Last December I was planning a trip to Scum in Katwijk as I wanted to see Bütcher and Vulture headlining a festival. Well that got covid-cancelled, but now they came to home venue Musicon with none other than Canadian legends Exciter headlining. Exciter coming to Musicon on a Monday night. With the weekend before having 4 days of Graspop and maybe for some Metallica at Pinkpop. On the evening itself Five Figer Death Punch (who?) had Megadeth supporting them in nearby Rotterdam. So I did not know what to expect, but saw a risk. Well I worried for nothing as obviously this speedmetal package attracted many and even on a Monday Musicon can fill up nicely for metal. When entering around 19:15 it did not look like Vulture were starting at 19:30, which with the curfew at 23:00 was needed. Unfortunately the Bütcher stage swap also took too long, which meant they had to shorten their set. So far the downside of a further rather perfect evening, where inbetween bands I also could catch up with several people I had not seen since Covid.
Vulture are from Germany (not Rotterdam) and last year I bought their latest album Dealin' Death. That was an uptempo affair and sounded like a band that would come over even better live. Indeed their speedmetal went down well with me, especially when in Count Your Blessings I started recognizing a song. Looking like an eighties speedmetal band, their songs are not overly complex, but just good old metal. They managed to get the first pits running and ended their set with a cover song Metal Militia. Good warming up it was.
Next on were Bütcher from Belgium. I heard of the buzz around their shows, but with my half the time in Portugal life-style managed to miss all their nearby shows so far. So I was standing more to the back when they started and found that even at the back I was immediately drawn into their show. This also helped by the fact that they have in R. Hellshrieker a great frontman. Blood drenched with an iron cross as mike standard and lots of spikes his early black/speed influences can be seen. What Bütcher gave us as a band was nothing short from very impressive. A true speedmetal party, where they also found place for an epic long song. When a band transmits so much energy from the stage to the audience, a reaction will come and I believe everyone loved Bütcher. I did get their latest CD 666 Goats Carry My Chariot and play it now with a grin on my face.
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Exciter came as headliner and would bring nostalgia to many old headbangers in today. Now I must admit that I never owned any of their LP's. I knew their title tracks from somewhere, but only recently bought Violene & Force when bumpig into a cheap copy. So I have no long history with this band, but at the same time their songs are easy to get into when hearing for the first time. The Canadian trio came to us with two original members Dan Beehler on drums and vocals and bassist Allan Johnson. Since 2018 guitarist Daniel Dekay completes the band. Exciter opened with Violence & Force the title track of the second album with the famous blue arms pushed between a door cover. They stayed in the eighties throughout and I liked especially the Black Witch, Iron Dogs and Long Live the Loud. Of course their anthem Heavy Metal Maniac was a party as well. Than even some fans jumped the stage to bang their heads.This is all well and makes part of such a show, but someone should tell the small kid who joined that it is not very old skool 1983 to start taking foking selfies while on stage. The set flew by and to surprise of many they ended with a cover song in Iron Fist. A bit differnt if you have so many own classic songs under your belt. But the evening was over at 23:00 and I believe everyone enjoyed it big time. Old school metal always guarantees a party and seeing several people under 30 appearing as well, there maybe is some hope for the future of speedmetal still. A great evening so thanks to Musicon presenting us with this Monday bonus party.
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