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Baroeg, Rotterdam, Netherlands
02th September 2006
No turning back, Textures, Das Ich, After Forever, Suicide Commando

The infamous concert club 'de Baroeg' in Rotterdam has hosted a lot of bands, many too big too really fit in the small venue but the name just keeps drawing the bands back in. This year it was the 25th aniversary of 'de Baroeg' and they decided to organize a free open air concert. A selection of bands that represent a cross section of music scenes of 'de Baroeg' featured the bill for this first festival. Word is out that there should be a next edition and to be honest they did a good job so why not. As for those Rotterdam politicians who wanted to close the venue: drop by next time and see how much 'de Baroeg' pleases the crowds.


No Turning Back [SvG]

No turning back is a Dutch hardcore band. Although they brought a few fans with them, there were not that much people interested in this band which opens the main stage.

Music
No turning back claims they “holding true on what they originally set out to do”. For magazines, this sentence will be loved… in reality, it just don’t seem to be. Turing the set the originality is far gone. The singer horribly failed to keep up with the rest of the band. Sad… this music sounds more like a good trying high school band. I really had some more expectations from them.



Performance
You can’t deny there is much energy going on onstage. Too bad that it effects the music. For some moment I just wish the singer took time to breathe so his performance wouldn’t effect his music. But that is not what comes with the scene. And there the band should consider stop “holding true on what they originally set out to do” and start thinking of how to do better!

Rating
Music 4
Performance 5
Sound 7
Light 6
Total 5





Textures [SvG]

Technical metal. For those who never heard about  that should definitely see Textures play. This band, born in 2001, has grown all the years to the fame they make in Netherlands. Pretty much of the festival visitors know this band at least by name. The band released their second album “Drawing Circles” in April this year. 

Music
A mix of original and aggressive trash, progressive metal is what Textures serve. On the stage you see why this pretty young become a success in such a short time. For some reason the Textures seems to be very popular. Is it because they gave their souls to the music? Is it because their hearts are on their tongues? Or is the combination of the sharp guitars with the amazing clean voice of the singer? May be it’s all of this. 



Performance
As performance Textures have not something spectacular. Just the usual thing. Back to basics.  But the music please the audience anyway. So maybe it is not that necessary to get the attention from the moshpitting crowd to the stage. Let’s just keep it simple!

Rating
Music 7
Performance 6
Sound 7
Light 6
Total 7





Das Ich [SvG]

Das Ich is doing great in gothic scene for already many, many years. Today at Baroeg open air it seems like the festival is bigger then the band, they do all the stage building by their self. And for sure it makes people curious to see the already painted and dressed people walking on the stage while the stage isn’t completely built yet. Their latest release “Cabaret”seems to have a name which describes exactly what they are.  Dark electro with a sense of sarcasm in it.

Music
Das Ich is a Dark electro band from Germany. They are often placed at the same level as band like In extreme, Rammstein and Tanzwut. It’s different, but still a bit similar. Das ich is a band which got the tent filled. Many expectations, many people who are curious for them and the electronic beats seems to be hypnotising. 



Performance
A little red man, mr. Devil, and his two mates “the good and evil” entered the stage and here is where people got interested. The craziness. Mr. Devil sings his songs and dance weird on stage and the public follows it with a shine of shyness. The good and evil men playing their instruments which is attached to sort of spider-skeleton which makes them able to move. If you listen to the lyrics and watch the show, you must be strong to not get involved with the devil. Mr. Devil tries to get you! But you think you are strong. And then after a few songs… realising mr. Devil did his work well. You love them. You love the music, the show and everything. At the end of the show I didn’t want anything else then buying the album. At this point I knew I horribly failed in being strong and mr. Devil got me!

Rating
Music 8
Performance 9
Sound 7
Light 7
Total 8





After Forever [MD]

After Forever started in 1995 as a death metal band with classical influences. In 1997 the singer Floor Jansen joined the band. Their music became more diverse and in 2000 their first album "Prison Of Desire" was released. Soon they became one of the most prominent female fronted metal bands. They have released four official albums and one EP so far and are now working on their new album. The bandmembers are: Floor Jansen (vocals), Sander Gommans (guitars, grunts), Bas Maas (guitars, vocals), Luuk van Gerven (bass), André Borgman (drums) and Joost van den Broek (keyboards).

Music
The audience started started cheering loud when the intro of  the song "Come" blasted through the speakers. It's the opening song from their most recent album
"Remagine" and since last year it's also the opening song for their concerts. In my opinion it remains their most efficient opening song. It starts with loud bangs and
the lyrics are motivating the audience to "come join this flow". I've seen After Forever quite a lot of times before and it's obvious they haven't reached their
musical boundaries yet. Every time the quality of their music and their show seems to improve. Floor had a powerful voice as always and it's clear that she keeps
training it very well. One of my favourite songs is "My Pledge Of Allegiance # 1", an older song which still remains an important feature on the setlist. With its
complex vocal parts it demands a lot of Floor's singing capacity. On bad days this can go terribly wrong, but now she sung this so well, it left the audience
spellbound.



The other bandmembers showed themselves as excellent performers with the ability to carry the audience away by their musical parts. And Joost, the funny joker, always has the habit to play a small solo-part during the soundcheck, even before the show has started, and also this time he presented himself as an excellent pianist. When the show was over the crowd started humming the melody of "Final Countdown", a song from the band Europe. With this cover After Forever sometimes closes their show. Although it wasn't planned, the band came back to play this song, which has a great guitar-solo by Sander. The overall sound was good and well balanced.



Performance
The show started off with the loud bangs from the intro of "Come" presented with flashes of light. From that moment the attention of the audience was captured. The
bandmembers made an enthusiastic appearance and were received with an ovational applause by the audience. The band was very pleased to play on this festival to celebrate Baroeg's 25th anniversary. After Forever has gained quite a lot of experience through the years and every time it's clear to see that they get a kick
out of playing live on stage and that affects the audience. Also tonight their performance was full of energy. The bandmembers get along with each other very well which could be seen at the funny looks on their faces when exchanging glances at each other. The interaction with the audience was great and for as far I could see
in the whole tent people from the front to the back were clapping along. Athough most of the time standing in the back Joost was one of the eyecatchers. It's always
funny to see how he is freaking out behind his keyboards. But he also got his "one minute of fame" with his portable keyboard. The lights were atmospherical. Hard
colours were used for the loud parts and softer colours for the more quiet parts. Some smoke was used, which sometimes made the bandmembers in the back invisible, but that was not more than normal.



Setlist
01. Enter
02. Come
03. Boundaries Are Open
04. Living Shields
05. Pledge Of Allegiance #1
06. Attendance
07. Monolith Of Doubt
08. Beautiful Emptiness
09. Digital Deceit
10. Being Everyone
11. Forlorn Hope
---
12. Final Countdown

Rating
Music 9
Performance 9
Light 8
Sound 8
Total 9 (8,7)





Suicide Commando [MD]

Suicide Commando is a Belgian band,  that makes heavy dark electronic music (EBM) with distorted vocals.  In 1986 this band was founded by Johan van Roy, who started experimenting with electronic music. The band became a prominent name in the underground club scene. On stage the line-up consists of Johan van Roy (vocals), Torben (keyboards), Tanja (keyboards) and a live drummer.

Music
After the energetic performance of After Forever it was time for a completely different style of music. The band Suicide Commando was the headliner on this
festival and with their music they rang in the start of a hot cybergothic clubnight. The tent had turned into a large dancefloor. This was EBM to it's fullest extent.
With pounding, staccato beats, combined with distorted vocals and aggressive, repetitive lyrics this band was capable of lifting the feet of many people. Not
everybody appreciated this music, so a part of the audience left the tent. For the people who did like it that wasn't a problem at all and they were glad to have some
more space to dance on now. Songs with brainwashing lyrics like "Raise Your God", "Bind Torture Kill" and "Fuck You Bitch" were played and left an indelible
impression on the audience. They played a good liveset although sometimes it seemed somewhat overdone. Maybe you just have to get used to it, but in my opinion it wouldn't have been bad if the set would contain some more variation, like some quieter parts. And hearing distorted vocals for an hour long became a little too
much for the good.



Performance
Their show was supposed to be supported by video projection but because of technical problems this plan had to be dropped. Nevertheless the band, and Johan in
particularly, made an excellent performance. Johan was walking to and fro on stage like a madman suffering from ADHD. It was like he was working off his bad temper on the audience, screaming repetitive, angry words through the microphone while looking at people. He accidentally bumped against Tanja's keyboard regularly and one time it almost fell down on which Tanja reacted on giving him the finger. The keyboardists were mostly concentrating on their own parts and Tanja, who looked somewhat androgynous in her white suit and tie, had to watch out not to be run over by Johan. The drummer was doing his job with full expression. With grim looks on his face he was hitting the drums like a maniac. The lighteffects were hypnotizing at times. Lots of stroboscope-effects were used to enhance the aggressive musical style of this band.



Setlist
01. Bind, torture, kill
02. Bleed for us all
03. Conspiracy with the devil
04. Menschenfresser
05. Raise your god
06. One nation under god
07. Massaker
08. Torment me
09. Love breeds suicide
10. Godsend
11. Fuck you bitch
12. Hellraiser

Rating
Music 8
Performance 8
Light 8
Sound 7
Total 8 (7.8)




More photos on page 2

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