31-05-2014 Fortarock

Location: Goffertpark, Nijmegen (Netherlands)
By: Sabine van Gameren

This year we would get ready for another Heavy day at the park while traveling to Nijmegen’s Fortarock. The festival had quite a lineup, so no wonder many were along.

On special request: no concertphoto’s for this one. Concertphoto’s will be available elsewhere, we will let you know soon. 😉

The problem with schedules like these is the fact that you have to make choices somehow. The Tentstage and the Monster Energy stage were constantly scheduled at the same time which set us up with some bizarre scheduling issues. It starts right away because in round one we have Blood Ceremony versus The Charm and The Fury. We choose the last one as the band supplied us with a great EP at the end of last year and we love to see how that works out live. The band is female fronted and brings some Hardcore into the day. Caroline shows her strongest points are at the growls rather than the clean parts, but it are the guitarists who really shine today.

Moonkings were scheduled to open that mainstage. And with Moonkings, we mean fulle: Vandenberg’s Moonkings. Yes, it is Ad Vandenburg who returns to the stages with this project and does that with charm. What is so special on seeing their show is that they bring you the classic rock feeling but in an anno 2014 version. They have not chosen to hold on to what has been done before but simply stay in time and that is something not all of these bands do. Of course classics like “Burning Heart” and “Here I go Again” (Whitesnake) pass by and the band seems just as surprised as us to find out that the 45 minutes they had are over sooner than expected. Moonkings was by far the most surprising act of the day.

Dingdingding. Next round: Ghost versus Caliban. Of course Ghost is an amazing act and has proved themselves many times before, so has Caliban. We went to see Caliban because of their live reputation. They are an active band let their audience join with that, so they did today. Already at one of the first songs vocalist Andy decides to jump off the stage to come a little closer to his audience. And besides that, the band shows some humour. They let their fans known they made the right decision to see their set by playing the song “I Am Ghost”. So by seeing Caliban you have seen both Caliban and ‘Ghost’. Whether everyone really noticed that reference is to question, but it certainly entertained some of us.

Trivium was playing on the mainstage and perhaps a bit of a disappointment. Right at the start of the set they need to ask the audience to do this and that… sing… move… it does not really kick off by itself as it seems. Ok, perhaps the sound was here and there a bit icky, but the band have shown themselves stronger before. Perhaps it is the band always seem to shine a little brighter while playing on a little smaller stage than this huge mainstage, while being a bit closer to their audience as now the whole got lost.

Behemoth versus Skillet. Not too hard of a choice for us this round, the Polish Black/Death metallers are always a good choice to see. The band had some issues just the week before in Russia where they got send to jail for visa issues and so vocalist Nergal speaks out to be very happy to be in this free country of The Netherlands and the audience wastes no time to show them how very welcome they are here. Behemoth has quite a hot show, with all these pyro’s going on and the atmosphere is set right away. Their deep and intense music flows easily into the tent and people were watching it from outside the tent as full is full. The only unfortunate thing is that the band leaves the stage a bit early, meaning to return for an encore but the way they said their thanks to the audience made a lot of people think the show was over already. A whole lot of confetti got shot at us though and the band continued to play some more for us.

The Swedish Sabaton are simply always a pleasure to have in your festival. The band has always showed themselves flexible and always appear to be in a great mood. Today was not any different. It was a bit hard to follow their show when not being close to the stage as they never really seem to take a moment to rest. Except for the fact that they had some technical issues here and there. With tracks like “Swedish Pagans” and “The Art of War” the band however wins back some of the attention of the audience. But whatever struggles these guys come across, the always appear with their positive attitude and that makes them a pleasure to see.

The French comes into the tent with their groovy music. Not Too much communication with the audience, but marching on with their intense music from the beginning to the end. Gojira classics like “Flying Whales” and “The Heaviest Matter of the Universe” are played and the band did not really bother to bring much recent material up today. A good show for the long-time fans so to say, and with their levels of intensity, the way they shift in tempo’s and their energetic show which they totally live within themselves as a band they are a show that is to be seen and experience, but not one you live along with them as a fan.

After seeing Gojira we has some interview which made us miss Alter Bridge, but we were back for the choice between Carcass and Graveyard. As Carcass is also on our Tuska schedule and Graveyard not, we decided to look at Graveyard. They were perhaps a bit of a strange band for Tuska. A bit bluesy, calm music which is obviously not for everyone as during the set a whole lot of people seem to move along. It had something soothing though, a silence before the storm as we would be with Slayer up next.

Slayer is that band that we all know and often shows up at any random show in which a band takes too long to continue their show. The band themselves seem to be in a great mood and appears on stage with the smiles on their face unlike a couple of years ago when the guys also played Fortarock. Skillfully they entertain the audience with the songs and leave us with some words in between. From “Necrophiliac” to “Raining Blood” and many iconic songs in between the band seem to have a great joy in playing here today which made their show much more pleasant than the last Fortarock appearance. Of course the band closes the set with “Angel of Death”, the anthem to Slayer.

We are up for the final battle of the day. Dimmu Borgir versus Anthrax. Both seem to be our touring partners this summer as we will come across them some more this year, so we flipped a coin on which it would be today. Anthrax won and we were glad that they did. They were on the smallest stage of the festival which created an interesting ambiance. What was a bit of a pity was that out of the 9 songs the band played, three of them were covers. 33,3%. And that while the guys have plenty material of their own. Sure, we don’t mind seeing some AC/DC getting Antrax-ized but perhaps one cover would have been enough for today. (and then let’s keep the AC/DC one!)

Overall the band played a good show and they entertained everyone with their mimics while playing, a little detail that makes everything so much more alive. We just hoped for a bit more Anthrax in there.

Big headliner of the night: Iron Maiden. The legend from Britain had a bit of an arctic theme built on the stage. Nice to see they want to make a show out of it but only those fortunate enough to find a spot somewhat straight from the stage are able to enjoy the full experience as if you were only a little on the side the drums were completely blocked from view. So the only way to see some of that was to follow the screens on the side of the stage.

But then that was just a little point of critic on the show, what we are looking at mainly is what has been played and then many fans will be satisfied as the greatest classics came by. “The Trooper”, “Can I Play with Madness”, “The Number of the Beast”… the band has so many songs that every metal fan has heard around plenty of times that the show brings something familiar to everyone. The rockers are energetic and run over the big stage elements while here and there some strange ‘guests’ show their faces. Two hours full of hits, two hours of Iron Maiden are a great closure to this festival day. Iron Maiden does not just play their songs but puts up a performance that’s worth to stick around for.

Photo’s by sabinevangameren.com

Links:
Fortarock Website