Loudpark 14 – gig report

Since I’ll be at the Japan Writers Conference over the coming weekend (report will follow), my weekly blog entry already today instead of Saturday

It was Loudpark time again. The line-up this year was not the most thrilling for me but nevertheless Loudpark is a great opportunity to see a lot of bands in the comfy Saitama Super-Arena. (comfy because it is weather independent)

General fatigue from busy times at work made it “impossible” to get up at 8:00 to be in time for the first band and I only managed to get up at 9:00. Arriving an hour late, I unfortunately missed the bands Arion and Periphery, but such is life. I entered the hall for a band called Glamour of the Kill, which turned out to be the major positive discovery of the day. A relatively young band from the UK with two albums out. I really liked their sound and shall explore them further and buy an album.



For the time being I stayed on the ranks and wandered from left to right depending on which stage the bands played on. Next up was the Gazette, the only Japanese band of the line-up. A visual rock band with a quite “typical” Japanese sound. There was a fan-girl on the ranks in front of me who made quite a dance and I was surprised why she didn’t venture down into the arena, but maybe she wanted some space!



After the Gazette, I ventured to the other side of the arena again and for the second time sneaked my way into the actually reserved seats area to get a good look at Belphegor, a deeply deeply black metal act from Austria. Their looks and props were quite fascinating and I took a lot of pics of them, especially of the drummer. He must have had color contact lenses in his eyes, which, with the distance to the stage and the lightning made his eyes shine like live from the land of the dead (pun intended). Their sound is way too dark for my taste but they looked pretty awesome and how the singer said “loudpark” in growling mode was a blast too.



The contrast could not have been sharper and from the depths of blackest metal we had rock’n roll next with another UK band called Thunder. I admit to have never heard of these guys before and I am also still wondering what they were doing at Loudpark. Grandpas in checkered shirts playing soft hard-rock (pun intended). Nice, but way too nice for my taste.



To wedge Thunder between Belphegor and The Haunted was interesting too. The Haunted from Sweden somehow sounded American to me, I don’t know why. The singer was very moved by the as always incredibly supporting Japanese audience. His make-up looking like he had a bullet wound in the head looked pretty cool.



Then another very old and traditional band was up – Riot from the US. Man, they started out in the seventies… I looked at their history in Wikipedia and they’ve had a hell of a lot of band member deaths and the current vocalist is their 5th. Therefore Riot V. The singer did a good job at falsetto but all in all their music style was “too old” to thrill me.

After Riot I went down to the arena finally to get a good spot for Within Temptation and found one at the edge of the “big rock stage” balustrades which provided also a good look across to the “ultimate stage” where a US band called Death Angel played. Thrash metal, nice, good thrash metal. Next to Glamour of the Kill, Death Angel is my second favorite discovery of this Loudpark day. Their singer (awesome head of hair, man!) was also very moved by the Japanese audience. It was their first time at Loudpark (and thus in front of a bigger audience here) and they seemed really happy to be there. Cool band, I shall explore them a bit more.



Within Temptation did two ballads, which were probably too slow for Loudpark and I found the lady’s comment to whatever song – “we wrote this ten years ago and the world hasn’t become better”… eh? Of course it hasn’t. – rather inappropriate and off the point. I also found it very weird that their poor drummer was sitting behind a Plexiglas/plastic screen – is he too loud or what?



I much preferred one comment from Kreator – fxxk religion and even more so fxxk politics! I stayed in my spot in the arena for half of Kreator – nice slash metal from guys who know their stuff. After half of Kreator I left the arena to be able to leave when I wanted to instead of being squeezed in by Dream Theater fans.

For Dream Theater I returned to the ranks and took it easy and I must admit I left before they were done, in order to escape the crowds squeezing into the train and also because I am not exactly a Dream Theater fan. They “fiddle” too much in my opinion and don’t come to the point (of the song).

So, two new bands discovered – Death Angel and Glamour of the Kill. Good result for a good Loudpark 14. Let’s see what the line-up will be next year

The full set of pics you can find on Flickr.