First, my apologies to Glenn for not writing a report as lengthy and detailed as the Milwaukee Metalfest report! But there were just a whole lot more reporters on the scene for this one, so it’s not as important for me to be the one to get the word out there. Maybe sometime soon I’ll do a side-by-side comparison of the two festivals though, that might be interesting. Anyway, the whole thing kicked ass. I guess I’ll just go through the bands, so I can get my thought recorded before I forget them.

Zero Hour
Wasn’t really familiar with their stuff, but I enjoyed their set. Nothing that had me jumping up and down and going crazy, and I don’t think I’ll run out and buy their albums, but it was a decent way to start things off.

Silent Force
Skipped out to the gyros place during this set.

Edguy
Power fuckin’ metal. Distilled and purified to its most basic and important elements, played with vigor and a sense of humor. They seemed to be basically channeling Keepers-era Helloween, which was great for those of us who never got a chance to see Helloween in those days. Even better, they made no attempt to hide that fact, with much of Tobias’s banter seemingly borrowed straight from Helloween’s “I Want Out – Live” (“Do you want a faster song???” “Turn on the lights so I can see the people in the seats back there!”) I don’t even own any Edguy albums, and still don’t really feel a need to pick any up (although I do own Avantasia Pt. I), but at that point in time, for that style of metal, I don’t know if there is anyone out there who could have topped Edguy.

Blind Guardian
I liked this set just as much as Edguy’s set, but for rather different reasons. Whereas Edguy captured me with their energy and performance, Blind Guardian captured me with their songs. I’m very familiar with all the songs they played, and for me, the setlist was as good as it possibly could have been. Very nicely loaded with “Imaginations…” stuff (which I love), only two from the new one (just fine with me), and all of the ones that I really like from “Nightfall…” (which doesn’t do much for me as a whole). The sing-a-longs were great, and “Lost in the Twilight Hall” was just amazing. I had absolutely no complaints with the sound, vocals, or overall performance. In fact, I didn’t even think of any of that stuff during the show, as I was too wrapped up into the songs. I’m starting to think that a lot of that may have to do with standing down on the floor, headbanging, and letting the music grab hold of you; sitting calmly up in a chair makes it much easier to do a more critical and technical analysis, which I really have no interest in doing at a show like this. Everything, including the new stuff, sounded just fine (or even better) to me with only one Hansi and one Andre up there. I think that’s more proof that all the insane layering they’ve done on the last couple albums is quite unnecessary. At best, it wastes a lot of time, and and worst, it buries the songs. Everything in this set was immediate and powerful, and I’m really glad I’ll be seeing them again soon.

Pain of Salvation
Not that big of a fan, although I enjoyed their performance at PP1. Went up in the seats for this one, and was liking what I heard, but I was just too worn out by that point to really enjoy it. We left after 30 minutes or so, simply because it was getting hard to keep our eyes open. I’ve seen lots of people complaining about Gamma Ray’s drum solo (and I totally agree), but Daniel seemed to be spending at least as much time telling jokes and stuff. I guess they’ve played here before though, and don’t have as many albums, so it’s not that big of a deal. This set also made it clear how limited the audience for that type of music truly is, relative to other styles. While the total number of people remaining was still fairly large, ProgPower seems to be the premier event for a band like Pain of Salvation, so I don’t think they’d ever be able to draw more people than that, anywhere. Just in case anyone needed another reminder that it was the power metal that sold all the tickets to ProgPower, seeing the crowd remaining for PoS really brought that home.

Reading Zero
Heard a bit through the walls, but spent the time CD shopping, having a nice chat with teri, and hanging out in one of those cool alcoves (before they were all occupied!)

Threshold
I’d never heard a note of Threshold in my life, but I really enjoyed their set. From the songs they played, I actually find it a bit strange that they’re even classified as “prog metal”. It must be one of those cases where people say “ok, they have a high-pitched, melodic singer, and keyboards, but they aren’t power metal, so they must be prog metal, since that’s the only other possible alternative”. To me, they sounded like mostly “metal”. Maybe “melodic metal” or something, and they certainly had some “prog” tendancies, but I think the “prog metal” tag might have kept me away from them in the past. I really liked the guitar playing style, which often wasn’t even very “metal” at all, though the nice heavy rhythm section most definitely told us they were in the right place.

Devin Townsend
It was very cool of Glenn (and the other guys) to bring the band to a festival where they might not fit, and for the band to play at a festival where they knew they didn’t fit that well. I find it pretty funny how some people were offended enough by his performance to label him an asshole. Sure, his music obviously isn’t for everyone, but I guess the joke totally flew over the heads of some people. You’d think starting off the set with “Summer of ’69” might be a clue that he was being way silly. Personally, I found him hilarious, and his music kicked ass too. I only really know the Ocean Machine stuff, and that totally rocked, but some of the new stuff sounded cool too. I was very impressed with how well the sound of the records was reproduced live, and I actually didn’t notice it being louder than anything else (I was up front on the floor, maybe that made a difference?) I loved the serious low-end chunk they had on the later songs. Oh, and the whole band seemed excellent too. Seemed like he got a good response, so I hope Glenn continues being adventurous like that in the future.

Gamma Ray
Ran to dinner between sets, so unfortunately I missed the “Land of the Free” stuff. I thought that might have been ok, since that’s not my favorite GR album, but I like it a lot more than ‘Powerplant’ or ‘NWO’ (which I never even bothered to buy), so then it was a bit disappointing how much they played from those discs. Basically this was the opposite of Blind Guardian for me in terms of playing what I wanted to hear. Someone mentioned how Gamma Ray’s first U.S. appearance was a historic event, and I agree. The only problem is that Gamma Ray seemed totally oblivious to that fact. I was hoping for a “best-of” set, but they didn’t even come close to that, with only one song from their first three albums. Instead of endless crowd games and a drum solo, they probably could have squeezed in two more songs for an audience that had never seen them before. And hmm, would I rather hear “Heavy Metal Universe”, or “Heal Me”? Oh well, they still kicked plenty of ass, particularly the SoiS tracks, and “Dream Healer” rocked even though there were probably a lot of people who didn’t agree. And of course the Helloween stuff ruled, and it was finally something that got the overly peaceful crowd reacting in a physical manner. So overall, it was still really cool, but after Edguy, I was thinking “how amazing will a power metal band like that be when I actually know and love their songs?” And so it never quite lived up to those expectations.

Angra
Thankfully I felt much more energized for the last band on this day. Like Gamma Ray, they did minimal stuff from their back catalog, but at least that’s what I expected here, and the new stuff is really good (and I think I like it a whole lot more after seeing it performed). Edu was a great frontman, and I loved the stage setup with the beautiful backdrop, and the amps moved off to the sides. Excellent guitar playing, as expected. And the drumming thing was really cool. Very good backup singing all around, particularly from the bass player, which is not really something I would have thought of with Angra. Not much else to say except that they totally lived up to my expectations, and while Matos would have been nice, I didn’t feel cheated at all.

Just a goofy dream (in the most literal sense) that I had:

Iron Maiden was playing at some sort of college auditorium. Not an arena-sized place, but it could probably hold at least 5000 people. It was pretty packed, and I got there kinda late (I believe I had been looking for a class I was supposed to be attending), so my spot wasn’t that great. Maiden came out and started kicking ass, but almost immediately, people started getting bored and flooding out of the place. Me and my friends took the opportunity to go right up to the front of the stage, which was much closer than you could normally get at a Maiden show these days. By that time, there were probably about 15 people left, all in a single row at the front of the stage, but half of them were looking pretty bored too. Maiden was still giving their all though. Apparently Maiden was opening for Iced Earth (?), so I remember wondering if everyone was just unimpressed by the opening act, and if they’d all come back for the headliner. I never got to find out, because after about another song, I got bored too, and decided to leave. As I was riding away on my bike and winding through campus, I could clearly hear them start to play Bruce Dickinson’s “Gypsy Road”. That’s one of my favorite songs from Bruce, so I was pretty pissed that I had left and couldn’t go back. Plus, if Maiden was playing Bruce Dickinson songs, who knew what other kind of cool shit they’d have in the setlist? Luckily, I had no problem hearing the entire song, even though I continued riding away from the venue. At one point, I passed a guy who was walking and singing along to the song, but he had some of the lyrics wrong, so I corrected him.

Yep, that was about it!

The last time I was at The Rave/Eagle’s Ballrom was for the Metalfest in ’98, and it was a lot better-looking than I remembered. Unfortunately, I thought the sound was quite poor. Very echo-y, so it was almost impossible to make out vocals or hear guitar lines. Everything would get jumbled together. Maybe it was just me, although my brother felt the same way. We were right in the middle, about 8-10 rows back, although I moved up right near the front during “Punish My Heaven” and it sounded even worse.

I love Sentenced (all eras), but after seeing them twice now (first at Gods of Metal in Italy), I think their stuff just doesn’t translate that well live. I mean, I still really enjoyed their set, but not as much I normally would for a band I like so much. Ville doesn’t sound quite as good live as on record, Tenkula could have been standing offstage for all the action he showed, and the atmosphere just doesn’t seem to come through like it does on record. I don’t want to make it sound like they suck, since I’d still definitely go see them if they came around again, but I guess they just haven’t lived up to my expectations yet. Here was the setlist:

Konevitsan Kirkonkellot (tape intro)
Cross My Heart And Hope To Die
Neverlasting
Bleed
Sun Won’t Shine
Brief is the Light
The Suicider (first half, into…)
Excuse Me While I Kill Myself
Nepenthe

Next, Dark Tranquility. I saw them at Gods of Metal a few years ago (coincidentally, they played right after Sentenced then as well). So I knew they kicked ass live. But it was so much better to see them close up.

Mikael Stanne is one of the best front men ever, just a skinny, happy ball of energy and charisma. It’s too bad he didn’t sing much clean stuff, because I love that. They played one song off Projector, but it’s the one without any clean vocals that just sounds like their new stuff anyway, so that was a little pointless. He sounded just fine doing the “heaven and heeee—eee—-eeeeelllllllll!!!” stuff in “Punish My Heaven”, so he doesn’t seem to lack the ability to do it live or anything.

But there’s a lot more to the band than Stanne…it’s a very well-balanced band. Not only do all the guys get in on the writing, they all get in on the performance too. I read that at some of the shows, Sentenced was following DT, but it was probably a good idea to change it around, because no matter how much you like Sentenced, it has to be hard to follow up a set like DT’s.

Again, the only problem I really had was the sound. When they were just laying down some of the heavy grooves of the new stuff, it was fine, but it’s almost useless to play something from The Gallery with sound like that.

Here was their set:

The Wonders at Your Feet
Treason Wall
White Noise/Black Silence
Punish My Heaven
Monochromatic Stains
The Sun Fired Blanks
Zodijackyl Light
Final Resistance

Made a quick exit back to Chicago after that. Wasn’t really interested in Killswitch Engage, and although In Flames would have been ok, I’ve seen ’em 4 or 5 times already, and they were playing basically the exact same setlist (except adding the new album and completely removing The Jester Race), so that wasn’t enough to keep us there on a Sunday night.

Friday night, went to see Brave at Rube’s in Harvey, IL, which is a restaurant/bar where they have a separate room cleared out in which bands can play. 4-inch high stage, dropped ceiling, and it kinda felt like you were seeing a band playing in someone’s basement at a college house party. So nothing fancy, but it was good enough to get the job done.

The opener was the local band Abolisher, who I really wanted to see after downloading some of their songs in preparation for the show. The band’s name doesn’t really fit their sound, IMO. I guess they’d probably be classified as “power metal”, but of the American variety like Iced Earth, Jag Panzer, or Nevermore, rather than the European variety. Meaning that much of the sound is based in their melodic, galloping riffs, and they aren’t happy-sounding at all. Unlike the aforementioned bands, they don’t have an operatic singer; the vocals are more of a somewhat rough thrash style. Not a lot of range, but effective, and the lead guitarist and bass player contributed some additional styles of vocal delivery from time to time. What makes them really cool are both the frequent, good-quality head-bangable riffs, and also their epic tendancies. They write some long songs, have some very good extended solos, and mix in some keyboard parts that bring to mind a band like Savatage. Unfortunately, the keyboard (apparently handled by the bass player) was in the shop, so they weren’t able to play what probably would have been some of their best songs. Still, the stuff they did play was great. I picked up a 4-track, 31 minute CD for $5, and am really enjoying it. Go to their website and download the 13-minute “A Stolen Season”, and you’ll understand why I was so interested in seeing these guys.

Then after a pretty good wait, Brave came on. Everything was pretty similar to the show in July, but since that show was excellent, that was perfectly fine with me. The setlist was pretty much the same as far as I could tell, except that they played “Bluer Skies” (which was cool because I really like that one) and did an encore of “Spirit” (from the EP) as a request from the crowd. Although the “stage” was low, it was big and wide, so the band had a lot more room to move around and were more animated this time (particularly in the singer and bass player positions). The violinist even walked out into the “crowd” for a solo. There were 50-60 people watching them, so that doubled or tripled the turnout at their last show here. I finally picked up the EP to round out my collection, and it’s really good; I can understand why it’s the only thing some people really like from them. I don’t agree, but it’s definitely different.

Concertgoing is no longer what it used to be.

Not that I’d really know myself; I attended my first live rock concert in 1994 (Dream Theater), and although there are a lot more metal bands to see these days, the types of bands and the venues are pretty much the same. I’m certainly satisfied with the current state of affairs (and I think things have been on the upswing for the last several years), but I can recall some of the “old-timers” around here spinning their tales, telling of a day when things were different. A day when you could go out every weekend and see a good live band (that wasn’t just playing covers). When an unsigned local band could get a good following, and bands and fans would mix to create an integrated scene. When people would go out to see some bands they had never heard before, because it was a fun night out AND a good way to discover something new.

I think scenes like this started to decay as people became more averse to risk. This includes the club owners, booking agents, and the bands themselves. But most importantly, it includes the fans, the customers who drove the whole system. People became less willing to come out and spend money to see a band they’d never heard before, and then predictably, clubs became less willing to book bands that wouldn’t bring out the people. I imagine a combination of factors contributed to this decline in risk-tolerance, from a perceived decline in the quality of the acts, to a shift of interest to styles of music that don’t benefit from a live performance, and finally to an entertainment explosion that created all sorts of alternatives in the fight to win the consumer’s time and money. And once people stopped taking chances and stopped going out to see shows, the whole thing started to fall apart.

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o RWAKE – Jacksonville, AR – http://rwake.homestead.com/
Started off today noon with a band that I’d labelled in my pre-planning as “doom/death/stoner metal”. Usually that’s not a style I’m a big fan of, but stoner metal can be a pretty good choice at a festival like this, as long as it’s not stupid. You’re generally guaranteed to have a good amount of melody, groove, and not much pointless extremity, all good things when being exposed to music that you’ve never heard before. And Rwake surpassed the hopes I had for them, and actually left me quite impressed. Screaming death vocals over their fairly simple but effective riffs, combined with non-standard song structures broken up by good atmospheric sections. Halfway through the set I noticed they had what appeared to be a crippled child laying on stage, but it turned out to be a small woman crouched over a little box. She seemed to be doing something related to the sound, and checking out their website, it says she’s in charge of “samples/vocals/Moog”, so maybe it was a Minimoog? Couldn’t really hear it anyway, but regardless, this band was an auspicious start for the day.

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Again, warning, this is pretty long. This only covers the bands I saw on the first day of the festival, and only the ones that I remember something about worth saying, so I might have forgotten one or two. In the weeks before the fest I spent a lot of time tracking all the bands down on the Internet and finding out a little information about them, so I think I was able to see the bands that would have been most interesting to me, and avoid many of the ones that I would have hated. These are basically in chronological order, from about 2:30PM until 12:10AM.

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The year 2002 marked the 16th edition of Jack Koshick’s Milwaukee Metalfest, the longest-running metal festival in the United States. While it only draws a tiny fraction of the entire U.S. population of metal fans, it can be argued that the sheer scope of the event, the history behind it, and historical lack of alternatives make the Metalfest one of the most important weekends of the year for the US metal community. Or at the least, it’s one of the events worth writing a large report on. The Metalfest has understandably gone through a lot of changes throughout the years, but reports of many of the ups and downs can be inaccurate, with some amounting to little more than rumor. This can be attributed to the limited number of people who actually attend the fest each year, the poor Internet/media presence of the Metalfest organization, and the general tendency of people to focus on the negative. I decided this year that I wanted to write up a detailed and hopefully unbiased report of the Milwaukee Metalfest, both for my own historical records, and for any metal fans who want to stay apprised of the state of this venerable event. I don’t have any connections with any band, the festival, or the industry; I go simply as a fan, but I have now attended every Milwaukee Metalfest since 1998, so this was my fifth festival. That experience, combined with the fact that I took lots of notes over the weekend (and didn’t have a drop of alcohol!) should hopefully make my viewpoint worth reading. On with it…

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The show was at a small neighborhood bar on the northwest side called Luney Tunes. I knew we were at the right place because the four people standing outside as we approached happened to be members of Brave. The first band got started right when we walked in; I don’t recall their name, but they were a pretty good hard rock three-piece with some thrashy and doomy influences. Those three guys took up most of the stage in the tiny place, so I was wondering how Brave would manage.

When Brave took the stage, there were approximately 20 people on the stage-side of the bar, with perhaps another 15 people hanging out in the other room. Turned out Brave actually had six people, which while thankfully not enough to outnumber the audience, appeared to be quite a challenge to arrange on stage. Three lined up in the back, and three lined up in the front. It was only after my brother pointed it out to me that I noticed the front half of the “stage” that three people were standing on was in reality a pool table.

Anyway, as for the show, it was really cool and well-done. They played a whole bunch of songs off the new album, two from “Before an Audience of Stars”, and one I didn’t recognize, which I assume was from the EP. I believe I remember reading that Michelle was incredibly shy when she started singing; well, she’s certainly gotten over that. She was quite expressive (maybe it was the bare feet) and sounded great, especially in the strong choruses where she’d really belt it out. The rest of the musicians weren’t particularly animate (except for the violinist) but I’m sure that had something to do with not wanting to fall off the pool table. It was interesting to see how often everyone except for the drummer and bassist would trade instruments; they must have had at least five different configurations throughout the night (electric guitar, acoustic guitar, keyboards, and electric violin were the instruments to choose from). Highlights for me were “Dreaming”, and then they closed their set with “Trapped Inside” from the new album, which totally slayed.

In concert reviews I often see people say “such-and-such a song sounded SO much better live than it does on CD”. I’ve never really been able to understand that, since I always like songs just the same live and on CD. I often think people would hear the same improvement if they listened at home after drinking four or five beers. However, for all the songs off the new album, they did sound better to me. I think in this case it was mostly a result of timing, since I’d just gotten the album a few days ago. I’d only listened to it four or five times, so I was still getting familiar with the songs, and thus at the time of the show, I was perfectly primed to “get it”. So that was pretty cool.

It seems one of the big questions in relation to Brave and their fans has to be “is this band ‘metal’?” Despite the lack of solid “metal” evidence in their sound, I think the answer must be yes for some strange reason. Among the twenty people, I saw shirts from November’s Doom, Lucifer’s Hammer, Incantation, and Katatonia (none of which were worn by me or my brother), so the “metal” crowd definitely seems to be their main audience (at least in Chicago). In addition, the keyboard player was wearing an old-school Amorphis shirt, and electric violinist was headbanging like crazy and throwing the devil horns every which way. For some reason it’s just very interesting to me how a band like this does very well in the metal community, while another band just like them might hit a completely different audience.

Speaking of the audience, despite its tiny size, everyone was quite appreciative and loud in their applause, giving a better response than many crowds I’ve seen four or five times that size. That, combined with one of the club’s owners coming out near the end of the set and pseudo-headbanging and generally having a great time made for a really nice atmosphere. My brother, who had just heard “Before an Audience…” once before the show, picked up two CDs, so it must have been a pretty convincing show. They said they might come back around in September, so hopefully more people will hear about the show then and come on out (or not be lazy old married people who have to go to bed early on Friday night! 🙂

Soilwork was, uh, ok, I guess. Certainly a lot better than when I saw them at last years Milwaukee Metalfest where they were just throwing up a chaotic and indecipherable wall of noise. It helps that their new material is far less chaotic, despite of the title of their latest album. Their sound was pretty good, not too loud, and properly mixed to highlight the new material (lots of vocals and rhythm, kinda low in the guitars). The second guitar wasn’t working for most of the first song, but didn’t make much of a difference when they got it running (then they spent a few minutes before the next song trying to find another guitar). The singing overall was pretty good. Of course it wasn’t exactly like it sounds on NBC, but he switched between styles pretty well. Backups (by up to three other guys) were generally helpful, although there were definitely points where guys were off. Also, they didn’t seem especially tight rhythmically. There were a couple points where things weren’t exactly right, most obvious being that song from the Chainheart Machine that has that huge bass-led groove in the middle of it; it was played in a sadly un-groovy fashion. It was only the second show of the tour though, so they’ll probably tighten up. For six guys, the don’t generate a whole lot of stage presence. I guess I expected a little more intensity out of a singer nicknamed “Speed”. One of the guitarists (Wichers, I believe) has a set of stage mannerisms that almost exactly copies John Petrucci (he must have watched a lot of Dream Theater videos). I don’t have the exact setlist, but they played a bunch off Natural Born Chaos (Follow the Hollow, As We Speak, The Flameout, Natural Born Chaos, The Bringer), a few off A Predator’s Portrait (Needlefeast, Like an Average Stalker, and one more), and a couple off The Chainheart Machine (the title track and whichever one has that big ol’ bass groove).

Next up was Hypocrisy. The minute they stepped out on stage, you could just feel that they were a force to be reckoned with. There are certain bands (along with Hypocrisy, Iced Earth and Immortal come to mind) that just radiate an aura of power with their very presence. I don’t know if it’s something that comes from being a stalwart force in their scene, or being leaders rather than followers, or just having been through the grind of building a band from scratch, but there is clearly something that sets them apart from a band like Soilwork. After their set, my brother said something like “they sure separated the men from the boys”, and he was right.

Anyway, to the music. For their first tour in the U.S. in their 10-year career (as far as I know), they nicely chose to do a “best of” set featuring stuff from all their albums. This worked out especially well for me, since I only own two Hypocrisy CDs, one of which is the “10 Years of Chaos and Confusion” compilation that they pulled most of the songs from. Due to venue restrictions, they only had about an hour to play, so they burned through all their songs, from the brutal, blasting early stuff to the epic, hypnotic songs of more recent years. Plenty heavy and really loud the whole time. Peter Tagtgren is indeed a pretty ugly-looking dude, but the fact that he’s a badass makes up for it quite nicely. Curiously, he speaks English with virtually no accent. He did a great job with his variety of vocal styles throughout the night, and also seemed to really be enjoying himself, along with the rest of the band (which included a second guitarist). He seemed genuinely impressed with the response, which really was quite excellent for a band that no one had ever seen before. I wasn’t quite sure which band more people would be there to see, and while there were certainly plenty of people there to see Soilwork, Hypocrisy definitely had a better response overall. Here is some idea of the setlist (not in order), although they played a few songs that aren’t on here, and I’m probably imagining one or two that they didn’t actually play:

Penetralia
The Fourth Dimension
Until the End
Pleasure of Molestation
A Coming Race
Fractured Millennium
Roswell 47
Fire in the Sky
The Final Chapter
Buried
Don’t Judge Me
Osculum Obscenum

Iced Earth and In Flames has sold out the same venue (the 1100-capacity Metro in Chicago) exactly three weeks earlier. This show wasn’t sold out, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were 700 people there, which is pretty impressive for two bands from Sweden. I have no comments on the opening bands (Single Bullet Theory, Scar Culture, and Killswitch Engage) since we expertly timed our arrival just as Soilwork was setting up.