My drunken metal spree at Summer Breeze

stefan86

invariably off-topic
Feb 19, 2003
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Stockholm, Sweden
www.deathdoom.com
Here is my Summer Breeze band report :p
Except the bands I mentioned here I also witnessed a few more songs randomly by Hackneyed, Urgehal and Amon Amarth. Wasn't anything to write home about. And oh yeah, NEVER listen to Deadlock. Gonna write more about the random drunkenness and post some pictures later.

THURSDAY

14:55 Vader - 9,5/10
The festival started out with the Vader gig that was plain fucking awesome. Possibly the best time I've seen these guys. Seems Peter gained some new energy with the new lineup. The whole band was energetic and did a cool setlist. Got most of my favourites like "Dark Age", "Sothis", "Wings", "Epitaph" and "Carnal" so it was a great start.

18:00 Psycroptic - 7,5/10
Psycroptic did a highly energetic set that rocked. The only downfall was a setlist that only contained two of their "classic" songs; "Horde In Devolution" and "The Colour of Sleep". They'd definitely be a 9/10 with a good setlist. Happy to see them either way, cool band.

20:15 Kreator - 8/10
Kreator is one of those bands that always delivers live, and this was no off day for sure. Mille's voice is becoming a bit frail and the new songs kinda suck, still it's way worth it to witness all the classics live.

00:00 Katatonia - 8,5/10
Even it was far from the best shape I've seen Katatonia in I was still totally into the gig, singing and headbanging through every song. I suppose I just love the band way too much, and two songs ("Sleeper" and "The Future of Speech") I've never seen them perform live before made up for the slight lack of singing precision.

01:15 Suffocation - 7,5/10
I was way too drunk and tired to fully enjoy Suffocation to be honest. The performance was good, but would've needed a better setlist. "Infecting The Crypts", "Cataclysmic Purification" and "Effigy of The Forgotten" was brutal, Frank Mullen especially.

FRIDAY

16:30 The Haunted - 8/10
Even if The Haunted is very 2003 for me and the Marco albums are way too Gothenburg, I must say Dolving is one of the best frontmen in metal. His energy is fucking 150% through all gigs I've seen him do and that does a lot. The way he mocked both a corpsepainted guy and metalcore between songs was also highly enjoyable.

17:25 Entombed - 8,5/10
Really fucking good. The new songs came out great live and L.G. sure has the same fatso Death Metal energy as Matti Kärki. Setlist appealed to me and I was in a nice semi drunken spree mode doing some folk dancing to some "Wolverine Blues" tunes.

21:35 Amorphis - 8/10
Not as ultra awesome as I expected but still very good. My gf loved it more than I did, but it couldn't really end any other way with them playing "From The Heaven of My Heart" and not "Majestic Beast". "Alone", "The Smoke" and "Sampo" rocked and Tomi's vocs were almost good as I expected... and my expectations were high!

SATURDAY

11:00 Benighted - 10/10
This was the pure highlight of Summer Breeze! Had a whole bunch of breakfast and beers and headed over only to hear the first tones of "Mourning Affliction". Got straight to first row and witnessed one of the best gigs I've seen in my life. Great song choices, fucking brutal vocals. Just 10/10.

11:35 Black Sun Aeon - 7,5/10
Time for some finnish breakfast doom! Black Sun Aeon's debut album is very strong and they performed accordingly. Vocally it was great, especially considering the drummer was doing most of the growling (!).

13:20 Grave - 6,5/10
Don't know why, but the energy wasn't really there on this gig. I've seen them twice before and they even outshined Dismember at Tantogården once. "Bloodpath", "You'll Never See" and "Into The Grave" was cool but it never really got into hyper mode.

18:00 Excrementory Grindfuckers - 8/10
This was mostly fun because of all the weird shit that was happening. The party tent got so over crowded with drunken germans that it was impossible to get in or even see the band. There were crowd surfers EVERYWHERE, actually mostly outside the tent trying to get in. They also did "Looking For Grindcore" and "The Final Grinddown" which is the classics.

19:00 Hate - 9/10
One of the surprises. Expected something good but this was fucking great. They played with lots of energy and flat out brutally, if that doesn't sound lame. The vocalist is one of the best in the genre for sure. Top 5 gig of the fest!

20:00 Ghost Brigade - 9,5/10
Wow! This way a great end to my festival bandwise. Despite the fact that they only did two songs from the first album the performance was magic. The singer sang better than on the discs and the heavy parts were way heavier. Also started liking some new songs I didn't even like before the gig. Almost snapping my neck off to "Autoemotive" was a great way to end it all!
 
Vader, Kreator, and Entombed? Fuck you good sir, I should've been there. How do all of these tours slip right under my nose?
 
Touche, salesman. In my defense, these tours never really reach Canada, and I don't have the time this year to just leave my shit and cross the border for these festivals.
 
Saw Kreator, Katatonia and Entombed at Bloodstock a couple days ago and aye they were fucking awesome :D Would have killed to see Vader too but hey, we got Blind Guardian, Anathema, Amon Amarth, Carcass and Enslaved :p
 
My friends went to europe this year to go to wacken, summer breeze and one more i forget, after reading that review i'm pretty jealous. too bad the total trip cost them 3,000+, i can't drop that much for just one or 2 weeks of fun.