07-07-2007 Wâldrock

Location: Burgum (Netherlands)
By: Wouter van de Kamp

For those who read the review of the preparty already guessed what the terrain would look like: one big mud pool. Although I
am quite the seasoned festivalgoer but I haven’t seen it being this bad on a festival ever before. Long live army boots.

After recovering from my small hangover it was time for some food and then we went on to the festival terrain. The first thing that was special was the thickness of the festival guide. It had no introductions to the bands as I am used to in the past 6 times I went to Waldrock festival. Next thing was that there were three stages. An improvement or not? Let’s not judge on beforehand. Aborted was the first band we were going to see. From hindsight this was definately the suprise of the festival for me. Our Southern neighbours treated the just awoken Waldrockgoers on a brutal goregrind wake-up call. Technically advanced and very good sound even made the first metalkids start up a moshpit. This Belgian pride was surely used to playing big stages. I hope to see them doing a headlining show one day.

Then we went for Moonsorrow. Not because we particularly wanted to see that band, but it was only 30 meters to walk there and watching Aborted building down the stage didn’t have our main interesest. I had seen Moonsorrow on Arnhem Metal Meeting (AMM) 2006 and liked them back then. Hailing from Helsinki they brought us a good doses of Viking metal.
With Finnish lyrics they were even less understandable than metalgrunts are in general, but that didn’t spoil the show for me. I wasn’t as impressed as I was on AMM, but it was a good occupation for the time. One thing worth mentioning about this band is that they change instruments from time to time. Something you wouldn’t expect from Viking metal band.

Next on the bill was Marduk, or so the festival guide said. But this definately wasn’t Marduk. It more sounded like Gorerotted. They
probably switched or something. They played in the tent stage and the weather was good outside. I was quite disappointed not seeing Marduk so I only watched one song. Sound was good, but as u can gather it was not enough to give a good review.

After this, Vader. For the seasoned metalhead this band really doensn’t need any introduction. They have played Holland like a gazillion times. Founded in 1986 they play death metal at it’s best. They didn’t suffer from their fame and remained true to their brutal extreme style. Ever since their 10,000 copies selling demo in 1990 they were selling out but never became a sellout. Great job! Good performance! Nice entertainment.

Then my friend and I went out to see M.A.N.. One of the only bands I only knew by name. Wondering what the name meant I stumbled across an interview in which the lead singer stated that “it means Masturbating Around Newborns! Just joking. It means whatever you want it to mean. That is the whole concept”. Upon hearing their first tones one can’t deny hearing many influences of the singer’s latest band Transport League, Coal Chamber and Devil Driver. Not original but nice to bang your head to if you haven’t got much else to do. We DID have something else to do, so we left after two songs. I went to the tents to eat and drink somewhat and to go to the Meshuggah stage early since this was the band I really wanted to see and I wanted to be in first row and so
I did. Meshuggah can be said to be one of those band to start off a whole new genre in metalland. Math metal. Their main product is complex rythm sections. Upon first hearing it even sounds like chaos, but after a few times in your cd player it turns out to be quite coordinated chaos. Difficult to understand even after listening to it millions of times, but brilliant in itself. If you’re afraid of 5/16 via 6/16 to 14/16 rythms in just a matter of seconds than you’d better withhold yourself from going to this band. Their latest release stems from 2005 (Catch 33) and so not much new stuff was to be expected. They played their classical songs like Rational Gaze, Sane and New Millennium Cyanide Christ. Was it just me or were they just very tired. There was nothing special to this show. It was brilliant on itself, but it just didn’t have the vibe for me that it had in Melkweg (NET) 2004. The only cool thing is that I caught the drumming stick from Thomas Haake! Nice memory!

Then it was time for perhaps the most awkward band on stage in Waldrock history: Dutch rapband Osdorp Posse (OP) together with latin metalband Laberinto. They started as seperate bands playing their songs individually. Somewhat hesitatingly the crowd started moving to songs like Geen Clubhit and Bietbijters en Ouwe Koekhappers. Then came the inevitable Neighbourhood from the Laberinto album Another Style on which Def P (rapper from OP) raps the last part. Fortunately they did not lean back to promote their to be released cooperation album, but played hits like Moordenaar as well. It was a nice move to put OP out here amongst all the brutal metal violence, but I don’t think they should repeat this stuff too often. I’d rather see some more industrial or new wave stuff.

Time to party. Dropkick Murphys is again a band that shouldn’t need any introduction to the experienced festivalgoer. This partyband par excellence, residing from Boston treats you on a blend of Oi!, Irish music and hardcore. From what I have seen this was the band with the most active crowd. Of course they played their interpretation of the 19th century Irish folk song The Wild Rover and many other classics.
This is the sort of band that always does a good job on a festival and always gets the crowd going. Yes this was definately one of the best bands of the festival.

After that, Dutch best exportproduct Within Temptation had its go at in the tent stage. Why the headliner was to perform in the (smaller) tent stage is still a big riddle for me, but so be it. As a true follower of this band since Lowlands 1999 this was supposed to be a very good end of the festival. But alas. Many songs from the new album The Heart of Everything were played. Very few of their debut album Enter (which is still my favorite). Of course they played their classics Mother Earth and Ice Queen. And even without Keith Caputo the song “What Have You Done” sounds brilliant. Their live shows have fewer pyro-effects which is really a big turndown. The last time on W#226;ldrock they surprised everyone with the enormous big bang in 2004 and their first time on
W#226;ldrock in 2002 the band was much more enthousiastic to play Dutch oldest metal festival that is still alive. It was more a sort of routine performance to me. Undoubtedly the real fans that went out to W#226;ldrock just to see WT had their fun, but this wasn’t what I had expected. A good performance, definately. But they have done better in the past. Tired but satisfied it was now time for some energy in the form of beer and loads of bullshitfun on the mudladen campsite.

Was it just me or was everyone quite flat compared to previous years. I don’t know. Or is it that I am getting older and cannot relate to the plain superficial drunk humor of youngsters. Ohwell… I had my beers I had my fun. From hindsight this was again a festival as one can expect from W#226ldrock. Easy going. Nice people. Metal in its most plural forms. Not too many people (attendance of about 6.000). A great atmosphere. No real peaks this year, but definately worth going and no reason for not going in 2008. W#226;ldrock lives.

  Aborted official
  Moonsorrow official
  Marduk official
  Gorerotted official
  Vader official
  M.a.n. official
  Meshuggah official
  Osdorp posse official
  Laberinto official
  Dropkick murphy’s official
  Within Temptation official
  Wâldrock