But all in all, SauroN ruled!! They played their highly aggressive black metal under the worst circumstances (I spoke to drummer Ludas after the show) EVER, no sound check, no food, no dressing room at all, no warming up, nothing! But still, or maybe because of this all, they played one hell of an aggressive gig!!

They can keep your attention, because of their aggressive stage-performance and dynamic songs. Plus, a drummer with only one hand is really remarkable to look at… Afterwards I received their debutalbum “Universe Of Filth” from Ludas to review, and I can tell you guys, this rocks! Review’s coming up…

Khold
Then Khold came on to the stage, with their vocalist having THE weirdest looking corpse paint! Well, that was highly entertaining. Musically it was practically all in mid-tempo, and their drummer was really trying to break some sticks. God, he was slamming hard! And why? I sure as hell didn’t see the point in that…

They sounded quite atmospherical, and even a tad industrial, so their songs were quite varied, but not exactly my cup of tea. They obviously were extremely proud of their new shirts, because the singer kept on pointing at the merch-stand, mentioning that they still have them!

Sound was considerably good, stage-performance was more or less good, so all in all it was a reasonably enjoyable show. And to prove that he also had humour their front man had the following to say at the end of the gig: “One more time, Merch is that way!”

Satyricon
Next was Satyricon. Well not really, first some annoying gothic/ambient sounding intro of about three quarters of an hour was played!! Damn! This was really annoying the shit out of me, and Satyricon had to deliver the goods to make up for this. And they did. They absolutely did! What a great sound, what a great musicians, what a great band!!

Their sound was really good, you could hear everything perfectly, and just as loud as necessary. The musicians, apart from Frost and Satyr, were all guest-players, but hell, they did their job as if they have never done anything else, they played terrific!! And the overall feeling was just splendid, this is a band that has the capability of capturing that real (I would almost call it true…) black metal-feeling, and make a concert into a black metal heaven (hell?) with an atmosphere you can’t describe, one can only feel such a thing.

It was just great, they played songs from every album, if I recall correct, although they played mostly songs of the latest two albums of course. After the normal set, they played ‘Mother North’ as an encore, which blew off the roof !! So Satyricon definitely lived up to all the expectations.

All in all, one hell of a concert I will remember for a long time! And lots of thank-yous and worships to the guys of Crowe Photography/Unleash Magazine (www.crowe.nl) for the great pictures of this gig! You guys rule!!

(Review & Pics: Sjoerd van den Berg)