Metalizer has been longing for an update since October. High time to overcome laziness, especially that there’s good reason for update.The biggest metal festival in Central Europe. Almost 14 hours of live music – that’s how I have spent last Saturday. Early wake up, train journey to Katowice, short walk, and we (me, my boyfriend, and yet 3 people from tmp forum) came to Spodek – The Temple Of Metal, how one of Turbo members described it few hours later. Btw, spodek means saucer, and so is the shape of that building.
Bands were performing on 2 stages – we focused mainly on the big one. First to play was
Darzamat – polish gothic band. They sounded much heavier than on albums, which did them imo good. Pity they played only 20 minutes.
Before
Dies Irae people started to scream: “Napierdalać napierdalać” – no idea how to translate this beautiful word, it describes the style of bands like Dies Irae or Napalm Death, but that explanation doesn’t render that term wholly. People went crazy, moshing, mills and so on. Funny thing - vocalist said: satan doesn’t sleep, I hope you neither (it was quite early, about 11 a.m).
Next band – mysterious
ANJ from Russia. Suppose nobody knew them before – me neither. Didn’t find any mp3’s, they aren’t even listed in encyclopaedia. The music was melodic, clear and quite pleasant for ear. I liked especially “Set on Fire” and songs sung in russian. Performance was accompanied by pyrotechnical effects, we felt fire’s heat on our faces. Negative impression – one of guitarists chewing gum – his jaw worked almost as intensive as his hands and guitar. But generally – successful debut. And, the good thing was, not too many people watched ANJ so I came with my man close to the stage (2nd row) and we stayed there till end of Katatonia show.
We had great view on vikings from
Amon Amarth – they do really look like vikings! Especially vocalist (very long beard). He came on the stage with a can of Tyskie (great advertise for that beer :)) The crowd behind started to press on us, so I had to watch out for boy’s who was standing before me elbows, which were sticking into my stomach. And we had to watch out for people flying above our heads. The performance was imo the second best one of that day :)
Slight change of climate – time for more calm and atmospheric
Katatonia. Public calmed down (only one guy flew above our heads), except few girlies who screamed their throats out like they were at HIM concert or something :/ Don’t know Katatonia’s discography too well, but I liked the performance, they seemed to sound bit heavier than on albums. After that we took a lunch break (we got pretty hungry), ate sandwiches and went to so called “Pub under Spodek” where we got frozen to the marrow, as it was separated from the outside only with piece of foil. So we drank our beers fast and came back inside.
On the stage
Dark Funeral was ending their performance – I’m not into that kind of music so I didn’t regret missing it.
The Haunted also didn’t take my fancy – totally unmelodic stuff. Next band –
Pain – was expected impatiently by some of us, but for me and my bf it’s far too electronic and techno-like. And I wanted to see
Hell-Born (performing on the small stage at the same time). That was a biggest dissapointment for me – they sounded much worse than on CD’s, all melody and climate had dissapeared somewhere leaving only chaotic chaff.
We walked to the opposite side of Spodek were artists were signing CD’s and posters – it was Apocalyptica’s turn, but the queue was so long that we gave up, cos we didn’t want to miss next band –
Arcturus. I managed to get almost at the barrier again:) They needed long time to prepare their equipment, but eventually they came. The vocalist seemed to be slightly drunk as he behaved kinda weird – jumped waving his legs, falling on his knees and so on. Or maybe he’s always that way :) Anyways he presented wide range of vocal and the the music was great as I expected – not exagerrating Arcturus was the most avantgarde band of this year’s Metalmania.
Next hour belonged to
Turbo – veterans of polish heavy metal. Despite they’re not the youngest (the band was formed 25 years ago) they didn’t forget how to play. As for me they could use less of flickering, white, eye-fucking lights – my eyes hurt many hours after.
Next band is something for you Mosher –
Napalm Death. Powerful and ass-kicking, though too extreme for me. Only after they had finished we ran in the stage direction to have good view on
Apocalyptica - the band we were most anxious to. Many other people also had this idea so we got only into 3rd row. And there was a big guy before us blocking 80% of view :/ Finally cello-kings appeared on stage and gave genious performance. They played some Metallica covers like “Enter Sandman”, “Fight Fire With Fire”, “Master Of Puppets”, “Nothing Else Matters” as well as their own compositions like “Bittersweet” and “Betrayal” from newest album, and at the end – my favourite Grieg’s composition “Hall Of The Mountain King”. Pity they played for such a short time, or maybe it’s my subjective impression. But I certainly would like to hear more Apocalyptica even instead of “the star of the evening” who was expected by at least one fourth of audience – the world’s ugliest band, how they were announced (what a great self-criticism :)).
Certainly their show was dark and satanic as their fans expected :D All of members had elegant make ups.
Cradle Of Filth’s performance resembled circus – weird creatures on the stage, acrobat doing evolutions on the rope above the stage and Danni as a clown :) Of course he showed whole possibilities of his voice – he was screeching like if he was hit in the balls. Due to one hour lag which occured during whole festival we had to leave after 3 or 4 songs cos 0:50 we had a train and we didnt want to miss it.
Summing up I’m glad I was there, tho my ears just stopped hurting. Top 3: Apocalyptica, Amon Amarth, Arcturus. Hope next year's Metalmania will be even better as it’s gonna be 20th edition.
Heh, that’s my longest post so far so here is gonna be its end :)
