Report from the Obscene Extreme festival 2008

(I notice that the Obscene festival has linked directly to this blog, so a few people have actually read this blog post, and some have been offended as well. My main site is www.noposersplease.com where I run a small vinyl distro. Please note this is not a very serious report. It’s just my personal, totally biased, view on being on a festival, where, sometimes, getting a hot dog might be more important than catching that next band. Two people have actually taken the time to comment on my blog post, feel free to voice your opinion as well! See you next year at the Obscene, hopefully!)

Thursday 10. July 2008
Macabre Minstrels

Friday 11. July 2008
12.30 – 12.50 Poppy Seed Grinder
13.00 – 13.20 Rubufaso Mukufo
13.30 – 13.50 Jesus Cröst
14.00 – 14.20 Ass To Mouth
14.30 – 14.50 Keitzer
15.00 – 15.20 Pulmonary Fibrosis
15.30 – 15.55 Fucksaw
16.05 – 16.30 Disturbance Project
16.40 – 17.05 Cerebral Turbulency
17.15 – 17.45 Malignant Tumour
17.55 – 18.30 Flagitious Idiosyncrasy in the Dilapidation
18.40 – 19.10 Excrementory Grindfuckers
19.20 – 19.50 Mesrine
20.00 – 20.30 Splitter
20.40 – 21.15 Putrid Pile
21.25 – 22.05 Cock and Ball Torture
22.15 – 23.05 Regurgitate
23.15 – 00.05 Agathocles
00.15 – 00.50 Demonical
01.00 – 01.30 Isacaarum
01.40 – 02.00 Speck
02.10 – 02.30 Androphagous
02.40 – 03.00 Sakatat

Saturday 12. July 2008
10.00 – 10.20 Death Toll 80k
10.30 – 10.50 Demented Retarded
11.00 – 11.20 Anal Penetration
11.30 – 11.50 Dr. Doom
12.00 – 12.20 Rectal Smegma
12.30 – 12.50 Pyorrhoea
13.00 – 13.25 Gonorrhoea Pussy
13.35 – 14.00 Namek
14.10 – 14.35 Reth
14.45 – 15.10 Discarga
15.20 – 15.45 Blood I Bleed
15.55 – 16.20 Dead Beyond Buried
16.30 – 16.55 Voetsek
17.05 – 17.30 Bloody Phoenix
17.40 – 18.05 Dead
18.15 – 18.40 Gride
18.50 – 19.15 Benighted
19.25 – 19.55 Entrails Massacre
20.05 – 20.35 Pisschrist
20.45 – 21.15 Le Scrawl
21.25 – 22.20 Impaled Nazarene
22.35 – 23.45 Macabre
23.55 – 00.30 Extreme Noise Terror
00.40 – 01.10 Desecration
01.20 – 01.50 Alehammer
02.00 – 02.30 Abortion
02.40 – 03.00 Entropic Degrade Behind Phylogeny

Poster

For the first time, this year I got my ass down to what is said to be one of the cosiest outdoor metal festivals, Czech Republic’s own Obscene Extreme. A three day festival held annually in the sleepy town of Trutnov, a couple of hours drive from Prague. Except for the rather crappy vegetarian food inside the festival area (with the occasional sneaking out to the nearest pork chop vendor), I would highly recommend this festival to anyone who’s into grindcore and death metal, if only for the laidback atmosphere, cheap beer, great food (anywhere except the festival area!) and a chance to see the city of Prague or medieval castles in the countryside. Ok, enough tourist talk, now to the bands!

Crowd - Obscene Extreme festival 2008

Thursday was sort of an ABCD day; meet, greet, get down and get drunk. Only one concert was lined up, for the first time in Europe: Macabre Minstrels. This is basically Macabre unplugged, performing all of Macabre’s little acoustic ditties plus maybe a few other songs thrown into the mix. To be honest I didn’t have any expectations for this show; if I want to see an acoustic show I’m sure Willie Nelson would be more satisfying. And my expectations were more or less fulfilled. But who cares? Fun anyway! Almost all underground distros in Central Europe had set up shops, so no time to get bored!

Friday brought a steady line of concerts hitting it off every 30 minutes from 12AM to 3AM in the morning. Of course too many bands to see them all, so sorry for the ones I left out.

Poopy Seed Grinder and Rubufaso Mukufo simply was too early for me, so starting off my day was Jesus Cröst, a dynamic duo from Holland that I’ve had the honour of witnessing once before, then on a much smaller stage. As usual the drummer sported a scary mask, and this time the vocalist/guitar player employed a vocal pitch shifter (shifting downwards, of course). Being only a duo, unfortunately their brutal grindnoise didn’t fit this big stage format as much as the last time I saw them on a tiny stage in Holland. 

Ass To Mouth - Obscene Extreme festival 2008

Pulmonary Fibrosis - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

Ass to Mouth next, goregrind from Poland, doing a decent show. Keitzer, German grindcore. Brutal stuff. Next band up was quite entertaining, Pulmonary Fibrosis from France. The guitar player sported a hospital janitor’s (?) overall, and the singer was wearing a somewhat ridiculous looking surgeon’s uniform (only shirtless), so you may guess this band played some sort of goregrind. The audience was starting to get worked up quite well, with lots of stage diving and crowd surfing. Several people in the audience were wearing costumes like gas masks or ladies’ underwear on their faces (or both). The highlight being a rather obese male individual in a quite sexy negligee, yummie! 

Malignant Tumour - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

Fucksaw, two guys and a drum machine, good bye! Disturbance Project hails from Spain and played old school grindcore. Cerebral Turbulency, a local Czech grindcore band. Then time for another Czech band, Malignant Tumour. These guys have been playing very brutal grindcore before suddenly shifting a couple of years ago instead to a brutal incarnation of Motörhead. And they seem to be enjoying a lot of success in their career move; the Czech crowd went bananas from songs like ‘We Are the Metal’ or ‘In Bottle There’s No Law’ (not sure if they played that last one, but how can you go wrong with a title like that?), and the concert turned out to be by far the show with the most stage diving and crowd surfing.

Crowd Surfer - Obscene Extreme festival 2008

Next up, a band with a long and difficult name to remember, Flagitious Idiosyncrasy in the Dilapidation, which would lead the thought to some obscure Eastern European goregrind band, but they’re not! This was a full fledged Japanese girls-only band, playing more or less old school grindcore. The singer, being good-looking, wearing a chic Insect Warfare shirt, and having a brutal voice, repeating “Thank you! Thank you!” in the customary polite Japanese fashion between the songs, she was the highlight of this band. Unfortunately I thought the rest of the band sounded much like a garage youth band. The guitar player used something like ten minutes to tune her guitar in the middle of the set, and very loudly so! She didn’t even know the good old beginners trick of turning off your guitar sound between songs to prevent a wall of feedback. The drummer’s attempts of very fast blastbeats sounded futile. All in all this band was worth a listen, but what on earth were they doing in the headlining section of the festival? Yep, the hype of a Japanese girl band. Again.

Splitter - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

Excrementory Grindfuckers, “funny” grindcore from Germany. To be honest, I don’t think it was funny at all, and I didn’t like it one bit. I agree that music shouldn’t always be taken so serious. Hell, I’ve even played in a band called Endwarfment, so I shouldn’t be casting that first stone. But if it gets more “funny” than Birdflesh, who still have great songs in addition to the fun lyrics, I’m off to the nearest bratwürst vendor, good riddance! Mesrine, grindcore band all the way from Canada, doing a decent show, but nothing out of the ordinary. Time for some Swedes to play, Splitter. I always find Swedish bands well worth to watch, because they usually are very energetic on stage, as were Splitter. Their self-proclaimed tagline is “Tragedy grind”, which would suggest they play very melodic stuff (how lame), but their show sounded everything but melodic to me. Putrid Pile, one man and a drum machine, as I’m mostly a fan of the good ole’ guitar-bass-drums setup, it was good bye for me again.

Cock And Ball Torture - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

Regurgitate - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

After a great sunny day, unfortunately a huge rain shower came during the Cock And Ball Torture show. Well, it didn’t stop them from doing a good show. These Germans’ somewhat mid-tempo songs and constant use of a vocal pitch shifter can feel a bit staccato, but still they are a good live band that gets the crowd worked up. The guitar player and the bass player in the front share the vocals, both sounding the same on pitch shifter, while the drummer in the back looks like a very meticulous person, I’m sure he spends a lot of time alphabetizing his big collection of obscure porn. More Swedes, Regurgitate. Very entertaining performance, as always, simply a great live band! Cramping their set with as many songs as possible, they gave the audience good value for their hard-earned money. Rikard on vocals was so anxious to get on to the next song he simply went “This next song is from our split with yabbedi-yabbedi, lets go!”

Agathocles - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

Another classic band next, Belgium’s Agathocles. As always they play old school grindcore, and unlike the last time I saw them, front man Jan seemed more than sober enough to play a quite professional show (the last time he started playing the wrong song a couple of times), as usual not leaving out classics such as ‘Lay off me’. Now to a pure death metal band, Sweden’s Demonical. Not half-bad, but with the huge wave of old school death metal bands in Sweden these days, I can think of many others more interesting. The rain had left everyone wet, and it was time for me to go home, thankful that I had booked a hotel room instead of spending the night in a wet tent.

Gonorrhoea Pussy - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

Namek - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

Saturday the concerts were already starting at 10.00 AM! No way was I going to see the first bands, so first show was Gonorrhoea Pussy, German porngrind. The vocalist had his face covered by a tight leather mask with a tampon hanging down on each side of his head, which eventually got beaten to big fluffy balls, how adorable! Between the songs the guitar player did all the talking, so the vocalist seemed very much like “The Gimp”. The stage divers in the audience had changed to different costumes today, the best one being a moose with gas mask. Next up a band from Portugal, Namek. Playing fast goregrind, the vocalist seemed very angry, running around the stage with troglodyte facial expressions, sometimes exposing his mildly obese arse to the audience.

Blood I Bleed - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

Voetsek - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

Reth, new school technical stuff from UK. These guys had the festival’s highest guitars. And I don’t mean the volume. No sirree, Bob! I’m talking about the elevation from the ground and up. Guitar straps are expensive these days, when you buy it by the metre. Discarga had made it all the way from Brazil, and they played more crustpunk stuff. Blood I Bleed, powerviolence from The Netherlands. The focal point of their concert undoubtedly being the vocalist’s constant high-pitched nasal screaming. Vöetsek, this was thrash metal/crossover from the States. The female vocalist surely lived up to the name Obscene Extreme, being rather obese and sporting a bandana with a Japanese style sunrise.

Dead - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

Impaled Nazarene - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

Now time for some long-runners, Dead from Germany. They played some quite cool death metal/goregrind. Someone in the audience threw a gigantic inflatable ball into the crowd, which at one point seemed to be getting more attention than the band itself. The band seemed to get into some trouble near the end; it appeared as if uncertainty to how many songs they had time to play blew their chances to play as much as they could have. Probably some technical problems, but it didn’t come out as very professional. At one point here there was some rain, so I hit the beer tent instead, missing out on quite a few bands. But Obscene Extreme is just a bit too intense to see them all. I made it back for Impaled Nazarene, Finland’s black metal crew. Although I am not a fan, they kept well within my attention span for the duration of the show. The vocalist was sporting a zebra skin cowboy hat, and the guitar player had a mohawk hairstyle, apart from that I would say they played quite traditional Nordic black metal.

Macabre - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

Time for the headliner; from Chicago, USA: Macabre! The sound was better than any other show at the festival, except the drums being a bit over-triggered. They sounded very tight after some initial monitoring problems. Unfortunately they mostly played songs from their latest two albums ‘Murder Metal’ and ‘Dahmer’. A few from the ‘Sinister Slaughter’ album, only one from ‘Gloom’, and none from my personal favourite ‘Grim Reality’. They did a cover of Venom’s ‘Countess Bathory ‘ as well. Before each song Corporate Death told a small story about the lyrics, which was quite cosy, the highlight being when he told how he took his mom to the Jeffrey Dahmer trial. Unfortunately Macabre spent too much time between each song just fiddling around; tuning their guitars, Corporate D. adjusting his Britney Spears style microphone again and again and so on. I’m sure if they had played continuously they could have had the time to play the entire ‘Grim Reality’ album as well. Macabre could definitely learn something from Regurgitate’s relentless appearance here. The encore was the hit ‘Night Stalker’, the first song off the ‘Sinister Slaughter’ album, so Macabre went out with a bang!

Extreme Noise Terror - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

Yet another classic band now, Extreme Noise Terror, playing their usual brutal as hell crustcore. As always with their trademark, the double vocal attack. Unlike the last time I saw them, this time featuring both original vocalists. If I am not mistaken, they had a new drummer this time, and he did a very good job on the d-beats, at least as far as I could hear. Another good show from this UK crew. And as I had seen Desecration twice before, now it was time for me to seek the Czech beer.

All in all a great festival, except for some rain. Hopefully I’ll return in the following years, and I strongly recommend this festival in particular, and Czech in general, to everyone.