First, in October from 20. till 21.10. I was at the Belgian Wieze attending the anniversary edition of the Metal Female Voices Fest. The 10th edition again offered a vast spectrum of metal styles from symphonic metal like Amberian Dawn on to some harder sounds like Arch Enemy. Of course Epica was not missing who took a gap year. Who if not they should headline this festival? And this they did in their well known exagerating way. Like every year it was a great festival with good vibes in front of the stage, only very few bands that were not that good and I am now already planning for the next year.
So, a week of hard work is lying behind me but I did it: All remaining bands of Friday and Saturday are prepared and the reviews written. Wow! I wish you a lot of joy with all the bands as there are:
It took a little bit longer than you are used to but finally the first pictures and reviews of this years Wacken Open Air are ready. There are junior-bands like Epsilon, Exuviated or Faanefjell, newcomer like Santiano, Dead By April, Amaranthe, Winterstorm and Kellermensch, as well as routiniers like Saxon and Volbeat. It really was nice and on the first two days also dry. A "contemplative" opening after which you wanted more!
No, there are not yet pictures from Wacken available (But I will start today with them, I promise!) because the last two weeks I spent beautiful days in the south of Norway. Starting at Oslo my trip went by Stavanger and Bergen up to the Geiranger-Fjord. From this evening on you can take a look at some impressions from that tour at the landscapes category.
Wacken Open Air 2012 is history and will remain in mind not only because of the music but also because of the weather. It was alternating between sunburn and floaties. On Wednesday and Thursday it was warm and sunny but on Friday during the Kamelot concert it started raining cats and dogs for the first time so that the festival area looked like the mud flat. This was even getting worse by further rain showers during the festival.
Soon will be there. Only 50 days left and anticipation is rising day by day. Already for the 7th time in a row the promoters announced a sold out and the 75000 tickets were out of stock faster than ever before. Already in November the sold out reached. The line-up is huge (nearly 150 bands) and all kinds of rock and metal are there so that there are possibilities for newcomers and already established bands.
On 01.06.2012 the two Dutch rock bands Nemesea and Delain were guests at the Atak at Enschede. Nemesea was the starter with their current album "The Quiet Resistance" sounding much more grown up now. This they proved also with their live performance which enthused the audience.
On Saturday evening BRDigung and Frei.Wild visited the Essen Gruga-Halle for their final concert of the "Alleine Nach Vorne" tour. Directly from the start they were pushing quite hard and nobody was thinking of the originally planned club concert taking place at a hall in front of 4500 guests. Two bands completely having fun on stage and an audience following them blindly made the concert a really great one!
Last Friday Epica stood on stage at the sold-out 013 at Tilburg to present their new album "Requiem For The Indifferent". As support act the Dutch-Mexican band Stream Of Passion joined them presenting a great set across their three released albums. So the crowd was already well temperatured when Epica finally entered the stage at 21:15 and played all songs of their new album. The set was filled up with old ones making it really a great one. But unfortunately the new songs are not all suitable for live-performance so that I have to admit that I already saw better shows of them. Nevertheless also despite of that it was a good concert where I was having quite a lot of fun.
Last Friday on 09.03.2012 the current Dutch champion of the second icehockey league visited Nordhorn. What sounds that big finally ended up in not being a suitable opponent for the Ritter who sent them home with a 12:4. Unnecessarily it was again a penalty festival on both sides having its culmination in the last third where a mass brawl took place. So it still remains that the Ritter are waiting for an adequate opponent on their homeground and are now able to fully concentrate on winning the championship.