Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Ke Me Meo club / Argelato (Bologna) / Italy
Concert date: February 28, 2009
Attendance: 900
Ticket price: €25.00
The third consecutive “Play It Loud!” festival is a sort of Italian version of Germany’s Keep It True. It moved from last year’s home in Orzinuovi near Brescia (the club Buddha Rock Cafe) to Argelato near Bologna (the club Ke Me Meo), and it’s still a festival that always gives you a good reason to make the trip.
This is a festival that serves up bands that are painfully hard to catch live these days on the old continent. Last year we got to feast on fossil finds like Coven Hoof, Manilla Road, Steel Assassin, Elixir and Helstar. This year the organizers spoiled us with the announcement of the excellent Canadian metal maniacs Exciter, the anthemic power metal forefathers Jag Panzer and the British N.W.O.B.H.M. legends Jaguar. On top of that came the French old-timers LoneWolf and some goodies from the old-school Italian metal ranks, like Bud Tribe and Vanexa.
As my own sloppy antics have made well known, I deliberately reject modern inventions that dull the human senses (read: foolproof navigation devices). So getting lost yet again in the suburbs of Bologna was pretty much inevitable.
Finally! We arrived at the venue around 4:00 PM. Things were already bubbling in front of Ke Me Meo. People were partying in extravagant outfits and turning heads, blasting music from their car stereos at full volume and chattering so loudly it boomed down every side of the industrial street in the tiny pre-Bologna village of Argelato. They were also freely indulging in opiates of the herbal-alcoholic kind. Before RockLine got to the club, Fallen Fucking Angles had already paid their dues and honorably opened this year’s Play It Loud festival. They warmed up the crowd with their Italian take on walking in the footsteps of the legendary Exciter and Anvil. It might also interest all you old-school speed metallers who get fired up by the likes of old Agent Steel, and there’s a link to the impulses of primordial n.w.o.b.h.m. horizons too. After them, the third Play It Loud carried on with National Suicide, locals from the city of Trento, who cultivate a primal old-school thrash/speed sound in the style of early Exodus, Overkill, Anthrax or Xentrix. Fans of an old-school shot straight into the vein, check out both bands, no excuses!
The opening triple whammy was closed by Wotan, anthemic epic riders from Milan who, going by the style they play, owe a lot to the oiled-up, steroid-bloated Manowar. Imagine the Italian band Domine, even down to the vocals, which sound a bit like Morby (Sabotage, Domine). We caught Wotan by the skin of our teeth as we arrived.
LONEWOLF:
After Wotan, the French band Lonewolf took the stage, having landed on the bill early as guests. The band from Grenoble offered an interesting link to their predecessors Wotan, because these guys cultivate that same epic battle metal. They’ve been around since 1992 and have put out 4 studio albums. They attacked with an extremely raw sound and a direct, head-kicking assault. There were excellent rhythm lines, a gruff, guttural vocal at the center, and melodic single-string motifs over the riffs, “choppy” in the style of classic Running Wild. It’s yet another excellent reason for ecstatic “impaling” for every true metal maniac. The band opened its energetic set with the epic, hard-hitting Shadowland, followed by an excellent sequel of similar frequency, Divine Art Of Lies. Clearly the organizer really thought of everything this year to bring in acts devoted to the bone to the ossified levers of the traditional heavy metal school. An intense show and a big “yes” to the lone wolf from France!
•1. HOLY MARTYR:
The Milan metallers are yet another Italian band committed to a military march through every song their compositional pen touches. The band’s origins go back to the nineties, but it only managed to get its studio debut “Still At War” out in 2007, followed last year by “Helenic Warrior Spirit”. Here’s another band that can boast technical prowess and exceptional tightness, which also marked the previous acts. With a clearly emphasized anthemic, highly melodic side and charging tunes, they once again delighted the hall, especially the Manowar fans. The eighties get sketched onto the festival stage very effectively by Holy Martyr too! Among other things, the band played Lakedaimon and From The North Comes The War, and so wrote themselves into the hearts of the cheering crowd below the stage, in love with battles from before gunpowder was invented! It was a superbly motivated band, and their show only proved that every band had approached the festival extremely seriously. With their commitment, they practically dared each other to be the better act on stage.
ETRUSGRAVE:
Guitarist Fulberto Serena once played in the legendary prog epic doom metal outfit Dark Quarterer, formed back in 1974. He recently founded Estrusgrave, based in the town of Piombio in Tuscany. Interestingly, the quartet cultivates a character similar to what the still-active Dark Quarterer offer. The songs are likewise of the longer variety, loaded with epicness, fairy-tale storytelling in the verses and operatic vocals. The vocals have an extremely warm accent and melodic polish, with clarity and authoritative punch at the same time. Etrusgrave released the debut “Masters Of Fate”, which they also presented at their live show. The songs, averaging around eight minutes, included Defeaning Pulsation and the title track Master Of Fate. By gluing together many motifs, Etrusgrave even sound progressive. They could thrill fans of melodic anthemic stuff that clings to the old-school, raw, authentic sound of the likes of Manilla Road, of course with a much “brighter” vocal. They could also win over those of you who know and like Dark Quarterer, maybe the first Warlord, even Omen. Up to here the bands complemented each other really nicely in style. Etrusgrave were perfectly tuned, tight and inspired on stage too. Maybe a bit more stage movement in the future and their shows could be even more interesting.
MARTIRIA:
This band formed 22 years ago. It’s the first band of the festival that stood out from everyone who’d been on stage before them, stylistically at least. Of course this band also builds on drawn-out arrangements, slowly working its way to the point. They’re epic, but doomy at the same time. Dark, often flirting with slow, rolling rhythms that might remind someone of Pentagram or Candlemass. The vocal, in the hands of Rick Anderson (ex-Warlord), is of course an interesting one-off. It’s dramatic without being pretentious, with a recognizable tone, melodic yet cold and mildly obscure, and it paints a black veil over the atmosphere of the songs with no effort at all. The band also likes to latch onto semitone riff twists in mid-tempo songs. The show felt like a kind of mourning. Babylon Fire, Exodus and The Storm sounded different from everything we’d heard before, even though the band (from Rome) is sworn to epicness. What bugged me a little was the band’s extreme stillness on stage. Rick strolled around looking “bored” and turned his back to the audience during the longer instrumental parts, which radiated a certain disinterest and a feeling that the singer was in a hurry to get off stage as soon as possible. A band with plenty of aces up its sleeve could have squeezed out a much more energetic show than the one we got, with a bit more interaction with the crowd. After all, this was one of the band’s very rare live appearances in this period, and on top of that with Rick Anderson, which, whichever way you slice it, made it the first smaller highlight of the evening.
VANEXA:
A legendary new wave of Italian heavy metal outfit, formed back in 1979. Its best-known member is singer Roberto Tiranti, who joined the excellent melodic progressive metallers Labyrinth in 1997 and released, among others, the highly regarded album “Sons Of Thunder” with them. Vanexa have put out just three albums in their career. Two of them (“Vanexa”, “Back From The Ruins”) came out back in the mid-eighties, and the third, “Against The Sun”, with Roberto Tiranti on vocals, in 1994. The band is still kicking in the new millennium. It’s kicking without new releases, which let’s hope they make up for soon, but still. It kicks. The members are excellently tight, especially the guitar duo Selishta/Graziano, with Tiranti’s explosive singing right at the center. I had the honor of seeing the man with Labyrinth opening for Helloween on April 16, 2001, in Stuttgart, and his performance at this festival was just proof that, as a vocalist, he’s kept the great virtues for which he’s still esteemed. The stage presence was totally relaxed, with excellent leadership and crowd encouragement. For the first time at the festival the crowd filled Ke Me Meo up properly, with some 400 people actively following the band below the stage. In The Shadow Of The Cross is a great warm-up song, and after it the band intensified its show from minute to minute with the anthems that followed. It was practically flawless, with a commanding Tiranti and some truly explosive, high-flying melodic flourishes from his operatically trained voice. The band uses it to great effect in its old-school-shaped riffing, richly decorated with melodic ornaments, atmospheric transitions and tempo changes. The set list was dynamic and colorful. The hard-hitting, anthemic mid-tempo The Hanged Man! really stood out. The band included all three albums in the repertoire and closed its show with two songs from the debut “Vanexa”, Metal City Rockers and Rainbow In The Night. A show seasoned with real glowing embers. Only the new album is still missing!
JAGUAR:
Damn me if it isn’t a rule that there’s something in the blood of those ruddy lads from the British Isles. They certainly still flaunted it very shamelessly in the eighties. And one of the more important heralds of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal era was undoubtedly Jaguar. In Argelato the band appeared in the lineup of Jamie Manton (vocals), Garry Pepperd (guitar), Simon Patel (bass) and Nathan Cox (drums). So Garry Pepperd is the only original member in the lineup of the band that released the metal classics “Power Games” (1983) and “This Time” (1984) in the eighties. They have four albums in total, with a fifth still in the works, and “Wake Me” (2000) and “Run Ragged” (2003) are nowhere near radiating the old magic of the eighties. The band knows what inscribed them irrevocably into this unique movement from the early eighties, so it devoted most of the set to the debut “Power Games”, whose songs really did create glorious magic one after another. That goes double considering how hard it is to see Jaguar play live today. Paradoxically, the band left out the entire repertoire of “This Time”, but treated us to Back Street Woman and Axe Crazy, which came out as singles, outside any studio record, in 1981 and 1982 respectively. Singer Jamie Manton slotted in superbly with a phenomenal voice. He was powerful in every register and set the place on fire mostly with a completely wild performance that nearly bordered on punk stage excess. Both he and Pepperd are short-haired, scruffy-looking guys, so as Jaguar came on stage they looked at first glance like some Sex Pistols, and I was already afraid I’d landed at the wrong time in the wrong place. Jaguar spewed out a piece of the golden eighties, and we shared moments of togetherness with unforgettable energy. It was a piece of something that only Jaguar can conjure. Let me stress the band’s extreme tightness and flawless delivery at full power, with a confident approach and Jamie, who pulled off some truly theatrical sketches on stage. He surely had a few hefty drops under his belt, since he spent quite a lot of the show trying to keep his balance. He’d theatrically fall to his knees and flail both arms in a gesture to Allah in front of Pepperd as he launched into a solo. Drummer Nathan Cox’s fantastic attack from the back captured all the compactness and polish of the one-of-a-kind atmosphere of a short but sweet get-together with a band that lifted the festival to a higher level. Meanwhile, you could spot members of Exciter on the left side of the stage, watching Jaguar’s set together. After the show, in conversation, they didn’t hide their enthusiasm for the excellent performance of the legendary British heavy metallers. Let’s hope the band’s fifth studio album sets sail soon and that we run into the legends again somewhere!
•1. BBUD TRIBE:
Vanexa like to adorn themselves with the nickname New Wave Of Italian Heavy Metal, but that nickname could easily be pinned on Bud Tribe. It’s actually even more fitting. The outfit was founded by singer Danielle “Bud” Ancillotti in 1994, after his main band Strana Officina was struck by tragedy. The group’s founders Fabio Cappanera (guitar) and Roberto Cappanera (drums) died in a traffic accident. Let me fast-forward. Bud Tribe released their debut “On The Warpath” in 1998, and it was followed only this year by the brand-new “Roll The Bone”. Besides “Bud”, the band includes his brother Sandro “Bid” Ancillotti (bass), plus Leo Milani (guitar) and drummer Dario Caroli. Hello “Bud”! How’s “Bid”? Action!
Okay, joking aside. What Bud Tribe offer isn’t far from Strana Officina in originality. They’re graced by an extraordinary magic that combines an effective grasp of all the building blocks. That goes especially for the eruptive doubling of energy of the witty riff, combined with an aggressive rhythm line of double bass pedal torpedoing. The cherry on top is singer Danielle himself, whose voice leans slightly toward Ozzy, so there’s something recognizable there. Besides, this is a band full of musicians with rich experience, tempered during the first heavy metal offensive on the planet.
In nine songs they served up an extremely juicy, authentic heavy metal orgy, which the audience in the packed front of the stage welcomed with open arms. Bud Tribe’s slot ahead of Exciter and Jag Panzer was truly just right. If you’re skeptical about Italian metal, definitely check out Bud Tribe and Strana Officina, and be sure to add something like Adramelch. The rest follows. Bud Tribe were certainly one of the finest attractions and most impressive experiences of Play It Loud 3. Essentially they took the slot that, at last year’s Play It Loud 2, went to the reunited legendary Italian metallers Sabotage! It was an intense show, closed with the Strana Officina classic Metal Brigade. The hall didn’t hide its great enthusiasm!
•1. EXCITER:
The ossified, aggressive Canadian speed/thrash heavy metallers replaced Jacques Belanger two years ago with American singer Kenny “Big Mouth” Winter. With him they released their 10th consecutive studio album, “Thrash, Speed, Burn” (2008), last March. Seeing Exciter on European stages is not exactly an everyday occurrence! Festivals maybe, but month-long tours, no! Exciter were definitely one of the top attractions of the evening, if only because they stand apart stylistically from every other band on the bill. This is a band that puts crushing stage energy ahead of melodic catchiness. Exciter are one of those bands that don’t think much when they get down to business, whether they’re composing material in the studio or heading out on stage. They simply carry in their heads that holy conviction they’re devoted to: the only right thing about the whole point of metal is the total release of pure eruptive force. With noise, and thanks to the inventions of Nikola Tesla, you can get it out of yourself and bombard the masses with it! When Exciter aren’t on stage, they’re incredibly approachable, talkative, honest, and ready for a juicy joke! Before the show, they took a huge amount of time to chat with fans, sign autographs and so on.
It was obvious that the vast majority of the audience had come to the festival for Exciter. The hall filled to the max before the set, and there were definitely a good 600 heads in the tight space below the stage. Even before the show started, the organizer’s staff had to calm down a few red-hot heads who were making an already annoying racket and almost took over the stage, in heavy anticipation of their heroes. A bit past eleven at night the stage finally goes dark, the intro “farts” out of the speakers, and the band hurls itself across the stage with the direct destructiveness of I Am The Beast. People come off their chains and chaos grips the festival. Blow after blow, whether with Metal Crusaders or the new In Mortal Fear, and on into the classics Demon’s Gate and Rule With An Iron Fist. The festival hit its boiling point!
The band’s tightness is incredible. Exciter confirmed their extreme stance with a destructive racket of uncompromising playing, showcasing how the quartet complements each other in sheer compactness. Speed and tightness hand in hand! Rick Cheronne shone with exceptional precision, dictating satanic marches on the drums. John Ricci twisted himself into every possible position as he contorted his solos, wielded the guitar high in the air and dusted off devilish riffs. Yet as a great master and the band’s only guitarist, he filled the sonic space with total confidence. On the other side was the utterly wild bassist Rob “Clammy” Cohen, who in his rampage around the stage owed Ricci nothing. There was the “Pure Evil” engraving on the bass, the sticking out of a pierced tongue, the yanking, the provoking of the crowd with sneering looks,… Of course, none of it would be anything without Kenny Winter’s outstanding singing. From the first to the last bar of the set, the man managed to keep his extremely high vocal totally unharmed and untouched. He confirmed his fantastic stage performance with an explosive closing scream that pierced ears at the very end of the last song, Violence & Force.
The crowd was completely ecstatic and wild mosh pits swallowed the hall. Many made their way over other people’s hands into the space between the barrier and the stage and tried to stage dive, which the security staff persistently prevented! One of the band’s totally unplugged fans, during the song Violence & Force (just the right title), awkwardly tumbled over the barrier and crashed headfirst straight onto the floor. Kenny actually forgot to sing for a moment from shock and almost self-sacrificially jumped off the stage to the unfortunate guy to help him. Luckily, the guy was fine.
The view of the crowd was superb as it raged through classics like Heavy Metal Maniac. The unified, ecstatic chanting of the chorus together with Kenny during Pounding Metal gave you goosebumps, no joke! The climax, charged with extraordinary energetic intensity, worked like a match burning down. The audience burned out during the show. A good number of people attested to that, “squatting” in the space in front of the hall exit after the show and trying to come to as they sat. Quite a few people left the festival right after Exciter and headed home.
Exciter showed what primordial creation of extremity is, as served up by their approach to playing thrash/speed metal! The band are pioneers in this, and they shared their pioneering without reservation with everyone in the hall. Exciter played full tilt, with no brakes, and reaped by far the most approval and enthusiasm of all the acts.
Not even 10 minutes after the show, all the members had come out from backstage and were devoting themselves to their fans. Incredible charisma pervades this band, along with an incredible attitude of deep respect toward the audience. With their loyalty and fantastic response during the show, the crowd greeted the legends of Canadian thrash/speed metal in the best possible way. With their performance, Exciter swept away all the festival competition!
•1. JAG PANZER:
Playing after Exciter is definitely a thankless role. It doesn’t even matter whether you’re Jag Panzer or an even bigger name in heavy metal. The metallers from Colorado were definitely an attraction of the evening, since their appearances in Europe are very rare. This is a band that somehow never managed to capitalize on its great talent and potential throughout its career. Only around the turn of the millennium did European metal audiences discover them. With their support for the albums “Age Of Mastery” (1998), “Thane To The Throne” (2000) and “Mechanized Warfare” (2001), they finally gave the band recognition for its body of work and its perseverance.
The band, currently putting together a new studio album titled “The Scourge Of Light”, expected to come out this year or in 2010, ran into a decimated turnout, since the crowd had spent most of its energy on Exciter. They started very hard-hitting with the song Tyranny (“Fourth Judgement”, 1997), cut the classic Lustful And Free and went back to “Fourth Judgement” with Future Shock. Even so, it was only with the excellent The Moors that the crowd showed more enthusiasm for the first time, joining in more actively with the singing. The band used backing tracks throughout. In the case of that song, of course, the track for the string arrangements. Among the audience, the real crowd favorites were classics like The Viper, Iron Eagle, The Moors and especially Chain Of Command, where people kicked up by far the most dust in the hall. Especially active were four Germans who were already happily swaying under a heavy dose of alcoholic derivatives, steaming off a stink and looking for handy support on other people’s shoulders.
Jag Panzer came on stage as if they’d dropped in from the moon. With no particular work on their outward appearance, except for singer Harry Conklin, who’s known for showing off muscles, chains and skull pendants, they also came across as rather absent toward the audience. Only Harry kept contact with the crowd. The rather lukewarm crowd response wasn’t exactly to the band’s liking, so they approached the show in a more routine and reserved way. Regardless, they delivered the set confidently, professionally and perfectly tight. Harry rode his vocal at a high level. The band closed the concert with two classic gems, Battle Zones and Warfare (the latter from the debut “Ample Destruction”, 1984). The repertoire itself was superbly put together, but the performance and the in-concert atmosphere left mixed feelings. Rather empty feelings, which is definitely a shame. At the end of the show the members also said their goodbyes very quickly and cleared the stage. By the time you’d call them back or look for them after the show, hardly anyone was left. Exciter had evidently collected every possible scalp at the festival. The concert revelry ended almost exactly at two in the morning and in total lasted 12 hours!
Compared to last year’s Play It Loud in the town of Orzinuovi, experience forced the organizer to look for a smaller and cheaper venue. They moved the annual ritual to an industrial zone outside Bologna, with a capacity of just under 1,000 people. Fewer heads showed up, maybe 800 at most. The lineup was also different, with 8 Italian acts this year and only 4 foreign ones. The smaller highlights of the evening were the older Italian bands Bud Tribe, Vanexa with Roberto Tiranti (Labyrinth) and Martiria with Rick Anderson. The legendary Brits Jaguar upgraded that, and the festival’s crown went to Exciter, who left all the other bands far behind in everything. A minor disappointment came only from Jag Panzer, and even that mostly because of the thankless role of playing after Exciter, so it would have been better if the roles had been swapped. Not better, but necessary. I can only conclude that Play It Loud is growing more and more into the Italian version of Germany’s Keep It True festival with each year. What it lacks is a few more legendary names from abroad (not so much from Italy), so interest in an annual festival of this kind could be even greater.
So everything ran like clockwork. Performers took the stage exactly at the announced times, with no delays, which speaks to the festival’s excellent organization. The bands all delivered very good sound in the hall too, which was a very important factor in their presentation. That mattered for everyone who, myself included, was experiencing their sets at this festival for the first time. And a hint: you won’t have to wait another whole year for the next act of Play It Loud, because its fourth edition is already announced for this year’s September 26, 2009! So far confirmed: Angel Witch, Steve Grimmet’s Grim Reaper, Ruthless, Sacred Steel, Tysondog, Seventh Seal and Renegade! See you there!
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Exciter photos: Milan Krušič & Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist
Jag Panzer 00.40-02.00 Exciter 23.10-00.25 Bud Tribe 22.05-22.55 Jaguar 21.00-21.50 Vanexa 20.00-20.45 Martiria 19.00-19.45 Etrusgrave 18.05-18.45 Holy Martyr 17.10-17.50 Lonewolf 16.15-16.55 Wotan 15.20-16.00 National Suicide 14.35-15.05 Fallen Fucking Angels 14.00-14.20 Set lists: LONEWOLF: 1. Shadowland 2. Divine Art Of Lies 3. Buried Alive 4. Made In Hell 5. Seawolf 6. Pagan 7. S.P.Q.R. 8. Holy Evil VANEXA: 1. In The Shadow Of The Cross 2. I Wanna See Fires 3. The Hanged Man 4. Against The Sun 5. Midnight Wolves 6. A Night On The Ruins 7. One Thousand Nights 8. Metal City Rockers 9. Rainbow In The Night JAGUAR: 1. Run Ragged 2. Dutch Connection 3. War Machine 4. Sucker 5. Gulf War Syndrome 6. Battlecry 7. The Fox 8. Master Game 9. Axe Crazy 10. Back Street Woman 11. Ain’t No Fantasy BUD TRIBE: 1. Gates Of Hades (intro) 2. Face The Devil 3. Starride 4. Holy War 5. Metal Show 6. Roll The Bone 7. Non sei normale 8. Rock N’ Roll Tribe 9. Metal Brigade EXCITER: 1. War Cry (intro) 2. I Am The Beast 3. Metal Crusaders 4. In Mortal Fear 5. Demon’s Gate 6. Victims Of Sacrifice 7. Evil Omen 8. Rule With An Iron Fist 9. Crucifixtion 10. Heavy Metal Maniac 11. Pounding Metal 12. Betrayal 13. Massacre Mountain 14. Rain Of Terror 15. Rising Of The Dead 16. Aggressor 17. Brutal Warning 18. Long Live The Loud 19. Violence And Force JAG PANZER: 1. Tyranny 2. Lustful And Free 3. Future Shock 4. The Moors 5. The Viper 6. Black 7. King At A Price 8. Iron Eagle 9. Fate’s Triumph 10. The Mission 11. Legion Immortal 12. Chain Of Command 13. Shadow Thief 14. Take To The Sky 15. Battle Zones 16. Warfare
Photo Gallery
