I never thought I
would go this Dutch town called Almere for a heavy metal show. Almere
is a brand new town that only got its first brick laid down in the
mid 70's. It lies in one of those famous pieces of land reclaimed
from the sea that we call a polder over here in the Netherlands. It
is a town made for yuppies and basically got no real culture nor is
it an industrial town. You know the two things that can be found in
most towns with a heavy metal scene. Yet despite this all this a
brand new organisation with the very heavy metal approved name
Unstoppable Force has started arranging shows for this local venue
called De Meester not only that but they invited the NWOBHM legends
Satan to play the 2nd edition of their events. After my
initial surprise that not only that this was going to happen in
Almere of all places and that I would even be able to go there and
back despite a 2 hour train ride, I made the very sensible decision
to definitely go there to catch some riffs. So in the name of science
on the 9th of June 2018 off I went to Almere to
investigate this previously unknown piece of heavy metal habitat.
The first supporting band was an obscure Dutch 80's heavy/power band called Sad Iron. I had never seen them before so I was looking forward to seeing them. Sad Iron plays something in the vein of very early Jag Panzer and I guess I will have to namedrop “Fast as a Shark” by Accept to give a good indication of that they sound like. In other words they play something quite primitive and quite cool. They played a pretty decent and well played set. Enjoyable though it was, they could not completely hide the fact that they also are just not of the same level as some other bands from the same time period.
Up next was speed/thrash band Overruled. Unlike the oldies of Sad Iron this band consists entirely of lads who are in their mid 20's as far as I could gather. The fact that most likely none of the band members were even born when Satan or Sad Iron were first formed was very much reflected in their music. They played something so much more modern that they sound like they are from 1985 instead of 1983. They gave us an energetic albeit a bit repetitive show. As far as I gathered they played most if not all songs of their sole release from 2012 and while that is a fun little debut, it is nothing but a promising first release. Time for something new after today’s fun show I say.
Satan, the main course of the night, had a very successful comeback as you all should know by now. First one of the best comebacks of heavy metal history with Life Sentence in 2013 then they followed that with the really solid Atom by Atom a couple years later in 2015. Personally I think the secret of this successful comeback is that everyone in Satan has been involved in the metal scene ever since the old days.
The first supporting band was an obscure Dutch 80's heavy/power band called Sad Iron. I had never seen them before so I was looking forward to seeing them. Sad Iron plays something in the vein of very early Jag Panzer and I guess I will have to namedrop “Fast as a Shark” by Accept to give a good indication of that they sound like. In other words they play something quite primitive and quite cool. They played a pretty decent and well played set. Enjoyable though it was, they could not completely hide the fact that they also are just not of the same level as some other bands from the same time period.
Up next was speed/thrash band Overruled. Unlike the oldies of Sad Iron this band consists entirely of lads who are in their mid 20's as far as I could gather. The fact that most likely none of the band members were even born when Satan or Sad Iron were first formed was very much reflected in their music. They played something so much more modern that they sound like they are from 1985 instead of 1983. They gave us an energetic albeit a bit repetitive show. As far as I gathered they played most if not all songs of their sole release from 2012 and while that is a fun little debut, it is nothing but a promising first release. Time for something new after today’s fun show I say.
Satan, the main course of the night, had a very successful comeback as you all should know by now. First one of the best comebacks of heavy metal history with Life Sentence in 2013 then they followed that with the really solid Atom by Atom a couple years later in 2015. Personally I think the secret of this successful comeback is that everyone in Satan has been involved in the metal scene ever since the old days.
A couple years ago I
saw Satan for the first time. Tonight their continued success was
pretty well reflected in their performance as what we saw was a very
confident band that knows what they are doing and what they are best
at. Setlist wise they played about as much material from each album
they made together with this line-up. Yes that still means they play
no material from the Suspended Sentence era. I guess Brian Ross the
singer, understandably just doesn't want to do perform the material
he was not involved with. Personally I had a blast headbanging and
singing along. The rest of the crowd agreed with my sentiment and
clearly showed their approval throughout the evening, there even was
a mosh pit during pretty much all of the faster songs. The only very
slightly negative part of the gig was that maybe Brian spoke a little
bit too much in between the songs. Other than that it was just a
showcase of heavy metal excellence that shows us that good classic
heavy metal never gets old.
Oh and on a final note the venue not only had pretty good sound for a place that does not get much in the terms of heavy metal but it also got character and you can get proper Belgian ale for just 3 Euros. I will definitely come back if they book another band I want to see.
Oh and on a final note the venue not only had pretty good sound for a place that does not get much in the terms of heavy metal but it also got character and you can get proper Belgian ale for just 3 Euros. I will definitely come back if they book another band I want to see.
YEAH!!
ReplyDeleteIn the city without a past there will be a future! Really cool written review!
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