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2000 Decibel, Folkets Park, Bengtsfors, SwedenMay 21st, 2005
Defleshed, Amon Amarth, Clawfinger, Unleashed, Tiamat, Wolf, Meshuggah, Therion and more
2000 Decibel is a pretty small festival featuring exclusively Swedish metal bands. It’s located in a small town in the deepest forests of Sweden. Spanning only one day it offered 22 bands of various magnitudes on three stages. Even though it wasn’t a huge horde that visited the rain-soaked festival this year, the numbers can’t have been too bad since there was a fair amount of metalheads running around.
Last year the festival almost didn’t make it after extremely low attendance and a resulting debt of 200 000 SEK (over 20 000 Euro), but the festival was saved by a support gala cleverly called 200 000 Decibel which secured the festival’s existence for another year. Last week, however, the festival management announced it finally called the quits after years of battling with bad weather and a non-optimal location. The reason for the termination wasn’t economical, but rather personal since festival-mastermind Lennart Larsson just doesn’t have the energy anymore but he deserves a huge applause from the whole of metal-Sweden for his many years of dedicated work! The festival will be missed by artists and audience alike and hopefully someone else will take over the torch and spawn a new all-Swedish, all-metal festival somewhere next year.
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013, Tilburg, the NetherlandsJune 6th 2005
Yngwie Malmsteen
Yngwie Who ? Yngwie F#CKING Malmsteen that’s who!
The mighty Viking returns to the Netherlands for his "Unleash The Fury" tour, and show the world he’s still racing away on his Fender strat. And his loyal fans have been waiting for it, and they brought a few new ones to watch Malmsteen do what he does best. Though he brought some skilled musicians to accompany him on this tour all eyes were still on Malmsteen or where he should be when he walked backstage. The devotion of heavy metal fans is admirable.
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Wave Gothic Treffen, Leipzig, Germany
May 13th thru May 16th 2005
Apoptygma Berzerk, Tristania, Penumbra, Visions of Atlantis, Midnattsol, AtrocityMay 13th thru May 16th 2005
The first time at a festival is always very exiting: you get so many impressions, and this time it was even harder because there were about 170 bands all over Leipzig. I was totally surprised when I arrived at the central station; the sun was shining and beautiful gothic people were everywhere. After more than seven hours spent in a train I was happy when I could finally enter the camp site. I missed Penumbra, but did have the change to meet some nice people. I learned very soon that you can’t plan too much, because of all the different locations. This report is not as elaborate as I wanted but the mud and my health held me back.
Together with my colleague and photographer Thomas we reported this day. He was also very surprised about this festival: “My first day on the WGT started with a ride to the parkbühne. One of the outdoor locations in Leipzig. When arrived there I was surprised that there were some changes on the line up. Flowing tears, my local heroes from my home weren’t there. So they changed schedule for the entire day.”
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Groene Engel, Oss, The NetherlandsMay 28th 2005
Autumn and Xystus
On a soft and warm summer night we arrived at the Groene Engel in Oss. We thought we were late but the entire audience was still standing in front of the venue, enjoying the nice weather. It seemed Xystus was to start later than planned, it was quite late before everybody left the venue again, but it was worth it.
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LVC, Leiden, The NetherlandsMay 27th 2005
Welle:Erdball
On this first hot spring night in Holland this year Welle Erdball would finally perform again in Holland. First the starting time of the show was unknown, but finally I figured out that it started at 23:00. The audience had to wait a little longer, but finally the band came on stage at 23:45. I noticed it was the same show as on wave gothic treffen Leipzig, since the band also started with the song ‘Schaufensterpuppen’. The set up on stage was also the same.
