Nova Rock Festival 2007 – Day 3

INTRO TO THE THIRD DAY OF THE FESTIVAL:

 

(text by: Sandi Sadar)

 

(text by: Sandi Sadar)
Despite the hellish rhythm of hardcore boozing and stress-testing our bodies’ endurance, a thousand or two thousand metalheads, emos, rockers, antediluvian hippies, students, high schoolers, graduating seniors, exhibitionists, posers, makeup addicts and random passers-by, security guys, kebab, beer and Chinese fast-food vendors, and even a dozen or so cops and paramedics started gathering in front of the stage draped in shades of red. The morning sun had moved into its zenith phase of destroying the last atoms of the will to live, and the first act was already “harassing” our ears: Austrian oddballs, indie rock garage rockers, The Staggers. The sextet is made up of keyboardist Lightning Iris, guitarists Shakin Matthews and Los Fixos, Candee Beat vegetating behind the drums, bassist Earl Kri, and the freak-show look is rounded off by a cross between Joey Ramone and characters from horror comics: bowl-cut singer Wild Evel. Nomen est omen. The guy, though I’d say he looks at least 45, is literally a living engine that drives the party from the first chord onward toward total release. It’s not exactly music for metalheads, but it’s definitely fun with this take on fifties and sixties garage rock, with the influences of better-known acts like the Wailers, the Snobs, Dick Dale and a few others stirred into the recipe, plus a pinch of pop. In fact, my immediate association was that The Staggers are a kind of offshoot of the rockers from Crypt Records who ended up in a time machine and got stuck in a chaotic gap in space and time. They say of themselves that they’re the answer to the fact that Austria is overrun with emos, indie rock, guitar pop, metalheads and, in the band’s opinion, other typical rock phonies. The Staggers laid out their concept of revolt already on their debut, the album Teenage Trash Insanity. Live, they’re pretty clichéd, but still fresh and fun. Wild evel has no trouble making contact with the audience, even if the crowd takes him with a grain of salt. He’s a character who wins you over with his commitment and with the fact that at least every second sentence necessarily ends with an exclamation mark. You know: “I’m the impersonation of rock’n’roll spirit!”. The Staggers are a manic rock’n’roll machine, and after a half-hour warm-up there was no point asking whether they’re a thing of the past, a promise of the future, or whether the face they show on stage is the true face of rock’n’roll. They’re sarcastic. They’re clichéd. They’re yet another one of the countless nobodies, and they don’t sweat it. They’re self-confident. They’re cocky, slightly arrogant, self-absorbed and ridiculous, but never boring.

The youngsters from Aiden, on the other hand, radiate a completely different undertone of stage theatrics. A mix of gothic looks, punk-hardcore attitude and poppy bouncy tunes that they weave into rather digestible litanies. Seattle has more to offer than just an endless string of grunge bands that marked an era that’s gone. The vacant spots on the pedestals of bygone days are left to a new generation of musical conquistadors and darlings of the media spotlight. Singer wiL Francis, guitarists Angel Ibarra and Jake Wambold, bassist Nick Wiggins and another Jake, drummer Jake Davison, have been chasing their five minutes of fame for a good four years now. Three albums. A relatively lukewarm response from critics, but a rather warm one from the regiments of emos. From the first bars of the opening track ‘The Opening Departure’ it was clear that Aiden are explosive and loaded with freshness, energy and almost teenage defiance toward a crowd of metalheads who came to greet them with “horns up” and raised middle fingers. Vocally maybe a little weak, but with balls bigger than the Eiffel Tower, wiL Francis, with the microphone wrapped around his neck, turns to the audience and addresses them: “You probably expected to dance and bang your heads to our tunes with your horns up. But some made-up models are coming on stage. We’re probably a disappointment to a lot of you, or maybe we fit the definition of the word Gaylords. Time for a reality check!” The audience manipulation works. The security guys got their first helping of work and, after just a few songs, among which ‘Knife Blood Nightmare’, ‘Last Sunrise’ and ‘Die Romantic’ stood out, and we got a pretty hefty batch of songs that go down easy and smooth, they had to chase after wild kids giving themselves over to crowd surfing, wild mosh pits and energetic interaction with the conductor on stage. Visibly satisfied, the Aiden quintet crept a little closer to the hearts of many listeners who didn’t come to the festival to compare everything to just one or two bands they adore while thinking everything else is a pile of crap. Aiden aren’t classics. Aiden aren’t a band that sets new trends. But they’re a conglomerate of youthfulness, a consistently punk-flavored attitude and just the right dose of musicality, enough that I’ll at least give some of their records a listen, if not buy them right away…

Shortly after two in the afternoon, the figure of an alien, a cross between a grasshopper and the Predator, rises above the Red Stage. Time for an intense dose of post-thrash violence and brilliant madness. Chimaira are Cleveland heavy metal workhorses who have also shown their stuff to a Slovenian audience (two years ago they played Mediapark with Dark Tranquility and Hatesphere), and even then they won over my darkened metal heart. After some pretty turbulent times, in which they nearly fell apart after the album Chimaira and left the RoadRunner Records den, they filled their lungs with fresh air and found the breath for new screams. One of this year’s metal gems is undoubtedly the album Resurrection. The flesh-slicing duo of bloodied guitars, Rob Arnold and Matt DeVries, came to serve up thunder and surgically precise rhythmic play. Chris Spicuzza’s samples fascinate too, as does the bass playing of the Korn-style dreadlocked bassist Jim LaMarca, or the drumming determination of the returned Chimaira man Andols Herrick, but in my opinion the band’s main trump card is a mountain of muscle, tattoos and heart – Chimaira’s lead throat: Mark Hunter. One of the main reasons for the siege of the Red Stage was Chimaira with a fresh dose of drive and energy. Samples boom from the speakers and, after some initial teasing of the senses, all the members of the Cleveland hard-rhythm crew come on stage. ‘Resurrection’ is what Chimaira are capable of – balls out and merciless from the very first cut. Unfortunately they had slight sound problems during the opening slaughter, but they didn’t let it bother them. Hunter shouts “Determination, Perservance, Resolution, Resurrection!” and you believe him that they’re determined to defy the system to the bitter end. The song from the album The Impossibility of Reason, ‘Power Trip’, was a little older and more metalcore and groove metal. Right after it came the opening song of the Ljubljana show. The energetic nihilism of ‘Nothing Remains’ sounds a little more relaxed and loose this time. ‘Save Ourselves’ carries the message of the past into new times. “Can you feel us, we’re stronger / We pray on the weak and conquer / No longer care for those / Who try to condemn and oppose / We’ll save ourselves”. Hunter and company pulled it off. They kept their backbone, proved themselves right and managed to survive. And the approval could be felt among the sweltering crowds, who surrendered to the currents of vocal bombardment, rhythmic massacre and hellish heat. Chimaira were confident, a bit weak on sound, but happy and satisfied with the crowd’s response. So much so that in the end the song from the second album The Imposibility Of Reason, ‘Pure Hatered’, sounded like an exchange of bodily fluids. The salvos of the chorus “I hate everything!” were like a mating call of young guys and girls who haven’t yet had it bad enough in life to define the concept of hatred so easily, yet, blinded by the ecstasy of the moment, chant it so easily. Chimaira succeeded and brought their set, which in my opinion was scheduled at the wrong time and way too early, to its end.

CHIMAIRA setlist:
1. Resurrection
2. Power Trip
3. Nothing Remains
4. Save Ourselves
5. Severed
6. The Dehumanizing Process
7. Needle
8. Pure Hatred

After the outburst of rage came time for some softer, yet still technically sophisticated licking of battle wounds to the sounds of London power metallers, technicians and heroes of fast-fingered guitar-string endurance tests. The multi-instrumentalists who give free rein to their creative urges, singer ZP Theart, guitar obsessives Herman Li and Sam Totman, drummer Dave Mackintosh, bassist Frédéric Leclercq and keyboardist Vadim Pruzhanov showed off their stage fury already at half past four in the afternoon, while I had to give up a dose of afternoon scorching for a while because of an interview.

After a little over an hour, Dragonforce buzzed through their set. The stage was already prepared for the performance of Swedes many have forgotten about – Clawfinger. The Stockholm quintet continued down their path of rage, revolt and HC attitude even after the lights of the MTV cameras went out. Clawfinger have always been rappers and metalheads and industrialists, and quality representatives of that part of the music business that can combine quality of performance with substance. Singer Zak Tell has stayed true to his principles of articulating honest inner states, so last year Clawfinger put out a provocative record that, sadly, was overlooked – Hate Yourself With The Style, and this year, just the day before yesterday, they served up their seventh album, which promises a continuation of the familiar Clawfinger musical discourse – Life Will Kill You. They began their occupation of the Red Stage with an energetic boost from a song off the hugely successful album Deaf Dumb Blind, ‘Rosegrove’, and since there’s no way to do without hits, the representatives of the older generation, used to tougher and higher-quality MTV, succumbed to the melodic bombardment from the speakers after just a few bars of ‘Nigger’. Guitarist Bård Torstensen radiates confidence and routine, though the tooth of time has furrowed his face quite well. Energetic provocateur and hyperactive microphone tamer Zak Tell, on the other hand, doesn’t look aged at all. The somewhat newer track, ‘Nothing Going On’, gives a bit more room to Jocke Skog’s synthetic keyboard sounds, but I was far more entertained by the dynamics of the tougher guitar exhibitionism of ‘The Faggot In You’, after which they gave the premiere of a yet-unheard song, ‘The Price We Pay’. Considering that this is a festival and that we’re talking about a mostly boring Austrian concert audience, the crowd response was more than good. Clawfinger are a story of complete nonconformism, of caustic, biting, honest songwriting, and since few can bear to look at the unadorned image of the cruel, distorted, defective world we live in without feeling at least a little uneasy, if they’re an intelligent being, Clawfinger are also a story of being overlooked. A complete triumph of will and determination, after a little over an hour of intense teasing of the ears, the intellect and the entire nervous system, was reaped completely by the biggest hit from Clawfinger’s treasury: the song ‘Do What I Say’. “When I grow up / There will be a day / When everyone’s gotta do as I Say!”. Rebellion against the system. Raised middle fingers and total victory. Clawfinger have survived the test of time. So we can give them at least a small piece of our hearts in the new millennium too…

CLAWFINGER setlist:
1. Rosegrove
2. Nigger
3. Nothing Going On
4. Faggot In You
5. The Price We Pay
6. Life Will Kill You
7. Prisoners
8. Two Sides
9. Recipe For Hate
10. Biggest and The Best
11. The Truth
12. Do What I Say

The next in the string of tougher metal novelties was the Texan outfit Drowning Pool. Initially successful and praised, a few years ago they had to face the death of their singer, Dave Williams, whose heart gave out. After the resounding and successful album Sinner came a period of failed attempts with singer Jason “Gong” Jones, and after his departure the microphone-abuse duties are handled by the former Soil singer, Ryan McCombs. In their dynamic but rather predictable set, the Dallas quartet lined up almost every single from their career – ‘Bodies’, ‘Tear Away’ ‘Sinner’, ‘Love And War’, ‘Soldiers’… McCombs looks like a rejuvenated version of Phil Anselmo. I could avoid excessive criticism, since they give it their maximum effort, but I can’t get past a bit of a gripe. Sound-wise the guys are a bland combination of southern rock and metal, but what bothers me more is that they schizophrenically want to please the masses at any cost and satisfy every whim of the times, so they sprinkled rotten grains of clichéd nu-metal into their catalog. The brighter spots of the show were the last two songs. After they ground out “Let The Bodies Hit The Floor” dedicated to the victims of the terrorist attack on the USA on September 11, 2001, they turned to the memory of a tragedy that shook the music world even more – with a rather average version of ‘Cowboys From Hell’ they paid tribute to Dimebag Darrell, after which the overture to Children Of Bodom’s set, at least in terms of meaning, was complete.

Children Of Bodom are a peculiar tribute to the victims of the Lake Bodom murders in Finland, and I had to skip their compositional interplay between the textures of melodic death metal, power metal, heavy metal and melodic black because of another call of nature and work obligations (we finally got the confirmation of the interview with Kerry King, but since it took quite a while to wait for it, I also missed the set by the Dutch goth rockers or goth metallers, whichever you prefer, Within Temptation…). After the Bodom massacre, the occupation of the main temple of the metal-red stage was continued by Within Temptation, whose distinctive note is given by the fragile yet so powerful voice of the lovely singer Sharon den Adel.

A completely different undertone arrived at eleven in the evening. The hordes of heated heads had cooled down a bit, but hectoliters of beer failed to finish off the throng of tens of thousands of fans of thrash classics, the curious, and everyone who by no means wanted to miss the day’s peak – the climax arrived with Slayer!

 

With the cover of the album Christ Illusion they tried to get closer, at least visually, to the era of the record Reign In Blood. A parallel with those long-gone times is also the strengthened ties with their old drummer, who replaced Paul Bostaph – the excellence of metal drumming, Dave Lombardo, sat back behind the kit. Waiting for the guitar duo Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman and the guttural screaming of Tom Araya, the minutes crawled by. Expectations grew. And then the start. After the song ‘Disciple’, within a few bars I disappointedly realized that the sound gifted to us by the stars of the evening was beneath all criticism. Not only did the show sound sonically unbalanced and Hanneman was incomparably louder than King’s solos, which sounded burnt out – Lombardo’s fills also completely ran over Araya’s singing. The collapse of good spirits into the hellish depths of disappointment was the fact that spoiled brats were standing in the front rows and even managed to survive there! Slayer shows used to be, if I’m not mistaken, a fight for life and death up to the tenth row. Past the tenth row, the option of burial came with some hospital care thrown in, but this time we could stroll undisturbed among the intimately arranged specimens of Austrian metal statics. And a cold shower came from the stage too. Araya sarcastically answers the feeble calls of “Slayer! Slayer!” with a smile and the comment: “Yeah… Slayer… That’s us… Who are you guys, Austria?” ‘Darkness of Christ/God hates us All’ was linked to the newer song ‘Jihad’ effortlessly – routine and workmanlike, and we got another dose of unwanted coldness with the comment before the song ‘War Ensemble’, in which Araya took a swipe at stupidity and youth and at the fact that political systems simply send us to the battlefields to fight battles for stupid politics. A bit awkward and irrelevant for our parts, but still a perfectly fitting cue for an American audience. After a rather dismal-sounding version of a worn-out Slayer classic (I’m used to, at least from the records, classic Slayer cutting sharp as a scalpel), they served up the novelty ‘Cult’, after which ‘Chemical Warfare’ and ‘Die By The Sword’ stood out in the set, and among the classics they ground out ‘Dead Skin Mask’ and ‘Seasons in the Abyss’. After a little over an hour, thanks to a pretty bizarre feeling of distance between the crowd and the stage, we found ourselves on the unbridgeable banks of the hellish abyss of despair with the usual last song from Slayer’s bag – the rather bland and miserable performance of ‘Raining Blood’, quite sufficient for pathetic specimens. And one more shock: Araya let the audience sing. He didn’t sing himself, so I could hear what Nickelsdorf is capable of! Truly miserable and pathetic. Like going to a David Hasselhoff concert instead of a Slayer concert. The response was as expected: silence and the realization that there weren’t enough real Slayer fans. Short break. Slayer leave the stage. Then they come back and, as if to satisfy the criterion of a musical minimum, grind out ‘Angel Of Death’ and quickly leave the stage. For good this time. And it became clear to me that the peak of the day was like a limp wank and not the sex of the decade. Slayer sounded desperately shitty and tired! But I have to keep in mind that I somehow can’t believe that what I saw on the plains of the Pannonian Basin is their maximum. Slayer aren’t a band for festival stages. Slayer aren’t a freak show for all the teenage boys and girls who want something more than just MTV’s quasi rockers and metalheads. No! Slayer are metal classics, and the setting should be appropriate: among a circle of fired-up fans. With better sound. More intimate and not impersonal like it was in the case of the desacralization of the notion of icons on the stages of Nickelsdorf.

BLUE STAGE:
(text by: Živa Viviana Doria)
On the last festival day too, I pitched camp in front of the blue stage at 1 p.m. Excuse Me Moses are an Austrian band that completely blew me away. They cooled down the early hour and another scorching day with the songs Butterfly Tree, Summer Sun… Excuse Me Moses sound like they’re on rails, with a shamelessly tempting, laid-back “funky groove” for the ears. So 25 sweet but short minutes!

After Excuse Me Moses came the Scots The Dykeenies. By their own description, they’re a hybrid band between The Killers and Panic! At The Disco. The guys are already touring successfully in their homeland with bands like Maximo Park and Mystery Jets. This time they got the chance to show their promise and potential to Austrian fans too. During the show they stressed several times that they’re not used to the kind of heat they got at the festival in Scotland.

One of the very “endangered” and rare representatives of the gentler sex at this year’s Nova Rock was Sarah Bettens, a former member of the Belgian outfit K´s Choice. The slim, short-haired blonde, who looks like a boy from a distance, at first flirted with the audience rather shyly. But since our response was very good, she soon plucked up courage and, with even more energy and a guitar in her hands, showed the strength of a female musician in an otherwise acoustic show. At the end she reaped thunderous applause and left the stage visibly moved.

Next came the hours of music dedicated to punk rock core. First up were the German pop punkers Donots. They were followed by more Germans, namely the alternative punk rockers H-Blockx. Both thrilled with energetic shows, which were only a warm-up for the Less Than Jake invasion.

LESS THAN JAKE: 18.30 – 19.35
Many would agree that their show was one of the most dazzling events at this year’s Nova Rock. The ska punkers from the USA proved to be excellent entertainers, since with their witty, energetic contact and by dictating to the audience, they got it to do all sorts of silly things. A guy from Slovenia was especially lucky, dancing “dirty dancing” with an Austrian girl right on stage. Less Than Jake of course didn’t skip hits like Automatic, Soundtrack Of My Life and Plastic Cup Politics.

MANDO DIAO: 20.05 – 21.15
Sweden’s Mando Diao visited Austria again, which is already their yearly habit, since they have a huge fan base here. This time Björn, Gustaf, Matt, Samuel and CJ surprised us with extra reinforcement. They included a horn section in their show. Mando Diao are an outstanding garage rock band who conquered Europe and Japan with the albums Bring Em´In and Hurricane Bar, and are slowly breaking across the pond too. They started with an apparently brand-new song, Tony Zoulias, and continued with great hits Sheepdog, God Knows, Down In The Past. As expected, the girls below the stage melted when the nightingale Björn warbled the ballad All My Senses. Mando Diao are obviously slowly approaching headliner status, and maybe they’ll make it next year.

MANDO DIAO setlist:
1. Tony Zoulias
2. Sheepdog
3. God Knows
4. Clean Town
5. Down In The Past
6. You Can’t Steal My Love
7. White Wall
8. All My Senses
9. Killer Kaczynski
10. Long Before Rock’n’Roll
11. The Wildfire (If It Was True)
12. Amsterdam
13. TV & Me
14. Good Morning, Herr Horst
15. Song For Aberdeen
16. Ochrasy

THE KILLERS:
While Slayer had been warming up the other stage for a good while, the big preparations for The Killers were still going on for some time, since the guys arrived at the grounds late, and on top of that they’re known for always having a seriously elaborate, lavishly dressed stage set, which of course had to be carefully prepared before the show. Since the guys from Las Vegas have always been crazy about Mexican cowboy culture, they put wooden crates on the stage, while the amps were decorated with chains of little white lights. Along with The Strokes, The Killers are one of the biggest indie rock bands in the world, so expectations were that much higher, as they’re not exactly in Europe every day.

Even so, all these preparations and big expectations ultimately left a rather bland impression. In a good hour The Killers did play all the biggest hits from the albums Hot Fuss and Sam´s Town, such as Mr.Brightisde, Read My Mind, When You Were Young, and put on a glamorous show, but apart from the most fired-up fans the crowd stayed pretty cold. This was probably also down to the approaching end of the festival, when most people were thinking only of their beds back home. Maybe The Killers just got an ungrateful response; on the other hand, they’re also a band probably better suited to club shows, and in this respect they somehow had a hard time competing with the headliner on the neighboring stage, the rowdy grandfathers of thrash, Slayer.

CLOSING IMPRESSIONS FROM THE FESTIVAL:

 

(text by: Sandi Sadar and Živa Vivana Doria)
Unlike the catastrophe unfolding practically at the same time in Venice, at the Heineken Jammin’ festival there, I can conclude that Nova Rock festival 2007 succeeded, apart from the performance of the security staff, above average overall! The Austrian organizers of this magnificent summer festival saw their biggest wish come true this year. Nova Rock 2007 was completely sold out!

160.000 “Nova Rockers” occupied the sunny field in the Austrian region of Pannonia Fields II for three days. A weekend packed with great energy, musical mega-stars, an extremely cooperative and correct crew who made sure, under the organizers’ wing, that all communication with media representatives went like clockwork; well stocked with cold drinking water and with attractive entertainment options (party tents, a beer tent, stands with jewelry and merchandise, bungee,..), it left behind an exceptional festival feeling.

Of course, you have to accept festival prices for food and drink! A 0,5 L beer eased the thirst of the parched for 4,00€ or 5,00€, while food prices ranged between 3,00€ and 8,00€.

After all the intensity of this marathon three-day merry-go-round, I’m properly tired and worn out, and above all disappointed with the hollow peak of the day I witnessed in front of the Red Stage. I left the grounds with a bitter feeling telling me that my farewell to Nova Rock 2007, despite the praise in the previous paragraph, wasn’t optimal. Thousands of Austrian teenagers had the chance to overdo the drinking and the wantonness. By the way: the chemical toilets in front of our tents ended up broken on the ground. After quite a lot of dithering, the chaos was calmed down by rather mellow security guys (as if on oversized doses of Apaurin and Tramal), who won’t finish you off even after you spit in their face. The end of the festival was a great cue for all the vandals who found themselves among the signs and ad boards, drunk on their own power and numbers, looking for self-affirmation and trouble deep into the night. Nova Rock 2007 was a festival with a truly quality organizing team that carried out its tasks more than exemplarily, as it should. The only thing that could bother you was the inadequate sound, which reached the crowds through only a couple of speaker towers by the stage. It would do for a start. But there’s no way they should allow that next year, since Nova Rock has become a perfectly decent rival to the more established festivals Rock Im Park and Rock Am Ring. Overall tally: a complete victory as far as the financial bottom line goes. The festival was actually completely sold out. There were no major disturbances. The bungees survived the jumps of fat metalheads and there were no tragic incidents. The haul of bands you could tick off in your notebooks was truly exceptional. The question even arises of how they could top it next year and raise the quality bar even higher. It can definitely be done! But they could rein in the young morons who were wrecking tents and toilets a bit more consistently and firmly. As it was, after a sleepless night on the last day, the field was strewn with tons of trash and broken toilets in our immediate vicinity. A truly post-apocalyptic landscape, no doubt. And when the bus finally picked us up in front of the entrance, the thought of going home was a true relief. In any case, our minds are already set on next year and on what Nova Rock 2008 can offer us that this year’s didn’t…

By the way! Tickets for Nova Rock 2008 are already on sale. At the promotional price of 85,00€ you can buy them at www.musicticket.at.