Evergrey / Autumn / Betzefer
6 May 2005
De Lantaarn, Hellendoorn
Tonight`s gig was one of two concurrent warm up parties ahead of the following days Dynamo festival. Discovering our campsite was way to far to walk to the gig and a local festival meaning a two hour plus wait for a taxi, killing the time in our campsite`s bar with very generous bar staff meant that we were certainly warmed up and ready to party.
As a result the accompanying pictures probably tell a better story of the evening however there was certainly a lot of metal enjoyed to the max.
Roadrunner`s new signings Betzefer from Israel were first up and you would think they were playing the gig of their lives given their brutal assault. I`d heard the name of Soulfly mentioned as a description of their sound, though perhaps that was due to singer Avital Tamir`s dreads. For me it was Pantera all the way due to Matan Cohen`s huge grooving guitar sound.
New album Down Low is due out next month and judging by the live renditions of songs such as Running Against, Under and Black Inside, we should be certainly hearing a lot more from this band.
Home grown talent next from Autumn and it seems Holland have a strong grip on the market for female fronted melodic goth metal. By this point we were well oiled and the best my notes can muster were the comment "ooh hello" next to the name of vocalist Nienke de Jong which I think Johan`s pictures justify.
This genre is perhaps not my scene, but as I see it there`s a flood of bands right now and I can see a cull approaching. In Autumn`s case the band`s presentation and songs were of such a high class that I couldn`t see tonight why they couldn`t survive the surely inevitable back lash if they keep at this level.
Fans of this style of music should definitely check the band out as they certainly kept us entertained for the duration of the set with brothers Mats & Jens van der Valk combining particularly impressively on guitars.
Last but certainly by no means least to Evergrey, who once again oozed class. Thinking I was off the hook from having to write anything about this gig I headed down to stage front and enjoyed the set to the max.
For fuller details of the Evergrey live experience, last weeks review of the James Labrie gig more accurately picks up the detail. Tonight however came across as more intimate and the band stretched out by adding a variety of different tracks such as Rules Of The Mind, Solitude Within. Nosferatu and As I Lie Here Bleeding.
Tom S Englund engaged with the audience throughout and post gig the whole band were happy to hang out to share a few beers. If only I remembered the conversations!
All in all this warm up party certainly lived up to it`s title and full marks to organiser Ralph for putting it together.
LINKS:
Evergrey
Autumn
Betzefer
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