SADUS – a synonym for cult, musical brilliance, the old Thrash days and friendly behaviour towards the fans. I don’t idolize anyone; otherwise I would use some other words to describe this band. DARKANE – okay I like only a part of their material, not everything, but without any doubt, they are a good live band... But I had never heard about GORY BLISTER before. So, although The Legion didn’t play on this part of the tour, I was full of excitement at the prospect of the gig…

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…this turned out to be more than justified. ABSOLUTE HAMMER GIG! Unfortunately, only about 70 people had come (among them: all members of Pungent Stench, Tommy from Demolition and colleague Robert Pöpperl from Rock Hard Magazine), but I’m sure that everyone was happy to be there. And 70 people can be enough to make a good atmosphere at the Monastery. And there were more with that were over 30 years old than usually at the Monastery-gigs.

GORY BLISTER didn’t get the full attention of everyone, but those who concentrated on the gig and not on something else, gave them a very good response. Some people already banged their heads to the Death/Thrash-rockets that got fired by the band. Technically and rhythmically perfect, with some fine, additional solos and melodic passages, they were a perfect support for what was still to come. Singer Andry spent more time before than on stage. After the gig, I bought the GORY BLISTER CD Skymorphosis and I can say that the thrashy side of the band is much stronger live than on CD. On CD it’s more like melodic Death Metal.

Anyway, when DARKANE began, there was much more going on in the audience. DARKANE made still more pressure than Gory Blister. They played many songs of their last album Layers Of Lies. The title track and Godforsaken Universe got the best feedback. But also some older songs like July 1999 (from the first CD Rusted Angel) or Emanation Of Fear (from Insanity) were released upon the crowd. The band was obviously very motivated and on stage there was as much action as before the stage. Bass player Jorgen Lofberg nearly banged his head off, whereas front man Anders Sydow enjoyed the audiences by pulling some mad faces. For me, the music was a bit too modern, but the energy level of the people (including me) got more and more into dimensions worthy of the mighty Sadus. The DARKANE gig was finished by the Expanded Senses-track Innocence Gone. A very strong appearance of the Swedes who didn’t forget to thank the other bands at the end.

Everything else was forgotten when the masters themselves entered the stage. The following 80 minutes were just Thrash virtuosity, nothing else. Playing on such a high level while keeping fastest speed – I hope that the places beside Chuck Schuldiner are already reserved for SADUS in Valhalla. The great thing about them is that they manage to place their enormous musical abilities in understandable songs that still can be headbanged to. As well as they knew that the people had come to hear the old classics, they started with 3 songs from the last album Out for Blood, namely the title track, followed by Down and the fantastic Sick, before the hit inferno started with Crutch and the age-old song Kill Team (from the first demo Death To Posers). Steve DiGiorgio conjured some tricks on his bass, but apart from that there weren’t any extended solo parts. He also played some parts on the keyboard and called the necessary samples while still playing bass. Obviously the band was in a good mood, first of all Mr. DiGiorgio who made most of the communication with the audience and came up with several jokes. But Darren Travis (v,g) was not at all in the background, he got at least as much cheers as the bass wizard, while Jon Allen made pressure from behind. SADUS played songs from all of their records, although, unfortunately, the classics Fuel, Twisted Face and Power Of One had been dropped. We were asked 2 times if we wanted to hear a new or an old song, and of course, the answer was rather unequivocal. From the Swallowed In Black time, they played In Your Face and Good Ridnz, then some more new songs were served, followed by 2 Elements Of Anger that didn’t cause any anger: Mask and Unreality. Nevertheless the audience seemed to get a little tired, but this changed when Mr. Travis wandered trough the crowd while playing the old smasher Sadus Attack. With Through The Eyes Of Greed and Certain Death they got the last energy reserves out of the fans, then the gig was finished and Steve and Darren mixed among the crowd for a while.

Of course the organizers of the gig (Kulturverein Kaltenbach) were not exactly happy about the number of fans that had come. But apart from that I could only see happy faces before I got on my way home. I think, everyone knew that he had seen a tremendous gig, and I can’t say anything else than I really feel sorry for those who weren’t there.

story & pics © Gunnar