The doors to the main hall opened up about ten minutes after we had arrived. We entered, I with my pen and booklet at the ready and my girl with her camera. Credits go to her for providing the wonderful photographs you see with this review.

The Monolith Deathcult
First up where the guys from The Monolith Deathcult (TMDC). After the dark and ominous orchestral intro, they immediately let rip in their first song. A massive wall of sound was set loose at the audience. The sound technician was still fiddling a bit with the mixer desk but after some minutes the sound was ok.

I could not recognize which songs they played since I am not that known with the material of TMDC and almost all songs were announced grunted. But it mainly was a mixture of old and new material. Half of the time it was 180 kmph blastbeats, very fast riffing, furious solo’s and deep grunts, and the other half compromised of slow scorching guitar parts with even deeper grunts. TMDC added a keyboard player to their line-up when they recorded their last CD. And I have to say that the keyboard really ads something to their sound. Making it fuller at faster parts and giving the slower parts a more darker feel. It all reminded me a little bit of… Nile (and this I mean positive). The lightshow also helped to build a dark and intense atmosphere.

TMDC had to drop some of their songs for today since the schedule of the P3 was a bit behind. To quick an end to a nice show. Luckily, the way to the bar was short.

Pleurisy
Second on the list was Pleurisy. I saw one gig of them once, and that was some time ago. Musically the band didn’t change much since then, but now they have George Oosthoek from Orphanage (r.i.p.) on vocals. He lets Pleurisy sound a lot heavier with his deep grunts.

From the start, Pleurisy sets in a challenging and catchy set of songs. Grooving and riffing through songs like ‘Trail for Destination’ and ‘The Enemy’ and thrashing and screaming through ‘Mission Ten Forward’.
Pleurisy had a good sound right from the start.

The guy behind the drums apparently was still in the “lazy afternoon” modus because he was nearly caressing his drum kit instead of drumming his arms off.
Mr. Oosthoek was also affected by the Sunday afternoon, because he was in a rather enthusiastic mood and made a lot of contact with the audience.

Pleurisy rounded their gig up with ‘No Tears For Mankind’ and then it was back to the bar for us to wait for today’s headliner.

Gorefest
After about 20 minutes or so it was time for Gorefest. Most people who where present tonight, did came especially for these Dutch metal veterans.
When we entered the main hall again, Gorefest were already on stage and the intro just ended. The audience was immediately slapped around the ears with ‘For The Masses’. Talk about a nice welcome back… ;).

Gorefest looked a bit odd though. Vocalist Jan-Chris de Koeyer had apparently forgot to put gel in his hair that morning, and together with the Les Paul guitars and bass, they looked a bit like the Beatles on acid. And there’s also still that ‘love it’ or ‘hate it’ thing with the vocals. I am not going to whine about it, but I am definitely a hater.

The second song, ‘The Glorious Dead’ from the ‘False’ album, was received well by especially the older part of the audience and also by me. I have to give credit to the sound technician and to the P3 because the sound was again quite good.
‘State of Mind’, also from ‘False’, followed after the ‘The Glorious Dead’ so the older part of the audience had a blast. The song after that I didn’t recognize, but it was a boring song and played boring.
It was noticeable that in some songs the guitars and bass sometimes played somewhat past each other which gave a little bit of a messy look to those parts.
The credits go to Ed Warby though. He demonstrated once again that he is still one of the best metal drummers that Holland has to offer.

The audience was treated to a couple of more songs from albums such as ‘False’, ‘Erase’ and (go figure) ‘La Muerte’. Together with the lightshow and the smoke machines going crazy, it all resulted in a nice performance. And when Gorefest played the first notes from ‘Reality/When You Die’ some people in the front actually started a pit.
It was a fun show but a little bit on the automatic pilot. And hopefully the ‘angry Beatles’ look was just a one-time mistake.

I have to conclude that this is a fun way to spend your Sunday afternoon, but these kinds of concerts in modern venues like the P3 are more at home on a Saterday evening I think. This was also noticeable in the amount of people that came to see this show. I estimate about roughly 80 persons in a hall that can hold almost 550...

(Review & Pics: Youri Fambach)