21-06-2009 Blackfield Festival

Location: Gelschenkirchen (Germany)
By: Nina Mende

So Blackfield it was. I was wondering whether I should write about it or not since we were not there as press, but as guests. We were there one day only, late and not really paying too much attention to all the bands playing, nor taking pictures of many. But I decided to still share this day with you guys. Performances only, of course!

We went to Blackfield for Sunday only. The first band we saw on stage was Frozen Plasma, an electro pop duo. We only watched them sporadically but observed the crowd. Blackfield festival appeared very small with not too many visitors. As a matter of fact, many people outside of the Gelsenkirchen area have never heard of it. On the festival ground there were many Goths but also many hardcore fans of certain bands like for example ASP or Apoptygma Berzerk. Several of them “blocked” the front row from doors open till the very end of it. Maybe I am too spoiled by the WGT crowd every year, but there were no gorgeously dressed up people. At least we didn’t find any. Frozen Plasma did a great job in crowd entertainment with their electro music.

Of course did we watch IAMX though, we even took a very close look: Up to the front row and rocking with the family along to the gorgeous electro alternative indie music by mastermind Chris Corner and the gorgeous artists around him. They looked stunning as usual and so was there performance. I have seen them many times before, but the always amaze me a new. And so did they amaze my friends and many other people in the audience. Unfortunately they didn’t get to play for too long, but they played old hits and new stuff. Chris and the female singer Janine played with the audience. Watching IAMX is like watching a play with amazing music. It captivates you far beyond the performance and leaves you amazed. Seriously. This is not fan-talk but simply how you experience IAMX live.

Mesh and Suicide Commando were two other electro bands that we just checked out sporadically. Both bands were much harsher and more hardcore than the ones before. It was really funny to watch people dance to it. Some moves looked funny, weird or simply interesting. It was definitely worth checking out the crowd.

Another band we watched close and completely were the Norwegians around Stephan Groth: Apoptygma Berzerk. Old school synth pop and new stuff mixed during their performance. Stephan walked around a lot during his performance. Fredrik got up in front of his drums to play guitar for one song. For “Non Stop Violence” Angel and Geir got the crowd going big time and animated them to sing along. All the fans sang along to all songs and danced, cheered and had a blast. The band didn’t seem as relaxed as during the tour though. All in all it was a great performance of an hour.

ASP was the last band of the festival with lots of pyro and fireworks at the end of their show. It has gotten cold and dark. We only saw parts of ASP from afar but it sounded like the fans had fun.

Links:
Frozen Plasma MySpace
IAMX MySpace
Mesh Official
Suicide Commando MySpace
Apoptygma Berzerk MySpace
ASP MySpace