09-05-2008 Drain Life

supports: Last Breath Denied, Real Hate; Venue: Exit, Rotterdam (Netherlands)
By: Sabine van Gameren

An evening full of hardcore metal was what was awaiting me, when I made my way to Exit, Rotterdam.

First band of the evening was Real Hate. They come from Netherlands (all bands of tonight) and they had the hard task to warm up the audience. It would have been a nice job as if there was audience. It probably had to do with the great lovely weather outside, because there was hardly anyone. The band did try to get a little closer to the people who were in the venue though. The singer of the band had chosen to stand in front of the stage and he was walking up and down in the length of the stage all the time during the gig. Personally, I got a little dizzy by following it so I decided to stay as much in the back as I could.

Up next was Last Breath Denied which pleased me a little more. Luckily some more audience came in to see these guys from Lisse. The band gave full power and most of the vocals were pleasant and well done. Better than the first band. Also, the stage act was not disturbing me, while the band stayed on the stage most of the time.
The band already had many gigs, since they started hitting stages in 2004, so no surprise that we got a great show here.

Last band of the evening was Drain Life. They are from the city, so the venue was pretty filled when they started playing. This band made most impact on me seeing them on the p60 (Amstelveen, Netherlands) stage when they were in semifinals at last year’s emergenza. Typical a band you like to see on a bigger stage, but in exit they suited as well. From the start on the band gave a relaxed performance and new how to get their audience with them. Funniest thing was when someone in the audience came to the stage to bring culled flowers to vocalist Yorick.
A nice symbol of love to a night which is much about hate, anger and aggression.