A Triple Thrash Treat Par Excellence
No idea, how often KREATOR and LAMB OF GOD have postponed their State Of The Unrest Tour. I'm close to claim that they are the record holder doing so. At least, when it comes to bands we have on our radar. However, now the time has come, at least the show yesterday took place ;)
This time I hit the road towards Essen and the time-honored :: Grugahalle ::. I hardly ever visited this venue. I guess it’s now for the 4th time in 30 years? Well, I remember that I have seen Judas Priest on their legendary Painkiller tour in this hall in 1991 :)
I followed advice to arrive earlier to avoid parking chaos and that was indeed a good idea. At the end, it wasn't the highways, nor the parking (the main parking at the venue was blocked due to another event), it was the organization around the hall that caused the trouble. Long queues at the entry, only two doors open, but, much worse was the fact that exactly four people (4!!!), two on each side, put wristbands on approx. 7000 wrists before we were allowed to enter the infield. Top idea! NOT!
Tonight's show was upgraded to a bigger venue (from 4000 to 7500), as the first one was quickly sold out. The Grugahall was packed but not fully sold out. BUT… Essen is the hometown of KREATOR, so tonight's show was a home game!
Let's talk about the pricing: beer 5 Euro (0.4l), soft drinks 4 Euro. Merch: tee 40 Euro, long sleeve 50 bucks and a hoodie for great 75 Euro. Many people were nagging, so did I in the past. But meanwhile I read interviews and discussions, why merch prices increased so drastically, among others provided by the colleagues of :: Metal1 :: (in German only, but referred discussions are in English). Highly recommended – translate it with Google or so.
All bigger halls in North Rhine-Westphalia are such that demand „concession-contracts“, means, the venue staff sells the merch exclusively and takes a cut up to 25%, of course without VAT. VAT they leave to be paid by the bands. Additionally, there is a new tax since 2019 for every craftsperson that ships its products. It is called "licensing of sales packaging". That means that you have to buy a license in every country you want to ship your products to. Imagine a band selling merch from their own store, bandcamp and other platforms. And the costs for those licenses are different from country to country. It can be 39 Euro a year for Germans in Germany but also up to 1500 Euro a year for Germans that want to send goods to Austria. Just as an example. So, bands get ripped off everywhere these days and I have no idea where it will end. Maybe even higher pricing, maybe no merch at all anymore, maybe selling merch from a trailer outside the venue, who knows…
:: pics :: MUNICIPAL WASTE ::
However, once inside, I met a lot of friends and had good chats until the lights went out. :: MUNICIPAL WASTE :: kicked off the evening exactly at 7pm with Demoralizer from their latest effort Electrified Brain. No-frills, no fuss, just full force and pure energy.
MUNICIPAL WASTE always remind me of a legendary show (together with Electric Eel Shock) back then in 2007 in Holland and make me smile, whenever I get to see this band live. I love their music too! Just to make that clear ;)
The tour trek is in the middle of its itinerary and already takes toll on the musicians as singer Tony Foresta suffered from a hoarse voice. He wore a scarf to treat his voice a bit with care, otherwise he didn't hold his fire, nor did his mates. The Richmond-guys brought much action on stage and animated the crowd to create mosphits and waves of death. And the crowd didn't need to be told twice. In a twinkling of an eye the fans whirled all in a tumble and crowd surfer fell in dozen on the feet of totally overstrained securities. Sound and lights were ok. Nick Poulos had such a glowing bilious green guitar, it illuminated his face ;) For way too short 35 minutes, MUNICIPAL WASTE delivered a highly energetic set of Surf-Punk-old-school-Thrash, or just Crossover. I extremely enjoyed the show, it was the perfect warm-up for the things to come. Though, I'd love to see MUNICIPAL WASTE in an intimate club again.
Band: Tony „Guardrail“ Foresta (vox), Ryan Waste (git, vox), Philip „Landphil“ Hall (bass, vox), Dave Witte (drums), Nick Poulos (git)
Setlist: (I'm A Rebel (Accept song)), Demoralizer, Breathe Grease, The Thrashin' Of The Christ, Poison The Preacher, Grave Dive, You're Cut Off, Sadistic Magician, Slime And Punishment, Headbanger Face Rip, High Speed Steel, Wave Of Death, Born To Party
:: pics :: LAMB OF GOD ::
Before it was up to :: LAMB OF GOD :: to raise the roof, we (the photographers placed aside the stage) witnessed how to do not a changeover. The stagehands slithered over sloppily arranged ramps that moved and sagged. Especially when they tried to push the trailer with the drumkit and raiser down the ramp. Huh, that almost went awry.
Ok, this performance now was a novelty to me as I never have seen LAMB OF GOD playing live so far. I was really looking forward to this show. The Richmond, VA, guys are known for their explosive shows. I was indeed a bit worried as the security didn't make any attempts to bring additional staff into the photo pit. Well…
Relentlessly and with brute force LAMB OF GOD thundered through their set from the first to the last second. And they didn't take prisoners. Pure demolition! As expected. This was mainly an effort by singer Randy Blythe, who didn't stand still any second and rampaged the stage like a berserk. The other gentlemen acted rather restrained. LAMB OF GOD animated the crowd to jump and to go wild and the crowd followed. It was fucking awesome to see everybody in the infield jumping. The venue was literally trembling. Holy shit! Randy Blythe sent out special greetings to Caliban's drummer Patrick Grün (another band from Essen). They seem to be friends for quite some time and, of course, he was present. Blythe also remembered Power Trip's singer Riley Gale, who passed away 2020 at the age of 34. Power Trip was originally booked to open the State Of The Unrest Tour.
LAMB OF GOD scored with a great stage setting and a cool light show. But the sound… the sound was utter shit. First dull, then over-amplified. During the Municipal Waste show the sound was much better. Well, and the singing itself… hm. Never mind! It was a fucking hell of a show, from soup to nuts. Fans didn't care either and jumped and danced and moshed and sang along till the last note. That was killer!
Band: Randy Blythe (vox), Willie Adler (git), Mark Morton (git), John Campbell (bass), Art Cruz (drums)
Setlist: Memento Mori, Ruin, Walk With Me In Hell, Resurrection Man, Ditch, Now You've Got Something To Die For, Contractor, Omerta, Omens, 11th Hour, 512, Vigil, Laid To Rest, Redneck
:: pics :: KREATOR ::
During the second changeover it happened what was supposed to happen: the wobbly ramp construction knuckled under the now even bigger drumkit. The stagehands had really to fight to hold the riser and to get not buried under it. While seeing this other abandoned equipment boxes rolled around and fell down the stairs into the infield. That all didn’t look much professional.
However, tonight’s show was :: KREATOR’s :: show, no matter what. As mentioned, the guys come from Essen, and thus it was a home game for them, even if Lamb Of God raised the bar damn high.
Speaking about movement and energy, KREATOR couldn’t hold the candle to them.
Speaking about fan love, KREATOR for sure were more than one step ahead. In addition, KREATOR served a lot of gimmicks: a lot of fire, (a meager portion of) confetti, CO2 jets, changing backdrops, puppets, masks, and dropping corpses. They indeed put much effort into the show. Nice to watch too ;)
At Midnight Sun guest vocalist Sofia Portanet entered the stage and sang along with Mille. Visually, she didn’t match the band at all (nor the crowd). On the other hand… Mille didn’t look like a Thrash Metal veteran either, more like a comfy smurf ;) This special was okay. I don’t understand the hype around this singer, well, I don’t need to either. KREATOR and LAMB OF GOD did a song together, State Of The Unrest, to see this track performed live would have been much greater.
Anyways, while Mille was more or less nailed behind his mic, and guitarist Sami never was the “stage hog” either, it was up to the “new” bassist Frédéric Leclercq to bring some action on stage. Well, he is a decade younger than the rest of the band ;) Actually, the LOG members are around the same age than KREATOR, the difference in matter of agility was significant though.
Okay, fans were frenetic, downright went wild, following all instructions by Mille for a wall of death, raising fists and to surf the crowd.
During Flag Of Hate I said goodbye and crept out of the Grugahall. I had to work the next day and I had to drive home a good hour. But I left with a big smile on my face, humming Phobia along the way. That was a fucking amazing concert evening I enjoyed to the max. Nothing less!
Band: Miland „Mille“ Petrozza (vox, git), Sami Yli-Sirniö (git), Frédéric Leclercq (bass), Jürgen „Ventor“ Reil (drums, vox),
Setlist: (Run To The Hills), (Sergio Corbucci Is Dead), Hate Über Alles, Hail To The Hordes, Awakening Of The Gods (Intro), Enemy Of God, Phobia, Midnight Sun (feat. Sofia Portanet), Satan Is Real, Hordes Of Chaos (A Necrologue For The Elite), 666 - World Divided, (Mars Mantra), Phantom Antichrist, Strongest Of The Strong, Flag Of Hate, (The Patriarch), Violent Revolution, Pleasure To Kill, (Apocalypticon)
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