Winterfest holds an interesting setup. The building of Popradar is full of smaller and bigger venues,where many genres can be heard. The program did also hold some metal and hardrock bands, so after a reminder by Frank I decided to check this festival out. In the afternoon workshops started and as from 17:00 first bands would hit the stage.I wanted to have early dinner with Tiago first so I missed first interesting band to me Rise of the Wood. Saw them before and will no doubt see them again, so this did not hurt. Upon entering I walked a bit lost through the building until spotting a group of black T-shirts outside room 6 with several known wearers among them. So Ditch playing stoner would be the first songs of the evening for me. Unfortunately the sound was not very clear with vocals somewhat soft in the mix. Sound issues would be a reoccuring theme through the evening. After finding in the Popradar Labyrinth the Radar Zaal I found a bar and could wait for some old skool metal as the program indicated. Black Silence were announced as blending Melodic metal with Slayer, well I could not hear either. The female voclaist luckily enough did not go operatic, but sung rather raw over a fast playing metal band. A poor man's Leather was what came to mind. Pretty OK 45 minutes of metal to me.
At general music gatherings I always like to let out the amateur antropologist in me. So during Black Silence many people walked in who usually don't hear any metal music. It did not take long before I could see two main reactions. First cover your ears and look horrified. The second reaction came back even more, strike a macho pose headbang and laugh looking back at your friends. My point is if you don't get it, don't bother. There was somewhere in the building an Urban & hip-hop stage. I am pretty sure I would not appreciate the artistic level of bands and any comment for sure would insult some of nowadays easily insulted youth. So I stay away from the dump. Whatever, the Radar zaal turned out to be the place to stay for me.
Next band were Drunktank who play some sort of skatepunk mixed with at times pretty metallic guitars. Now this is not music I need to hear at home, but this band did bring an atmosphere to the stage and can create a party. Nice surprise and they even had a crowdsurfing french fan. My last band of the evening would be Rosie. I think it must have been over 35 years ago when I saw Rosie first playing. At the time they were a pure AC/DC coverband. Nowadays they have some own music released which sounds exactly like AC/DC. This resulted in a party set which towards the end even confetti and passing through the hall of drop-shots we used to drink in the nineties in places like de Paap or de Bieb. I already stopped drinking as recent health drop made me smart and limit the alcohol tonight in order not to fall back. One interesting fact about the bar was that they would reuse our glasses if you did not ask for clean ones. This at times when TV is even teaching us how to wash hands to prevent Coronavirus from spreading. But back to Rosie who ended their set with 4 AC/DC covers anyway and Whole Lotta Rosie was a nice ending for me of an interesting festival. It even stopped raining in the evening for cyclist to get home dry.
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