Author: Urban Bolta
Photos: Urban Bolta
Location: Dessel / Belgium
Concert date: 23.06.2012
Attendance: 80,000
Ticket price: 155€ (three-day ticket)
After a gruelling first day (and an even more gruelling night), day two of Graspop Metal Meeting was ahead of us! One look at the sky gave us mixed feelings, though by the end of the day it turned out the weather hadn’t left us in the lurch. The festival takes place just a few dozen kilometers from the Atlantic Ocean, and the climate is changeable accordingly – light rain and shifting weather are common, so it’s pretty much the same as London’s on the other side of the English Channel.
To build up enough strength for another day of gigs, our small Slovenian crew took the free shuttle bus to the nearby little town of Mol, where we tried proper Belgian coffee. Unfortunately, our wandering around the charming town dragged on, so we missed the set by supergroup Adrenaline Mob, made up of Russell Allen (Symphony X), Mike Portnoy (ex-Dream Theater) and Mike Orlando.
We got back to the festival grounds just in time for German power metal legionnaires PRIMAL FEAR. The Germans will play the coastal Metal Mania in three weeks as headliners, but at Graspop, as one of the day’s first acts, they only got a 45-minute slot. As a result, we witnessed a pretty reserved show, without excessive bursts of energy – in short, none of the standout moments Primal Fear can deliver at their solo gigs. The ship of the German eagles was steered by frontman Ralf Schapers with his trademark commanding charisma; he reached out to the still-sleepy crowd using the extended stage runway and kindled the first sparks of applause during the guitar solos of the Beyrodt / Karlsson duo. Strike and Bad Guys Wear Black represented the current album »Unbreakable« (2012), while the rest of the setlist fell on the shoulders of the band’s older classics. The marching anthem Seven Seals, with its fantastic chorus, gave the crowd real goosebumps, and the reserved German dynamite finally exploded with the standard closers of their shows, Metal is Forever and Chainbreaker. A routine set from the German five – given the early hour and the laid-back vibe both on and in front of the stage, you couldn’t really expect more. Metal Mania will of course be a completely different story!
Next up on the main stage were THIN LIZZY, a band Rockline has run into countless times over the past year. Unlike most other bands, they’re a blue-collar outfit made for playing in front of a crowd, so this Graspop show fit them like a glove. Stepping into the boots of former frontman Phil Lynott is Ricky Warwick, a Scottish musician who won hearts in front of the stage with his modest, unpretentious manner and, with a voice similar in tone to Lynott’s, brought the Thin Lizzy classics to the sea of listeners. The most important guitar solo spots were taken over by the gray-haired Scott Gorham, proving who the band’s lead string really is, and the nostalgic stroll through the hits of this immortal Irish outfit peaked with Jailbreak, Whiskey in the Jar and, of course, the closing The Boys Are Back in Town. The boys are back in town indeed!
After the eardrums of extreme metal fans were pampered on the main stage by modern-day Florida thrashers Trivium, most of the crowd moved to the Marquee I tent at six in the evening, where the next good hour belonged to the classic school of American thrash metal, EXODUS! The Americans proved you don’t mess with them, and it was a special show too, as guitarist Gary Holt made an exclusive return to the stage – he’s currently filling in for Jeff Hanneman in Slayer and so is missing from duties in his home band. Slayer apparently hadn’t yet traveled off to their next gig after the previous night’s show, which gave Holt the chance to join the standard guitar duo of the current Exodus tour, Rick Hunolt and Lee Altus, and beef up the guitar lines even more. Sure, Exodus aren’t known for complex three-part harmonies of the Iron Maiden type and so don’t need three guitars on stage, but the trio only amped up the aggressive attack, resulting in a hefty sound and, with it, all the conditions for unforgettable madness! Exodus added a touch of the new millennium to the eighties classics (Iconoclasm, War Is My Shepherd), though to be honest, even in those immortal classics like Bonded By Blood, Rob Dukes’ modern-sounding vocals wipe out the smell of the eighties. Dukes, who has dabbled in punk and hardcore, kills the classic thrash metal component of the band with his animalistic stage presence and screaming guttural vocals, and with this redefined approach he (successfully) places the band among the giants of today’s thrash metal scene. Personally, it’s not my cup of tea, but anyone who has made friends with his presence over the past years definitely got one of the festival’s best shows out of that toxic Exodus waltz!
Gary Holt and his crew had barely stepped off the stage in the biggest festival tent when the intro Never Dead rang out from the main stage speakers, heralding yet another thrash metal giant – MEGADETH. During the pre-recorded intro the quartet spread out across the stage and, with Mustaine’s opening picking, organically slid into the song. The newest songs were fairly well represented through the rest of the show, which speaks to Dave Mustaine’s complete faith in the current album »Th1rt3en« (2011). Mustaine’s recognizable eerie, menacing vocals were whispery from the start this time, though to be honest that’s been his weak spot throughout his whole career. The guitar trio of Mustaine / Broderick / Ellefson made use of the size of the stage, roaming around and swapping positions, which opened up a new dimension in the show of an otherwise rather static band. Trust and She-Wolf in the middle of the set represented the mixed-reception album »Cryptic Writings« (1997), followed by the surprise of the tour, Sweating Bullets (»Countdown To Extinction«, 1992). Even health problems with his spine haven’t stopped Mustaine from (reportedly very painful) attempts at headbanging, while his cold attitude and bad mood only led to the first address to the crowd right before A Tout Le Monde. The undisputed leader of the band wasn’t happy with the response of the crowd of many tens of thousands, so among other things he came out with »Are you guys tired, this is not the Graspop that I remember?« and egged one side of the crowd on against the other far too much, which earned him some anger, and the failed attempt at mutual cooperation couldn’t be rescued in the finale even by the evergreen Symphony Of Destruction and Holy Wars…The Punishment Due. True, the atmosphere can’t be compared to the one at Kino Šiška, but the stubborn orange-haired man still needs to get it into his head that he can steer his musical path toward new successes only hand in hand with the fans.
I used the free hour before Twisted Sister for another dash to the Marquee I tent, where MY DYING BRIDE were burning through their deathly slow tunes. The organizers clearly missed the mark by putting the Brits in a prime evening slot, as the tent was downright scandalously empty, lonelier even than for the day’s opening bands in the same spot, which surprised even me – once again it was proven that doom metal simply wasn’t made for the masses. After a long intro, My Dying Bride struck up Your River and hinted at the kind of atmosphere we’d be in for the next hour: the tent was hijacked by slow riffs and orchestral moods, taken care of by keyboardist / violinist Shaun MacGowan. Orchestral touches are precisely one of the main trademarks of these long-serving British metallers, who like to complicate their compositions by combining several riff motifs and with Stainthorpe’s switches to death metal vocals, so their songs are very long and hard to digest for the casual listener, but all the more delicious bait for the loyal fans of this unique outfit. The haunting atmosphere held me in its claws for a long time before I moved back in front of the main stage. My Dying Bride made an extremely positive impression on me, so I’ll give them some attention on my home couch in the future too – before this I practically didn’t know them.
The second-to-last climbers onto the main stage were TWISTED SISTER, the legendary Americans who built their career on European soil and still harbor negative feelings toward their homeland, which is why since the early eighties they’ve played more in Europe than in their native America. But heads up! Even in our neck of the woods they’re hard to catch, since they only play carefully chosen festivals, skillfully making sure they don’t oversaturate the European live scene with too-frequent appearances. Last year plenty of Slovenes saw them at Masters of Rock in the Czech Republic, and the year before that in Balingen at Bang Your Head!!!, where they left a pale impression because of their tedious rambling. Remembering that show, I didn’t expect much from another meeting with the »Naughty Sisters«, so after the set I could be pleasantly satisfied with what I saw.
Twisted Sister are a band that built its career on anthemic chants with lightweight content and was therefore popular above all with rebellious youth; with a few punchy melodic heavy metal hits they conquered MTV in the mid-eighties, but their path started to nosedive in the second half of the eighties – and they never picked themselves up again. Twisted Sister shows haven’t changed one bit since then – stringing the fans along with the same old gags as in 1984 is the hard-to-swallow point on which, for critics, the title of heavy metal heavyweights for the »Sisters« breaks down today. But the fans say otherwise, and Graspop’s packed audience, eating out of the Americans’ hands, is proof that the comedic Twisted Sister show is still appealing after all these years!
With constant running around the stage, the charismatic persona of a high-energy tornado and, of course, a tousled blond wig, the main protagonist of the stage madness remains the band’s central figure, the one and only Dee Snider. The man who wrote the vast majority of Twisted Sister’s songs isn’t ready for retirement even at 57, though the question is how long he’ll still be capable of such intense flying around the stage. During the short instrumental passages Snider repeatedly slipped into the background for brief breaks, during which he probably boosted his body with doses of (il)legal stimulants. With occasional hypnotic-style addresses, Snider skillfully used his powers of persuasion and got the crowd to join in with the band, with a whole sea of hands reaching all the way to the horizon. The Sisters know they don’t rotate the songs they play enough, so Wake Up (»Love Is For Suckers«, 1987) was a pleasant surprise in the repertoire among the regularly played anthems. The most anticipated song of the night, We’re Not Gonna Take It, got the usual long reprise of the chorus, and the boisterous mood was then calmed by one of the band’s few ballads, The Price. The hellish Burn in Hell showed the Sisters in a proper speed metal light, and the final switch-off came with the instantly recognizable I Wanna Rock. »The sickest motherfuckers«, as Twistd Sister like to call themselves, remain true entertainers and stage performers, and bassist Mark Mendoza (once again) got way too into this game of fake toughness – with his bass-smashing he certainly didn’t win many sympathies. Since Twisted Sister weren’t playing as the night’s headliners, the limited time slot didn’t allow for Snider’s endless addresses and excessive chorus repetitions, so with a condensed set Twisted Sister left a better mark on me this time than two years ago in Balingen.
In the time before the evening’s closing act I strolled over to the Marquee II tent, where one of the few punk rock representatives at the festival, Californian oddballs PENNYWISE, gathered a crowd in front of the stage. These veterans have been around since 1988, so they’re no unknown name among metal audiences either – the best proof was the packed crowd that broke into a wild mosh pit from the opening bars, with frontman Zoli Teglas backing them all the way. The well-oiled quartet fed the gathered crowd anti-capitalist messages through their hits, and the peak of the show came during the last song, Bro Hymn, when Exodus frontman Rob Dukes joined the band on stage and sang along with one of his favorite hardcore bands. It’s a real shame the Americans canceled the rest of their tour at the last minute due to the frontman’s back pain – they were supposed to stop on Thursday at Metelkova in Ljubljana too.
At half past midnight the stage was ready for LIMP BIZKIT, the American nu metal outfit that blazed to fame at the turn of the millennium with strong backing from the MTV lobby. Limp Bizkit are an act with distinctly alternative connotations, so already when the organizer announced their imminent appearance a few minutes before they hit the stage, they got an avalanche of whistles from the crowd, but it must be said that besides traditional metal names, Graspop has always hosted the biggest alternative metal acts like Slipknot, Korn, Marlyn Manson, Bullet For My Valentine and others, so in that respect Limp Bizkit’s appearance didn’t bring any novelty to the festival’s concept.
Limp Bizkit couldn’t have cared less about the thinned-out crowd and from the first minute to the last came across as a strong, well-oiled outfit with an immense desire to prove themselves. Even though Limp Bizkit don’t come close to my personal taste, you have to give them credit for their extraordinary stage power, resting first and foremost on the shoulders of Fred Dust, a rebel dressed in a Boston Celtics jersey (you’d think the Celtics were playing in the NBA Finals, but they were knocked out before that, hehe..) with a white baseball cap pulled down over his head. Dust was the only performer at the whole festival to muster enough courage to jump off the stage and, hand in hand with the fans in the front rows, sing My Generation. Well, sing – or rather recite, since Limp Bizkit mix an alt-metal guitar foundation with hip hop vocals, resulting in a completely fresh genre in the second half of the nineties, named nu metal, with Limp Bizkit as its main promoters. Bassist Sam Rivers is an interesting sight; smeared in camouflage paint he looked like a zombie, and this has become his trademark over the years, even though in my opinion it doesn’t exactly fit the genre. An important cog in the Limp Bizkit machine is touring member DJ Skeletor, who enriched their sound with electronic additions by mixing on the mixing desk. Among their own material the Americans slotted in Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit and, as expected, The Who classic Behind Blue Eyes, and the still-agile Fred Dust and company finished their stroll through the smashing bouncers with the anthem Rollin’. Despite mixed feelings about the choice of the day’s headliner itself, Limp Bizkit deserve praise for a solid, well-executed performance that convinced those present of the raw power of this once hugely popular outfit.
Setlists
PRIMAL FEAR:
1. Intro (Unbreakable Pt.1)
2. Strike
3. Nuclear Fire
4. Bad Guys Wear Black
5. Seven Seals
6. Metal Nation
7. Final Embrace
8. Metal is Forever
9. Chainbreaker
THIN LIZZY:
1. Are You Ready
2. Jailbreak
3. Killer On The Loose
4. Don’t Believe a Word
5. Whiskey in the Jar
6. Rosalie
7. Suicide
8. Cowboy Song
9. The Boys Are Back In Town
EXODUS:
1. The Last Act of Defiance
2. Iconoclasm
3. Piranha
4. Blacklist
5. A Lesson in Violence
6. And Then There Were None
7. Bonded by Blood
8. War Is My Shepherd
9. The Toxic Waltz
10. Strike of the Beast
MEGADETH:
1. Never Dead
2. Head Crusher
3. Hangar 18
4. Trust
5. She-Wolf
6. Poison Was the Cure
7. Sweating Bullets
8. A Tout Le Monde
9. Whose Life (Is It Anyways?)
10. Public Enemy No. 1
11. Symphony of Destruction
12. Peace Sells
—————-
13. Holy Wars… The Punishment Due
MY DYING BRIDE:
1. Your River
2. Bring Me Victory
3. From Darkest Skies
4. Thy Raven Wings
5. The Prize of Beauty
6. She Is the Dark
7. The Dreadful Hours
8. The Cry of Mankind
TWISTED SISTER:
1. What You Don’t Know (Sure Can Hurt You)
2. The Kids are Back
3. Stay Hungry
4. Wake Up (The Sleeping Giant)
5. You Can’t Stop Rock ‘n’ Roll
6. Shoot ‘Em Down
7. We’re Not Gonna Take It
8. The Price
9. Burn in Hell
10. Under the Blade
11. I Wanna Rock
——————
12. S.M.F.
LIMP BIZKIT:
1. The Truth
2. My Generation
3. Hot Dog
4. Livin’ It Up
5. Gold Cobra
6. My Way
7. Eat You Alive
8. Smells Like Teen Spirit
9. Thieves
10. Break Stuff
11. Nookie
12. Behind Blue Eyes
13. Take a Look Around
14. Faith
15. Rollin’ (Air Raid Vehicle)
Photo Gallery
