13-08-2011 Into The Grave

Location: Leeuwarden (Netherlands)
By: Sabine van Gameren

A cosy festival in the north of the Netherlands is born. Into The Grave got their permission for their metal festival quite late in the season, but nevertheless they succeeded in setting up a strong line-up. Unfortunately some cancellations were there as well Waking The Cadaver could not come, which would be the perfect band on an old graveyard obviously. Gama Bomb could not make it either, but the organisation found some good replacements.

The first band that played today had a strong connection with the festival. Disintegrate starts to wake up every sleepyhead in the city centre of Leeuwarden with their loud and melodic death sound. Though the band mentions the words “faceless beings” on their backdrop it seemed they quite got their own ideas of how they sound like so maybe not that faceless as you might have thought. The band released their debut album in the end of 2010, but unfortunately their show lasts only for 25 minutes. A nice way to start your festival.

I Chaos was up next. The band make Death Metal but this show does not really seem to match with the description of their sound. Their performance seems quite tame and therefore they lost interest of quite some people. Their strongest point were the drums, quite upfront in the sound and filling in where the rest leaves some space. With a little more fury in their show the music would probably have come more alive as right now it was maybe a too short performance for the guys to get it started.

The German Debauchery was up for some shockrock and all dressed up in bloody clothes they might have gotten there as if the rest of the show weren’t quite tame. They are having quite a reputation on live performances so this came as a disappointment, leaving us with an empty feeling towards the show. Yet even though it may not have been what we expected, the band did some things right after all. Musically the guys surprised us more and with an awesome bass(ist) the show was saved. Yet again, they only played shortly and with a bit more time it may have been better as they surely peaked at the end of their show, leaving you with the impression they could have gone much further if only they had the time.

Karma To Burn was the band that brought a big surprise. Earlier the Stoner band released an album, which we liked a lot, but lacked in keeping the attention for a longer time, which is something that live here in Leeuwarden was not a factor at all. The guys seemed very enthusiastic and exited to play and with their groovy sound they could definitely got the attention at their show. The combination of the bass and the guitar is like a pingpong game going on. At one moment it is one of them upfront but then the other steps forward and in the end they come together and create a leverage on themselves with this way of playing. Their performance was one of the highlights of the day.

The Danish band Mnemic was the first band that played a bit longer, but unfortunately they did not too well. It was obvious that they had some troubles with the sound and therefore the vocals were simply terrible. Industrial Metal is what they do and the guys have been on tour with Metallica in the past. Plenty of people to watch them and if there was some highlight to mention it is their guitarist. What also was a plus on their show is that they brought the energy into the festival. They simply live their sound on stage and this energy came alive in the audience as well. Not the best performance we saw of these guys, we know they can do better but in the end they brought it all alive.

This energy was much welcome when Aborted started their show. They are a Brutal Death Metal formation and been around since 1995. The band has two strong guitarists who make quite a show of it. One jumping around and the other is more playing intense for the audience so this duo sets a strong base for vocalist Sven to give himself a place into the sound. He does this quite well and finds a good balance in the band. Obviously, the audience enjoyed them as there was some moshing going on.

Since the rain came falling down, we took some time warm up with a cup of tea and therefore did not see much of In Solitude, but we were right back to see Devin Townsend on stage. The man is touring quite a lot this summer, most recently we saw him perform on Tuska Festival with Anneke van Giesbergen on his side, but tonight it was purely Devin and his band that made the show. Of course the character Ziltoid got his presence in the show as well, but the little cartoon on the screen did not really took a lot of attention. The set of Devin was quite diverse, showing the different sides of his music and obviously it was a great success. Crowdsurfers, dancing people, some just rocking or watching it from a distance, Devin Townsend music leaves a lot up for your own interpretation and therefore a good way to close the festival. Unfortunately they had to stop the show around 23.00, while they had started a little later than planned but Devin promised to come back.

After all the festival was quite successful. Almost 2000 people came to centre of Leeuwarden to see this festival and there was a great atmosphere around. Let´s hope that next year a new edition of Into The Grave will take place.

More photo’s of this event can be found at Sabinevangameren.com

Links:
Into The Grave Official