find places where Brazilian bands can play more
often, and the fans need to follow them.
I'm sure everything is going in the right direction. Maybe metal has
never been so consistent as it is now in Brazil. It's time to keep up
the pace and I hope that in the next year I'll write that 2002 was even
better than 2001. And so on…
PS: Brazil is a country way too big. So everything I'm talking about
is concerned mainly about São Paulo, the city where I live. I don't
know exactly how the other cities are right now, I know that here in the
south of the country everything is going fine - at least they can watch
some international metal acts and there are some good bands coming out
of there, but I can't say anything about the north. I hope that
everything good that happens here in the south starts to spread to all
the country.
"What
was your personal highlight of 2001 as far as metal was concerned?"
EvilG
There is one event from 2001 which was not only a highlight for the
year, but a personal metal highlight of all time. That was seeing Primal
Fear live at Metal Meltdown III
in Asbury Park, NJ, USA! This was the German band's first appearance in
North America so as a result the band was also wondering what kind of a
reaction they'd get. The reaction was total enthusiasm! I had
thoroughly enjoyed many of the other bands at this two day festival, but
seeing Primal Fear was almost indescribable. This performance was
excellent with live renditions of all their best songs. I will never
forget it!!! Nothing at all comes close to this concert as a personal
metal highlight. Everything else pales in comparison. The remaining
items worth mentioning are a few of the highlights. Getting to interview
bands/people that I am a fan of is always a treat, but when it's for a
band I've been into for well over a decade it becomes an event. For 2001
that would be Kreator's
Mille Petrozza and the metal legend Ronnie
James Dio. Seeing that there is hope for a local metal scene in my
home town was also something that surprised me in 2001. Lastly, there is
a new band that stood above others in 2001 providing me with a lot of
hope for the future. That band is Lost Horizon with their first album
AWAKENING THE WORLD. Lets hope 2002 is also full of memorable metal
moments.