Sycronomica, Festering Saliva, Vornicor, Pequod – April 23rd 2005, Ebersberg (Near Munich / Germany)
To
be honest, I wasn´t really in the mood for a concert that evening. But I
changed my mind spontaneously, because some hours before the gig I got an e-mail
from the German Viking Metal band “Vornicor”, saying they want to see what
it´s like to do a band photo shoot, so I`ll be able to try out my new camera.
And as the gig venue is only 2 stations by underground from my home, I thought I
can´t actually miss it. So I met with Leo of Vornicor at the station and we
went to the club.
I watched Vornicor’s soundcheck and I was really astonished about the drummer,
because he is such a tiny little puny guy, but has so much power and stamina
while torturing the drums. Here´s a photo:
After that we searched for a quiet place (which was quite a challenge, as we had only very little time) and tried to do a photo shoot (some portaits of the band members). It was unfortunate because there was no real authentic countryside around there where it would have been possible to try out some shots of the band in their stage outfits. Finally we found a little garden where we could do it... but only after a little incident: the garden looked unused and like wasteland. So we thought it was uninhabited and walked in, but suddenly the Vornicor drummer screamed “There´s someone coming with a shotgun” ... and as you might imagine we all ran out of the garden immediately. Oh well... of course this was only a joke. There was someone coming (the owner of the garden next door, just having a look to see what was going on) but he had no shotgun of course. So we wasted yet more of our precious time with laughing our asses off because of the incident. Here´s a little taste of our attempts for you (more photos in “sessions”):
After that it was time for the first act of
the evening > “Pequod”, who had won the Wacken Bands Battle for
Bavaria in the pre-contest in the first round with their Thrash Hardcore, as I
would call it. Of course the band had a hard job, because at the beginning the
fans were standing 5 m away from the stage, waiting for what was to come. Of
course that was nice for me, as I had all the space just for me alone when
taking the photos... but for the band it was shit of course.
To my surprise the band has 2 vocalists. Personally I find this usually very
interesting, as it offers a lot of possibilities for variety within the songs.
It just sounds cool, when one of the vocalists starts singing whilst the other
one is still growling the rest of his part. But unfortunately I have to
say about Pequod that the singing voices of both vocalists are quite similar to
each other (register, expression, etc.), so it´s not as impressive as 2 very
different voices would have been. But I guess that`s just a matter of
taste.
By the way (for the real fans of the band) the setlist was as follows:
Resistance/ Controled/ Things as they.../ No one/ Classic F./ Lucid Dreams/
Supersonic/ Fight Club. At all events the band made a real effort to satisfy the
crowd and to lure them into front of the stage (and after some songs there
really were some die-hard fans in front of the stage, banging their heads off),
but somehow they couldn´t really get off on it.
"Vornicor" were the next band to come on the stage and immediately it was jam-packed in front of the stage. It seems to me that no one wanted to miss their performance (after the gig I also knew why). During this gig just everything was nice (okay, I´ll generously ignore the little mistakes in their playing). Right from the start of their self-defined appearance the band left a lasting impression. Their historical outfits are all selfmade, by the way. Some of the pieces of equipment that just belongs to their gigs are a special book, a sword and even a lump of rock (while the last one of course is just a dummy from papier-maché). With all this the band separates itself from all other live bands. I mean, not even “Thyrfing”, who are the epitome of Viking Metal, would enter the stage in Viking outfits, but Vornicor would.
Here are the tracks that Vornicor played that evening: Apollon/ Black Walls/ Stop the hymns/ Never surrender/ Threat. Between the songs the vocalist from time to time read a continuing story from the book I mentioned, on which the lyrics are based. At the end of this the sword gets smashed into the lump of rock. It´s really nice to see that any band still risks making a lot of effort to achieve a certain atmosphere on stage. The fans were really convinced by their music, they were satisfied with this symphonic heroic Viking metal. Here are some photos:
(More photos of Vornicor soon here in the photos section of Sheol Magazine!)
After that it was about time for a band I had never even heard of before, but which ended up as one of my favourite live bands after this gig: "Festering Saliva" (www.festering-saliva.de)... doing sarcastic hateful Death Metal (there`s no other way to describe it). At the very beginning they left a bad impression because for some reason the drummer had just disappeared. The whole band was already waiting on stage, just the drums stayed empty. (Guys! This had better not happen to you at any big festival with tight schedules... there they‘d even cut the Finntroll show right in the very middle, if the time was overrun.) If there had been any time pressure, then this would have been time stolen from the fans (who had payed for it), but luckily here in the hidden dephts of Bavaria there was no such schedule, so it didn´t have any influence on the show, it was rather a funny situation. The band took it with humour, making an announcement via the microphone : “Little Jonas is requested to come to the drums!”. So he did the honours and arrived after a while.
What followed here was nothing but a brute Death Metal force! I was overrolled by the band`s music and their action on stage. They have kicked major ass, you can´t imagine. This band needs to be promoted much better. Every Death Metal fan should get to know them one day! I especially like the really very very deep-pitched voice of singer Roland, who can easily compete with Cris Barnes (if we’re talking about the voice qualities). Really, I was overwhelmed by so much spiteful agression on stage and such brutal growling. Normally I´m really spoiled (being used to quality live bands like Naglfar or Hypocrisy, and not being easy to convince about newcomer bands) but “Festering Saliva” convinced me right away. I enjoyed their gig from the first to the last minute! If this is the future of Bavarian Death Metal : so be it! I`m fine with that!!
For the fans of the band... this was the setlist of the evening: Realm of the forgotten/ Military Song/ The isle of nightmares/ Drowning in a pond of fear/ On your knees/ Your revenge/ Reasonless hate. Maybe I should mention (for the photographers who read this, who will maybe see the band live one day) that Roland, the vocalist, has the ultimate photo face... what I mean is he has a facial expression that just looks perfectly grim and cool on photos.. he just has a fantastic “Metal face” , if you can try to imagine what I mean. But take a look for yourself:
Anyway.. you just sense how much this band loves to be on stage. Thus the fans were infected by this very good mood and you could find nothing but satisfied moshers and headbangers in front of the stage:
Towards the end of their gig the singer of the headliner band “Sycronomica” entered the stage as well, singing some lines together with Roland of “Festering Saliva” (and to mosh a bit with him).
(>>> GO HERE to see all photos of Festering Saliva!)
And then it was finally about time for the headliner of the evening: „Sycronomica”, who are something like the local Black Metal heroes around here in the area of Munich, where we all live. And they really were a hammerblow on stage. A typical fact about Sycronomica is that (even though there are ranging among the Black Metal bands) their style is mixed with influences of some other genres, such as melodic Death Metal, Doom, Thrash. And this is visible right from the first moment when the band enters the stage because each of the musicians has his own typical outfit. The keyboarder is dressed in Gothic style, the singer in typical Viking style, the others in Black- or Death Metal style… something for every taste you could say. Musically all those styles merge into something great. Between all the Death Metal vocals you suddenly are confronted with a heroic-melodic and grant keyboard melody. Then again the pure Black Metal armageddon breaks upon you before you get transferred into other spheres with some Viking-like lyrics. But mainly you`ll be “tortured” with Death Metal growling and thrashy beats, until absolutely everybody is headbanging until the sweat flows like rivers. The visitors of this gig seemed to love Sycronomica deeply, if I judge by the mood within the venue. (The setlist was: Preludium (Intro)/ Erased by ligth/ Durch das Geäst/ Creation of mine/ In Silence I die/ Beyond the gates of life/ Lost/ The sound of horns/ Paths (of a forgotten time), and as an encore the Dimmu Borgir cover “Alt lys er svunnet hen". Especially their new song ”Beyond the gate of life” was a real success (and my personal favourite).
Towards the end of the gig they raised
their beers and cheered with the fans in the first rows. And as a Sycronomica
tradition (at least I guess so) the also shared a bottle of Jägermeister ((= a
famous German alcoholic liquid)) with each other… band members drinking first,
then the bottle was given to the fans. That´s what a call a cosy Bavarian Metal
gathering! ;-)
Here are some memories of the wildest moments in the club (more photos of
Sycronomica are in the “photos” section of Sheol Magazin):
(GO HERE to see all photos of Sycronomica!)
To sum it up: I´m glad that I´ve been there. The club is nice, the Metal horde of Bavaria is cool (many young fans as well, so the Metal fans will not die out around here) and the music was good… that´s how I like it! Cheers!
Oh, and before I forget: you gotta have some fun as well! (Vornicor and Sycronomica backstage:)
Report by Twilightheart