The long-dreaded frontman Brian Fair screamed his lungs out, trying to get the people to move. Unfortunately, his efforts were in vain as only a hand full of people were banging their heads. Most others were just watching, checking the band out. Shadows Fall played a large number of songs from their new album, powerful songs like “Thoughts Without Words” and “Destroyer Of Senses”.

Unfortunately the band suffered from a terrible sound, vocal wise. Fair’s vocals sounded great, but the backing screams and grunts could not be heard. I don’t know what the cause of this was, but it didn’t help the band at all. Despite all of this, Shadows Fall delivered a fairly good set, yet failing miserably in warming up the crowd for Soilwork and Children of Bodom… Better luck next time.

Soilwork
After a quick 30 minute stage set up, Sweden’s melodic death metallers Soilwork took the stage and showed Shadows Fall how to deal with a Dutch crowd. Frontman Bjorn immediately addressed the crowd with body signs to bring it on. Kicking off with a song from their new album Figure Number Five, Soilwork finally got some of the crowd moving in the packed venue.

Because this is more of a promotional tour for all three bands tonight, Soilwork played a majority of material (“Rejection Role”, “Figure Number Five”) from their new album plus a few older ones (“Needle Feast”) plus a few tracks from the album Natural Born Chaos (“As We Speak”, “Follow The Hollow”).

Fortunately, the sound problems were dealt with after a few songs and backing vocals sounded perfectly. Surprisingly enough, the clean vocals sounded a lot better than I personally expected, although it took vocalist Bjorn a lot of effort. This ended in him screaming more than singing later during the show.

Soilwork delivered an incredibly tight set with an amazing stage performance. The crowd loved it. After 45 minutes, the band said goodbye and handed the stage to tonight’s headliner: the mighty Children Of Bodom!

Children of Bodom
Along with a soundcheck, a complete stage was set up with all kinds of things including strange lights, of which the purpose became clear later. A large COB-banner was hung up behind the set, guitars checked, drums and mics tested and 1,2,3-ed. A short silence, quickly broken by the band as they took the stage and blasted into their first song “Needled 24/7” from their new record Hate Crew Deathroll.

As the band played their songs like a heavy metal whirlwind, I noticed that a lot of kids wearing COB shirts moved to the front of the venue. Something I didn’t expect… Back to the band: just like the other two bands, COB mostly played material from their new album, alternated with some oldies from the Hatebreeder and Something Wild era.

Sound-wise, everything was finally perfect after the annoying glitches that pestered the support acts. You could really see the band having a lot of fun on stage, obviously glad to be back on tour again.

A lot of energy was flowing off the stage into the crowd, where the sweating bodies of moshers were punching and kicking their way through the entire set. Everyone in the crowd was devouring COB’s music like the chocolate chip cookies you just can’t stop eating. I started wondering when the band was going to call it quits, as they were playing for more than 45 minutes already.

Finally after another new song, the band left the stage, but were quickly called back by the crowd screaming for more. They had one more song left; “Downfall” if I remember correctly.

Unfortunately for the crowd, this was the band’s last song tonight and they left the stage for real this time. The 800+ crowd slowly started moving to the exits, and so did I. A great night with 3 talented bands, despite the annoying sound glitches. Once more, we survived Lake Bodom.

(Review: Robert Graalman
Pics: Josje Klouwens)