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Steenwijk, The Netherlands
29th July 2006
Satyrian, Pleurisy, Legion Of The Damned, Vomitory

When I first heard about a festival named "Stonehenge" I immediately thought about the impressive magic circle of standing stones in England and associated this festival with - of course - Celtic music. But when I started reading more about this festival in Steenwijk it had to be noticed that there wasn't anything Celtic about it at all... When reading the line-up of artists it became clear that it would be some heavy and loud happening instead. You wouldn't expect a band like "Prostitute Disfigurement" for example to play some laid-back, enchanting melodies featuring Celtic instruments like a harp and bodhran. On the Stonehenge website it was mentioned that the festival was sold out, but it didn't really seem so crowded when we arrived at the location...

Well, this festival in Steenwijk started in 1995 as an unknown underground metal festival that was held on a small field adjacent to the youth center "De Buze". Since then the organisation decided to organise this festival every year. Most of the invited bands can be categorised in the genre grind, death- and thrash metal. And for the necessary variation there always seems to be one band that plays some different kind of music. And this year that band would be Satyrian, the band we actually came for. On the festival ground was a metal market which only consisted of cd's and t-shirts. There were a few stands with food and most of them had closed already before the end of the festival. Most of the visitors were metalheads who just came here for moshing and headbanging, and drinking and throwing lots and lots of beer...


Satyrian

This gothic rock band started under the name Danse Macabre, but after having invited different international musicians for the recording of the album "Eternitas" it appeared that these people got along together so well that they decided to join the band as official members. A new period had begun. Satyrian was born. Formed in 2004 this band combines gothic rock with wave-, folk- and classical elements. The lyrics are mostly inspired by fantasy stories. The bandmembers are experienced musicians and most of them are playing or have played in different bands.: Jan Yrlund (composer, guitarist), Merijn Mol (drums), Milos Marisevic (bass), Oliver Phillips (piano, vocals), Kemi Vita (vocals), Judith Stüber (vocals), Roman Schönsee (vocals).

Unfortunately we missed a large part of their show due to circumstances, but at least we got a rather acceptable  impression about their performance. Afterwards I had an interview with Jan Yrlund about this show, which can be read in this article.

Music
"We are the "dinnerband" on this festival", some bandmembers were joking. They were actually right because they played between 5 and 6 p.m. and their music was totally different from the rest of the bands playing on this festival. And indeed, the largest part of the audience hadn't come to listen to Satyrian's refined melodies and took the time to cool down a little bit and get something to eat at the foodstands. Being the complete stranger on this festival and because of the fact that this was only the second performance of Satyrian the bandmembers were a little bit tense. But most of them had often performed live in another setting before, so they knew how to deal with the pressure. Satyrian played a varied set of songs. Most of them were from the last album "Eternitas" and a few songs from the "Danse Macabre" period. I was curious how the Danse Macabre songs would sound, because the cast had expanded from three to seven bandmembers since then. And yes, these songs sounded surprisingly good, they also sounded bigger literally. The sound quality on this whole festival was quite bad. It sounded as if the speakers had almost blown up because of the noise from the other bands. The small field was surrounded by stone walls which seemed to bounce back the sound. For bands like Satyrian, having rich melodies and classical arrangements this music couldn't show to full advantage unfortunately.



Performance
The stage was very small and fit right between two walls on the sides. Actually this stage was way too small for a band like Satyrian, with three vocalists. Even though the keyboardist wasn't present it wasn't possible to move freely on the stage. The three microphone standards from Judith, Roman and Kemi occupied the total front part of the stage. In spite of the lack of a large audience they did their best. The vocalists sung their parts with emotion, expressed on their faces and in their movements. Roman looked quite evil with his light-coloured lenses with black ridges and small pupils. The other bandmembers mostly concentrated on their own instrumental parts, now and then taking a glance at the audience. The show was performed by daylight, so there were no lighteffects. In my opinion the music from Satyrian will fit better when played on a dark, romantic location with a varied set of lighteffects to enhance the variety of styles in their music.



Setlist
01. Overture To The Sun (Intro)
02. Eternitas
03. Invictus
04. My Legacy
05. The Dark Gift
06. Totentanz
07. Sacred Lies
08. Fall From Grace
09. The Haunted Lovers
10. Danse Macabre
11. Megalomania

Rating
Music 7
Performance 6
Sound 4
Light -
Total 6 (6,0)




Pleurisy

"Pleurisy" is synonymous to "pleuritis", which means an inflammation of the membranes around the lungs, causing fever, painful respiration and other unpleasant symptoms. Well, what could be expected about a band named after this disease... This band from Amersfoort and Utrecht (NL) was founded in 1996. Their music can be described as brutal death metal in which melody is also important. In 1999 vocalist George Oosthoek (ex-Orphanage) joined the band and made their sound even more brutal. Pleurisy has released three cd's so far.The current bandmembers are George Oosthoek (grunts), Alex Seegers (guitar), Axel Becker (guitar), Ivar Vennekens (bass) and Edwin Nederkoorn (drums).

Music
This band blasted off right away with a new, still untitled song. It sounded fast, with heavy guitar riffs. George immediatly let himself heard. His grunts were loud and clear. In my opinion a good grunter makes the lyrics understandible and George did so. It was clear that this band is about to keep its reputation high concerning making brutal music. So they fit right on this festival where the one band is louder than the other. Pleurisy played three news songs in total, but it looked as if the audience didn't care if they heard known or unknown song. The faster the better for making a large moshpit was their motto.



Performance
George was like a fire raging on the stage which was way too small for him. He also showed himself as a man with humour. He thanked the audience for all the beer, for many people among them just threw plastic cups with beer around and some of those reached the stage as well. That was not because of the adience disliking the music, it was just part of the festival. George was the one interacting with the audience. The other bandmembers were concentrated on playing their own instrument, headbanging. Funny was how they called their setlist. In Dutch they called it "trieste lijst" which means "sad list", which is in a way pronounced as "setlist".



Setlist
01. Whisper Misery (working title, new song)
02. Enemy Within
03. The Need For Speed (working title, new song)
04. Terror-tory
05. Darkness Reigns Supreme
06. Mission Transformed
07. Downward Spiral (working title, new song)
08. Trail Of Destination
09. No Tears For Mankind

Rating
Music 7
Performance 7
Light - (daylight)
Sound 5
Total 7 (6,6)





Legion Of The Damned

Legion Of The Damned is a new name for a Dutch band that was named "Occult" before. Their music can be described as pure death and thrash metal, which can be compared with bands like Slayer, Exodus and Kreator. The bandmembers are Maurice Swinkels (vocals), Richard (guitar), Erik (drums) and Harold (bass)

Music
This was one of the bands the audience came for. Speed and loudness were the keywords. It's quite clever how musicians are able to deal with extremely fast and continuously changing riffs and rhythms. It was clear that this band was good at it, but for most people their music is just a severe torture for the ears. But that's just exactly what this band is aiming for. Maurice made his contribution to that, grunting as if to spit his hate all over everyone who stood there. It was a pity that Maurice's lyrics couldn't be understood, which was at times annoying. The audience was reacting enthusiastic anyway and again formed a moshpit in the middle.



Performance
The bandmembers didn't really look as if they were going to pay a visit to their sweet grandmother. They did their best to look as evil as they could. They presented themselves as angry long-haired freaks and an angry bald drummer, working off their bad temper.

Rating
Music 6
Performance 4
Light - (daylight)
Sound 3
Total 5 (4.6)





Vomitory

The headliner on this festival was a band with another name which will make your eyebrows rise. Vomitory was formed in Sweden in 1989 by guitarist Urban Gustafsson and bass-player Ronnie Olson. Vomitory became a well-known name in the growing underground death-metal scene, amongst other bands like Slayer, Napalm Death and Venom. In 2000 they supported Cannibal Corpse on their tour. In 2002 Vomitory did a European tour together with Amon Amarth and Callenish Circle. In the same year they played on the Wacken Open Air Festival in Germany. The current bandmembers are: Erik Rundqvist (bass & vocals), Tobias Gustafsson (drums), Peter Östlund (guitar) and Urban Gustafsson (guitar)

Music
Before they even started the bandmembers were having problems. They arrived late at the festival due to a missed flight and so their trip to Steenwijk took much longer than planned. They arrived at the festival exhausted and without instruments. Luckily the bands Legion Of The Damned and Prostitute Disfigurement were willing to let them use their instruments. What they played was heavy, fast death metal. It all sounded somewhat insecure due to the mentioned problems, but at least these troubles didn't refrain them from playing. The singer wasn't in a very good mood today and that could be heard. Anyway he was still able to make deep breaths to make long heavy grunts, although it wasn't clear whát he was grunting. At least you could imagine that the lyrics weren't really about sunny blue skies and butterflies.



Performance
These bandmembers also did their best to look very angry and evil and were continuously headbanging while playing their instrument, which made you feel this should cause RSI one day. The face of the singer/bassist couldn't be seen because his long, curly hair was falling over his eyes, probably to hide his tired looks. He also didn't leave his microphone standard so it was quite a static performance. Although there wasn't much interaction between him and the audience, nobody seemed to care and again (surprise, surpise) a moshpit was formed. A person in a wheelchair was dragged up high by four men, which seems to be a tradition every year. That was a very odd way of crowdsurfing. Finally it had gotten darker, so the use of  lights did only matter with this band. They were actually quite boring. During the whole set only red lights were used, to enhance the brutality of the performance. In the beginning these lights were static but after a few songs they were alternated with white lights for the necessary variation.

Rating
Music 4
Performance 4
Sound 3
Light 3
Total 4 (3,7)





More photos on page 2


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