After a few months of live-music drought, it was time to walk back into a venue and watch some bands try hard to obliterate people's eardrums. I put on my boots, stuffed a few copies of 'Cecilia's World' into my backpack and started walking. A few minutes later, tram 15 took me and a heap of other people towards the city centre. My mind was occupied with my new book which I started writing that same day. Once inside Antwerp Music City, I realized I needed to write another scene that takes place in this venue. Antwerp Music City is just awesome, one of my favorite places in the world actually. Anyway, once inside, I found an angry bartender. Someone had not put a Cough record away properly, causing the vinyl to fall to the floor and crack. Such a thing would piss me off too, like that time I found a Tiamat record in my mailbox, folded in half. |
Oh, by the way, I did not make any photos.
I have seen Drawn Into Descent before and I knew that they had potential so I was curious about how these youngsters have grown over the past few years. The first time I saw them, they looked nervous, not really at ease with their stage performance and with their music. Here in Antwerp Music City they opened rather similar, careful. But after a few minutes they seemed to relax and really get into their act. Their atmospheric (post-) black metal suddenly seemed flawless and self-assured. I must say I was pleasantly surprised. Here was no longer a young up and coming band but a well-attuned quartet with top notch and well varied black metal. I was right to keep an eye on these guys. They are going to be big, or at least they should be.
A five hour drive turned into a ten hours traffic jam and the exhausting conditions of touring proved to be too much for the drummer of Nibiru. He arrived at Antwerp Music City in a bad state, claiming he could not play. So unfortunately Nibiru had to cancel. Another sign that the night did not go as planned. Too bad, but the band already promised to be back soon.
Enisum took their time to set up, and eventually they started at 22.00, as planned. Nobody seemed to mind, especially not when these Italians blasted their "Black Cascadian Avantgarde Metal" through the speakers. This was great. From start to finish (and bonus) Enisum kept the entire audience in their grasp. Heads were banged. One girl engaged in a rather sexy ritual dance. Others applauded hard or screamed "yeah" and "whoooo" after every song. Although I loved every minute of it, I was incredibly impressed by the band's drummer. What an animal! The band did great, the drummer made it perfect.
Right after the last notes faded away, I too decided to leave. After all, I had another book to write and this evening gave me some decent ideas. Yes, it's going to be a dark novel...
Serge