The Satanic Panic tour hit The Netherlands in Utrecht. An interesting package, where my generation were drawn by Angel Witch and younger fans came also to support Lucifer. For me a first in de Helling, which is conveniently located 100 meters from a train station. Turned out to be a nice venue, with a beer prices having nothng to do with underground metal from the early eighties.
.jpg)
Openers of the evening were The Night Eternal, a heavy metal band from Essen Germany, who were new to me. Their Heavy Metal did fit the two headlining bands, but for me the vocals were not all to loud in the mix. They stated their first ever show was in Little Devil. Further they dedicated a song halfway to Ozzy in Prince of Darkness. Must have been the lyrics, as the music was not very Sabbath or Ozzy alike, meaning too fast for those. Overall The Night Eternal did what they were supposed to do, warm us up well for the headliners to come.
First headliners, by surprise of the older fans in, were Angel Witch. Now Angel Witch do have some classics under their belt. Their self titled debut album from 1980 is one of the best NWOBHM albums ever. According to Martin Popoff who wrote several books on NWOBHM they were better than any other debuting band including Maiden. That is debatable and a matter of taste, but sets the bar high. Further for me NWOBHM does hold three classic songs that should raise horns and atmospheres at any party. Angel Witch the song is one of them (the other two being Heavy Metal Maniac and Am I Evil?). So to celebrate this classic album Angel Witch opened with a new song. Death From Andromeda of their latest 2019 album Angel of Light. I believe all fans agree that was their very best since the debut. Few more songs of that album were in the set, plus Dead Sea Scrolls. The rest was of course the bulk of their debut album and singles of the time. Initially the sound was a bit unclear and the voice of Kevin Heybourne needed warming up. This would improve fast and already during Atantis we were taken back gloriously to 1980. The set was good, but the peak came at the end. Intsrumental Dr. Phibes continued into Angel of Death. Hereafter the double Baphomet/ Angel Witch knocked everybody out. What a blasting end it was even if zero surprise. Kevin Heybourne might be the only original band member, but I loved seeing them live again. I also would like to see Kevin Riddles'Baphomet one day (band of original bassist) as I missed them last year in Little Devil and they have the great voice of Tony Coldham. While writing this my voce fully recovered, but damn was it fine shouting the epical lyric You're an Angel Witch, You're an Angel Witch.
So after the break Lucifer would close the evening. Now I don't know too much from the band apart from the fact their albums are titled Roman numbers and they are from Germany/UK/Sweden or so. I heard some songs in the past and checked some clips before last night which sounded OK, When they hit the stage and started playing they turned out to be a bit lighter than the previous two bands. Still I did like their retro rock. I even recognized some songs and At the Mortuary is one catchy earwurm. So to my surprise I did get drawn into their show and they also saved the best for last, but I did not get the title of the closing song. I did not understand why their CD was some 5-6 Euros more expansive than online, but wil get V and play this when the timing is right. So they closed a fine evening, a bit earlier than expected. Where I thought both bands to play some 75-80 minutes according to schedule, they did play both for 65 minutes, which gave me an earlier train home, but let me not get into delaying trains now, as the evening was so nice. You're an Angel Witch, You're an Angel Witch.
No comments:
Post a Comment