in the last two weeks, i attended three concerts:

• the first one was by the norwegian prog black metallers enslaved in the z-7. the concert was really good, even though enslaved could have played longer in my opinion. unfortunately, the place was pretty empty, which is something enslaved does not deserves.
• the second concert was by the swedish prog death metallers opeth in the rohstofflager, with the ocean and cynic as support. the guys in the ocean apparently have an urge to move around. i’ve had it so often that stupid kids constantly jump you in the back if you’re standing in the front, but so far i never had it that band members constantly jump in front of you from the front. pretty annoying, somehow. anyway. they were ok. after them, cynic entered the stage. i never heard anything from them, but i heard some people praise them a lot, so i was really looking forward to hear them. well, i’m not sure yet how much i like them, i guess i should listen to their music intensively. but at least they sounded pretty cool. well, then, finally, opeth began to play. as usual, they were simply fantastic. here’s the playlist:
  1. heir apparent;
  2. the grand conjuration;
  3. godhead’s lament;
  4. the lotus eater;
  5. hope leaves;
  6. deliverance;
  7. demon of the fall;
  8. the drapery falls (encore).

  it’s nice to finally have heard godhead’s lament live.

• finally, i saw the german medieval metal band in extremo. the support was the cologne based alternative rock band the black sheep, consisting of four girls, who did a good job opening the gig. then, finally, i was experiencing in extremo. as a lot of famous bands, the concert was also attended by a lot of annoying kids who gave their best to chase people away from good places. anyway, after losing my very good place in the very front, i found a still good one a bit farer away. i don’t know too many albums of in extremo, mainly older stuff, so i didn’t knew at least half of the material, but i still enjoyed it. (they were also the first band i saw who used pyrotechnics.) but there were also lot of songs which i knew, for example vollmond, wind, spielmannsfluch and ave maria.

on saturday, i visited the rock 2008, a one-day festival held on königstein fortress, located in the beautiful landscape of the saxon switzerland, together with a friend. here are some pictures from the fortress:

after strolling around the fortress interior a bit, we walked near to the stage to watch the first band, krieger, a german hard rock band. usually, the first band(s) playing on a festival have the ungrateful job of killing some time, while most of the crowd hopes they’ll stop soon. often, they aren’t exactly experienced or aren’t too good. but not krieger; they played a pretty solid kind of hard rock, maybe not exactly my style, but it was good and we enjoyed it. some photos:

after krieger, a short break took place when the stage was prepared for lacrimas profundere, a german gothic metal band. the break went on pretty fast, and the band entered the stage. i haven’t heard them before, just their name. i think i have to listen to some of their albums before i can give a better judgement, but they sounded pretty good. a photo:

a very noticeable thing about this festival was that all stage reconstructions were done very fast, and the sound quality was really good all the time. i haven’t seen this combination ever before; often, it seems that the reconstruction times were eternal and the sound quality still really bad.
another admireable thing was the strict adheration of the time table. the first two bands had like 30 minutes, and the whole festival was planned to be over by around 23 o’clock, and so they managed to do. even though the doors opened a few minutes later than planned. (well, please admit it, have you ever experienced some festival or concert without any delay?)
anyway, the third band was schandmaul, a german medieval metal band. i know a bunch of people who like them a lot, but this doesn’t change the fact that i managed to not know a lot of them except a few songs, maybe. schandmaul did a very nice show. they managed to get the last bits of the party rocking and rolling. definitely a very good live band. some photos:

then, finally, it was time for the big stars of the evening, the finnish cello rockers apocalyptica. i’ve already seen them last november in zürich, and they were one of the main reasons why i travelled so far for this festival. the stage design was as usual: four large metal chairs, formed like skulls, with a huge drumkit in the middle:

their performance was, as usual, excellent. it’s always amazing how eicca and perttu manage to combine heavy head banging with playing their cellos perfectly. unfortunately, antero wasn’t playing with a burning cello this time, though. besides that, they managed to let the crowd freak out, and played lots of great songs, including some of my very favorites like prologue (apprehension) from reflections and the norwegian black metal classichall of the mountain king from cult, featuring paavo stomping around the stage while playing the mountain king. simply great. here are some photos:

after maybe one and a half hour, everything was over. we took a peek at the merchandizing booth, where the guys from lacrimas profundere were waiting for their fans to talk, being photographed, autographing and talking. then, we took the bus down to the city of königstein and walked back to our hostel, where its owner, lutz, was waiting for the concert attendees at a nice bonfire.
well, i think this concert/festival qualifies for being one of the best i’ll attend this year. the technical stuff was marvellous, the timing good (except that at least lacrimas profundere should have played a bit longer and, well, apocalyptica could have played the whole day anyway :-) ). all four bands were ranging from good to excellent, and in particular the last two made the crowd go crazy. (even though i still don’t get it why on earth one wants to have a mosh pit while a gothic metal band is playing. but then, hell, kiddies aren’t exactly predictable…)