Sorry for this being a short one... I'm tired from the trip, but wanted to do this.

U.D.O. yesterday in Helsinki was a great show, but also a bit bittersweet. Udo Dirkschneider is 71 years already. Still, he handles them vocals well, sometimes very good indeed, even though his voice is rough as we all know. His stage presence is strong, and he's filled with charisma. I simply cannot feel down when he's on-stage.

The band sounded absolutely tight. The new guy Peter Baltes fits in. Why wouldn't he? Backing vocals were handled by all 4 guys. The band were in joyful spirits, too. Ex-U.D.O. axe-slinger Mathias Dieth guested on two songs.

The set was 2 hours long! Only the closer was a bit bad: Queen's 'We Will Rock You'. Well, every person in knew them lyrics... The set-list had loads of classics and hits, not really deep cuts, except perhaps 'The Wrong Side of Midnight' (I don't know if that's often played live). ZERO Accept songs. But this made me think that whether this is his final tour...

I had a VIP ticket, but the show started quite early and the meeting was hasty. 3 items signed, and ugly brown-colored VIP T-shirt as a "gift" (what the heck were they thinking when designing that?!), plus a bag and a signed card. I also found Dee Dammer's pick after the gig. I got both guitarists' solo CD's (both were signed already and included picks), plus a shirt. The prices are rather insane these days.

Frozen Crown were the warm-up band. 3 guitars, and sometimes pretty well used. I like their speed metal trait. The poor sound didn't help them, though. I got their latest album on vinyl, and signed by the whole band. They didn't hide themselves in backstage.

Post-gig I went into the night. Found myself in a Kiss Army Finland happening, totally randomly. Dieth was there, and got 'Dirkschneider & the Old Gang' CD signed. He gave a short interview onstage. Young guys from U.D.O. band were in, too. Sami Yaffa (of Hanoi Rocks fame) had brought some old rockers from NYC, and they played there too. A weird night, for sure, but totally enjoyable.

Last show I've been to was the Metallica show in the dome, st louis. The openers were Mammoth WVH and Pantera.
For starters this was some of the worst traffic I've had the displeasure of experiencing. I went on the road three hours before the show, and it felt like an eternity before I actually got to a parking spot. I was thirty minutes late to the show because of this. Luckily I don't really care for Mammoth WVH, still a bummer though.
Sat through about 40 minutes of the Mammoth band doing its thing. It was okay, a little lame in my opinion. The sound was great for all 3 bands though, very crisp. I had super high up seats in the dome, like near the ceiling. I could see the whole pit area which was pretty cool. Then came the 30 minute break time before Pantera showed up. The food and drinks were expensive asf. Unfortunate, but I luckily brought a lot of funds. Plus I still had enough to get some cool concert shirts by the end of the show.
After buying a slice of pizza, and a soda I returned to my seat. Then PANTERAAAAAAAAA came on stage. It was epic, I love me some pantera. Zakk performed very well on stage. Phil's vocals were pretty on point as well. The drummer they had also was pretty cool. My only complaint was that the bass was kinda drowned out. Yeah it was there, but you had to listen for it. Still a stellar set nonetheless. They did suicide note part 2 live, which was easily my favorite part. He was really able to scream those parts out. Also small mini pits formed around the stage area, which was amusing. Wish they played all of domination instead of using it as an interlude part.
Then another wait segment happened. Then Metallica appeared on stage, they played that one Ecstasy of Gold thing. It got me pretty hyped personally. Then they played for a whole 2 hours! I had a headache after that, totally worth it though. They did quite a few new songs which was...lame. I came here for the thrash hits not the hard rock stuff. But the classics were played and my god. Seek And Destory was the highlight easily. It was such a fun song to chant with everyone. Fade to Black and Creeping Death were also really good. Great solos and what not, just Kirk Hammett being awesome. After they finished, I exited and got my shirts. They were almost sold out by the time I got there, so I was lucky.

THEN CAME THE RIDE OUT OF THERE!!!! Some puking unsavory woman was blocking the street with her antics for a full thirty minutes. That was not fun paired alongside the terrible traffic. It was pretty funny seeing a wasted old hag puking like that for a few moments though.

Honestly? 7/10. Would be higher if mammoth was replaced by a different band and the traffic wasn't so bad.

Heidelberg Deathfest VII – feat. Memoriam, Graceless, Necrophobic – Halle 02 – March 16th 2024

It is so nice to return to festivals you had a good-to-great time on… and want to do better than the last edition you went to… yeah right what a fool I’d been to get so drunk on HDDF 2023 and miss Asphyx, Benediction and Schirenc… Wanda had been angry for days afterwards but when she saw the line up of the 7th edition she got in a better mood. Memoriam would headline as they couldn’t make it in 2022, last minute… bring in Grave, Sinister, Graceless, Avulsed, Fleshless and Gutalax to party on! In some time Grave had to bail out in favor to Necrophobic, see if we’d like it better than in Eindhoven… Bram and me wanted Kevin to join us as well, as I wouldn’t have to drive the 2 times 548 km on my own, be exhausted before any show… that could be of later worry >< some three days before driving Wanda had another meltdown (no hint to metal at all, just too much, too soon, too hard) and told me on Tuesday she wouldn’t join us. OK we travel light…

I decided to drive much earlier than before, so we could easily eat and tourist Heidelberg or even the trip through Germany. At the hotel no one could find my Ibis reservation, it turned out I had had to accept the offer they made on the rooms but never got to that but could rent two rooms anyway. Less cheap, but still, rooms with beds and showers, pfew! We already met a group of 7 Münchener metalheads, inviting us to Metallkneipe Karl ‘best beer in place’, ‘loads of heavy music’ but we decided to eat first. We ate at the river Elbe, surrounded by beautiful birds and sporting youngsters and turned out to be only 250 m away from Karl. But Karl isn’t a metal bar, OK it has a big painting of Highway to Hell and some encased leaflets of ancient heavy metal albums like The Number of the Beast and Black Sabbath’s first but they played blues all evening! Old blues, note, not that modern Bonamassa stuff but BB King, Etta James and even some Robert Johnson passed by. We weren’t hassled one bit and had a great time with SB (already lost his name and surname but he got my phone number) and his friends. Saturday we’d hunt for Heidelberger Melon Schnapps and ‘vacuumed German BBQ sausage’- for Bram’s dad We were so early we weren’t even let under the huge umbrella near the entrance as there was a whiny drizzle falling down >< but could easily sell the ticket. Easy as in ‘found someone, but need some technicalities to actually get the money’ PayPal and a more thorough knowledge of German MIGHT help hahaha. Nice to find the Graceless guys so early on the day. Remco told me ‘it was such a great gig in Trier, we kept making friends after the show so we forgot the backdrop’ HA HA HA. The backdrop will be sent by mail hihihi.

Time to eat, we knew a long day was ahead of us. The Fleischkäs is friggin’excellent (think of an inch thick piece of ham with honey sauce) and they have coffee!! Good to know, even before one band on stage, that I won’t get too drunk today. Promise made to Wanda, fulfilled The first band has a female on grunt in a ‘skinned’ suite but that’s nearly the most interesting part of the band. I couldn’t see any physically, didn’t need to as well, but the music of Scars of Violence is plain dull. Like an Asphyx slowing down their fast parts to pace mode, not too heavy, not technical enough to support two guitarists… One song was cool nonetheless: Chainsaw Drill.

The next band would be as predictable as Milking the Goat Machine, we figured. Hardly legible logo, some hint to clits and two unicorns in the logo (instead of goats, dúh) : Mike Litoris Complott – yeah it’s goregrind. Musically it didn’t do much to us, but the blow-up-palms and stuffed unicorns made miles. Fine, we eat again. It didn’t get much better instantly as we picked up some three seconds of Fleshless – one burp, one groink and off. Bram chose to get to the hotel and as I could use his wifi, and his battery nearly died, and Bram had forgotten his cables so we got to the hotel together. On the way back to Ibis we were harassed by a Lithouanian band claiming ‘you are cool rockers, have our CD, no wishwash about music industry, all done ourselves, support us’ even to the point of ‘€ 20 isn’t that much (??) ’- as the festival was nearly cashless, I gave him some money and walked on. We. Were. Harassed. Five. Times. More. By. Douchebag. Band. Members!! With my return, alone, I yelled ‘this is the friggin’fourth time I’m harassed about a band I don’t give a fuck about, do it once more I want my money back’ >< and another Let came to me. GODVERDOMME SODEMIETER OP MAFKLAPPER. Typing this, I have tried nearly all song titles (one is a fffnng Oasis cover ><) on MA but can’t find the band. Fukc yuo Let! Bram and me agreed to try it in the car, but after my fifth encounter I simply refuse to do anything with the CD but throw it out of a moving vehicle not necessarily my own.

Fourth band I saw was Guineapig. Being done with partygrindgorecore I didn’t even make a note. I’d rather wake up Bram in time for the Graceless show, he nearly overslept the entire gig… The band would begin at 5 PM sharp, I texted him 16:58, saw him during the fourth song… So I shouted, went out of my platter, arm mileage, neck training, hairs tuffed, ALONE. OK the band already had quite a crowd in front of them and I no longer was alone and I wrote:
- Die on Demand
- Malignant Seed
- Retaliation of the Wicked
- Shadowlands
- Slashed and Served (making me totally warm )
- Warpath

I let the guitar picks and set lists to the less fortunate ones, I have plenty and let’s keep others enjoying this band. The sound wasn’t top (especially Remco’s vocals were squealed, Björn didn’t always sound loud enough), but the total volume made that up, along with the fire the band has naturally. No beaten cymbal now but I sure know Marc HITS hard Jasper just had a great time, probably he wasn’t thàt drunk yesterday LOL. Like I mentioned Jasper: Graceless is the best band of the day. Smiles all along, buying merch to any known German I could find: SB, Bernd, Iris, Ruth \m/

Next up, still smiling, was Extermination Dismemberment. My smile dropped soon to ANOTHER grind-thingie. I can honestly not keep up with the so called humor they have. No, then Gutalax – I Like Farts – gone to coffee – from great distance – sound awful. I was more happy with Dave Rotten and his Avulsed, they sounded great! I was alone again, as Bram went back to the hotel again, but still standing at such distance I felt good. The coffee worked, the beer tasted, the band was sharp, the audience freaked out (as far as I could see it) to – Stabwound Orgasm – Nullo – Breaking Hymens – all good. Nice to meet my Berlin/Groningen friend Corina, well oiled but… Sinister going grind as well? OH NO! Fine that that feeling only lasted the first two songs, as Convulsion of Christ, Sadistic Intent and Epoch of Denial did what everybody expected… BASH! My feeling with Necrophobic was a bit better than in Eindhoven, but apart from a few pictures I didn’t do much with these Swedes. One song I recognized – I Strike with Wrath – OK. Note, I am still not ‘really’ drunk but lack the energy to write every detail now. Eat again? Walk once more? Graceless merch? There are soooo many Germans off their rocker drunk I have to jump now and then, I’m getting tired by it. Memoriam had a great intro, cool lighting, a thunderous sound and a mix like a carpenter on his favorite brand of wood haha. Hint towards song titles: see setlist.fm for yourselves, I had ‘Onwards into Battle’ buzzing through my head when I had breakfast the following morning. Even from such a distance Karl’s hair and grin are omnipresent. I nearly had a problem with Iris, as I was getting tired myself and worried about Bram I left without saying goodbye. She phoned me, but lucky for me it was on my boss’phone, where I was. I’m sorry to her, but not too sorry to leave this edition of HDDF behind. Next year: Suffocation, Fleshcrawl, Rectal Smegma, Slaughterday and then some. I thought ‘see you next year Heidelberg’, but Bram wasn’t over the moon… even silent about next year’s plans. Strange, as he’s a huge Suffocation fan and he knows Fleshcrawl are my friends (even met Bastian Herzog today) and Kevin’s raving about Rectal Smegma.

On the way home it was very silent, very silent indeed. Bram had probably been so overimpressed he hardly talked but somewhere half the trip his high word got out: he wasn’t sure if he’d join next year if it was only me and him… that can be explained several ways… are you fed up with me or is the talk wider when, say, Kevin is aboard? Tijmen? Kees? Is driving so tiresome to me that I recall my memories too much or are you dreading another long drive? I can only guess. I had a good time apart from the overabundance of grind. Death metal For the Fallen, Onwards into death metal one more time? We’ll see. Metal Tavern and Metal Archives are amongst the first that will know my answer Metal!

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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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