Rockezine.com concert review for The Haunted on Apr 05, 2005 in the Doornroosje/Nijmegen

The Haunted

Doornroosje-Nijmegen

Apr 05, 2005

There are different ways to spend a Tuesday evening; you could watch a soccer match on TV, you could go to a bar or you could just play around with your computer the whole evening. I prefer to visit concerts, especially when The Haunted visits my town!

Instil
This time I was smart enough to finish my diner way before the show in Doonroosje started, so I was able to see all the bands and not just two out of three. I had the time to relax and drink a beer and absorb the atmosphere in the venue, which was, as always, very good! The first band of the evening, Instil, was unknown to me. I might have heard the name somewhere, but I wasn’t familiar with their music. After their very brutal show I felt a little ashamed that I didn’t know these guys from Groningen, Holland. Their mix of thrash and metalcore is really brutal and it was a shame that the thirty minutes Instil had, were over before I realized it.

Outburst
After the last notes of Instil the stage was rearranged for Outburst, another Dutch band. I had the time to grab another beer and enjoy the lack of noise. At the time Outburst played their first notes, I plugged the ear plugs in my ears because the sound was very loud. Their old school thrash metal sounds very good and the band plays tight as hell. Frontman Tjerk is very energetic and entertaining, too bad the crowd didn’t always respond. And while the music almost asked for it there were hardly any signs of a pit. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that the show wasn’t sold out.

The Haunted
Each new album goes hand in hand with a tour. After releasing a great album (rEVOLVEr) The Haunted went on a European tour with Cradle Of Filth and Moonspell. But a couple of nights The Haunted were featured as a headliner. This was such an evening and let me tell you: there’s nothing wrong with that. At the beginning of the show the stage looked a little empty. There were only four members and I knew 100% for sure that The Haunted has five members. But after a couple of tracks front man Peter Dolving told the crowd what the reason was for the lack of one member; guitarist Jensen had to go home due to urgent family matters. And while the other guitarist Anders Björler solved this problem very well, now and then I really missed the foundation the rhythm guitar normally lays down. But despite the fact that The Haunted played as a foursome this evening, their show was tight as hell. You could notice that they’ve been on tour for a while, but the show never went on the automatic pilot. As for the set list, that was very diverse. They played songs from every album and the ones that were originally sung by Marco Aro sounded very brutal! A great and intense show by a great band!

(pics are from the archives)

(Review: Lars van Bergen
Pics: Marcia Gransbergen)

more pictures