Up on the Gallows with Grave Digger in Zagreb (2009)

Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik

Venue: Boogaloo / Zagreb / Croatia
Concert date: February 4, 2009
Attendance: 450
Ticket price: €22.00

The new tour from the legendary German old school heavy metallers Grave Digger, which traditionally comes around every two years and always, without fail, in winter, has once again brought the brave lads within arm’s reach. First Ljubljana, then the very next day nearby Zagreb. Anyone who’s after a proper riff fix of finest tempered steel straight into the vein knows what I’m talking about. German “metal riff uber alles”, in other words!

For the release of the album “Ballads Of A Hangman” (2009), Grave Digger were taken under the wing of the Austrian label Napalm Records. To back the new record on the road, they brought along Taletellers from Germany and Scotland’s Alestorm, also Napalm Records “buddies”, which of course fits the likely behind-the-scenes game plan of the label itself.

The Boogaloo hall was dead empty when Taletellers hit the stage shortly before nine in the evening. But the crowd that had packed into the foyer, the area meant for tilting beer mugs, quickly started shifting toward the epicenter of louder decibels. The Croatian crowd, very much into “music on electricity” , switched on fast, and the band was rewarded with a few spirited volunteers down front. Of course, the vast majority kept watching from a safe distance. The real phalanx was still to come, because people were gathering in front of Boogaloo like ants. They were waiting for Grave Digger, naturally. Out in front of the club, chatting. Taletellers are noisemakers. The singer with a thick curly mane and an “old school” getup (carrot pants, high “puma” sneakers) looked like a young Hetfield. But that’s where it ends: not a whiff of the spirit of the band of that big name from the previous sentence. Taletellers are more of a smeared, enraged rock n’ roll “drive” than a band with much to do with heavy metal. First and foremost you get dead simple “oompah” rhythms, hugged by loud, noisy riffing from two guitars, but once the vocals kick in, with the punky echo of an adolescent troublemaker, the whole show goes down easier. Nice party, nice energy, correctness off the charts. The performance was polished too, in terms of delivery, which meant carefully studied stage moves, striking set poses, deliberately showing off by hoisting the singer’s Dean copy of a Flyin’ V high in the air and so on. The crew is tight, but it somehow sinks into blandness, lack of charisma and lack of originality. In other words, wandering around inside the gray average. The band had a very decent sound. Songs like Ride the Peril, Rock n’ Roll Detonator and Bad Motherfucker certainly spoke of some kind of mixed frappé of influences from modern rock punk arrogance, wound up in the noisy distortion that’s the trademark of metal. So, the answer is pretty much there for the taking. A kick in the nuts. That’s the band’s purpose. But sadly there are lots of bands like that.

Alestorm are a bit more popular because they offer the crowd a more accessible, mainstream and therefore more marketable style of metal. You know Tyr, Turisas, Korpiklaani,…? The common denominator? Odes to beer! The Alestorm lads hang out under the flag of Scottish pirate metal. Sped-up traditional folk rhythms recoded into double bass drum speed rides, riff madness, guttural-sharp vocals, excessive nasal annoyances. Picture a badly congested Rock N’ Rolf (Running Wild) from the early days of “Branded And Exiled” youth and innocence. Horror and despair. Especially when the “topless” singer/keyboardist shows off the rickety ribcage of his scrawny “torso”, over which he hangs Modern Talking keyboards. A below-average theft of Running Wild rhythms and riffs wrapped in a trendy provocation of weaving traditional island folk tunes and rhythms into it. Simply without the required charisma. But the crowd proved me wrong, already gathered in big numbers down front and happily bleating the verses along with the band, which was a really lovely and encouraging sight. Opening with Wolves Of The Sea, then Over The Seas, then Captain Morgan’s  Revenge from the debut of the same name and onward…. But let me not go on too long and “crumble” it too broadly. The boys are a hot ticket, and after the tour with Grave Digger wraps up they’re heading off on an extensive North American tour, with April dates back in northern Europe already confirmed. So, “Pirates of the Caribbean” in a pseudo three-dimensional reality show. Like their predecessors, Alestorm also blasted through their allotted minutes at full tilt. You can feel the drive of a young band and the urge to prove themselves, though a pinch of self-control with the alcoholic derivatives before gigs might not hurt, since the lads made no secret of their stage wobbliness and the poorer shock absorption of an undercarriage based on bipedal walking, a construct of boundless divine spark called “Homo sapiens”. Of course beer is a must for a pirate raid, but in the right dose. At least if the band is marketing itself outwardly with a professional image. But hey, that’s youth, energy, willpower, and recklessness too! Alestorm are on the rise, but they need an absolute upgrade (pirate costumes, for starters, maybe adding an accordionist or a violinist to the band) to make their shows visually even more interesting, pompous and attractive, because charisma is what they’re sorely lacking.

We waited for Grave Digger until 22:45! Unbelievable! But all of a sudden Boogaloo was filled up nicely in no time. Not packed, but there were enough people that you couldn’t see any gaps between the stage and the mixing desk, some 40 meters away. When hands shot up in unison all across the hall, from the front row to the mixing desk, after our good old uncle “Reaper” Chris Boltendahl fired his hellishly neighing growl through the microphone (hidden behind the curtains), it was clear we’d landed in a one-of-a-kind spot.

The stage setup? In the back, a banner with the Grave Digger clan skull, in front of it on a riser the drum fortress of the ever-reliable master Stefan Arnold, on the far right (as seen from the stage), the main driving force who keeps Grave Digger boss Boltendahl inspired, Manni Schmidt, the perfect Digger chief riff writer, a charismatically approachable guitarist who instantly pulled some seriously goofy, lovable faces and won the crowd over! Then on the far left the legendary former Running Wild bassist Jens Becker, the reactivated new member (an additional guitarist), likewise ex-Running Wild man Thilo Hermann, and of course in the middle the man Grave Digger were born with and will be buried with. The one and only Chris Boltendahl. Keyboardist H.P. Katzenburg was tucked away behind steel stage structures covered in dark drapes, but we knew he was back there from the occasional decorative tinkling of keys.

Grave Digger, who, as mentioned, put out the excellent old school oriented “Ballads of a Hangman”, the symphonic “Liberty Or Death” stripped away, a typically “Diggeresque” doomy studio album, started presenting it on stage right away and hit us right between the eyes, no mercy, with the album’s title track. The crowd singing along on the chorus proved it was already well acquainted with the record, which had come out barely three weeks earlier (read: “internet downloads sing happily”).

It was hot as hell up front, and trapped in the cage of the photo pit I got a nice load of spilled beer down my back, foaming out of the glasses of the fans squeezed up against the barrier. But the extraordinary energy served up more than enough fun and chased away every last negative vibe of the occasional needless hang-up with certain thought patterns.

Grave Digger, who of course, diplomatically modest and reserved, will never say out loud which show of their own tour they liked best, spread out across the much bigger stage of the Boogaloo hall, compared with the day before at Cvetličarna MediaPark in Ljubljana, in the blink of an eye, and you could feel right away that this gig would gain even more from the whole voltage of fanatical boiling from below, charged with intensity, and the band’s cavorting right back at it! The stage was also much better lit and richer in many picturesque moods of shifting color collages from the spotlights, which, given the minimalist capacities of our MediaPark hall, never get that kind of expression.

For the rest of the tour dates in Europe outside Germany, the band tweaked its live repertoire a bit. It cut the songs Witch Hunter and the brand new My Blood Will Live Forever from the EP “Pray” (2008), and on top of that swapped the classic The Reaper for the classic The Round Table!

Chris especially loved the band’s bigger stage presence, and so he put in extra effort toward the fanatical devotees in the front rows, as well as the rest of the crowd, in conducting the whole course of the Grave Digger performance. Manni was maximum hot again. He’s known as such a seasoned guitarist that the man can cover the basic requirements of the Digger sound with his guitar alone. That means serving up Teutonic raw riffs combined with showering the place in devilish solos. Throughout his past Digger career he’s always filled the sonic space on stage with just his guitar. This time, though, the job was made easier, since the band recently grew into a sextet, with Thilo Hermann arriving to fill the slot of yet another equal guitar. So for the first time in Grave Digger history we got real solo duels between two guitarists on stage across all the songs from before the Uwe Lulis era and those written after Hermann joined the band (read: the songs from the “Ballads Of A Hangman” album). The songs from “The Grave Digger” album up to the newest album were confidently and independently carried through the solos by Manni, while the two of them split all the older stuff (from 1999 backward). So the band’s sound grew in its crushing roughness and compact directness, which is the characteristic and demanded protective Grave Digger trademark anyway. The sound during the show was excellent, with the guitars a bit less distinct at first, but that was soon fixed and Hell Of Disillusion was already cutting at full force. The band prepared a great surprise by including the “The Reaper” classic Wedding Day, which was also the only real moment for all us Grave Digger gourmands waiting for surprises. Otherwise the set list alternated the staples of the iron repertoire, with four new songs mixed in. Still, you could miss an extra surprise or two from “Knights Of The Cross” or “The Grave Digger”, and this time the material from “Heart Of Darkness” was completely ignored too.

Boltendahl still growls superbly, but he also strictly makes sure his voice doesn’t get wrecked by the extreme way of singing. So Grave Digger put together a set list that somehow alternates between mid-tempo to slower songs and the so-called speedy smashers. Among the older songs, special mention goes to the magical power of The House, which practically hypnotized everyone present, after the anarcho-explosion of the preceding Headbanging Man. That song heralded a turn of the gig to an even higher level of mood, since the classics Knights Of The Cross, Dark Of The Sun, Excalibur and Rebellion actually followed, and the crowd went wild to them. Past the limits of composure, as befits a metal gig atmosphere.

After Boltendahl’s army withdraws backstage to recharge the batteries, regenerate with fresh atoms of oxygen, wipe off the sweat and wash it down with a little glass of water, the magic of riff directness and the unique metal brilliance of Grave Digger erupts into a big finale with the majestic The Round Table, followed by the brand new Pray, which works phenomenally and has big potential to grow into a Digger classic, with a catchy, get-under-your-skin chorus. The crowd didn’t even need much diagnosing after that, since it practically announced the closing song of the gig by itself! Heavy Metal Breakdown, and the gravediggers actually buried us at the end with the elemental arrogance of a primordial Digger riff from recent history, marked by the year 1984 and the release of the band’s long-ago self-titled debut. Magnificent. The front rows, stomping wildly along with the band on stage, literally mowed down everything in their path.

What to say in closing? Let me give a reference against the band’s gig in Ljubljana the day before. Judging by my impressions of attending the gig in Ljubljana on February 3, 2009, the Zagreb show was a big step up in quality in every way. Simply because of the more suitable ambience offered by the capacity of the Boogaloo club. Above all, the stage is much bigger, there’s a better-sized space for rigging the lights, the hall is bigger and, most importantly, the crowd was much more fired up and fanatical, releasing far more energy into the room compared with the Slovenian one the day before at MediaPark. Of course, given that it honored the band with a significantly higher turnout, which, to be honest, could have been even higher. Grave Digger remain committed to their own metal vision and don’t budge from it by a millimeter. Today too, in great top stage form, they carefully feed their loyal fan base with it.

photos: Aleš Podbrežnik

Setlist

1. The Gallows Pole (intro) 2. Ballad Of A Hangman 3. Valhalla 4. Hell Of Disillusion 5. Wedding Day 6. Lionheart 7. Silent Revolution 8. Stormrider 9. The Last Supper 10. Headbanging Man 11. The House 12. Knights Of The Cross 13. The Dark Of The Sun 14. Excalibur 15. Rebellion (The Clans Are Marching) —encore— 16. The Round Table 17. Pray 18. Heavy Metal Breakdown

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