Bloodshed Fest #8 festival report

 Eindhoven, The Netherlands, October 13th, 2007

Running order:

Basement Stage
15:10-15:40 Jesus Crost
16:30-17:00 Dr Doom
17:50-18:20 Blood I Bleed
19:10-19:40 Infected Pussy
20:30-21:00 Nice Idiot
21:50-22:50 Massgrav

Main Stage
14:30-15:00 Rectal Smegma
15:50-16:20 Drugs Of Faith
17:10-17:40 Putrescence
18:30-19:00 Dead Infection
19:50-20:20 Agathocles
21:10-21:40 Malignant Tumour
23:00-0:00 Regurgitate

Eindhoven, The Netherlands, is home of the well-known Dynamo scene, which has given name to the once huge Dynamo Open Air Festival. The Dynamo is in fact the local metal pub in Eindhoven, located in a basement with a small scene rooming about 150, and a big scene upstairs with room for around 1,000. I guess about 500 people showed up for this great event.

First band out was Rectal Smegma, a local Dutch porn grind band. According to their web site members are called stuff like Tampon Terror, so you know what to expect. The crowd was still not very full in numbers, but the audience seemed to be quite enthusiastic about their local heroes. Mid-tempo to fast grind here, and the vocalist employed a pitch shifter to it’s maximum capability. Sometimes he lifted his shirt in order to reveal a big “GRIND CORE” tattoo around his belly button.

Dr. Doom was another local Dutch band, playing upstairs at the big scene. They seemed to be playing a quite catchy form of fast grind core with some modern influences. There was no way I could see all bands in their entirety, so it was time for me to run out to the foyer and check out the enormous amount of merchandise, provided by big and small European distros such as Germany’s Power It Up, Regurgitated Semen, Revenge, Civilisation, Rot’N Roll, France’s Bones Brigade, Belgium’s Bringer Of Gore, heaps of other distros that I weren’t able to identify and of course the bands’ own merch.

Time to run down again for another Dutch band and another new band for me, Jesus Cröst. Wow, cool shit! Unlike the well-known band format of the “power trio”, this was a full-blown “power(violence) duo”. Two angry young men playing extremely fast and noisy stuff. The drummer sported a hood over his head, and did most of the talking between the songs. Not the greatest drummer in the world, but still these guys were able to sound very tight, due to lots of practising (I guess), and the guitar player (who also did the main vocals) and his extensive use of a signal on/off pedal for his guitar at the occasional micro-second stop between all the grind noise. The crowd was getting quite worked up by this micro-unit. Unfortunately the space in front of the small scene downstairs was much too small and had a very annoying pillar at one end, and a corner at the other, so it’s not the perfect spot for concerts.

I unfortunately missed Holland’s Blood I Bleed, so not much to report there.

France was also represented at the festival, not only at the merch stand, but also by Infected Pussy, who played death grind/gore grind with just a hint of modern “chugga-chugga” US death grind (though not more than me enjoying their show a lot). One of the guys was sporting a Basque style beret; you know the kind that old people in the Alps wear, which accompanied by his large mutton chops looked quite stupid and chic at the same time.

Nice Idiot was a Swedish band that I unfortunately missed, but featured one of the guys from Massgrav, as well as General Surgery and Sayyadina members. It seems they play more hardcore-oriented stuff.

Putrescence had made it all the way from Canada, and impressed me a lot. Great brutal and guttural (though not pitch-shifted) grind core with lots of death metal influences. A tight drummer who was able to pull of fast blasts and doble bass drums, and a charismatic vocalist who liked to display his rather large arse by having his pants hanging halfway down on it.

Now it was time for some good old Swedish “mangel”, (mayhem or whatever the hell it means). Massgrav played fast and angry power violence. Not too fast, though. I think they said something like “Fuck grind core, fuck [insert a couple of related genres of choice], we are fast Swedish rock and roll!” This trio with dual screaming vocals (by the bass and guitar player) played sort of mid-tempo blast beats most of the way. Their show was fairly tight and well-played, but suddenly there was a song that the drummer couldn’t remember the beginning of, and they had to stop after a few seconds. The bass player seemed quite angry and said something like “I’m sorry, the next time we will bring a proper drummer”. But only minutes later he had to let go of his cocky attitude when the band once again had to stop right after the beginning of a song because his bass amp wasn’t turned on or something like that.

Drugs Of Faith was the last band out on the small scene, but didn’t seem to attract a vast crowd. I was there for a few minutes, and my impression was that this was perhaps the band leaning the most to modern hardcore of all the bands on the festival. A trio with a female bass player, they played a couple of their own songs and a Napalm Death cover before I went up again to have one last peek at the merchandising stands to see if there was anything I had missed.

Finally it was time for the bigger bands. First off Poland’s Dead Infection, who now has taken the form of a trio.

I really love this band, but somehow my expectations weren’t entirely fulfilled this evening. Pierscien, who now handles the vocals as well as the guitar, did a very decent job, but the sound wasn’t optimal. The guitars had a bit too much distortion, as well as being quite down tuned and low in volume to really hear the riffs, and to get on a technical level Cyjan’s drums were totally without any compression, which resulted in no real punch in the blast beats. Of course it was great hearing classics such as “From the anatomical deeps”, but the show also felt much too short for a headliner. I’m looking forward to hearing this band again, with better sound and a longer set.

Belgian grinddaddies Agathocles did a good job this evening, with a totally new line-up except for vocalist/bass player Jan, who’s run the band for 25 years or so. The crowd was very cheerful, and there was plenty of stage diving and crowd surfing, so this was really cosy. I wouldn’t go as far as saying the sound was great, and the new guys weren’t the best musicians around, but Jan’s enthusiasm and dedication worked the crowd up. Brutal grind core all the way here. At least a couple of times they had to stop right after beginning a new song, because Jan couldn’t remember which song they were playing. He excused himself by saying he was close to 40, and the new guys were simply “too fast” for him, he-he. A couple of Jan’s well-known long speeches were served to the crowd as well, like the one about how we should say no to Bush’s USA, and yes to Chavez’ Venezuela. But after that it was back to brutal grind core, moshing and stage diving again.

Malignant Tumour, Czech Republic’s former brutal grindcore band has now turned into a crust’n roll band with some humour, at least in their imagery, with at least one of the guys (I guess two) sporting a silly moustache/wig. Quite professional and charismatic in their performance, these guys got the crowd really worked up with their mix of Motörhead and crustcore. Unfortunately they had to end their show a bit too soon due to each band’s short playing time, and thus had to excuse themselves without any encores.

Time for the mightiest of them all. Sweden’s Regurgitate, who didn’t let expectations down. The sound was great, much better than the previous bands, and they proved to be much tighter than I had expected (especially Jocke, the drummer). Playing a 30+ song set, no classic was left out here. Vocalist Rikard employed a pedal frequently switching his pitch shifter on and off. Urban handled his guitar impeccably; he seemed so comfortable playing there was not much need for him to look at his guitar at all. Nothing to report on the new bass player, he seemed quite fit in his job. That’s the way to do it boys, a really professional gig by a great band.

All in all; a magnificent festival that I hope to attend again next year. The stage downstairs sucks a bit, the beer is not very cheap at all, the sound may not be perfect, and the crowd here is maybe a bit more reserved than in Germany and Eastern Europe, but still a great event with a crushing line-up.

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