Metaltown 2009
26.-28.6.2009, Frihamnen, Gothenburg, Sweden
Interactive photo gallery at the bottom
Since Metaltown turned out to be a pretty relaxed festival last year, it was a sure thing, that I´d jump on the plane to Gothenburg to attend this year’s edition as well. With 15 000 metalheads it was completely sold out in 2008 and it reached this mark pretty fast again in 2009. No big surprise when having megasellers like Slipknot and Marilyn Manson on board. Luckily the organiser managed to get the ok for having 20 000 headbangers in the festivalarea each day – in combination with an extension of the festival ground (which now really reached it´s capacity limits). In the end it turned out to be 22000 people, according to newspapers. Luckily it never became overly crowded, despite bigger visitor numbers. They offered a great variety of merchandise and food, located all over the festivalarea (and if I say great variety, I mean great variety, you could find everything from Mexican to typically American stuff that is burgers and tasty Langos). Apart from that you could also find places to fill up your waterbottles, where always lots of people where standing in line – no wonder with those hot temperatures! Hopefully they´ll increase the number of those waterplaces next year.
Unfortunately it was impossible for a photographer to see all the bands or better to say complete gigs, since you had to run after 3 songs during some bands to catch the other band playing on the tentstage. But that´s just some information on the margin. The weather was absolutely great, sometimes even a bit too great, since we constantly had temperatures of 25 degrees and above. Due to that the security guys had lots of stuff to do and even had to take people out of the crowd, who started fainting. Some of them had obviously been standing in the front row all day to see their favourite bands and probably „forgot“ to eat and sometimes even drink. So the security was passing water to the crowd, this worked really well, thumbs up for that! Thumbs up for the security in general, because it was a great, relaxed team.
And now we´ll have a look at all the bands playing at Metaltown:
DEAD BY APRIL
As soon as we had entered the festivalarea it became pretty obvious, that there were more people than in 2008, since there was already quite a respectable bunch of people, waiting in front of the left mainstage at 1 pm. The guys of Dead By April were performing quite a good show – unfortunately the clean vocals of turned out to be kinda weak. As soon as the vocals became a bit more aggressive it definitely became better, obviously this was more the style of vocalist Jimmy Strimmel, who has been singing for Nightrage and it also vocalist for Death Destrcution (with band members of Evergrey). Especially for the latter one it seems, as if he can use his vocal abilities to the fullest there. Unfortunately time was running out pretty fast, so they were forced to cut down their setlist and had to leave out the most famous song „Losing You“. This or that way they managed to leave an overall positive impression with songs like „Stronger“ or „Erased“. Give them a try!
Meanwhile, one of four newcomers of the festival was playing at the smaller Close-Up tentstage: Sterbhaus. Another band you guys should check out!
PAIN
Back to the mainstage: time for dancing with workaholic Peter Tägtgren and PAIN. Ignoring the rising temperatures quite a lot of people followed this „invitation“ and started partying. Guess you can´t do anything wrong with this band at a festival – even though I have to admit, that I´m eagerly waiting for some new material of his other band Hypocrisy
(according to various news this should happen quite soon…). However they entertained the crowd with „I´m Going In“, „Zombie Slam“, „End Of The Line“ or the stomping „Walking On Glass“. After „Shut Your Mouth“ the party was over after around 45 minutes. Definitely enough time to make lots of people sweat. It was almost a pity, that they had to play so early.
CEDRON,, were playing almost simultaneously on the Close-Up stage and also managed to attract quite a nice crowd, despite the competition on the mainstage. The young band was playing Metalcore stuff, so pretty different from what Mr Tägtgren was playing – so no interference with fans I´d say. I have to admit, that I didn´t know this band and managed to check out only a few songs beforehand, but they definitely convinced me with their vital performance. One band, I´m surely going to give another try.
NAPALM DEATH are definitely some kind of phänomenon for me. Somehow all the songs seem to sound the same in a way, but they make the audience go off the rails. Like always the fronter was jumping over the stage, throwing the mic cable around and giving photographers a hard time, trying to catch him. However, the quartet from Birmingham presentend a convincing gig in good old Gothenburg with a fat portion of Grindcore – by the way, the only portion of Grindcore we should get at this festival, since there was no other band of that genre present. They presented stuff from the first album „Scum“ and the classic „You Suffer“. With „Siege Of Power“ they did the last punch in the face. The audience seemed happy, they got what they had been waiting for, what else can you want? No matter if you like them or not, they´re a great liveband.
KONGH were playing something completely different on the tentstage. This was the perfect band for all those, who are into Neurosis and Co. Kongh presented quite a unique mixture of Black Metal, Sludge, Doom and Postcore, check it out! This was definitely my first and most interesting discovery at this year’s Metaltown. They already entered the Close-Up Magazine toplist with their debut „Counting Heartbeats“, which was easily topped by the second album „Shadows Of The Shapeless“. Best alternative for all grindcore-averse ears.
TRIVIUM gathered a huge crowd in front of the mainstage and hence it was no big surprise, that lots and lots of people were singing along to almost all the songs. Apart from taking pictures, I couldn´t follow the entire gig, since it was really about time to get something to eat. So I didn´t only miss Trivium partly, but also Municipicial Waste. Luckily it didn´t take me long to get the desired food, since, despite long queues, it went fast. The prices were festivallike, but acceptable for the amount and quality of food offered. Fortified by a nice meal it was about time for some madness:
MESHUGGAH, is a band I have tried to see live countless times. Last time actually back in April, where they had to cancel their gig at Inferno festival last minute, due to back problems of their drummer. When the next cancellation came in at the beginning of June (Sauna Open Air), I was already awaiting the worst for Metaltown and said to myself, that I probably wouldn´t see them there as well. I was wrong though, at 6 they insane Swedes entered the mainstage and started to spread musical madness.
It was quite interesting to see how they managed to attract so many people with their pretty complex sound. Vocalist Jens Kidman was presenting the songs with entertaining faces, that made him look kinda obsessed from time to time. They played stuff from the latest album „ObZen“ and of course older material as well, thumbs up! Or should I rather say: Totally insane? – that would definitely be a compliment in that case. Some Swedish colleagues called this „Hjärnkirurgi Metal“ – fits perfectly, because this sound is going right into your brain, twisting it and leaving you back in front of stage compeltely drained. Great gig by the quintet from Umea, that, according to the festival infosheet, has been voted one of the 10 most important metalbands ever by Rolling Stone magazine.
HATESPHERE started their „busy weekend“ in Gothenburg, – 3 days, 3 festival was their motto. So they were the first band of the Danish invastion of day 1. They managed to get the crowd going with ease. How could you resist a bunch of smiling Danish guys, that are going totally crazy on stage, having lots of fun?! Guitarist Pepe was doing funny faces as always and the rest of the guys seemed to enjoy themselves, too. They performed a nice mixture of old and new songs, especially new ones of the highly acclaimed album „To The Nines“. Vocalist Joller made excuses for his Swedish, that was not that good, but assured everyone, that it was getting better with more alcohol. However, I couldn´t stop thinking, that it would´ve been ever better, if they had been put on the mainstage instead. They should´ve switched slots with My Dying Bride, that would´ve been better off on the small stage… more on that on day 2 of the report!
CHILDREN OF BODOM were already waiting on the mainstage, so I couldn´t watch the complete Hatesphere gig. Actually nobody would´ve had to hurry, if they had sticked to the normal running order, but for some reason, all the gigs had been changed and started 15 minutes earlier. Unfortunately this hadn´t been announced anywhere, so that some people were pretty amazed to see, that the band had started, when they arrived „on time“.
Fronter Alexi didn´t look as tired and wasted anymore, like the last time I had seen them. Maybe he recovered a bit after his broken shoulder? Well, no idea, he was enjoying being on stage, keyboarder Janne looked kinda bored (maybe he really was, who knows). No matter how, the crowd had fun – some of the must be in really good shape, you could see almost the same faces in the front row during the whole first day! „Hate Me“ and other songs made them go crazy and Mr Laiho was using his favourity swearword pretty seldomly, wow! For me personally this band isn´t anymore, what it once used to be, but I can´t say anymore, that they seem kinda tired. In fact this was a more energetic gig, than those I´ve seen a while ago.
VOLBEAT – Is there still something that hasn´t been said about the bands ability to play damn great gigs? Guess no. It´s almost frightening to see how fast and well the Danish (mind you: Danish invasion part II) got the whole crowd on the toast within seconds.
Volbeat Mania wherever you go. This must be already the 4th country, where I´m seeing them live and it´s always the same – in a positive way. The amps have been decorated in quite a stylish way, having the words „Caddilac“, „Gangster“ etc on them. And there you go, vocalist Michael Poulsen and his „gang“ started rocking stage and crowd – Rock’n’Roll big time. No matter which song they started playing, the crowd was singing along to „Gardes Tale“, „Radio Girl“. Even though there might´ve also been quite a reasonable amount of people singing along, Volbeat are the winners. It´s simply a phenomenon and there doesn´t seem to be an end.
What I don´t understand though is: Why do you have to let fellow countrymen, the third Danish band of the day PILGRIMZ , play at almost the same time on the smaller stage? They´re not playing the same style, no, but one thing is for sure, they also know how to rock! Fronter Max turned out to be a real stage tiger. Quite sad, that I could only see half of the gig. But one thing is for sure, when there´s the possibility to catch them live on tour, I´ll surely do so! The material from the 2008 album „Boar Riders“ is some pretty decent stuff you should check out. Nice to see, that they managed to fill the tent, despite the big Volbeat playing on the mainstage. After this, the Danish invasion at Metaltown was over.
Next premiere for me, I´ve never seen DISTURBED live either. Unfortunately a gig in Luxemburg, end of the month, was already sold out, so this was the perfect chance for me to make up for that. Directly at the beginning they made us grin, since the vocalist was being brought on stage in Hannibal Lecter outfit – mask and straitjacket, that was being removed by a male nurse. After the vocalist had removed the mask as well, he started off with „Voices“. I don´t know, whether this was his normal condition of voice at a live gig, but he sound pretty weak, I have to say. It almost looked, like had quite a tough time to reach all the notes. This obviously didn´t keep the audience from going crazy to songs like „Ten Thousand Fists“ or „Prayer“. „Down With The Sickness“ was a nice finish of a gig, that left some disappointment neverthelss. Apart from the vocals, a nice gig.
Setlist:
Voices
Liberate
Just Stop
Prayer
Meaning Of Life
Land Of Confusion
Stupify
The Game
Inside The Fire
Stricken
Ten Thousand Fists
Indestructibel
Down With The Sickness
Day 1 was slowly coming to an end. Time for some oldschool stuff on the tentstage, since BULLET were the alternative for all traditionalists or those, who didn´t want to see the Nu Metal clowns on the mainstage, here it was all about rock in best 80´s manner!
Even the outfits of the guys seemed to be at least 20-30 years behind the latest fashion. It was lots of fun though. After a short stop in the 80´s, I trottet back to the mainstage, to take some pics from near the soundtower, thanks to a hint of a fellow photographer.
SLIPKNOT were presenting the most interesting gig of the day for sure, when speaking of decoration and the whole production of the gig. Quite impressive stage set-up! Too bad, that they were quite hard with photo permissions, no webmag was allowed in the pit, so we can only present you pics from further away. We were supposed to drop an e-mail with photo request earlier in the afternoon, which didn´t work due to internet, that had obviously gone on strike. After we had finally found the responsible guy, it was too late anyways and we also got to know, it was printmags only. Well, 10 photographers made it into the pit in the end. The rest was upping the blank…or using the telezoom, at least when you managed to get some decent spot for that in the huge crowd.
This or that way, this was some pretty impressive gig. You got three drummers, two on each side of the stage, Joey Jordison in the middle on his turnable drumkit. He continued drumming, as if nothing was happening, when it was lifted up into vertical position and started turning. The bridge directly besides the festival ground was completely packed with spectators, who were asked to sing along as well, by the vocalist. He turned towards the audience and comforted them by saying: „Well, see it like this, you got the better seats.“ Shortly after that he wondered, whether the crowd was up to making history and wanted all of them to go down – nearly all really did so – and jump when he gave the sign for it. Amazing view from further away and surely even more impressive, when standing on the bridge! The ground was shaking in the truest sense of the word, woah! Like other bands before Slipknot had a grip on the audience, no problem with songs like „Wait And Bleed“, „Duality“ or „People= Shit“. After one encore, you could hear „Beat It“ in memory of Michael Jackson, whose death had been on the frontpages of every newspaper that very morning. In the morning there were still lots of people, who surely didn´t believe this, but with reports and news coming in constantly, every doubt had been erased. Nice gesture at the end of a captivating gig!
There´s no doubt that this was a really good headliner-worthy gig. I was quite amazed, that they managed to convince me, since I´ve never been a fan of this band. However, I´d surely catch them live, if I got the chance.
Setlist:
Intro (742619000029)
(Sic)
Eyeless
Wait And Bleed
Before I Forget
Sulfur
The Blister Exists
Dead Memories
Disasterpiece
Psychosocial
Duality
People=Shit
Surfacing
Spit It Out
Beat It (Michael Jackson)
After that, there was no way, I´d have gone to the aftershow party in a venue called Parken, with a live band (ADEPT) playing. We were all way too tired and exhausted. So off to bed to catch some badly needed sleep and get some energy for day 2.
Day 2 seemed to be all about Japanese bands, since there were three more or less similar ones on the main- and tentstage. Like on day 1 the weather was simply perfect, even a bit warmer, so it was quite strenuous in the afternoon, thanks to almost non-existing shadow. The few shady places were gone soon, so the security guys had their hands full, providing the crowd, especially the front rows with water and even dragging some of them out of the crowd, since they had been in the heat for too long. If it hadn´t been the sun, that was heating everything and everyone up, the bands themselves would´ve surely heated up the audience pretty well, too, since most of them presented kickass gigs!
EVERGREY had the doubtful honour to open up day 2 and presented their material in front of quite a manageable amount of people. Most of them seemed to prefer catching a seat in the huge beergarden – directly on the right side of the two stages – or trotting around or simply sitting in the sun. At the aforementioned beergarden was pretty full from the start and shouldn´t get empty any soon. Thanks to the great position of this beer-paradise, some people didn´t even consider going in front of the stages and stayed there for the rest of the day, no matter who was playing. Well, back to the stage, the people in front of the mainstage enjoyed this gig nevertheless and sang along to „Recreation Day“, „More Than Ever“ oder „Touch Of Blessing“. All in all the reactions were still pretty reserved. Heat plus the previous day, that was still troubling some = no good combination for the first band. All in all this was a rather disappointing gig that wouldn´t really ignite a spark.
In case this was too calm, there was the possibility of catching ALL HELL from Örebro on the tentstage, who were presenting a mixture of Melodeath and Hardcore. I for my part skipped them, though.
Completely different picture on the mainstage a bit later, it was time for THE HAUNTED . It was not only a home game for the guys from Gothenburg around fronter Peter Dolving, no they´re also known for being a great live band. Thus it was their turn to proof, that they deserve this reputation. Shortly before the gig, the audience started warming up by initiating „Haunted“ choires and clapping. Thus it didn´t take long, until the Gothenburgians entered stage. Especially the Björler brothers seemed way more active, than back at the beginning of the year, when I saw them on tour. I didn´t see them headbanging and posing that much. No wonder, that they got the crowd going with ease, having lots of fun on stage. Songs presented were „The Flood“, „Moronic Colossus“, „99“ and the last song „Hate Song“, just to name a few. Once again, the ground at Frihamnen was shaking in the truest sense of the word. At the end of the gig you could see some fans waiting on the very right side, having shirts and pencil ready to get their stuff signed (the backstage entrance was right at that corner). So after a while Peter Dolving came out and spotted those guys immediately, looking quite happy about people waiting for him and hugged them. Of course they got their stuff signed and got some pics as well.
Almost simultaneaously, ILLFIGURE from Norrköping were playing the Close-Up stage. I´m quite sure, that the fourth and last demoband also managed to get some new fans in the rather manageable amount of people in front of the stage.
The incredibly colourful backdrop made it possible to tell from quite a distance which band was up next. It was DRAGONFORCE , who were about to spread their insanely fast, simply mad Metal. I´ve rarely, no never seen a bad, that´s jumping around constantly like this. And that in combination with outfits in crazy colour combinations, that make your eyes go all funny. The one, who took the biscuit was surely keyboarder Vadim with wonderful neon-yellow spandex trousers, pink suspenders, pink keyboard and equally colourful make-up, ouch! – well, at least he stuck out of the mass! A Swedish colleague was joking: „Well, now I know where the 3 song rule for us photographers comes from… you can´t stand this guitar madness any longer…and those colooours!“ – he might be right, haha.
After a while this was definitely a bit too much – everyone single member in the band is doing a show. From doing funny faces, to teasing each other, guitar soli, where everybody starts playing on the guitar of the one standing next to him, a little shower with water from the vocalist (oh how happy we photographers were…not!) and some flirting with the girls in the front row. You simply don´t know whom to follow. However, strange outfits or not, they obviously have lots of fun doing, what they´re doing there and they can play, that´s for sure. And there´s something else, that´s for sure, there´s hardly any band, where you can take so many pics in such a short time, that don´t look the same. Oh and songs, yes they of course played some music, „Heroes Of Our Times“, „Fury Of The Storm“ and „Through Fire And Flames“, were those three songs, that still found their way into my memory, despite the madness. 😉
After that it was about time to relax a bit, before heading over to the tentstage again. This stage was completely packed with people. It took us quite a while to make our way to the photopit through those masses of people waiting for AUGUST BURNS RED Since there were quite a lot, who wanted to photograph them, we didn´t have more than 1,5 songs. From the beginning they made everybody go off the rails. I´ve never seen girlies screaming like crazy in the front row at a metalfestival. As soon as the vocalist came somewhere near to the front of the stage, the girls went crazy, this is something I would´ve expected during the Japanese bands, but not during ABR. Quite unimpressed by this, they continued their gig in an experienced way and with lots of fun. The was getting heated up, in the truest sense of the word, since the temperatures were of course rising. I don´t know, whether they didn´t expect them to attract so many people, but it would´ve been no problem for the band to attract enough audience for the mainstage. Well, next time then!
There wasn´t much time left till the next band was about to start, back to the mainstage, to see ALL THAT REMAINS . Here I couldn´t imagine, how they´d be like on a big stage, since I had always seen them on smaller and middle sized stages so far, where they could always convince with lots of contact to their fans. Ok, this time it was my turn to underestimate a band, there was a huge crowd waiting for them and just like on the clubtour in spring, vocalist Philip Labonte managed to get a grip on them with ease. Yes, ATR fit on a hottest women there, he had won anyways.
Meanwhile BRING ME THE HORIZON were playing the tentstage, absolutely no way to get into the photopit or better to say to fight my way there. So I finally gave up and decided to get something to eat. I was quite surprised to find fresh strawberries and cherries for a reasonable price, no way I could not get some. This is something I´d like to have at German festivals as well!
MY DYING BRIDE were facing some pretty unpleasant conditions. Their playing slot during early afternoon, in the sun was surely not the best circumstances they could have for their Doom music. This probably was one of the reasons that let to quite a decimated crowd in front of the mainstage – especially compared to some other bands. But die-hard fans surely enjoyed this gig nevertheless. It was pretty hard to get into the right mood for MY DYING BRIDE though, since the dark atmosphere that you normally have during their gigs simply wasn´t there. Unfortunately I´ve to admit, that the spark didn´t ignite, even though they surely weren´t bad. A great song like „Cry Of Mankind“ didn´t fail to impress though. Still, a nice place on the tentstage would´ve suited them much, much better;especially when it comes to lightshow and more cosy atmosphere. A real pity!
GIRUGÄMESH – Japanese madness I. The tent was packed once again, lots of fans were waiting, not only in the front rows. When having a look at the aforementioned rows though, it was quite interesting to see, that there were almost only female fans. Without knowing who was up next, this would´ve at least told you, that it was a Japanese band. So the band entered stage and the girls started shrieking and screaming as if their lives were at stake, holy shit! For the metalheads in the audience this was maybe a bit too soft, even though vocalist Satoshi was putting on a great show. Unfortunately I´m not able to provide further infos on songs being played, due to not being familiar with their stuff. Quite interesting though, that it was obviously no problem for the girls in the frontrows to sing along, Japanese lyrics or not. Well, not my cup of tea, so I jumped off to the mainstage after two songs of taking pictures.
7 o´clock, it was time for allmighty MUSTASCH and completely different music. Home game once again and this became even a bit more obvious than during The Haunted. The fans of the Stoner Metal act were singing and screaming some songs and „Mustasch“. The security guys warned us, that it might become pretty rough and that they might have to send us out of the photopit quickly, if crowdsurfers started crashing in. Well, it didn´t become that rough, but the crowd was going of the rails from the opener „Bring Me Everyone“ onwards. No song, where the audience was a bit calm, no way, they all seemed to know the lyrics by heart. „Dogwash“ was followed by „Down In Black“, MUSTASCH definitely had a grip on the audience. After the really catchy tune „Double Nature“ the fun was over again. Easy listening stuff, great party music, perfect for a festival, nothing to complain!
Setlist:
Bring Me Everyone
Dogwash
Down In Black
Teenage Pacifier
Accident Black Spot
Falling Down
I Hunt Alone
Black City
Parasite
Monday Warrior
Double Nature
OPETH – yes, I admit, this is one of the bands I was waiting for the most this weekend. So far the Swedes never failed to impress me at a live gig and it should stay like this. After having been forced to cancel the gig at Metaltown 2008 last minute due to Mikael Akerfeldt´s illness, it was just normal, that they would´ve been booked again this year to make up for this. The sun was slowly going down and created quite a nice atmosphere, that fitted perfectly (it didn´t get totally dark anyways). I guess nearly everyone enjoyed this atmosphere, well maybe except for drummer Martin Axenrot, who had the sunlight directly blinding him for almost the whole gig („This was nasty“, as he commented lateron).
After quite a calm start, they slowly started getting heavier. Inbetween the usual funny annoucements, which I unfortunately didn´t understand completely, due to my Swedish still not being good enough. I hardly know any band, that manages to captivate people with damn long, pretty complex songs, that easily go beyond the 10 minute mark like „Ghost of Perdition“ or „Leper Affinity“. The setlist included 6 songs, apart from the aforementioned also „Closure“, „The Lotus Eater“, „Deliverance“ and „Heir Apparent“ – this definitely made some shivers running down my spine despite the still warm temperatures. After one hour it was over, way too short for an OPETH Gig. But to enjoy them to the fullest you definitely have to attend a club gig, I´d say.
Unfortunately there was some disturbance coming over from the other mainstage, when DIR EN GREY were doing the soundcheck during some calmer songpart. Luckily they were stopped, since this was too loud.
DIR EN GREY were the second Japanese band of the day then, since I skipped MUCC, who were playing at the same time like Opeth. And when having a look at the tentstage, we had to recognize again, that it was absolutely impossible to get into the tent, thanks to a huge bunch of people waiting there already. DEG managed to gather a loud, loud crowd in front of the stage, that made me almost feel like being at some boyband concert, rather than at a Metal festival.
I have to admit, that this fascination and hype that is created around this band couldn´t excite me, too. One thing is for sure, they obviously totally enjoyed being on stage, jumped around like crazy, but the vocals were something you have to get used to. No matter what the fronter was doing though, he could be sure, that the girls started screaming and the guys seemed to enjoy this. Musically, you can call DEG a jack of all trades in a way, since you had some emo stuff, hard parts up to progressive tendencies and deathmetal-like growling at parts – sometimes, as aforementioned mixed up a bit too much and this made it kinda confusing. A great gig for the fans, something strange for the rest. „What´s this?!“ is a phrase I heard quite often while sitting backstage.
From then on everything went really fast, two more bands left and then Metaltown 2009 was approaching it´s end. CULT OF LUNA vs. MARILYN MANSON.
Some might´ve thought, that CULT OF LUNA would have a hard time on the small tentstage, but this wasn´t the case. Even though the Swedes had to play at the same time like Manson, they managed to gather a great crowd. COL were lacking one of the normally two vocalist though – according to my Swedish friends this wasn´t unusual though, since they played gigs with less members quite often lately. Well, this or that way, this didn´t affect the songs in a remarkable way. The whole stage was completely covered with thick smoke, so that you could hardly see the musicians from time to time, which actually fitted perfectly to the band. After having photographed Manson, I thus rushed to the tentstage to attend this gig, which ended with the fantastic „Ghost Trail“. Still had 30 more minutes, so we listened to Manson from further away, thanks to a huge videoscreen on the left side of the stage, you could even see what was going on. I was quite exhausted after COL though, not physically but probably mentally, what a damn captivating gig!
MARILYN MANSON
was much easier with photo permission, than Slipknot on the day before. We were quite amazed, that there was no contract, no extra stuff, but 2 complete song for taking pics (accompanied by a really huge, mean looking private security guy, who approached one photographer, who dared to take a few more shots after the two songs and while going out of the pit with a nice „Get that fuckin´ caaamera down!“ – no idea whether he did the same with the photographing fans in the frontrows. ;-)). The whole stage was covered with a huge black curtain, and you could only guess, that there was lots of smoke piling up, accompanied by lots of nice red light (the photographers were of course totally happy about this…not).
At 22:45 sharp the music started to get louder, the rhythm got fast and faster, the clapping of the crowd turned into screaming and suddenly the curtain was gone! Mr Manson entered stage with a black coat and a pirate-like hat and was hardly seen due to all the fog during the first half of the first song. The other musicians slowly appeared in all this fog and during song number 2, he got rid of his coat and walk on the little „catwalk“ that had been built in front of the stage. Am I wrong or did he really gain quite a remarkable amount of weight? Well, no matter what, the spark didn´t want to ignite. This wasn´t shocking at all, the show as a whole was ok. The highlights clearly were „The Dope Show“ or „Sweet Dreams“, which was played by the way, when we left the tent from the COL gig. All in all he didn´t meet the expectations and didn´t turn out to be such a crowd puller as some might´ve expected and didn´t attract as much audience, as Slipknot the day before. After the COL gig you could already see lots of people leaving the festival area, when having a look at the bridge, there was still loads of people standing and watching the gig.
We left earlier as well, since there was an aftershowparty going on in Parken again and today it was BURST playing there. And they played one of the best gigs I had seen of them so far. The vocalist was joking a bit „Thanks for coming here, hope you enjoyed the support bands.“ Sure thing, that people had to grin about him calling the bands of the festival „support bands“. After that he dedicated one song to all those suffering from sunburn – luckily I didn´t belong to those (quite amazing I didn´t get one). What a nice way of ending a great festival weekend, that turned out to be relaxed, despite higher visitor numbers than back in 2008.
All in all I can say the following about this year´s Metaltown: Unfortunately there wasn´t much shade, that made it possible to escape from the sun for a while, there should´ve been more places to get some water with temperatures over 25 degrees. Apart from that, you never had to wait that long, neither in when getting some food, nor at the entrance control. The mix of bands was pretty good, and the festival area wasn´t packed, despised having more visitors than last year. The selection of food was really varied, thumbs up for this, I´ve rarely seen so much different food at a festival! The beergarden was bigger, much more toilets, so no big waiting times there either. The backstage area was redesigned and some extra press area for conducting interviews had been added as well. But one thing should be thought over and probably changed: the tentstage. There were quite a few bands that exceeded the capacity of the tent. So either bigger tentstage, or all bands on the two bigger stages. So I came back with an overall positive impression once again, leading to marking this festival in the calender for 2010 again! Let´s see how many visitors Metaltown will have then and how it´s going to develop!
photos: Cornelia Wickel
