MetalCamp 2006 - Day 1

Day one meant a terrible heat, which encouraged people to go to the lake rather than listening to music. But a mere 400 people, maybe already used to wear boiling boots, decided that heat is not an issue and went in front of the stage to enjoy Scaffold’s opening show. It was very hard to headbang in this weather, even slowly moving it while drinking beer was some kind of an effort. But despite this, Scaffold headbanged like crazy, warming up (if I can say that) an audience already melting in the sun. Scaffold did the job very well had a very professional attitude. When the guys finished the show the population in front of the stage was doubled and Decapitated had an easy job to go forward. So, even if one hour before, a Firemen car tried water the field (and the people who enjoyed the sudden shower), during Decapitated show the crowd raised the first clouds of dust. Because of the heat I did not pay the appropriate attention to these bands. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to see Jon Oliva’s Pain either, but at least I got to hear some of the songs. When the Americans played the sun was still up on the sky and the stage lights were ineffective. The reactions I’ve heard were nice and the setlist (mostly Savatage songs) made the public song several choruses.

Scaffold

Decapitated

After a long break, with the sun going to sleep, Nevermore got on the stage. It was my 3rd time seeing Nevermore, but my first after the release of “This Godless Endeavour’ so I was very curious. The beginning with ‘Final Product” and ‘I, Voyager’ was perfect for the crowd. Warrel Dane immediately saw the hands in the air and heard the yells: “Audience Kicks Ass’. On stage, Dane is amazing, out of this world. With his long white teeth and with the eyes crazily rolling, Nevermore’s frontman did everything he wanted with the people there while, behind him, the songs flow like clockwork, from the first drum fills to the last solo. Nevermore went back to Dead Heart In a Dead World, with Narcosythesys, came back at Enemies Of Reality with the title song and after a few more songs, just when the lights started to make the show even greater, the ended with ‘This Godless Endeavour’. A cool setlist but maybe too short for the audience, which constantly demanded a lot of other songs. Maybe next time, for now we just have to be happy with a very good performance.

Nevermore

It’s already night time and more than 2500 people gathered again at the stage to see Hypocrisy. From the green smoke covering the stage, we heard the first guitar parts and the inhuman screams of Peter Tagtgren. And, just like that, the audience doubled, before the first song was finished, and the madness begun, while Hypocrisy, with a very balanced setlist (from Virus to the first album), became the star of the evening. It’s hard for me to describe the happy faces next to me while they were playing ‘Killing Art’ or ‘Roswell-47’. I don’t have the words to tell you how the thousands of voices yelled ‘There Is No Time’ during Eraser, maybe an all-time death metal hit. You had to be there to see the reaction of the people when, after explaining that the air-company lost their instruments, Tagtgren dedicated ‘Fire In The Sky’ to the guys from Amon Amarth, who borrowed them the guitars. Hypocrisy closed with ‘The Final Chapter’, leaving an audience that applauded for minutes, hoping to feel once more the thrill of hearing Tagtgren’s voice.

Hypocrisy

Amon Amarth was an interesting premiere both for me and for the Slovenian audience, where, judging by the reaction, they have a lot of fans. Already ecstatic after the Hypocrisy episode, the crowd instantly reacted to ‘The Pursuit Of Vikings’ and the madness went on until the end of the show. And, since he saw a lot of fans wearing Viking horned helmets and even some war axes raised in the air, Johan Hegg demanded from the start the usual ‘Hey’s together with the fists thrown in the air on the songs rhythm. And this movement almost did not stop at all. The Swedish band looks great on the stage and this compensates some execution errors (maybe the result of their continuous movement and of their playing enthusiasm). The guitarists never stop rotating their heads and hair on the rhythms, while, in front of them, Johan dominates the stage, the crowd and the whole valley. With his 25 cm equipment (please read – beard), with a t-shirt a little bit short, with his self made leather bracelets with carved patterns, Johan Hegg is a cool looking character and a great frontman. Quite long, the Amon Amarth show was extremely energetic and left a lot of guys from audience with a pain in the neck.

Amon Amarth

A good party of the crowd stayed for the Deathstars show, maybe because it was quite late, maybe because Deathstars doesn’t have a large awareness yet. On The stage, the band looks and sounds like an interesting combination between Rammstein, Marilyn Manson and somehow, The Village People. Their show is based mainly on the synchronized movements of the guitarists and, aside that, on the presence of the vocalist. Whiplasher has an interesting style of doing things, which I mostly liked, but has some moments that look weird, to say the least. Deathstars played in a formula of 5, with 2 guitarists and no keyboard player. The synths themes were played separately and sometimes I could hear even beats of synth drums together with the live drums. While I was taking pictures, I could see that many people came back to see them, especially many groups of girls, maybe attracted by the vocalist’s naked torso. Because I’ve listened to Deathstars and I’ve seen their clips and pictures long before I got to Metalcamp, I guess I expected maybe a different, weirder, more demented show. Maybe while touring by themselves. Anyway, I’m not disappointed, Deathstars is good band to be seen live.

Deathstars