Asphyx and Graceless in Bolwerk, Sneek, April 13th
As a collector of [metal] memorabilia and memories, I do ‘collect’ Asphyx. And Graceless is a good second opportunity to travel to each Dutch provence or beyond to see them perform. Somewhere in November Wanda spotted this gig and instantly asked ‘Bolwerk, where is that, how long to drive?’ I answered without hesitation: ‘Sneek, an hour, why?’ Haha, easily convinced to get to Fryslãn on a Saturday? Yep! I texted all my Westfriesian metal friends if they’d join, but let them get their own tickets
Let’s see who joins. Bram, I knew, Thirza maybe, Wanda not. She saw the agenda of the week and let Thirza have it. As Thirza recently obtained her driving license, I’d give her the opportunity to ‘learn to drive any car you can’ © Cor
and she did! We got to Sneek but parking in a busy city was a bit too much for her so I found the parking spot
Coming to Bolwerk we were greeted by Alwin Z and Geert the ‘oppervolunteer’
[he likes to help festivals out and be hailed for it ^^, also an old FB friend of Wanda’s] Alwin already mentioned ‘you’re late, a band is already playing and by Zoltar, it’s Stoflik Omskot, already busy in their third of fourth song! Pity to say the sound was a bit dim, but the coolness on stage made that up. As I’d heard on some metal e-zine the band already finished at least three new songs for an upcoming album it was guessing (mind, I don’t read nor write Friesian
] about the song titles of the new pieces
I wrote some titles, but bass player Roland handed me the set list (THANK YOU!)
- Oarlochspaad
- Fan Doar ta Doar
- Goarre (I couldn’t make out what it meant, I’ll wait for the lyric sheet
)
- Post Mortem Sekssymbool
- BBQ mei de Buorfrou (presented as ‘the hit we had on Fryslàn radio’
I yelled ‘two years in a row!’
)
- Fermoarde (‘to kill’)
- Nekromantyk (why the hell did I write Necrophobic on my paper? ^^)
In the new songs I recognize some street punk along the old school death metal vibes this band has had since their beginning. Singer Peter and drummer Arnold do the backing vocals together, I must say Arnold is a lot tighter in his singing than last time
Great performance, high no-nonsens-feel, cool. It is a bit strange to see a backdrop (bigger than the Graceless one
) but behind two drum kits I don’t think many saw it ^^. The ‘spade-in-skull’ part of the logo was well visible next to the small drum kit. Bram was enthusiast as well so he bought a shirt and, as fry cook himself, the cadaverplank ^^
What we didn’t know yet, is that Bolwerk has a rabid crew. No need to drop glasses on the already slippery floor, they’re nearly snatched out of our hands
But the stage crew is even faster than that. Had Bram brought beers (no 0,0 but I can wait) during Post Mortem Sekssymbool, I already missed the first tunes of Die on Demand! That’s the quickest turnover I’ve ever seen between two bands! Arnold’s drum kit was gone in some 7 seconds, tops and cabinets the same half minute, plug in and play! And play, yes of course, is wat Graceless did. With the volume raised a bit, the mix was a lot better than Stoflik’s as was the overall sound of the band. I think they used the monitors to a better extent, they could hear each other (and us
) pretty good. Experienced as the band is, the songs were mostly faster than recorded apart from Embrace the Rain, which was even doomier and more dismal than on CD. I wrote:
- Die on Demand
- Malignant Seed
- Retaliation of the Wicked [THIS song is why headbanging was invented! Monstrous! Really cool!]
- Shadowlands [another villain of a banger that is!]
- Slashed and Served (Remco explaining ‘we have limited time, so we play a couple of fasties for you’)
- Blood of the Brave [both Thirza and Bram overwhelm my half bald head with thick hair
whoah what a steamroller of a song!
- Embrace the Rain
- Warpath (get ready to pit! Killer, fast as hell song done a gear higher
)
Would we ever see a bad Graceless set? According to Dave P and Reem, no. The band surely practises enough to keep the drive going, to keep themselves hot on their own music and improve their skills, whether they’ve played for 30 years or less. Kreft and Jasper have been playing together since 1994 (!), with Marc since 1997. Working class heroes to the max, if you ask me. Their merch went from hand to hand, like it should. Such bands need to be supported! The Asphyx- and Stoflik-members all spotted a great band doing a great set. No egos between the three bands nor the fans, as it should be.
Picking up an Asphyx tour shirt for Wanda (hi Alicia, great to see you!) meant I’d miss my first row spot once again, but I didn’t bother too much. During the sound check Alwin and Husky played Body Bag from Obituary ^^ and a lot of older metalheads crept a bit closer to the stage 8-) Asphyx started with an locomotive full of smoke on stage but the well known tune was there:
- The Quest for Absurdity
- Vermin (hey, they haven’t used this a starter for quite some time \m/ - would it be another old school set? We’ll see)
- Botox Implosion (forget old school hahaha)
- not Nameless but Molten Black Earth – first thank you’s to the volunteers and bar personnel
- Death the Brutal Way (first pit of the day, here are the youngsters!! Blokes of 18, 20, something, completely out of their heads! As it were a thrash metal show, but bring in the Morbid Angel-, Dying Fetus- and Motörhead patches ^^)
- Asphyx – Forgotten War (including a recommendation for Sneek’s own brewery, ‘a lot better than this Amstel we’re drinking now’ – Martin should know, I’ve heard him often about beers
I wasn’t the only one shouting bleep noises when a beer brand was named ^^)
- Deathhammer (‘nice easy one to sing along to’)
- Knights Templar Stand (holy shit what a cool drumming this song has! First bro-time-moment from Martin to me 8-) he’d seen me talking to Geert and Alwin but as he knows I don’t smoke he passed the time some 10 meters away. Thanks!)
- Wasteland of Terror ‘this song is 33 years old, still a cracker!’ - I explained to a lot of youngsters ‘then it must be 32 years ago I’d first seen Asphyx perform’ – some people drool haha)
- Scorbutics – Alwin the demagogue ^^
- again no Nameless but Wardroid
- now they DID play The Nameless Elite – I must be wanting to hear this song so bad
- Necroceros – Björn standing next to me, a smile as wide as an ocean as Martin pretends to be Pete Townshend
- The Rack – I made a video just as Martin greeted me personally again – so cool!! Also: again goose bumps. I can’t help it, this song satisfies me sooooo much! It gives me a feeling of being wanted, being part of something special, to me a unique bond between band and fan
- Last One on Earth
That’s a 75 minute show to all of us! With at least three pits going along the set, multiple headbanging, shouts (whether lyric or not I leave unmarked 8-) ) and all sorts of body movement I can say this was another cool evening. Seeing Gurbe break off a conversation with Remco and Jasper just to hug me ‘for Wanda’ brings a smile to my face (and Wanda’s when I told her he did). I bought a Berzerker Legion CD and an Asphyx shirt for Wanda, got a 2024 Asphyx shirt from Bram (THANK YOU!!) and brought home some 50 pictures/videos, smelly clothes, hair like electrified, tired but feeling great. I watched Dave talk to Björn and asked ‘ohh did you guys BOTH play for ME once? - big smiles. Bram bought some 5 shirts, of which two were given away (see remark, the other went to Thirza) and we said goodbye to all band members and known fans (Erik, Jan, John, Marcel XI, name them) and sought some food to return home. I got home, kissed Wanda (she’d been sleeping happily, did notice the 0,0 stench >< ) and I got me an afpils err whiskey. This was an evening full of really cool music, bands, fans and friend. Metalll!!
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