Into the Grave Festival 2013
10.8.2013, Leeuwarden, Netherlands
There aren´t that many one-day festivals – and even fewer of those take place on an area which supposedly had once been a graveyard. My drive started early in the morning and ended in Leeuwarden, where I got lost in the centre before parking far out. The walk to the festival area was, with help of nice inhabitants, nice and quick.
Once at the festival area, I could catch the last few minutes of Stonehawk – it was pretty sad to see that hardly any people made it to the front of the stage, because most were still standing at the food and drink or merchandise stands instead of actively watching the band.
The festival continued with Bliksem, which weren´t really able to convince me with their music. Nevertheless the band had a lot of power and fun on stage, and this is something that you had to give them credit for. The rows slowly filled up, bit by bit…and those in front of the stage clearly had some fun.
Jungle Rot from the US is a band that I just halfway saw on stage, since I was interviewing Aaron of Heaven´s Basement during this concert – but the music that I heard and the performance that I saw was quite nice. The audience also liked what they saw and heard. The rows in front of the stage also filled up more and more.
And the rows stayed nicely filled and the audience had a good mood when Heaven´s Basement entered the stage. Even though the band had to fight huge sound problems, they delivered a great show full of energy and joy of playing – the fans were valuing the efforts, the mood was getting better with each song. Surprisingly many fans in the first rows were singing along loudly, it´s been a great feeling to watch all these happy faces.
Afterwards, Sodom entered the stage and the audience was getting even more active and enjoyed the set, nevertheless it´s clearly not been my taste of music. Overall the audience joined the good mood that was presented on stage, the songs were well chosen and the interaction between band and fans was quite good.
Devil Driver
and then
Satyricon followed – both bands showed top performances which made the crowd go wild. The set lists were full of powerful songs, the audience sang along, started headbanging and moshing – everyone was moving!
The festival was concluded with Paradise Lost, a band celebrating their 25th anniversary this year and thus they presented a really nice mix of older and newer songs in their set list – from „Forever Failure“ over „As I Die“, „Erased“ and „Tragic Idol“ – the latest songs created more of a good mood amongst the audience, but also the older pieces at least amazed a part of the crowd.
Conclusion:
Overall it´s been a nice and small festival, with a great mood, friendly people and a relaxed atmosphere – for those who don´t want to do camping, this festival is the best choice! I hope that the problems with the sound will be solved till next year, so that 2014 this festival will be an overall success!
Photos: Carina Ullmann & Sabine van Gameren
Photogallery link: https://www.facebook.com/carinaullmannphotography
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