Anyway, as they got on stage and started playing, the scene was set. These guys were very energetic. It is a shame that you can’t read the atmosphere or the intensity of the gig on line, because although I am not sure I can call the music metal, it still was really loud and powerful. The basic sound, with guitar, bass and drums, was very “metal”-ish, but that is not so difficult. It’s what you do with it that counts. And Skindred do very much, beside moving around the stage like madmen.

Switching between dub-like sounds, metal and sometimes even some hints of reggae, the Skindred sound is very original and really something you can check out. If you have tickets for the upcoming P.O.D. concert, you are so lucky, because these boys play support.

And as I said earlier, there is enough to look at as well. The singer/rapper keeps on jumping across the stage in a very, ehm, energetic way, swaying dreads included. In terms of activity on stage, no one compares to the bass player. Jumping, running, laying on his back, he just keeps on hammering his instrument, and successfully so. Go see for youself.

Soil
So, is it just me or is there really a connection between the length of the bass player and the lowness of his bass? Standing at about two meters tall, this man had his bass almost at his ankles! Then again, the same thing can be said about the singer, as this was quite a short man but with a BIG voice. Go figure.

Okay, you don’t want to know this, you want to know what Soil is like. Soil is BAD in a big way. Maybe the fact that the men are all dressed in the classic metal colour black affects my judgement, but I believe that even in pink these people just look, act and ARE truly evil.

Not much to say, really, but out of the three acts served to us tonight Soil is definitely the closest to the metal BMG promised us. I would still rather call it something with "rock" in it (although hard rock makes me think of Status Quo too much); that would be closer to the real thing than metal. No, forget all that, just remember: Soil good.

Adema
The first things that came to mind when Adema started playing were: “These guys have got their act together”, and “Linkin’Park”. As it sounded very well-balanced, I could only conclude that this act was very well-produced. Almost overly so, the slickness of act and sound had a kind of fake-ish taste to it. Which is a shame really, because Adema really did sound the most professional of the three, but, as became apparent, professionality alone doesn’t get you there.

I don’t know, it just had a kind of plasticcy, very “american” feel tot it. And as for the Linkin’Park remark, this was just the first thing that sprang to mind when Adema started to play. And it`s not just me; afterwards the photographer said the exact same thing. If you’re into that kind of thing,

Adema is a great band. Of the three bands playing tonight Adema had the most fans, and were clearly the most sorted. However, I think it’s kind of a shame that this is “just another” band to have re-invented the sound instead of trying to come up with their own approach. I can’t come up with any other examples just now, but I think you get the idea of how this band sounds.

There’s one guitar for the basics, drums and bass of course, and a second guitar that played most songs with a pitch-shifter I believe; it just squealed out a really annoying high-pitched, well, squeaky thing. You know, like Korn did in “Freak on a leash”, but with the difference that Korn only used it to emphasise certain parts of the song, not the whole bloody time.

But hey, that is not the only thing Korn and Adema have in common. Most people already know, as every press-release or article can’t wait to point it out, Adema’s singer is actually the half-brother of Korn’s Jonathan Davis. What I ask myself every time such details are pointed out so much, is why. Why do you have to emphasize these trivialities, which have nothing to do with the music, when you should write about the musical performance.

The only reason I can come up with, and tonight only confirmed my suspicions, is that there really is not much to say about that performance. If you like Linkin’Park and such, you’ll like Adema. If you like real music, you won’t.

(Review: Vincent Burger
Pics: Marcia Gransbergen)