| HEADBANGERS OPEN AIR 2005 |
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| Written by Thrash Attack & BlackGoat | |
| December 04, 2005 | |
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HEADBANGERS OPEN AIR 2005
Warm-up, Thursday, July 7th I woke up feeling very refreshed and ready for an evening with THEE PLAGUE OF GENTLEMEN, AVENGER, IRONSWORD and PRIMORDIAL. We spent the day being mostly lazy and I got my long run out of the way since I knew after a night of drinking and headbanging I would not want to run my required 17 kilometers.
After a short nap we got ready to head to the warm-up show venue called The Cantina. This was a much nicer, roomier place than the old theater house were the warm-up was held last year so I hope they stick to using this place in the future (not to mention when you get hungry they served some great food!). I had forgotten to charge the batteries for my camera in time so there won’ t be any band photos for the warm up. That was a disappointment but as they say, "shit happens". Following a few beers in the parking lot and some meet and greets with fellow Metalheads, it was time to experience the extremely heavy, Doom Metal sounds of Belgium’s THEE PLAGUE OF GENTLEMEN. I had heard of this band from a fellow Dutch maniac but this would be the first time I actually hear (and see) them. They were extremely loud with a rough, very passionate and aggressive vocalist. I was impressed by them, especially the heavy tone of the guitars which totally pounded the hell out of one´s head. They were perfect for stretching the neck muscles which haven’t done much headbanging in the past months. [BlackGoat: I had not heard TPOG previous to this show but ended up buying their CD and their demo from them right after the show. That should give you an idea, hehe.] While TPOG were finishing up their last song we headed back to the car for another cold beer to bridge the gap before AVENGER took the stage. We got back inside just as they were finished setting up. Previous to this I was not familiar with them and only knew from my encyclopaedic partner in crime that they were part of the NWOBHM movement and featured SATAN vocalist Ian Swift. This was enough info for me to be interested in seeing them! These guys had an immense amount of energy and enthusiasm, moving around a lot on stage and Ian looked like he was having the time of his life! I was very happy with their performance and sound. Heads were banging and hair was flying the whole time. I liked the upbeat, rocking kind of atmosphere they displayed. At some point during their performance we ran out to the car to put away some CDs and when we returned, the security was leading some old man holding a rocking horse off the stage. I don’t know what that was all about but it was very strange. [BlackGoat: AVENGER was the highlight of the night to me, great NWOBHM sound with a lot of fun and beer. I had not really expected much but the AVANGER guys (esp. their vocalist Ian) were totally infections. One could tell it was their first show in a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time and they were very happy. Well, so was I.] IRONSWORD ended up cancelling which was a great disappointment but to fill the gap we got a nice surprise with RAVENSTHORN from the USA, who were scheduled to play the next day. After being blown away by their latest album, "Hauntings And Possessions", I was very pleased to see them not once but twice in one weekend! More on them tomorrow. :-P [BlackGoat: I already knew IRONSWORD cancelled because of some fuckup regarding the booking of their flights and I wasn’t really too fond of hearing RAVENSTHORN was gonna play instead. That changed about halfway through the first song however. These guys and their theatric yet totally Metal show and their MERCYFUL FATE having sex with CELTIC FROST songs rule. A most pleasant surprise for me.] To finish up the night was Ireland’s PRIMORDIAL, offering excellent epic blackend Heavy Metal. They blew me away just as they had at the Summer Breeze festival last year ! This time vocalist Alan wasn’t covered in as much blood as he had been then but they were again vicious yet passionate, powerful and to put it simple: astounding. Alan is a truly spectacular and somewhat insane frontman who really makes seeing this band worth it because of the amount of energy and the whole aura they give off. Their songs are brilliant on CD but when they play them live, it’s like taking them up to the next level and one can get totally lost in the music and atmosphere. Words can’t do justice to this band in the live setting, you just have to see them yourself. I hold PRIMORDIAL responsible for most of the soreness of my neck the next day. A great end to the warm-up show that I enjoyed a lot. The next day´s activities weren’t starting until 15:00 but nevertheless it was time to head out, get some sleep and dream evil. [BlackGoat: As Thrash Attack wrote, PRIMORDIAL live is a phenomenon. When listening to the CDs you can’t quite imagine that mood in a live situation but somehow they pull it off anyways.] Friday, July 8th
Getting up in the morning was tough since my neck was very sore from the night before but I managed to work out the tightness during my run, although I think next time I better do some practice headbanging before my next festival. :-D We slowly worked our way to the festival grounds, found parking and settled down to eat lunch and have some beers before opener MITHRIL hit the stage. Each year the organizers of the festival have a "Battle Of The Bands" show to pick a local band to open the festival and this time MITHRIL were the lucky ones. They played straightforward, crunch laden Heavy / Thrash Metal hinting towards the Bay Area sound but also with some slight Swedish influences. There was a lot of headbanging going on as the frontman worked on igniting the rather sizeable crowd. I liked them enough to set BlackGoat on the trail of their second demo, "Dare The Heavens" which he managed to bag later on in the day thanks to the help of our newfound friend, Michaela. [BlackGoat: MITHRIL obviously brought their fanclub and also very funny shirts with part of a periodic table (remember chemistry class ?) on the back that displayed all kinds of Metal(s) and on top was Mithril with an atom weight of 666. Their music was less original but a good wake-up call at 3 pm and I enjoyed their show.]
My neck was already quite sore thanks to NECRODEATH and WEAPON but it would get no rest with RAVENSTHORN from the US taking the stage by storm. They were absolutely BRILLIANT, playing a fine mixture of Classic Metal, Thrash and regular Heavy Metal with frontman Bill Jannusch, wearing a cape and donning black eye colour, stalking around the small stage like Alice Cooper ! They played a lot of songs from their excellent album, "Hauntings And Possessions", as was to be expected since I believe this was their first gig in Europe. I am especially glad to have been able to hear (and see) one of my favourite songs, 'Possessed By Evil'. Totally great live band with lots of enthusiasm. Highly recommended!
By the time the next US band called RIVAL came on, I was starting to feel very exhausted but they helped perk me right up with great, OMENesque vocals (think J.D. Kimball) courtesy of muscleman / bassist John Johnson, fast paced songs and lots of energy. I´m not familiar with them at all before this but the performance has made me aware that I need any RIVAL albums I can find in my collection. [BlackGoat: I wasn’t familiar with RIVAL and thought they were very good. Unfortunately, we still haven’t been able to track down their CDs. If you can find them (or see RIVAL live), do yourself a favour and do so.]
Saturday, July 9th We awoke, had breakfast and then headed out to refill the beer stock and snack items. The first problem of the weekend arose when there was only warm beer available to purchase and I don’t know about any of you but warm beer is NOT something I want to drink. Luckily while shopping we met up with Thomas (the owner of the garden and organizer) and he gave us a tip of a store that carried ice. It’s not normal in Germany or Europe for that matter to be able to buy ice in a store so we were shocked but also very relieved that we weren’t doomed to drinking piss warm beer all day. Anyway, after getting all the necessary supplies we headed straight to the festival grounds to find our friends who we had met up with the day before faithfully "guarding" our parking spot. It was partly sunny and rather hot so I had somewhat regretted wearing long pants and looked enviously at BlackGoat who had smartly worn shorts. [BlackGoat: I’m a smart goat and after roasting in my leather I wasn’t exactly looking forward to doing the same in weather that was announced to be even hotter.]
The first band to start things up were a German band called CARPEDIEM who played somewhat progressive Heavy Metal with some Power Metal influences (keyboards, melodies, etc) but what made these guys stand out were the vocals. They were rough and rather aggressive which I thought was unusual for the kind of music they played. I had heard this band formerly had RITUAL STEEL vocalist Sascha on the mic. I thought they were ok but nothing that really made me start headbanging in appreciation. However, the headbanging in appreciation did start when French band MYSTERY BLUE hit the stage. I had heard of this band when running my website and had always been interested in checking them out but as it always happens I never got around to it. They provided a high energy performance that captured the spirit and sound of 80s Heavy Metal with a charismatic and enthusiastic female vocalist who was really enjoying being there. They even treated the crowd to a rendition of 'Metal Daze' from MANOWAR. I don’t usually comment on fashion but I thought the vocalist picked the perfect shirt to wear as you can see in the photo.
Next up to bang some heads were Germans GUN BARREL, another band I wasn’t familiar with. This year’s festival was surely giving me some introductions to cool or interesting bands and GUN BARREL fell right in that category. They had fun on stage and played songs that were catchy. After watching a few songs I headed back to the car because I was out of beer. While hanging out there the clouds that had thickly gathered over us decided to start pissing on us, not just lightly but a downpour that made all 4 of us find shelter in the cars.
It was still raining when I heard the faint rumbling of German Doom Metal band MIRROR OF DECEPTION starting their first song. It was pouring hard but I really wanted to see this band so I grabbed my camera and trekked through the puddles and mud to the stage area. Luckily they had put a tarp up so there was a place to stand without getting completely soaked (which of course already happened on the walk from the car but oh well, rain happens). The passion filled performance of these guys reminded me a lot of last year’s performance of TYR and I had even written in a review for the new MOD album that the two bands have some parallels to each other. Their drummer was not able to make it to this show so they had Mathias from SACRED STEEL filling in, doing a decent job too. As quickly as the rain started it stopped again and the sun was soon shining, which I thought was a good thing since I was very damp. After MIRROR OF DECEPTION came an unfamiliar to me NWOBHM band called GASKIN who were pretty good. They reminded me of WEAPON and had the same kind of stage presence. I liked them.
While BlackGoat and Michaela stayed at the car, I went with Tom, who is also a Thrash fiend to check out Chilean band UNDERCROFT. They’re yet another band I had never heard before and ended up sounding a lot like older SEPULTURA but I wouldn’t call them a clone or anything. They were the second most extreme band next to NECRODEATH and proved to be quite decent for headbanging with thick, chugging kind of riffs and plenty of adrenalized vocals. I noticed between headbanging that the crowd had thinned out which was unfortunate for UNDERCROFT but fortunate for those few nuts in the front row headbanging like maniacs. They were enjoyable, aggressive and heavy.
I had returned back to the car to rest up during ALL SOULS DAY from Italy so I haven’t got anything to say about them. German legends WARRANT were coming on afterwards so I had to save all my energy! By now I was fairly drunk but quite happy at how the day had gone so far and now finally I had the chance to see the almighty WARRANT!! Their set was total Speed Metal mayhem!! 'Torture In The Tower', 'Nuns Have No Fun' or 'The Enforcer' had the crowd (myself included) moving in a frenzy and so many people were shouting along. Great to see this band finally.
Soon after WIZARD had cleared the stage, the brilliant vocals of Bobby Mitchell blared out the soundsystem, it was time to call on the ATTACKER!!! As expected and following in the tradition of their performance at Keep It True, the "Lords Of Thunder" gave an impressive, energy packed performance with many of the great songs like 'The Hermit' (HELL YEAH !!), 'Disciple', '(Call On) The Attacker' and 'Slayers Blade' keeping the crowd moving and singing along. I actually liked this performance a bit better than KIT because of the intimate nature of it and even though the stage is small, Bobby moved around like a wildcat, at one point bending over so far backwards that I thought he was going to fall over ! Excellent, excellent performance !! [BlackGoat: ATTACKER came, had a few beers (each) and conquered. Great set from a great band.]
BlackGoat: I’ve been a fan of DAMIEN THORNE since 1987 and I finally got to see them… Compared to 1987 only the guitarist remained and I was especially curious of the new vocalist. New vocals can break a band for me. Well, this guy didn’t. He sang his way very well through older songs like “Siren” or “Sign Of The Jackal” and on stage there wasn’t really that much difference between the old vocalist and him. Judging from the crowd reaction everyone else of those who remained until 2 am to see DAMIEN THORNE was as happy as me. I was quite surprised when at home I played the new DAMIEN THORNE CD and the band sounded a lot like the first FORBIDDEN album (instead like EXCITER than before :-D). Either way, they were very good that night and had a lot of fun as well. They liberally threw promo CDs of their new album in the crowd between songs as well, luckily the people in the audience were too tired to throw anything back. Seeing the amount of trash lying around at the end of a long day that might’ve not turned out so well… To close out the looooong day, DAMIEN THORNE played what seemed like a very long but very good set of Traditional styled Heavy Metal. There were a lot of people still there, despite being tired and drunk. All in all, another fantastic festival experience that I would recommend to anyone. See you at next years Headbangers Open Air!
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| Last Updated ( December 04, 2005 ) |
Again the worlds biggest garden party for Metal was at hand! I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: this is one of the greatest Metal events EVER! And in case you are wondering: the other is 
Next up were MAVERICK, a Japanese Heavy / Power Metal band. The first few songs were pretty decent but after awhile I found that the songs just started blending into one another without much that stood out. I do have to give them credit for being active on stage but I wasn’t overly impressed with them. They were so-so. I got pretty much the same kind of feeling from Australia’s BLACK MAJESTY. They played Power Metal often borrowing from IRON MAIDEN and although that sounds good (I’m a huge MAIDEN fan) they came across as just average and so-so. It’s not that they were bad or anything, I just couldn’t get into what they were doing. Greece’s INNER WISH were slightly better and intrigued me more than the previous two bands but they too fell a little short of what I was in the mood for. They had a lot more regular Heavy Metal in their songs which made them sound heavier and stronger than the others though. [BlackGoat: I spent the entire afternoon roasting in the parking lot with only short visits to the stage. I heard there very well and we had better beer in the trunk of my car :-D. MAVERICK, BLACK MAJESTY and INNER WISH were all ok (as Thrash Attack wrote) but not good enough to make me brave the scorching sun.]
Around 19:00 things would head into my preferred realm of Metal with the excellent Italian Thrash masters NECRODEATH taking the stage and kicking ass! These guys have been around for a long time (since 1985 I think) but this is the first time I get to see them. They sure knew how to set the stage on fire with some intense, fast paced European style Thrash to get the adrenaline rushing and hair flying ! They were one of the more extreme bands of the festival and that’s what I like most about H:O:A, they always manage to get a good mixture of different Metal styles so there’s something for everyone. NECRODEATH were one of the highlights of Friday with an insane frontman that screamed his lungs out and provided that aggressive kick I needed after the previous, "lighter" bands. The set included a lot of their best songs like 'The Creature', 'Perseverance Pays', 'At The Roots Of Evil' and they also threw in a very cool cover of VENOM's 'Countess Bathory'! Excellent show! Following NECRODEATH were NWOBHM band WEAPON who I consider one of the "surprise" bands for me. I was not familiar with them but by the time their set was finished I knew I had to pick up their album. They played rocking song after rocking song, only slowing things down for a few ballady kind of songs that the vocalist mentioned as "one for the ladies". I didn’t care much for these songs ('Olivia' to name one) but at least they provided a good moment to grab another beer. They had a really good attitude and that was evident through their show. I especially liked 'Set The Stage Alight', 'Take That Bottle Away' and 'Mad Mad World'. [BlackGoat: I wasn’t really that fond of NECRODEATH (who DID make me get up), I guess I expected them to be as brilliantly bizarre as BULLDOZER for instance, I dunno. For my taste they were just too close to old KREATOR (not that that’s a bad thing of course) and I had expected more. Or maybe I was in the wrong mood because WEAPON who followed right after sent me into total headbanging frenzy. I could’ve done without the ballads but I guess they didn’t have any more songs, hehehe.]
No matter how impressive previous bands had been, HEATHEN, being one of my favourite bands EVER, were totally brilliant and my favourite band of the entire day. They played so many of the classics that I was literally drooling from the total headbanging frenzy I was in. These songs in particular broke my neck: 'Opiate Of The Masses', 'Death By Hanging', 'Breaking The Silence' and the great 'Prisoners Of Fate'. The entire band had great enthusiasm and really got the crowd to go completely nuts. The front of the stage looked like a swirling sea of hair and upraised fists ! It was INSANE ! They also played 2 very impressive and promising new songs, one entitled 'Arrows Of Agony' and the other titled 'Dying Season'. As a special treat they played a cover of THIN LIZZY's 'The Holy War' which was marred slightly by the out of tune vocals of Rock Hard editor Götz. He may be a nice guy but damn, he cannot sing to save his life! Stick to the mag, Götz. ;-D. Anyway, a great band to end a great day. We made our way back to the hotel for a night of much needed sleep since Saturday was going to be the longest day with 12 bands, known and unknown. [BlackGoat: Seeing that my Witch is a much bigger HEATHEN fan than I am, I let her go wild while I made sure she doesn’t run out of beer :-D. Judging from her intake (and her complaints about her neck the next morning) HEATHEN were phenomenal. Personally I enjoyed them much more than in Wacken. Playing on this small stage did them very well.]
After ATTACKER I was nearly dead from tiredness and beer overdose. It had started getting dark and the guys from DAMIEN THORN were still doing some preparing so in order to light things up for them BlackGoat ran back to the car to get a torch which helped get some light in the backstage area. The beer was flowing, bands were getting ready and then TYRANT'S REIGN exploded onto the stage to give a set of mind blasting Heavy Metal ! [BlackGoat: After KIT I already knew what to expect from TYRANT’S REIGN and they did certainly not disappoint me or anyone else. Fast and aggressive they plowed through the songs of their album and also gave us a new song and now I’m looking forward to a new album even more. Great band !]
