I caught up with the homies Tanya Morgan at Ironworks BBQ and after a full stomach of some delicious brisket, ribs, links and banana pudding, they put the smash down on an exclusive interview for us. Their sophomore album, Brooklynatti, is set for a May release date.
Production duo Keelay & Zaire got some camera time too as their album, Ridin' High recently dropped on March 10th. Be on the lookout for interviews from both of these artists soon!
This was a Christian youth festival that I kinda was dragged into. I was not Christian at the point, and I was sure as hell not Christian after ^^. Rudi Myntevik played pretty standard worship music.. PIT was some kind of a rap crew or something which I only spotted in the basement. Overall not a good "first-concert" experience.
Before the first day, I had moved some random bands over to my cell phone. One of them was Despised Icon. Their first grindy album. Since we had nothing else to do, I played the track and I was amazed. Had never heard bree vocals before. We called it "tea can" vocals and was laughing the whole night.
When entering the doors for the Myntevik-concert, we were kinda squeezed. The guards actually had to counter-squeeze. Believe it or not. During the Saturday I also visited Mefisto, a now closed metal CD store. I bought my very first album: The Red Chord - Clients. I was laughing at the lyrics the whole night.
So this was my very first "real" concert. A local gamer tipped me about this on IRC. I went with steriliuz and -JannE-.. None of us had even heard about L54, so we didn't really know what we were going to. I had no idea the volume would be this high, so I didn't have any ear plugs (and I had never actually used ear plugs before either). My ears were broken after the night. I had checked out the bands before I went, and hadn't really heard any good words about Pain of Elohim, but I was amazed by them live.
Pain of Elohim moshing:
During Imprint I discovered one thing: moshing is not for me. Also, there were extremely many long-haired headbangers in the room now. Kinda surreal for the concert-noob I was.
Here the whole front row fell to the right (lul):
At this point we had 8 layers of "dotts" in our ears, but as we were walking slowly up the stairs to catch Lowdown, we heard it build up for a breakdown. And the moment we entered the room, there was this beautiful "pling" breakdown. There were extremely many headbangers in the room now, and also a semi-professional light show o.0.
Lowdown:
Still, after 2 years, I have never seen L54 looking so good as it looked this day. On the way home we, the kids we were, practiced death metal vocals on the whole way home. We had to walk, because we didn't know how to take the bus.
(Added at a later point from a journal I discovered I had written)
"PoE was much better than I thought they would be. Their vocalist had very nice screams and jumped around as a real vocalist. The bassist did not know how to headbang, but he played good. Their songs were good as well. Beautiful bass in the drums!
Imprint was the best headbangers tonight, they had powerful guitars and vocals. Really nice gear as well. Many riffs were made for headbanging, and everyone shook their heads in rhythm. It looked and sounded awesome. It started to get really crowded in the front, and there were some nice mosh rings.
When I came up after the break, I came in the middle of a song during one of the best breakdowns I've ever heard. The light-man turned on his funky white and bright lights to make the riffs even more powerful. You could hear that they were inspired by Korn and American metalcore. More and more people came as Lowdown played and I could not see that much (the bright lights flashed my eyes all the time), but I could hear... and it pleased my ears.."
After the concert at L54 we were pretty amused by the whole local concerts thing, and found this hardcore show. I had never been to Metropolis before - didn't even know where it was. I remember more or less nothing about this concert now (November 2009).. but me and Eirik wrote a little blog post on our blog about the show, so I'm referring to this.
Cold Front had no bassist, and the whole band was pretty tame. Unbreakable was standard hardcore and had to give up because of problems with the vocals.. We liked When Sin Fails, double vocals and nice breakdowns. And the surprise of the evening, Arise of Judgement had a girl on vocals! "Everybody" was singing along in pure hardcore spirit and we had a good time.
The poster:
Arise of Judgement:
When Sin Fails:
When Sin Fails with Matsi on guitar, who we would later see in Pain of Elohim:
(Added at a later point from a journal I discovered I had written):
Cold Front:
Cold Front was the first band to enter tha stage.. They had no bassist, but two guitars, and they sucked at headbanging, maybe because their songs also sucked. The vocalist, Erik(?), was talented though.. [nov-2009: wow very rude of me. I actually liked the vocalists other band, "On Own Terms" later]
Unbreakable:
This was just a piece of crap. The vocalist was hoarse, and they could only play two songs.. I don't remember much of them.. But no one cried when they said that "this was their last song". [nov-2009: also very rude of me.. but this was probably even more true... sorry :)]
When sin Fails:
Really, really good double-vocal hardcore band. Neat breakdowns as well.
Arise of Judgement:
Double-vocals here as well. One of each gender.. The girl, Ida(?), was talented, and I enjoyed listening to her nice and powerful screams. The bassist was c00l and the drummer had weird facial expressions [nov-2009: more usual than I knew at the time]. The audience knew the lyrics and everyone was singing.. Best band of the show!
UKM - Ungdommens kulturmønstring.. A competition for youth. Tickets were 150NOK for two days, and I'm pretty sure the reason we went was When Sin Fails and Pain of Elohim.. This was the finals for my county, and the concert was split in three different concerts, but I only think I went on 2 of them.. I was disappointed in When Sin Fails, as they only had one vocalist this day (see the video). Also, I don't think I liked Perfect Crime very much at the time, but in 2008 I would love them. Malin Winther was btw a girl from my school, and 2 years later she is now far into the Norwegian X-factor competition with Shackles.
At this time, the hardcore scene in Stavanger was actually pretty okay. They booked these big names (including Justice, which I did not catch), and made it last a whole day (for 120 NOK). Review from a journal I wrote the day after:
"I met up in my Dimmu Borgir hoodie as usual, and I was ready for some beautiful music.. but..:
It started with Alert The Audience.. well, what could you expect from a newly started band? To tell the truth, this sucked.. I did not like the vocals.. [nov-2009: I would later like this type of vocals]
Second band was Unbreakable, they were much better this time.. but I can't say it made me headbang :p
I'm not sure about the order of the bands, but what the hell:
xArise of Judgementx was good, as usual. Br00tal vocals! Not much to say about that..
On own terms: This would've been much better if the audience (including me) would have been more willing. But they were good, nothing negative about them..
Common Cause was teh shit.. bad vocals.. (I'm not even sure if it was Common Cause, but what the heck :p)
Real Heroes Die... This was REALLY good! Beautiful breakdowns, beautiful riffs and br00tal sound=d Really headbangable=p
Verse.. These American guys was what I expected, melodic hardcore.. it's not really my style, but they were great on stage.
Justice: I left the building before they played :( I had a train to catch.. I had looked forward to this band, after what I've heard on myspace..
conclusion: It was worth the money
Quote one of the American bands I'm gonna be that annoying guy again, and say "please move forward towards the stage""
After listening to these guys on Spotify and Lydverket, I fell in love. Found a free demo thingie online, which I loved even more. First up was Frøken Fryd, which were playing pretty tight tonight. Their new song had a few dissonant parts which I liked. I think it's time to move on from the girly pop rock...... don't care about what the record companies or the manager wants.. Anyway, Kråkesølv. Surprisingly young, from the very awesome city of Bodø. Playing beautiful indie pop and post-rock. Fits perfectly with my favorite artist at the moment, Cymbals Eat Guitars. They were joking about their mistakes and generally having a good time. I absolutely loved it and I'm sad I didn't get to buy a CD.. They're also playing tomorrow at Martinique, if I'm lucky I can see them there after my own concert. Perfect concert.
We (Hamu(e)mon) had a band practice earlier on the day, when we got a call from Iris about out our sound check time.. We suddenly realized we had to flee from Eirik's house, to catch the train. Which we did, by 1-2 minutes.. but there was no train at that time, as this was a Saturday... so we had to wait another 30 minutes, but luckily the sound checks were a little delayed.
The first band, Steinbitt, could only play one song (I believe it was a cover), which was pretty bad. We didn't know that they only were playing 1 song, so I did not have time to warm up, thus making me tired in the arms after only 1 song -> making me play sloppy. I don't believe it was terrible though, but not my/our best concert. This was our last concert ever, but we didn't make any fuzz about it.
I don't remember much from Battle of Jericho. I left before Arlie Mucks played. I did not go to the Kråkesølv concert at Martinique as I planned :(. anders_sn did, and he got a t-shirt + a signed CD :(.
The most remarkable thing about this day was probably that it was the coldest day "ever" in Sandnes.. This was my first visit ever to Sandnes brygge (Sandnes harbor), a relatively new cafe. The concert locals were surprisingly big (I know there is a big stand-up scene in Sandnes, which uses this stage). A whole bunch of people from the music "line" at school was there, as The Norwegian Fords consists of teachers from Lundehaugen vgs. Two pupils were also there as choir girls. As I can't remember if I liked this band the first time I saw them live, I can't really compare the concerts, but I do believe that this was better than the last one. It did get a little boring - not my type of music, but it was okay.
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19 December 09(Concert, Arkivet, Stavanger) Adlib (funkish jazz, Stavanger/Sandnes, Norway) Swing and Sweet (standard jazz, Stavanger, Norway)
This concert was a part of the weekly jazz concerts held every Saturday on Arkivet nattbar (the basement of Newsman, Stavanger) by Stavanger jazzforum. hLeks picked me up in what can best be described as a snow storm, and we had to drive in 50km/h on the highway. After battling with the parking meter, we found the place (which did not serve ice tea or cacao). AdLib was even tighter, jazzier and funkier than I had expected. Skilled, young, musicians, sweet songs, great solos and yeah. The kind of jazz I enjoy. Before Swing and Sweet entered the stage, Eva Espensen's grand daughter sung a Christmas carol, which was an epic fail (sorry if you read this, but it's true :))
Swing and Sweet played the kind of jazz I call "standard jazz". Nothing special. Piano, bass, drums and female vocals. *yawn*
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Album collection
Syntax: Date bought:Artist - Album(place bought)
So much blues in Badlands' hard rock. As I love blues, these guys have a honorable place in my heart. As far as Balance is concerned, solid ball of rock.
Bar 7 - a side project of Tesla guys, rocky to the limit. 21 Guns showed that Aussies can really rock. And Baltimoore are one another new discovery in my catalogue.
Balance
