Saturday May 10 2008

It’s up to Australia’s The Sorrow to open the festival today. It seems many people are still sleeping off yesterday’s party as it’s still pretty quiet in the Amphitheatre. Although The Sorrow is not an established name, their sound is far from bad!! In fact, when they get into their set it becomes apparent that they have had their fair share of practice. The set list comprises songs such as “Thrust”, “Far Beyond The Days Of Grace” and “From This Life”. The crowd starts to warm up and the first moshpit of the day starts to form. The band requests a circle pit and the crowd is happy to cooperate. Towards the end of the show they play the songs “Death From A Lovers Hand” and “Knights Of Doom”. After the supposed final song “Her Ghost Never Fades” The Sorrow come back out once more to play a short encore. Certainly a worthy opener for day two of Rockhard 2008.

Moonsorrow’s music is up the alley of bands like Finntroll and Korpiklaani who have been guests in Gelsenkirchen in the past. Just like the aforementioned, this band is immensely popular with a younger crowd and so it starts to become relatively busy here at this early hour. As expected, the band members have been dipped in blood as to add an element of entertainment. Their show and sound are up to scratch and more and more people are managing to muster the strength to party in this hot weather. Still, the most part of those present in the Amphitheatre don’t seem terribly interested in this band. Moonsorrow play a mix of folk and metal with black metal influences and unintelligible lyrics in Finnish. We manage to catch a couple of song titles: “Tulimyrslay”, “Kylän Pääsää” and “Unohduusen Lapsi (van Kivenkantaja)”. This was an OK show with a couple of highlights.

We have great expectations of the American band Hellstar as they are playing with the ‘Remnants of War’ line up, minus drummer Rene Luna. James Riviera, the little man with the big voice, makes up for it. James is certainly on my list of favourite people today. From the moment the band kicks off with “The King Is Dead”, the energy flows and sparks are flying. James really puts his soul into the vocals which does not remain unnoticed by those present in the Amphitheatre. He proves once more that high-pitched screams are his specialty. Besides the excellent performance by the tiny Texan hero, we would like to note that both guitarists are in top condition, giving away mean solo’s. We hear “Harker’s Tale”, “Run With The Pack” (from the 1984 debut album ‘Burning Star’) and “Baptized In Blood”. The renowned second Hellstar album ‘Remnants of War’ is only touched upon when they play “Suicidal Nightmare”. We also hear two songs off the most recent Hellstar release ‘Sins of the Past’: “Tormentor” and “Caress Of The Dead”. The only point of critique we have is the fact that the stage sound was not up to notch. As a result, the band sounded a bit too old-school. As the show progressed the technicians slowly managed to bring the sound up to standard. This was a convincing, energetic show that was too short for our liking!

 
Up next is the Norwegian band Enslaved. Over the years this band has grown from a black metal band to a progressive Viking metal formation. With every new album, Enslaved managed to take a leap forward and their latest two releases ‘Isa’ (2004) and ‘Ruun’ (2006) can be regarded as a set of highlights. No wonder this band has such a sizable fan base! They continue to play “Bounded By Allegiance”, “Violet Dawning” and “As Fire Swept Clean”. Despite the intensifying heat, a large crowd has gathered before the stage, much to the contentment of the band. Today’s set list comprises many songs off the ‘Isa’ album such as the title track and the song “Return To Yggdrassil”. We notice the crystal clear, clean backing vocals by keyboard player Herbrand Larssen which really add atmosphere to the songs. The progressive structures of certain songs might take a bit of getting used to for those who do not know this band, and the crowd remains relatively meek at this early hour. The set is ended with the sluggish song “Ruun”. And I for one am completely content. Great show. Next time we would like to hear a couple of old songs though.

 
After an 8 year hiatus, Canadian metallers Exciter have released a new album entitled ‘Thrash, Speed, Burn’. Since its predecessor ‘Blood of Tyrants’(2000), bass player Rob Cohen and Brooklyn-born singer Kenny Winter have joined the ranks of the band. Although John Ricci is the only original remaining band member, they still sound far from modern or new. From the bustle before the stage it becomes apparent that this old-school sound is exactly what the fans want. Exciter kick off with an oldie: “I Am The Beast” followed by “Thrash, Speed, Burn”. The no-nonsense old-school thrash and speed metal is received well by the crowd. There’s plenty of head banging going on and a moshpit has formed in front of the stage. We hear “Violator”, “In Mortal Fear” and “Rising Of The Dead”. Vocalist Kenny Winter sounds fit today and jokes around with the audience in between songs. John Ricci treats us to a number of solos and at the end of the set we hear the classics “Violence & Force” and “Heavy Metal Maniac”. Although this was not the most high quality, technical performance, both the band and crowd had a blast and it was heart-warming to hear the classic “Long Live The Loud” live again after 25 years. This Canadian cult band surely has a good few years left in it.

The Finnish band Amorphis was founded in 1990, at this time they played excellent death metal. Their 1994 album ‘Tales from the thousand lakes’ became a classic. When vocalist Pasi Koskinen joined them in 1996 the band experienced a turning point where they seemed unsure of which musical direction they wanted to choose. From this point, I kind of lost track of the band. On the last two albums, however, vocalist Tomi Joussen has replaced Koskinen and the band’s glory of old appears to be somewhat restored with the combination of grunts and clean singing. Amorphis opens with a number of new songs: “I Of Crimson Blood” and “Towards And Against” off the ‘Silent Waters’ album. The set is dominated by this album. We also hear the title track and “Her Alone”. They go on play a number of songs of the ‘Eclipse’ album: “House Of Sleep” and “The Smoke”.  The band makes a solid impression, especially singer Tomi’s grunts are merciless today. We are taken back to the old days with songs such as “Vulgar Necrohtry” off the debut album. From the ‘Tales from the thousand lakes’ album we hear “Black Winter Day”, “Drowned Maid” and “The Castaway”. With this splendid show, Amorphis certainly qualifies as one of the top acts today.

Finally it is time for my favourite band today, Bay Area thrash pioneers Exodus. Only a few weeks ago the band was still touring Europe in order to promote ‘The Atrocity Exhibition…Exhibit A’ which was released late 2007 and so today they are announced as the ‘special act’. With Tom Hunting back on drums, Exodus blow away the crowd as they kick off with “Bonded By Blood”. Before long they create a stampede as 75% of the crowd joins in a massive moshpit before the stage. We hear “Riot Act”, “Funeral Hymn”, the superb “A Lesson In Violence”, “Children Of A Worthless God” and “And Then There Were None”. The audience is mesmerized from beginning to end while Jack Gibson destroys on bass and his band members are in it for 200% today. Drummer Tom does an excellent job, it’s an impressive sight to watch him pound the skins. It’s raining Exodus classics today; we hear “Deathamphetamine”, the deadly song “Piranha” and the ancient track “Impaler”. Vocalist Rob Dukes has the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand and when he requests a wall of death, they obey willingly. As a grand finale they play “War Is My Shepherd” and public favourite “The Toxic Waltz”. I could have listened to this for a couple more hours but halfway through the extra song “Strike Of The Beast” they are cut off, time’s up!!! Just as well, I think the crowd needed some rest to recover from this splendid fury of songs, mostly taken from the legendary album ‘Bonded By Blood’.

Today’s final act is Immortal. This evilly corpse painted trio is known to be capable of raising hell… After a 30 second photo shoot, the band moves on to the stage and within seconds we are blown away as expected by a sheer wall of light and sound. We hear “The Sun No Longer Rises”, “Withstand The Fall Of Time” and “Solarfall”. During these first songs it is virtually impossible to distinguish the band members due to a thick veil of smoke. The band continues to play “Son Of The Northern Darkness”, “Tyrants”, “One By One” and “Damned In Black”. The trio strikes one pose after another, making it hard to take them seriously from time to time. However, darkness is descending upon us and the lightshow and pyrotechnics that this band from Bergen, Norway have brought here make this a spectacular show. Halfway through the show the vocalist realizes that there are a number of fans up front with head banging toy panda bears! The Immortal singer obviously has a good sense of humor as he compliments them on their bears. Abbath, Horgh and Ex-aura Noir bass player Apollyon continue to play “Wrath From Above”, “Unholy Forces Of Evil” and “Unsitent Storms”. This is the end of the official set. We are entertained with singer/ guitarist Abbath’s fire-spitting act and Immortal goes on to play a number of older songs as an encore: “At The Heart Of Winter”, the classic “Battles In The North” and “Blashyrkh”(mighty Ravendark). The Immortal show has now definitely come to an end and so has the second day of the sixth Rockhard festival. At this point it is already safe to say this year’s edition is a success!!

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