NAPALM DEATH ::

MARDUK / NAPALM DEATH / FINNTROLL / VADER / BLACK DAHLIA MURDER / BELPHEGOR
planet music / vienna, austria
11th dec. 2004

well, whaddaya know? after so many years, finally, another chance to see my heroes once more on stage: NAPALM DEATH!!! there are many bands that i really appreciate and have looked to for inspiration over the years, from many, many different genres, but there are only 3 that have left an impression so deep, that i still hold them above everything else: one is that impossible-to-kill lemmy kilmister and his frighteningly good band MOTÖRHEAD; then there's THE swedish death 'n' roll act to end all other death metal AND rock 'n' roll acts, ENTOMBED; but still a bit above these two, a slight little teeny bit, is the all encompassing furious anger and intellect of the juggernaut also known as NAPALM DEATH! that much as a lead-in.

as you can see by the billed bands, this was more like a small metal festival than a concert. and i almost missed BLACK DAHLIA MURDER. it was pure coincidence that i arrived JUST as they were about to start. as a matter of fact, a friend of mine who was looking forward to see BLACK DAHLIA MURDER play, missed them for the same reason that i almost had missed them: misinformation! this goes out to anybody who wants to put up a concert - ANY concert: people, state clearly WHEN the whole sheband is supposed to start, right? anyway, BDM thrashed their way through the crowd, leaving no prisoners. rightous thrash metal made by hardcore guys! right on! oh yeah, there was a band before BDM, but BELPHEGOR (austrian metal band) are not even worth mentioning them and since i didn't see them this time, i will not spend any more space on them.

it was my first time seeing VADER live. thinking that their studio output is part of the top notch of blackened death metal to be released these days, my hopes were high for them delivering just as well on stage. and, fortunately, i wasn't disappointed. athough it is always with a wary eye that i digest eastern european black and/or death metal acts, there was no uncomfortable feeling with VADER and the polnish quartet made good on every promise they had made on their records so far. see, that's when headbanging is becoming fun again!

might be that i'm mistaken or mis-informed or just plain crazy, but i'd say (could be i just made this up) that FINNTROLL are the inventors of humppa-metal! and, for all it's worth, i enjoy it! :) this time, replacing their harmonica wielding ex-singer katla, a young girl (whose name i didn't get) supported the band on keys. i'm really not that much into black folk metal - or whatever the heck this type of black metal is called these days - but FINNTROLL have something about them that makes it pure fun to listen to them. maybe it's their finnish origin and the humppa they mix into their black metal, which reminds me of ELÄKELÄISET and never fails to put a smirk in my bedrazzled face. or maybe it's seeing a couple of huge blokes on stage slapping their thighs - or instruments respectively - to the beat of finnish humppa, all the while looking like fucking viking berserkers. i really don't know, but whatever it is, i thoroughly enjoy it.

still, all the comedian and/or musical goodness of FINNTROLL fades in comparison to the blazing light that is NAPALM DEATH. obviously, jesse pintado isn't part of the band anymore. i didn't have much time to stay updated on the ND news, so i'm not sure about this, but he wasn't on stage and well informed parties told me that he wasn't with them on this tour. but let me get back to the concert. imagine a packed venue (in this case about 800-900 people), all of them classically cliche black metal kids - black only, 80% of the males longhaired, 90% of the females with white powdered faces, all of them either sporting a shirt of some metal act or wearing latex and leather fetish-wear. alright. then read the line-up for the night again - BELPHEGOR: death metal; BLACK DAHLIA MURDER: well, hardcore kids, but they're doing some serious AT THE GATES style neo-thrash, so that's still clearly metal; VADER: black death metal; FINNTROLL: humppa black metal; and after ND there's MARDUK on the bill, blackest black metal. so, where do NAPALM DEATH, the godfathers of grindcore, the punk's at heart, the people who campaigned to destroy music, fit into all of this? yeah, see? what was the outcome? let me tell you. barney, shane, mitch and danny entered the stage to loud clapping and cajoling, that much was sure. but not a second had past into their first blistering grind attack, when the faces surrounding me changed expression. you could read their thoughts in their faces: "hey, this is kind of cool... but... this isn't metal? is it? i mean, it's cool, but... kind of... unusual... i don't know... but, still, it is pretty extreme... but it's not black metal... or is it? hey, i can bang my head to this part! oh, it's over. can i band my head to that part?" - ah, the wonders of the human face. *lol* and there were also a couple of people who stared at my friends and me in unbelief, because not only WERE we banging our heads, but we also had cheshire cat grins on our faces... and THAT, they just couldn't get their heads around. all i can say for my part: this concert made me feel so good, there was no way ANYTHING could've brought me down that night! actually, i'm still drawing from the energy of that night.

on a side note: i love the guys from NAPALM DEATH, but they're such critters. i mean, shane looks like one of those bloated, poisonous fish (i forgot their name) with a mop of hair on top, a bald spot right in the middle and very broad parting right in the middle - the mysterious corncircles on shane embury's head. and barney, bless his voice, looks like an end-thirty-ish ex-brain-damage-therapy-patient the way he spazzes back and forth on the stage. this might be a mean thing to say, but hey, those guys are gods to me, so i can drag 'em in the mud a bit. ;)