14 juli 2018 – Eindhoven | Na een wat onrustige aanloop naar dit festival gingen eindelijk de poorten van de ijsbaan in het zonnige Eindhoven open en even na 10 uur stroomden de mensen binnen. Sommigen renden zelfs naar de barrier voor het podium om hun plekje voor Ghost te claimen die voor zo’n 11(!) uur later gepland stonden! Met een zinderende 33 graden Celsius op zijn hoogtepunt beloofde het een bloedhete dag te worden!
De afgelasting van Sons of Apollo een week voor het festival was het vonkje die een klein voetzoekertje op sociale media deed ontbranden. Als last-minute vervanger werd Vuur benaderd en dat viel niet bij iedereen in de smaak.
Misschien was het ook niet de meest originele zet om Vuur voor de tweede keer op rij te vragen, maar een waardige vervanger vinden binnen het genre, binnen een week is bijna onmogelijk midden in het festivalseizoen. Vuur is een degelijke band met een indrukwekkende line-up, dus voor het neutrale publiek een goed gekozen optie.
De indeling van de ijsbaan had dit jaar wat veranderingen ondergaan om meer ruimte te geven aan de bezoekers en om de mensenstroom beter te beheersen. De entrees werden naar buiten de ijsbaan zelf verplaatst en dat was een nuttige verandering. De ingang van de ijsbaan is niet gebouwd voor honderden mensen tegelijk en deze nieuwe ingang maakte het een stuk overzichtelijker.
De merch-market werd naar binnen verplaatst en dat was een slimme zet, maar door de intense hitte van de dag was het binnen erg warm maar dat was overmacht. Aan de positieve kant was er meer ruimte om rond te snuffelen en veel minder lawaai van de bands, zodat je kon verstaan wat er werd gezegd. Achteraf gezien was de extra ruimte buiten niet echt nodig, want het festival was met zo’n 9.000 tickets net niet uitverkocht. Wel gaf het extra bewegingsruimte en er was schaduw voor iedereen die dat wilde.
Alle veranderingen waren dus ten goede!
Elephant (B)
This Belgian band had the honour to kick Dynamo Metal Fest 2018 in gear. To start off with probably the biggest drawback of Elephant, that there is just not one genre to stick to this band. It makes it quite interesting, but also a bit hard to put the gears of a festival in motion. Elephant plays some old style hardrock with metalcore-ish influences, but mixed with alternative rock and it does make an interesting combination, but maybe not on Dynamo Metal Fest. But judging the line-up, the fitted in rather well in a strange way. On the stage there is more than enough action for the few hundred spectators to be entertained, but the fire is not extremely contagious. There is a great potential in this band and with a few more catchy tunes, they have a nice road ahead of them. Nevertheless a nice but a bit to mellow start of the festival.
Iron Reagan (USA)
Next up is Iron Reagan and if any band can kick some butt, Iron Reagan can! A few years ago I saw Iron Reagan at Dokk’em Open Air, and that was a lot of fun! They even played a dozen of songs in under a minute and it was hard to distinguish where the most fun was; on the stage or in front of the stage. So, I was looking forward to Iron Reagan and I didn’t get disappointed! Right from the first song, the crowd went crazy. Dust clouds rise up as an early morning (well, to be honest a bit noon-ish) moshpit emerged. The band and the rather large crowd are in perfect synergy; a big pit and almost every head nodded to the ferocious fast beats of Iron Reagan and a band was giving it all they had. The sound quality isn’t the best, but I never witnessed an outdoor festival with perfect sound. The conditions are hard to influence, so we have to deal with that. In the case of Iron Reagan it doesn’t matter much. It is loud and it is fast and that’s what the crowd wants. The energy coming from the band and the crowd was superb! Much too soon “Miserable Failure” is next on the set list, which meant the end of this awesome show and it gave time for the dust to settle.
Vuur (NL)
When the first notes of Vuur sounds in the ice rink a few “heroes” hiding behind others backs are boo-ing, but that doesn’t bother Vuur at all and soon these voices are drowned-out by the sound of Vuur. Personally I think it is pathetic to disdain a band who is just not of your liking. The crowd was quite passive during Vuur. It is probably not the best headbang music, but nodding heads are numerous. Maybe it was too hot and the fanatic headbangers wasted most of their energy and water at Iron Reagan. But none of this influenced Vuur. Anneke was being her radiant self and the rest of the band performed well up to par. The highlights were the songs of the Gentle Storm and The Gathering, but with a quite new album that is not a big surprise.
I Am Morbid (USA)
Another band with a bit of a controversy is next. I Am Morbid is put away by some as a cover band of Morbid Angel, but with the signature voice of Morbid Angel, David Vincent, this hardly does any justice. I am surprised how melodic the songs sound live and how varied they are. Where some other bands in this genre tend to glue songs together, I Am Morbid plays a very well performed set of well performed songs. The sound isn’t half bad either! It is funny how stoic singer David remains throughout the set. I’m convinced he didn’t even blink an eye during the whole gig! The rest of the band is headbanging and running around, but not David. With his head a bit tilted upwards he is the king of Eindhoven for the moment and everyone present bows for their king! Hail I am Morbid!
Leprous (NOR)
The first time I saw Leprous was in 2014 and I was greatly impressed by their performance then. With solid albums like Coal and Bilateral they had pure gold in their hands. Even then not everybody could value their complex sound, but the ones that could were touched with the virus. For me personally the newer albums got less interesting and the focus was to much on the fiddling and uncomprehensible detailed layering of the songs. So I was curious with what set they would come to Dynamo… For starters, there was a problem with the equipment and almost everybody of the band walked around with a tablet or a smartphone checking data and settings. With a delay of more than 15 minutes the first song was started and within 2 minutes the majority of the audience was lost. It was too complex and too much fiddling, just like the last albums. The high pitched voice of singer Einar Solberg is not everyone can appreciate and it is getting quite busy at the bars during Leprous. It appears that in search for the ultimate sound, they forget the music and the audience they are playing for. The handful of die hard fans were treated to some great prog music, with ultimate layering. I guess I stick to Coal and Bilateral.
Annihilator (CA)
At last! I really looked forward to see Annihilator today and it took like ages for them to climb the stage. Jeff Waters and his gang kicked in with “One to kill” and that set the pace for the rest of the set. With Jeff on vocals these days, the elaborated guitar riffs and crowd interactions are a bit less than before and he is “hiding” more behind a mic and stand and that is a pity! Yes I do miss Dave Padden, in my opinion he has the best voice for Annihilator. Nevertheless the set is awesome! The best thing was the downside too… all the usual songs came by with hardly any surprises. That’s a bit of a shame, because Annihilator has a truckload of fantastic songs to choose from. On the other hand… this is probably what the majority of the fans wanted to hear and with such a large repertoire to choose from, a set of only 1 hour is filled up fast. Annihilator gave a good solid performance, with no big surprises, but just fast metal. Quite nice!
Overkill (USA)
Oh boy… after Annihilator, Overkill unleashed their mayhem upon the ice rink… and damn, what a spectacle that became! Singer Bobby “Blitz” has a Dutch connection and he used that well in addressing the crow. Ranging form “zijn jullie een beetje moe” (“are you all a bit tired?”) to “flikker toch op” (“fuck off”) when the crowd reacted a bit too tame to Bobby’s liking. It was received enthusiastically by the Dutch crowd and this raised the performance of Overkill. With a perfect mix of old and new songs, Overkill nailed it today. In the diminishing, but still hot sun the dust clouds climbed up an above the stadium covering as the crowd went berserk! Ferociously fast metal with the voice of Bobby “Blitz”… the best music to eat your dinner with! Again the old guys did it and in my opinion the best band of the day!
Ministry (USA)
During the changeover it became clear what the message of Ministry is; 2 huge inflatable chickens were put on either side of the stage with the golden heads of Donald Trump. On its belly was a swastika painted with a prohibition sign over it. To be honest… the chickens had to cost quite some money and the swastika and the red circle of the sign were poorly painted and the diagonal line of the prohibition sign was done with red tape (no pun intended)… which came loose at the ends… If you want to make a point, make it strongly and not do the finishing with poorly done home craft. Another striking thing on the backdrop of Ministry was, the reichsadler, or at least a variation on that, as logo of the band. I never payed much attention to it, but in combination with the swastika-chickens the penny dropped. Strange that a anti-nazi band uses that symbol as their logo. Musically Ministry is pretty damn good. The DJ on the stage is a valuable addition and it sounds like clock work. The industrial metal of Ministry is pretty catchy and some songs are surprisingly melodic too. Vocally it’s not that all that great sadly. Singer Al Jourgensen has a lectern besides his mic, where the lyrics are on and that distracts him sometimes. Al is mainly busy with making faces, gestures and other stuff like kicking the Trump-chickens. That is actually quite funny, because with every kick of Al, the chickens are tilting sideways. When that happens a guy who is standing on side of stage, not in wings but on the stage itself, solely to run to the tilted chicken, pull it upright en fasten it again, so Al can kick it again and the guy comes running again… Fucking hilarious! Much like Comedy Capers (if your old enough!) What was not hilarious at all, was the moment when the time slot of Ministry was over. They started a bit later, so the had to cut short on their set list to stick to the schedule. When Al heard that time was up, he called the organization of Dynamo Metal Fest a bunch of Nazi’s… just pathetic. Again, musically is Ministry pretty good, but to politicize the lyrics with extremists points of view, running around and “bravely” kicking inflatable chickens to make your point is just not that entertaining in my opinion. Metal should unite, not divide!
Ghost (SWE)
Due to restrictions, I was not allowed to take pictures form the photo pit. Ghost had a restriction of 10 photographers, so I had to find a decent spot early in the audience. With quite some amazement I watched the changeover from the stage where all bands had played this day to the stage of Ghost. Literally everything had to be removed off the stage and the complete stage of Ghost had to be build from scratch. In under 40 minutes the change over was complete and the soundcheck was fast en good. It produced the best sound quality of the day! Ghost is not my type of music, but I was open for anything and live is always another thing, especially with 9.000 other people around you. To be honest, the show is amazing! A very slick performance of the band and with a lot of variation in the music it was very entertaining! However, I never had the impression, that this was a metal band of even a metal show. It is heavy rock at it’s best and singing about Satan doesn’t make it metal all of a sudden. Still the show was entertaining as Hell (no pun intened) and as I walked to my car with the sound of “Dance Macabre”, I realized this years Dynamo Metal Fest was an interesting mix between old and new types of metal.
Conclusion
This years Dynamo Metal Fest was one with some controversies about the bands. I don’t think that has to be a bad thing, as long as there is something for everyone. I’ve never been to a festival where I liked each and every band and that’s ok. A festival is also about meeting friends, making new friends en be surprised by bands; good and bad. In the end I enjoyed this festival a lot. I’ve seen great bands and I’ve seen less great bands. The weather was great and the atmosphere was awesome. I can’t wait to see the line-up of the lustrum version of Dynamo Open Air 2019!