Lol, I was at the “worst In Flames show ever” that Jesper was talking about. It was the 2002 Furnace Fest held in a former steel plant. My friend and I drove many hours to get there. We were hardcore kids who had turned into metalheads the year before so that festival was like true heaven for us.
It was our first time seeing In Flames and to us it was amazing, didn’t really remember any technical issues or anything with their set. We were up at the front head banging like crazy and giving the horns to Bjorn. Got their autographs afterwards on a Colony booklet.
He is kind of right that hardcore and metal at that time were still separate genres. Metalcore was JUST starting to come out. Another detail is that they played Reroute To Remain material for the first time ever I believe according to setlist. They also wore matching white jump suits. To us that was kind of nu metal. So, there were a lot of cynics there who might have been stand offish. Hardcore kids traditionally wore shorts or jeans and t shirts, short hair... In Flames looked a lot different in retrospect. Speaking for my friend and I, we were already disappointed by the RTR songs we had heard that had leaked. Not sure what others thought though.
Also, when compared to Hatebreed, yeah they had a much lower response. But the Hatebreed set was LEGENDARY! They had just released Perseverance, rising in popularity, and no one was tired of their songs yet. Jamey was not yet Headbangers ball host. Anyway the whole main stage area was a huge mosh pit with people hardcore dancing. It was amazing to see (I was more in the back and on the side for that). They had complete dominance of everyone there. No way In Flames could compete with that. And anyone who has ever hardcore danced for 45 minutes, everyone was dead afterwards. Here is a video of the first song in their set. If it’s not your style skip to 1:45 and watch to the end and you’ll see what In Flames was up against, LOL, “a fucking prison riot”.
But you know who really stole the show at that festival... it was Andrew W.K. We all showed up to Be Serious and Be Hardcore and when we saw this guy on the list we were like WTF? Everyone is going to leave when he plays. Actually it was the total opposite. He had the whole place going crazy with this party rock. It was insane.
Unfortunately I can’t find any footage of In Flames’ set from that fest but again... I guess that validates what Jesper was saying about the fan interest. I was up front and didn’t notice much.
Anyway, awesome few days. It’s really funny to me that Jesper’s worst show is one of the best ones I’ve been to.
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