Smyrna Deathfest, feat. Disharmonic Orchestra; Willemeen Arnhem May 11th
This is a show that had to be rebooked due to sickness in the band. Disharmonic Orchestra was to play on a Deathfest I’d never been to before, featuring mostly local death metal bands – Gelderland and Utrecht area. If we’d tried any of the bands and didn’t like what we found, we’d just enter later on the day. But the new date had more up its sleeve: Stoflik Omskot! And as we didn’t fully ‘get’ the spooky, swirly Willemeen website, we’d be ‘on time’, eat in the city after a tour in a rented benzin car… yeah environmental zone. After an excellent chicken sateh we got helped into Willemeen bij some lovely crew members, including WillemeenDaniel. He’d asked whether we’d used the tickets for the first date, but as we did not, we’re on the guest list of today
Without knowing it yet, we wouldd have a lot of love from Willemeen crew, but you’ll read about that. First: use the elevator, being brought from backstage (hey PeterOmskot ^^), get the first 0,0 Leffe Blond and greatly surprise GurbeOmskot, he was sooo happy to see Wanda :cool: .
As Stoflik Omskot was the first to perform, we chose our place (rollator and me
) first row. PeterOmskot was contemporary: he said ‘OK, we’re the first band, but as there’s a spot open on the Eurovision Songfestival, we start early so we can head out to Sweden swiftly’
We were invited to do the corpsedance by RolandOmskot, a cross between zombiewalk and moshpit during Fermoarde
and I got Gurbe’s set list (thanks!) :
- Oarlochspaad
- Fan Doar ta Doar
- Undjep Grèf
- - totally unnecessary tuning of guitars - - © Gurbe ^^
- Post Mortem Sekssymboal
- BBQ (probably a third mention in Fryslàn’s Top 100 coming or maybe NPO Top 2000
)
- Tsjerkebrãn
- Fermoarde
- Nekromantyk (‘is it a lovesong or pure porn?’ - another stage dance that would fit a festival – I’d say Obscene Extreme
at least six [new] Stoflik fans join the madness ^^ I explained the set list to a woman in a orange flowery dress, I don’t know if her King’s Day Celebration is a week overdue or she’s overdue herself. Lovely
The band sure is proud to play their new songs, but their older songs get more depth, so it seems, in being played more often. The band’s base is still old school death metal, but with half the band listening to Oi!, hardcore and punk added to Gurbe’s love for old thrash- and seventies heavy metal you can spot progression in the band. Gurbe later stated ‘we began with old school death metal and we keep doing that, but blend in some hardcore; never there will be an Omskot song with female voices, keyboards or violin.’ Noted
The band did well in selling merch, I got us some wooden beer mats 8-) … as we already have everything else they sell HA HA HA. ArnoldOmskot agreed
Great to see Gurbe or Fetsje dreamily behind their own shirts
I got a free Leffe 0,0 as I was kept waiting for 10 minutes for non-available Hoegaarden Wit
Lovely crew
Earik (singer of The Lucifer Principle and host to Stonehenge) announced the second band as ‘first time ever in our country, from Istanbul, never mind my joke on tits, here’s Inhuman Depravity’ At least three Marcels suddenly wake up, as the Frank Mullen-like first grunt rolls as the backdrop is still hastily being hung right
[it hung in mirror image] from a female grunter. Oh dear, is this another try to that dreaded Jinjer-style? I hope not, but my apprehension is not waned… I think they could have left the vocals in Turkey, it’s totally toneless. The music is technical… to watch… as the band members do all sorts of acrobatics with the instrument, but the overall impression is ‘four riffs, one sound, counterclockwise, second song maybe a fifth riff, still one sound’. The female singer’s attempt to crowd surf only just happens without incident, at the front there were only three waiting for her to see what she’d do. I’d rather buy Wanda a Disharmonic Orchestra compilation CD as she cries ‘hey they re-printed the Pungent Stench split, in normal life it’s beyond our budget, we must have this, my previous encounter with Disharmonic Orchestra only landed me a too small DO shirt’. I’d pay €30 likely, as there wasn’t any change to be seen behind the counter, but the man told me ‘you get that €5 as soon as I have change’. “OK”, I reply, “I’m quite recognisable”
[I wore one of Wanda’s red themed denims] When Grindpad played I got my five euros with a smile. Some hour later on he looked at me, I could see him think ‘did I or did I not pay him back?’
OK, Grindpad then. Earik joked about the band name being ‘not as in grindcore, not a path, not a toad’ before calling them Grindpath after all ^^ - lovely doof. But presentiment with an Anthrax-sounding soundcheck? Happily, NO!! Bring in Warbringer or Wehrmacht, but apart from one NYHC- and one ‘Anarchy’-sticker no Dan Spitz to be found
Singer Olivier (also in Bloodphemy) also refers to ESF: ‘we have a love song that might fit in Joost Klein’s place, but it’s not a regular ESF love song, it’s about fucking old women’ – song called Mature Love – Marcel Hummel (of Bloodmoon) totally freaks out shouting ‘I want a GILF!!’ hahaha pervert. ‘Wij zijn de vreemde haai in de bijt’ – Dutch word joke. The band surely can thrash, bring in some decent NYHC and Olivier can both grunt and scream. Loud! When their new EP is mentioned, two blow up sharks are welcomed into the pit and beyond (I wouldn’t take it home, the floor was full of beer already
). The following song Santa Cruz is a real partybringer, totally moshable, circle pit worthy and fun to hear. The band is energetic, brings in a shitload of bull and fun but sure can play! The band has more up their sleeve than plain playing fast for the sake of playing fast, they incorporate some death metal as well (not as technical as the previous band ^^) and when Olivier announces ‘our last and our fastest song’ all electricity on stage is OUT hihihi. As if Willemeen is trying to save itself, to brace itself for impact. Hilarious, as the band simply begins again as drummer Max shouts ‘hell I haven’t learned to play fast for these few seconds’
the Baby Shark Mommy Shark Daddy Shark outro is wayyyyy too long… Great gig. No one cares the band doesn’t play death metal. As it should be, I think. Play metal or die. Play metal or simply don’t show up
Earik nearly gets emotional when he announces Disharmonic Orchestra. The band solely offered him a step in the good direction of his musical development. Nice description, as Disharmonic Orchestra wasn’t ‘pure death’ or ‘real thrash’ nor ‘all blend in jazz, fusion, reggae’ and certainly not ‘all of a sudden’. Within a few songs I hear a lot of metalheads my age or slightly older ‘when did you see this band before?’ Most react ‘1992’ or like me and Bart ‘1994’ – did we meet in Vera back then? We both don’t remember
but most also say ‘since that first time we’d never seen them’ [apart from Eindhoven Metal Meeting 2017] – after the show many congratulate their renewed introduction to the band ‘30 years ago you were also great’ and ‘it’s been 32 years but I haven’t forgotten’ – touching. It looks so simple what they do, but it’s soooo tight! Spoiler: most of the soundscapes come from the bass effect panel and the drum rolls
Never mind Hoimar’s injury (his entire right leg is braced after a ski accident, he can hardly walk let alone work his effect board with his left foot), never mind the loss of hairs over the years and certainly never mind the Martin Fanclub, a bunch of some 7 off their rocker drunk Disharmonic fans that keep interfering with drummer Martin and bass player Hoimar >< I made a picture of the set list as I assumed the Martin Fanclub wouldn’t allow anyone near ‘their setlist’ [it was the only one hand written, as if they could see
] [[I do needed YT for the full song titles ]]
- Flushing the Primary
- Life Disintegrating
- Keep Falling Down
- Accelerated Evolution (Patrick cuts down the song, two strofes in. ‘I fucked up. I shouldn’t.’ HA HA HA
- Supervision
- Flambition
- Disappeared with Hermaphrodite Choirs
- Sick Deep Under
- Recommended Suicide
- The Venus Between Us (funky bass intro, for the fans, not me ><)
- Groove
- Angst
- Idiosyncracy
- Interposition (first encore, Patrick already wanted to quit.. nah he didn’t
)
- Return of the Living Beat – jumpy mosh pit to celebrate a great gig.
Even now the Willemeen crew is happy to serve us. Not just beer, but also room on stage to pick the last guitar pick or set list (oh dear it’s a Depravity one, leave it HA HA HA) and Daniel delivers me the very last poster of this gig THANK YOU VERY MUCH and then I even get to loan a Willemeen marker to have some 9 band members sign my poster… (all DO, half SO and half GP) it’s in a redacted frame now, with the blanco bass pick from Hoimar, the guitar pick from Gurbe and the anonymous orange Turtle bass pick I got from Dikke Kimberly (she was eager for it until she saw there was no band logo on it. OK, I said, I’ll have a plan with it
). Another cool fact: everybody leaving happy half an hour before midnight! No bad word heard, all smiling, many a bit drunk and mostly sweaty because of some great shows tonight. Again, we were gladly helped by Willemeen staff! I’d re-parked the car closer to Willemeen in case Wanda would be too tired/overexcited to walk but that’s no problem now. She’s satisfied, happy, but yeah a bit tired. In the car home we still play the Herrieman 50 Anniversary Hitlist (anything from Legion of the Damned to Marduk, Hawkwind, Zegar & Evans, AC/DC, God Dethroned playing Possessed- and Death-covers and then some. Only song that is skipped is a Vandenberg one
). No need for a stop, but the afwhiskey (Shackleton) is very, very welcome. THANK YOU WILLEMEEN CREW!!! Thanks to the bands and the crews, great audience, happy not to bring the blow up shark but we had a Disharmonic Sharkbite for the Omskot!! Metal!!
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