Tilburg / Planes of the Abyss, April 24

This might be a good time to point out the right outside of the venue was a killer old church, which made for a stony backdrop for any sort of breather one might want to take.  Here are Sam and Bruce looking as Metal as possible while eating Tabuli.

Minions of Doom

The first band of the day was the Romanian Black Folk Metal artists Negura Bunget.  They incorporated some pretty extreme black metal with some trippy Romanian Folk music (and traditional folk instruments) in a way that managed to somehow not come accross as too gimmicky.  At least it didn’t to me, I loved these guys.

reeeeeeeecola

Can't you hear me knocking...

Deasupra adîncului în nechemare

The next band we caught was Angel Witch, who were very influential around 1980, inspiring bands like Iron Maiden and Saxon.  They played their entire first album and one new song that could have been on the first album.  Although one of the fun things about Roadburn is that most of the bands are also fans and can be seen rocking out in full, Angel Witch seemed to be viewed by almost everyone from almost every band, for good reason.  They were the most straight up true-metal band of the festival.

"As a volcano erupts everything crushes to the ground"

"A star of Spectrum, a Rainbow Sky"

Next up were Roadsaw from Boston, back in the smaller ‘Bat Cave’ Venue.  They, like Farflung, seemed to be playing for a larger crowd than they had ever had, and seemed especially blown away when they realized that we were there watching them when one of the ‘bigger’ bands of the festival, Cathedral, were playing on the main stage.  When people started requesting songs and singing along indicating that we actually knew who they were the lead singer looked close to tears.  Not that this heartfelt emotion stopped them from ripping out a sleazy, evil set of killer biker rock.  Quite the contrary.

"All I wanna do is kick it out with the Band Now"

"Like a Bad Ass Rising, Like a full blown moon..."

Next up were Saint Vitus, the main headliner for Friday.  They are pioneers and totally killer.  I dug the first three songs quite a bit, but was more in the mood to check out the Acid meltdown of Dragontears so never really got in the zone.

"I Bleed Black"

Dragontears were super psychedelic and killer.  They do a mean cover of Dylan’s Masters of War and a bunch of lysergic sixties inspired drone numbers and were a better fit for my mood than Vitus.

"You can hide behind desks"

Last band of the night was the one I was looking forward to most of the Festival, Germany’s Colour Haze.  They did a couple of accoustic songs with a guest sitar player, and generally did everything they could to create a stony vibe in the main hall.  From my point of view it worked.

"Pick a flower and disturb a Star"

"I gotta drop my love bomb down"

"I'm so loaded, man, so deep and full, with all the love and all that is real"

I am almost ashamed to admit it, but one of the highlights of the festival for me came after the bands were done, at the Orange Goblin metal disco.  It was nothing other than a bunch of metal heads drinking beer in the hall but…..it was also the only party I have ever been to that did not suffer from a lack of metal tunes and a hash smoking lounge.  There was something weirdly touching about listening to people with ten different accents all singing along to Dead Skin Mask, or watching Ben from Orange Goblin climb up on the counter to berate someone for not drinking enough Dommelsch or failing to sing along with Symptom of the Universe.

About 4:00 things wrapped up at the disco and we got a pizza.  This made us want a pizza, so we ordered anotherone.  And Another.  The last one came to our table in a box and the propriater turned the lights out.  So we went back to the hotel for a courvoisier and a late night early morning viewing of Omega Man on Bruce’s ipod.

Tilburg / Outer Space April 23

Getting to Tilburg was easy.  Minor problem was that our room was not ready until less than an hour before the show, so we ended up barely getting….ready in time for UfoMammut.  Made the best of it with some beer and pancakes:

T minus 55 minutes

UfoMammut was killer and stony and heavy.  Since we were just running in to the venue and overwhelmed with the surroundings and since we had to leave after a few songs to see Farflung, I never got into the full UfoMammut groove, but was impressed enough to buy a deluxe vinyl copy of Snailking which can be listened to in my basement.

UfoMammut. Heavy psyche from Italy

I think this was taken during the song 'Blotch' but am not sure

Farflung was killer beyond killer.  The frontman confessed to being high on acid and slugged a full bottle of red wine during the set to prove it.  The set focused on shortish (for space rock) Doremi era Hawkwind inspired rockers but broke into improved jamming a couple of times and included the Can inspired epic ‘Landing on Cydonia’ to remind us that they were not fucking around.

Check the video for Unborn planet (I am too lazy and busy to figure out how to embed video)

Trying to hide a shadow from the Breach of Eye

I always thought the sky was a shell, protecting us from them

Down in front hippy!

At the end, Tommy indicated that they had never played as well, or in front of an many people, without a member of Hawkwind and seemed to believe it.  I sure did.

Next band up was Orange Goblin who played a killer rowdy set that mixed earlier biker rock songs (including the surprise addition of the space biker epic anthem ‘Time Traveling Blues’) with later metal songs like ‘They come back’ and ‘Scornopia’,  and ‘Some you win, Some you loose’).  They were determined to get the crowd to stop pacing themselves and to get drunk and seemed to succeed.

Let me see those hands!

Have the best fucking weekend of your lives! Come on!! Let's get DRUNK tongiht!!!

Next band we caught was Amon Duul II.  They are OLD, with the average age of the band around 70.  Given their age, a few misses were to be expected, but when they got it going they still proved capable of some seriously stony jamming.

Take the Archangel Thunderbird

After a dinner break we caught Wolves in the Throne Room. This was the only time I piked out during roadburn.  After about half Queen of Borrowed Light (10 mnutes or so) I banged my head to the point of severe dizziness at which point I developed a fear that I would faint in Roadburn and be trampled by filthy doomsters, so I left the stage area to have some water in the hall.  What I saw made me redouble my efforts to get my friends to see them in Portland some time, as it was SERIOUSLY heavy and trippy.

Bwaaathaaa Raaathaaa baaa!

Last show we saw on Thursday was White Hills, another Space Rock band, although less hawkwindy and more Chrome meets Subarachnoid Space.  Very good, lots of crazed guitar freekouts, great visual backdrops and a hot bass player.

Electronic Oceans of Sound

Don't be Afraid

Other things to note, the food was really good and (by rockfest standards) cheap.  I had Meatballs with potatoes and salad (pictured), Thai noodles with chicken and stir fried vegetables, Vegan fried rice with carribeanfruit, Salmon Fettuccine, as well as the normal sausages and sandwitches.

Enjoy your meal sir

Amsterdam, April 21 and 22

I am going to start by log when Bruce and Sam arrived.  Anyone who wants to see pictures from my time with Karen in Amsterdam or Spain can look at my Wife’s smugmug page here:  http://discomonger.smugmug.com/gallery/8007443_grdLP#520674354_o9DN5

Sam and Bruce and I stayed in an apartment on Niewmarkt square.

Us in the apartment

View from apartment

Killer van in Amsterdam

just walkin' around

Never thought I'd be on a boat; it's like a big blue watery road...

Ah...green beers

Vondel park on a super nice day

More Vondel

Three dudes need three orders of Fondue

2:49am accidental iceolation

Mind asoar
Hard to believe this kind of mistake is possible.
Farflung played landing on cydonia.
Why would you ever land?

2:14 am

Waiting for the sun. Planes will remove the bodies.

Colour Haze Friday Night, Main Stage

Sometime

still way too contextual

Maybe later…

Templeballz is eating raw meat. Wit beer for breakfast.

saturday morning sunrise ==

Three pizzas

burger done

Big kahuna burger and large heineken at cafe stoffel. Jon deployed early to see amenra. Next scheduled rendezvous (smoking section) before Earth.

Micro Update

FARFLUNG – All that
Colour Haze – Super Perfect
Roadsaw – Blackout euphoria
Dragontears – Drone doorways
Orange Goblin – So Over the top it’s got it’s own weather.