Holland has a wide range of live venues and depending on the type of show my favorites switch. For a Progressive Rock show de Boerderij is the benchmark, Little Devil is the nicest Metal bar for small scale events, while Musicon is a second living room to me due to the easy mood. For the more extreme metal shows, Baroeg is the place to be. For years they organize an Open Air event at the begin of the season, after summer holidays. Yesterday it was held in het Zuiderpark again and given the bands playing I opted for an afternoon visit. There was a main stage with various metal related genres, a talent stage for opening acts which turned into an electronic stage as from 15:30 hours.With something for everyone the park filled up nicely with a little help of a sunny Saturday.
First act on the Talent stage was one I intended to see. Extremeties play groove metal and received various positive reviews over the year. A later metro and slightly longer walk to the far stage from the station, made me miss most of their show, only seeing the last two songs. They impressed me enough to get their EP and they sound like a band to follow. Next on were Order of the Emperor. The program spoke about influences of Judas Priest, Black Sabbatch and Thin Lizzy. On paper very interesting in practice I did not hear much of either of them back. Still not a bad band, with some good vocals and decent guitar work. I missed a bit of interaction and energy coming from the stage to the audience, which kept all a bit quiet. This became even more obvious when hereafter I went to the main stage and saw Bodyfarm play. This was probably the best show of the day, due to great reaction of the crowd and very tight band on stage. Their Death Metal is very accessible and live this is a very good band. The audience did their part as well, with many pits, a few walls of death and new to me, a huge rowing boat.
Herefater there was some break in the program. The electronic stage sometimes sounded heavy from a distance, but taking a closer look, there was noone playing an instrument on stage. Similar to DJ's live music should in my view not come from a computer, so that stage was over for the day. The main stage had The Deaf who were not that interesting and I waited for the band I really came to see: Angel Witch. When they came on something became clear in the crowd. On the side was my generation looking forward to see a part of our musical history being performed live. The centre was taken by people not born at the time of releasing their classic Angel Witch album, making the atmosphere. Somehow I do not think that Angel Witch often plays to that many circle pits. Even walls of Death and the rowing boat (slightly smaller) came back. It has the side effect that you keep an eye on nearing slamdancers and the beer in your hand. Angel Witch meanwhile gave us a high class set based upon their debut album."Dead Sea Scrolls"from their last album passed by, as did the Baphomet. Not dissimilar to many other NWOBHM bands, you tend to be waiting as well for that one huge hit, which closes the set. It always is a pleasure, being able to shout along "You're and Angel Witch" and I managed to loose a bit of my voice again. A very good show, but Hans and I agreed that their show a few years ago in Baroeg came over even better than in the circus tent at BOA.
Hereafter we just went for a cooling down. I did see a part of Russian Folk Metallers Arkona, but was not too interested. I would have liked to see what the atmosphere would be during Discharge, but decided to call it the day. Starting early the afternoon was enough and with direct metro link to Den Haag I actually came home on time for a late dinner. The good thing about this festival is the open programming of many genres. My next stop in Baroeg shall be a blast from the past again on 8 October, when Tygers of Pan Tang, Tokyo Blade and a dutch 80's medley with Rebelstar should make up for an interesting evening.
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