Eurorock 2001 (4th edition)

Eurorock In the weekend of 3, 4 and 5 August 2001, lots of Belgian, Dutch, German, French and even Italian and Spanish gothic, wave and metal fans came to Neerpelt, Belgium.  The Eurorock festival is dedicated to all kinds of 80's music, pop and heavier stuff.

The bill on Friday featured a.o. Nina Hagen, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Gary Numan, Fad Gadget, Suicide Commando, Clan of Xymox and The Bollock Brothers.  Also the former doom-metal bands Anathema and Paradise Lost were there.  After the destruction of the big marquee by a short but intense hurricane on Thursday evening, the stages had been overthrown a bit, resulting in Anathema, Paradise Lost and the other bands who were due to play in marquee A to play on the big main stage.  This of course means that it would be more difficult for those bands to create the good atmosphere that automatically appears in a tent.  But then again, I thought that the bands should be able to make up for that.

With a lot of hopeful excitement, I went to see the Anathema show.  And boy, how disappointed I was!  This performance certainly wasn't what I expected to see and in no way it could top the previous times I saw them play.  The sound quality wasn't too good, but that is something I am forgiving rather quickly.  But also the music lacked a lot of things.  The recent departure of bass player Dave Pybus is a problem of course, but I was also very willing to forgive any mistakes or minor problems due to that fact.  But it was even worse than that.  I am wondering if that was John Douglas behind the drums too, because an experienced drummer like John shouldn't play so irregularly, and certainly shouldn't accelerate during the songs, if the others don't follow - which they didn't.

Eurorock The band played some new tracks, and obviously they don't have the automatisms during these songs yet.  The new tracks sounded way softer than ever before, really like a new born Pink Floyd, psychedelic and experimental.  There's nothing wrong with that of course, but on a festival stage, slow and dreamy songs often tend to bore the public.  Rhythm and energy were the things Anathema needed.  But the lads apparently wanted to go into the opposite direction.  'Fragile Dreams', a song that can be called one of the favourites of a lot of Anathema fans, was mutilated into a dreamy, slighly psychedelic song, that started off slowly, without the typical melodic riff which the song is known for, and slowly evolving into the song like we all know it, continuously accelerating and moving on towards a climax.  But just before that climax got in sight, the song was finished and I was left with mixed feelings.  I thought the idea was good, but it could be pu!t in practice better.  Also the middle part of another classic, 'A Dying Wish', was extreemly elongated and the lads felt like experimenting along, giving every member of the band the opportunity to show their musicianship.  Needles to say that, after a set list with only very few highlights (I'll only mention 'Empty' and 'One Last Goodbye'), the drop of the tension built up in the first part of 'A Dying Wish' resulted into a total boredom for many of the fans.  And as a total anti-climax, the usual final song and absolute Anathema classic 'Sleepless' was replaced by the laid down, sweet melodic cover 'Comfortably Numb' of Pink Floyd.  A good cover, but it couldn't compensate the disappointment of the letting away of 'Sleepless'.  This show was one to forget quickly - and hope they get back with a better performance on some tour during the winter.

Having released 'One Second', 'Host' and 'Believe in Nothing', Paradise Lost isn't what it used to be.  Nick Holmes doesn't grunt anymore, double bass drum parts have become very rare and the majestic, epic feel of the old tracks is replace by an easier to grasp, more (dare I say 'poppy') melodic atmosphere.  So I wasn't expecting too much of this gig.  But in the end I was rather pleased with what I heard (in contrast to the Anathema gig).  Paradise Lost presented a lot of their new material and most songs of 'Believe in Nothing' have a heavier feel than the Depeche Mode clone songs of 'Host'.  And live those newer songs really rocked.  This, combined with some tracks from 'Icon' and 'Draconian Times' (Embers Fire, True Belief, Enchantment, Forever Failure, I see your Face) and the classic 'As I Die', both older and newer fans could be more or less happy.  Nick Holmes suffered from some vocal problems (his voice was rather hissy at times) and his obvious disdain from metal fans ('This song is for those strange people with long hairs and beards.  I used to have that in the past, but not any more') were minor setbacks.  All in all, it was a pleasant gig, and it surely had this one thing Anathema lacked: ENERGY!

During the rest of the time on Friday I went to see some gothic and industrial bands (I have this ringing in my ear since the Suicide Commando show, I guess it will stay for another few days, great show that was by the way!) and catch up with some friends, some of whom I only knew from the internet up till then.  It was nice to meet you, guys!

After a short, rainy night (festival campings are full of interesting people, thus you never get enough sleep), I dragged my body to the festival area again, in order to wake up with some nice music.

Liquido, a German pop band consisting of some ex-members of Pyogenesis, played a nice set during their early show (they had another show in the Netherlands later that day) but most of the crowd were still in their tents, or queuing to get in.  A little later, the gothic metal band Gail of God pleasantly surprised me with a hard and very good set.  They sound like the harder parts of Tool, with electronics and harsher vocals mixed in.  A nice experience.

The German melodic metal band EverEve then again disappointed me.  I like their album 'Stormbirds' a lot, but their live performance wasn't nearly like it.  All melancholy and melody got lost in the decibel storm of distortion and the vocals weren't nearly as good as those on the albums.  I know that they have a different vocalist now (after the suicide of the former singer) but on the last two albums, his vocals were better than live too.

Eurorock In the mean time, on the main stage, a series of pop and rock artists appeared.  Bands like Liquido, Junkie XL, Das Pop, The Sheila Divine, punkrockers Janez Detd, softrocker Mauro (former singer of the Evil Superstars), the Cranes, Krezip (I still like their album!!), Guano Apes and Lords of Acid tried to please the numerous and young public interested in those pop and rock bands.  Most of them played very good sets, and I liked the things I saw of The Sheila Divine, Krezip and Guano Apes.

On the stage that had been built where once the big marquee stood, a lot of gothic and dance bands played.  Other people told me that Heyaeb (which actually should be pronounced 'Netsajev' or so) and Funker Vogt played good sets.  I wouldn't know, I wasn't there.

Neither was I watching the shows on the small stage at the entrance.  There some other gothic bands appeared, a.o. Dream Disciples, Crüxshadows, Garden of Delight, Star Industry (who played a rather nice set of gothic rock in the vein of Killing Joke and Sisters of Mercy) and Ikon.

In the tentstage, a few bands that interested me more, played a nice set.  After the disappointing gig of EverEve, I saw the Dutch gothic metal band After Forever, who presented some tracks of the forthcoming new cd.  Apparently the crowd was very enthousiastic about seeing the guys and girl on stage again, after their fantastique performance on last year's edition of Eurorock.  And the band, charmed with so much recognition, played a very well balanced set, on a constant high level, but with some highlights during songs like 'Black Tomb' and 'Yield to Temptation'.  Those few harsh and fast parts even resulted in a small moshpit, too bad for my glasses.  The sound problems in the beginning of the set were soon eliminated and the result was very pleasing.  Though nothing very original, After Forever plays a nice blend of gothic metal, with great female vocals and nice synths.  I am looking forward to the second album, which appears in October.

Next band to hit the stage was Italia's Lacuna Coil.  It was the second gig in a rather short period of time in Belgium, after their tour with Dimmu Borgir and In Flames in April.  Back then, their show was rather good, but not exceptional.  The band looked tired back then, and the new material was very new to most of the crowd too.  But now, a few months later, the album 'Unleashed Memories' is acclaimed a fine piece of art by many a fan.  And the band, though playing without bass guitar, gave the best they could to give us a fine show.  And they succeeded very well!  The setlist was mostly based on the tracks of the last album, but also the title track of 'Halflife', and no less than three songs off the first self-titled EP were played, including my personal favourite 'No Need to Explain'.  The reactions of the crowd were excessive, to both old and new material.  This gig was one of the best I attained at Eurorock.

The next band on the tentstage was Tanzwut, a German industrial/metal collection that plays danceable heavy music, accompanied by bagpipes...  I missed the show (one must eat in order to stay alive) but heard that it was really good.  Too bad, I'll go and see them next time.

Eurorock Umbra et Imago is a gothic band that introduced heavy guitars in their music and this fact explained why they stood on this stage, instead of one of the gothic stage outside.  During the first three tracks, most attention did not go to the music, but to the SM-show that was performed on stage.  There was something with a naked girl, only wearing leather straps and chained to a metal rectangle.  And there was something with a burning candle and dripping wax.  For more details: go and see their show.  After that, the actors left the stage, leaving place to pay attention to the music after all.  Umbra et Imago played a hard and heavy set, and the crowd moved along most of the time.  As an encore, the band played a song of Tanzwut, featuring one of their members, who was still running around frontstage.

Then finally, the headliner for the tentstage was Norwegian's finest Trail of Tears, replacing The Sins of Thy Beloved, who last minute cancelled.  In April, Trail of Tears already hit the Belgian stages in support of Therion, playing a very heavy, metal loaden set (and dare I say, doing a better job than the headliners?).  This time, the crowd was expecting nothing less than a wonderful, great show, and that was exactly what they got.  The gig was nearly perfect, including all great tracks from both the first and second album, a well balanced mix of heaviness and melancholy and a charismatic frontman.  Where back in April, their female singer was still new and uncertain, there was nothing of uncertainty left on Eurorock.  The only thing improvable at this gig was the duration: One hour was way too short!  This was exactly what I am looking for at festivals and gigs: brilliant music in a brilliant show.

The next day, a lot of gothic and pop fans left the festival and a huge number of metal fans arrived.  Indeed, a big change of bills today!  Whereas the previous years, Eurorock festival and the Biebob midsummer metalfest were concurring festivals, during the same weekend, both festivals worked together this time.  The metalfest was incorporated into the Eurorock festival, but musically, the people of Biebob put the line-up of this day together.

Apart from the two stages, there was a nice metalmarket in the tent.  Nice shirts, CD's, some even at cheap prices (I can hardly believe that people can sell new cd's for 300 Belgian franks, being something like 7.5 Euro!) and other metal related stuff.  In one of the CD shelves, I found the impossible-to-find and absolute doom-metal classic diSEMBOWELMENT album 'Transcendence into the Peripheral'.  So, you people who are searching for certain albums for a long time already: DON'T GIVE UP, THERE'S ALWAYS HOPE!  But this probably was the last available copy of this album on earth ;)

The most important part of the last day of Eurorock was the main heavy metal stage.  In order of appearance: Mouse Analyse (bad KoRn clone, forget about them, though they have a very good bass guitar player), Lost Horizon (power metal), Sonata Arctica (power metal again), Exciter (heavy metal), Annihilator (heavy metal), Overkill (heavy metal) and the great Nevermore.  Headliners were Hammerfall (damned, this joke was been going on to long!), Therion (see further) and Dimmu Borgir, who proved their dominance in the black metal scene to be well deserved.  Dimmu played a great show, with the main accent on their latest release 'Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia' but without forgetting their earlier albums.  And drummer Nicholas Barker is getting crazier every day.

On the side stage then, a blend of other metal genres had their place on the festival bill.  Grinders Exhumed with their early set, tried to make the crowd regret their breakfast, with live throwing up on stage.  The heavy wind made the sound on this gig (and also other gigs, later on this day) a bit shaky: one moment you were blown away by the decibels, the other moment you hardly heard the gig...

During the show of Die Apokalyptischen Reiter the rain started to pour down.  This was the first real rain in the weekend, and minding the weather forecasts for the weekend, the people on the festival could be called very happy that their hadn't been more rain.  Remember the hurricane that blew away the marquee on Thursday!  the Reiter didn't mind any of the rain, just like they don't mind copyright laws or anything like that either.  Their totally unoriginal (because of 'ripped', 'stolen', 'lent' or 'borrowed' riffs of other bands that make up their songs) melodies, mixed into their very original own blend and style has made them rather famous in the scene.  Some hate them, some love them.  I tend to be one of the latter.  I think they played a fine show (that was recorded for on tv somewhere) but too bad it rained so hard.

Black metallers Behemoth from Poland saw the rain disappear the moment they hit the stage.  They played an ok show, with main accent on their latest release 'Thelema.6', though also facing the sound problems because of the hard wind.

The cult death metal band Mortician playing songs of 45 seconds intro and 1 minute music, did a great job.  Those grunting vocals are unbelievable, how deep can one go???  And even more unbelievable was the sound of the bass guitar.  I think that, if that guy tries to downtune one half note more, the snares of his bass guitar fall off.  The fat sound, very heavy, very hard, combined with some very slow tracks, made this an almost pure doomdeath metal gig.  Un-fucking-believable.

Then came the Dutch black/death metal band God Dethroned.  They also have released an album recently, called 'Ravenous'.  But the gig sounded very noisy and the crowd was rather apathic.  The frontman tried to reanimate the public, but only with poor results.  Nothing too special during this gig.

Eurorock Then came a band I was really waiting for.  Swedish all-metallers Opeth played their first ever gig in Belgium.  The huge crowd gave them a warm welcome and the enthousiastic reactions accompanying their music told them to come back soon.  Due to the lenght of their songs, the setlist was rather short: 'White Cluster', 'The Drapery Falls', 'Advent', 'Demon of the Fall' and then 'The Lepre Infinity' as an encore.  It is hard to believe how perfectly well the tracks are played live, with frontman Michael Äkerfeldt being his charismatic self, and the second guitar player and bass guitar player being as cool as one can be.  A perfect sound, perfect changes of mood, perfect changes from metal to atmospheric parts, from electronic to acoustic parts, from screamed to sung vocals...  This band deserves a huge future!

Napalm Death is a band I don't really like.  I won't comment their set either, to avoid the risk of being butchered to death by one or more of their die-hard fans passing by some day.  Enough said.

Therion had to appear as headliner of the side stage, but they chose to play on the main stage, between Hammerfall and Dimmu Borgir.  Their set was rather short in comparison to their hall gig earlier this year.  But nevertheless, it was great.  Great songs like 'The Invocation of Naamah', 'Cults of the Shadow', 'The Desert of Seth' and the classic 'To Mega Therion' (all from the 'Theli' album), 'The Rise of Sodom and Gomorrah', 'Wine of Aluqah' and 'Birth of Venus Illegitima' (from 'Vovin') and the Accept cover 'Balls to the Wall' as an encore...  All played perfectly, and supported by a choir of 8 singers (m/f).  This was really great.

After the, as great, gig of Dimmu Borgir, it was time to leave the festival, happy of what we had seen, and hoping for the best for next year.

- Heiko Isselee
(07 October 2001 )


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