Palladium, Cologne, Germany5th August 2018
RheinRiot Festival 2019 with Body Count feat. Ice-T, Life Of Agony, Jinjer, All Hail The Yeti
Your favorite indoor Metal festival has gotten a whole lot more attractive by adding a special treat for you. BODY COUNT feat. ICE-T played their one and only German indoor show in Cologne at the Palladium in 2019. Also featured on the line-up were New York Hardcore legends LIFE OF AGONY, as well as Ukrainian Metalcore newcomer JINJER and the opening slot went to Los Angeles Heavy Metal band ALL HAIL THE YETI. lus, no one had to fear any cancellations due to severe weather.
All Hail The Yeti
ALL HAIL THE YETI are a Metal band from Los Angeles, Califonia, which has been founded in 2006. The band has released three albums so far: A self-titled debut in 2012, ‘Screams from a Black Wilderness’ in 2016, and ‘Highway Crosses’ in 2018. They describe their music as a “hair-raising mixture of superstitious ritual and trippy backwoods folklore. It’s all drenched in the countercultural, mind-smashing, gut-punching bile of likeminded spiritual shamans like Acid Bath and Eyehategod, with the down-tuned sludge of stoner rock, and an electric injection from four-on-the-floor classic rock pioneers.” www.allhailtheyeti.com / https://www.facebook.com/officialallhailtheyeti
Music & Performance
As announced, ALL HAIL THE YETI took to the stage at 5:45pm, with the lights going low and an infernal intro blasting from the speakers. The four-piece band did their best to fire up the scarcely present audience from minute one. However, only a minority to the few people present seemed to dig their mix of heavy metal riffs, PANTERA-like vocals and electronic interludes between the songs. This was not helped by the fact that the sound mix was less than optimal, with extremely dominating drums, which made it difficult to make out the song patterns. All in all not the best 35 minutes for a warm-up show.
Rating
Music: 6
Performance: 5
Sound: 4
Light: 6
Total: 5.5 / 10
Jinjer
The Ukrainian band JINJER stems from the Donezk region and has received huge praise for their previous live appearances, and for their first album ‘King of Everything’, released in July 2016. Relentless touring all over the world has put them on the map of Metal aficionados everywhere, making them some kind of shooting stars in the genre. Their musical style is best described by metalcore with influences of Death Metal and Progressive Rock. http://jinjer-metal.com / https://www.facebook.com/JinjerOfficial
Music & Performance
JINJER were the ones to kick it off for real at 7pm. Normally I would have expected that only a few people would care to show up at this hour. It seems I clearly underestimated the crowd, as the place was already packed, with lots of people interested in what the fuss was all about. All those who arrived early enough certainly were not disappointed.
JINJER singer Tatiana Shmailyuk displayed an incredible talent in her alternation between singing and growling, and the instrumental fraction delivered a breathtaking performance, as JINJER’s compositions strike a good balance between a certain amount of musical complexity and neck-breaking groove, which would make MESHUGGAH smile. And Tatjana’s white onesie with over-knee socks certainly did not fail to attract attention. JINJER made the first mosh pits appear inside the crowd, and the more melodic parts showed the qualities of Tatjana’s clean voice, as well as the technical prowess of the instrumental faction. All in all it was a very entertaining set, which certainly has yielded JINJER lots of new fans. The 45 minutes flew by very quickly, something which you cannot say very often for opening acts.
Rating
Music: 7
Performance: 8
Sound: 7
Light: 6
Total: 7 / 10
Life Of Agony
BODY COUNT brought along another undying legend. There was a time when New York Hardcore was receiving a fresh blood infusion in the form of bands like BIOHAZARD, TYPE O NEGATIVE, and PRO-PAIN. That was back in the beginning of the 90ies, during which LIFE OF AGONY released their ground-breaking debut album, ‘River runs Red’, which catapulted them into the music scene. The follow-up, ‘Ugly’, two years later was also well-received. However, the band members seemed to have lost their sense of cohesion, and the band went into a five-year hiatus. A first reunion ran out of steam, as the release of a new record was torpedoed by the label’s decision to include some sort of spyware disguised as an anti-piracy software, and all records had to be recalled after a lawsuit ruled this to be illegal. So the band disbanded once again in 2012. In the meantime, singer Keith Caputo underwent a gender transition, and became Mina.
In 2014 they brought the band back together, recorded their fifth studio album titled ‘A place where there’s no more pain’, and resumed touring. Their appearance on the 2017 Ozzfest in San Bernardino confirmed that they by no means have lost any of their mojo, and that songs such as ‘Through and Through’, ‘This time’, or ‘Let’s Pretend’ have stood the test of time. www.lifeofagony.com / https://www.facebook.com/lifeofagonyfamiglia
Music & Performance
With JINJER having prepared the ground, co-headliners LIFE OF AGONY opened their set around 8:15pm in total darkness and a gloomy-sounding intro, which spilled over into the song ‘Underground’. The a capella vocals by Mina in the beginning sent shivers down the spines of the audience, and - once the beat kicked in - people banged their heads to the 1993 tune. The brutal guitar sound of Joey Z., coupled with the tight drumming of Veronica Bellino made sure that the mosh pit was fired up once again, and the first crowd surfers started to appear.
LIFE OF AGONY’s unique fusion of metal riffs with a decent portion of hardcore punk seemingly ticked a lot of people’s boxes that night, as the Palladium became very hot and sweaty. Singer Mina sped back and forth on stage, at other times she sat grinningly at the stage’s edge, smiling at and high-fiving the people in the front row. Their 60-minute set culminated then with the two biggest hits ‘This time’ and ‘River Runs Red’ from the era of their debut album.
Setlist
01. Underground
02. Through and Through
03. Bad Seed
04. Love to Let You Down
05. Other Side of the River
06. Lost at 22
07. Damned If I Do
08. Weeds
09. My Mind Is Dangerous
10. My Eyes
11. Empty Hole
12. The Sound of Scars
13. This Time
14. River Runs Red
Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 7
Sound: 8
Light: 7
Total: 7.5 / 10
Body Count
The band BODY COUNT around rapper ICE-T is regarded as a pioneer and most important representative of crossover - a symbiosis of the seemingly opposing music styles Metal and Hip Hop. The band already caused a lot of controversy with their self-titled, uncompromisingly furious debut in 1992, and they have lost nothing of their relevance and intensity since then. Their current album, ‘Bloodlust’ from 2017, is a tough reckoning with the USA under President Donald Trump. www.bodycountband.com / https://www.facebook.com/bodycountofficial
Music & Performance
Shortly before 10pm, wailing sirens announced the arrival of legendary rapper ICE-T and his ever-growing crew of band members, whose appearance invoked some bad shit from the past. BODY COUNT formed in the context of the L.A. South Central riots, incited by a particularly obvious incident of police brutality in the nineties, and it is fair to say that the world (or for that matter, the U.S.) has not become a better place in that regard. So ICE-T - who during the set announced his name change to ‘ICE-muthafucking-T-Bitch!’ - seemingly has lots of reasons to be angry about even after turning 61 recently. ICE-T yelled “Cologne! Show me some motherfuckin’ action!” and the band kicked off their set with a bang by playing the SLAYER cover ‘Raining Blood’.
After the second song ’Bowls of the Devil’, ICE-T introduced his various band members, among them his oldest son “Lil Ice”, who joined his father’s Rap and singing parts. From then on they played all their hits from their three decade long career, such as ‘Talk Shit, get Shot’, ‘Manslaughter’, and ‘KKK Bitch’, also throwing in a MOTÖRHEAD and a THE EXPLOITED cover. Body Count closed the main part of their set with the ominous song ‘Cop Killer’, that got them plenty of controversy at that time, forcing their record label to pull the record from the stores. After that ICE-T explained to the exasperated crowd in a paternal way that they were planning to do a ‘virtual’ encore, meaning the band would stage a walk-off, turn down the lights, have the audience scream and whistle for a few seconds, and then return for another row of songs.
This is what they did to the delight of the audience, and after 90 minutes of playtime, everyone got their ‘BC’ fix without having to go through the muddy hell of a weekend in Wacken.
Setlist
01. Raining Blood (Slayer cover)
02. Bowels of the Devil
03. Manslaughter
04. No Lives Matter
05. Body Count
06. Necessary Evil
07. Drive by
08. Voodoo
09. Ace of Spades (Motörhead cover)
10. There Goes the Neighborhood
11. Drum Solo
12. KKK Bitch
13. Disorder (The Exploited cover)
14. Talk Shit, Get Shot
15. Cop Killer
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16. Institutionalized (Suicidal Tendencies cover)
17. Born Dead
18. This Is Why We Ride
Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 9
Sound: 8
Light: 8
Total: 8 / 10
All pictures by Tanja Schilling
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