Dutch Doom Day
Baroeg - Rotterdam - The Netherlands(14 October 2002)
When the doors opened, slowly the crowd came in and they even appeared to be quite numerous. What was going wrong? Isn't doom known as 'the-genre-that-doesn't-sell'? Apparently nothing like that was going to happen. Eventually some 120 people came to see the bands and enjoy the doom.
The gig started with the debut gig of Pantheďst. Those guys have recorded a great demo called '1000 Years' but started practicing with a live line-up only recently. This debut gig was one to be remembered. Despite the sound problems, they impressed the listeners with a couple of really heavy, slow, obscure funeral doom songs.
After this, the 'Rotterdoomers' of Officium Triste hit the stage. For them, this was a 'home match' and the crowd's reactions were very enthusiastic. They played a short, but very intense set of doom death, including the mighty 'Roses on my Grave' track.
Hereafter, the doomsters of Whispering Forest performed their act, coming all the way from Estonia to play a couple of gigs in Belgium and The Netherlands. Their show on the Dutch Doom Day left a very good impression. Great and passionate male and female vocals, nice guitar melodies, an exotic instrument (mouth harp) and many more things made this a really good gig.
In between the gigs, people could have a look at the CDs in the second hand CD stand, drink a couple of beers or have a talk to the numerous other surprised fans. Many people who were there knew each other from the Internet but hadn't met in reality. Even people from abroad brought a little visit. I counted two Greek girls and a couple of English blokes…
The evening was halfway through when Jack Frost started their show. It was quite obvious that not many people had heard of them before: the amount of people in front of the stage was pretty low from the beginning of their gig. And apparently the dark, twisted, gloomy, dirty rock/metal produced by Jack Frost wasn't really appreciated. Too bad for the band, who did their best to entertain the few people who stayed with them.
After this show, we got to see a little surprise act. Danny and Duncan joined ranks with some members from Officium Triste to play 'Sleepless' together. That song is quite often in Officium Triste's set list, but the presence of Danny and Duncan gave them the unique chance to play it with some of the original writers of that song. The crowd was excited. It was a highlight of the evening, both for the visitors as for the members of Officium Triste.
Duncan and Danny stayed on stage, were joined by Mick Moss, and played a couple of acoustic songs under the name of Antimatter. We heard some Antimatter songs followed by a couple of Anathema covers. It's really nice to hear songs like 'Lost Control' and 'Suicide Veil', since Anathema themselves never played those live. A pity that some of the people at the bar couldn't appreciate this kind of music and were talking so loud that they even disturbed the band on stage, to the extent that Danny asked to close the doors towards the bar.
Hereafter, the lads of Thee Plague of Gentlemen rebuilt the stage, in order to have everything ready for their totally crushing heavy doom act. Those guys were headliners of the evening and that was very well deserved. No other band had the 'total loss' feeling or the head bangers' delight as they had. One would be wondering why they only have that few official releases in their long existence.
In between the shows, and mainly after them, Duncan and yours truly were playing them disks in the disk spinner. Aye, doomed it was.
As a whole, this Dutch Doom Day can be seen as a huge success. In total, some 150 people occupied the Baroeg for an entire day and spread the doom. Almost as what was hoped for, better than what was 'realistically' expected.
On another note, today it was announced that the Doom Shall Rise fest in Germany early next year, was already sold out, after only three (3!!!) days of presales. Next year, Morgion is crossing the large ocean and hitting the European shores. A European tour is currently being organized. Candlemass re-united, played the best show of Wacken Open Air 2002 and are doing a highly acclaimed tour through Europe. My Dying Bride headlined the marquee stage of the Graspop festival and played in Wacken after Candlemass.
I guess we can definitely say that Doom is on the Rise!
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- Heiko Isselee
(16 October 2002)
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