Loud Park 09 festival reportSaturday 17th and Sunday 19th of October, 2009
Makuhari Messe, Chiba, Tokyo
By Toni-Matti Karjalainen & Laura Laaksonen, BogFires Research Project
Photos © Loud Park, used by permission, all rights reserved
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Friendly people, relaxed atmosphere, well functioning organizations, exact schedules, functioning venue with good sounds and full darkness even in the daytime. This is what the Loud Park metal festival in Tokyo, “the heaviest metal festival in Japan” is about, according to our previous experiences.
The above applied also to Loud Park 09, organized October 17-18 in the Makuhari fair centre in the outskirts of Tokyo. Except what concerns the venue! The Saitama Super Arena, the “normal” Loud Park venue, which was used in the two previous years when BogFires reps attended the fest, was this time booked by Beyoncé for her concert, as told by the organizers at the Creativeman agency. The Makuhari fair hall may work well for the Tokyo Motor Show and other similar events but it is not an ideal place for a rock festival. The place was yet quite roomy and easy to move around, but it was too warm and, yes, too bright with the white walls and beams of sunlight invading the main hall. The acoustics were also poorer than in Saitama, and quite disturbingly, the middle hall where many food, drink, and information desks where located, and where also most of the bands’ signing sessions took place, was extremely noisy. The variety of food available at the venue, by the way, had possibly increased from previous years but was still not very good. In specific, if you are a vegetarian, the choices are very scarce.
Anyhow, the festival built up to be another memorable rock event experienced in Japan. Instead of two, this year’s setting offered three stages; two of which (“Ultimate Stage” and “Big Rock Stage”) positioned side to side in the trusty loudparkish manner to allow a non-stop stream of shows, and a new “side” stage (“Sanctuary Stage”) that featured slightly smaller bands. This meant that there was some overlap in the performances. Nevertheless, due to the compact size of the venue, it was very easy to move between the halls and to get a glimpse at most bands. And the local metal heads seemed to fully enjoy the event in the traditional Japanese manner; cheering during the songs, staying silent in-between, sleeping on the floors, and wearing a full range of black band T’s. Moreover, it seemed that also a slightly bigger number of foreigners had found the event than in the previous years.
Enough about the context – next about the contents.
Day 1 started, on our behalf, with the final few songs in the set of Loudness. There were already lots of people packed in the hall, and it was surely nice to see the legendary Akira Takasaki live and in good form. The veteran category was represented also by Dokken who had made a promising return into the hard rock universe with the positively remarked “Lightning Strikes Again” album, released last year. However, Don with his band looks old, which does not matter of course, would the performance have turned out to be a bit more convincing. Don’s voice it’s not there anymore, and the band’s playing rather sloppy. It is therefore no wonder that, both for the audience and seemingly also for the band itself, the apparent high point of the set was when George Lynch guest appeared on the stage to play “Tooth & Nail” with his old band.
Anthrax, another breeze from the past, was again back in the saddle after the singer hassle and cancellations of many summer gigs (including that of Sonisphere in Pori Finland). This time they played with John Bush (Anthrax singer 1992-2005), which was probably greeted with happiness by many fans. Finally seeing the fourth representative of the Bay Area Thrash big quartet may have filled the whole in our general knowledge, but the gig itself did not make a big impact. It was just ok. There is nothing wrong with the playing, sounds, or anything, but Anthrax really lacks interesting and powerful songs.
Lynch Mob then manned the Sanctuary Stage. The band that was started by the Dokken guitarist George Lynch and was mostly active in the 1990’s, performed a more fluent, interesting and convincing set than George’s old acquaintances before them. The newer songs from the “Smoke and Mirrors” album (2009) worked particularly well live. Poison the Well, one of the new live acquaintances for us, appeared also positive, energetic, and accurate. They played a good show with quite interesting songs. This group needs to be checked more closely.
As seen before, Arch Enemy is very popular in Japan. And powerful and loud the band was also this time, providing no surprises and nurturing a consistent visual appearance with black clothes and white bands in the arms of every member. Was there some specific meaning for wearing them? Having said this, it would be nice to see some surprises and fresh ideas from the band every now and then. And is there really a point in playing as loud as they (and many others) did? Yes, this is a metal festival and metal should be loud, but if you don’t recognize any flavours in music anymore, loudness just becomes uncomfortable. By the way, it struck us again to see that practically no one of the local people had protected their ears. There were even small children listening to the bands with their bare ears, which is of course just simply stupid.
Megadeth was brilliant. Dave and the rest of the gang were seemingly in a good humour. In the standard Megadeth manner, the show really involved nothing extra, just powerful playing. In specific, the excellent interplay between Mustaine and Chris Broderick was fun to listen and fun to watch. Chris actually played a big part of solos, and maneuvered the practice with sheer professionalism. It seemed like the band had some problems with the sound levels in the beginning, and played in general at considerably lower volume than the preceding Arch Enemy. And good so – now there was more possibilities to recognize finer nuances in the songs. The set list included a couple of songs from the new Endgame and lots of older material. The gorgeous “Holy Wars…” ended the highlight performance of the day.
Dave & Chris of Megadeth
Judas Priest ended Day 1 by focusing on the older material. No surprises from the Brits either, and BogFires left the building after half set to avoid the massive rush in the subway and headed back to Shinjuku. There, TMK had a pleasure to greet Dave Mustaine in person in a certain small bar…
On Day 2, the first BogFires beam was directed towards Hibria, a Brazilian power metal group that has produced two albums (2004 & 2008). This new band was one of the most positive surprises of Loud Par. Iuri Sanson, the singer, showed amazing talent on the high register. The technical songs of the band included lots of old school melodic references to bands like Queensrÿche (which usually works well… ;). However, the band should seriously consider redesigning their logo. It is really awful!
Iuri of Hibria
In the meantime, Japanese Galneryus had presented their technical virtuosity at the Sanctuary Stage. Unfortunately, we saw only a small fraction at the end while the set was overlapping with that of Hibria. On the Ultimate Stage, the next appearing Hatebreed was very convincing in its own league, but was not really our cup of tea. The same applied to the traditional hard rock presented by Royal Hunt. Napalm Death, in turn, made a strong impression. It was loud, fast and powerful, and generated a real sonic landslide. Between the short songs, political and “advisory” comments by Mark “Barney” Greenway were entertaining, as was his great stage presence throughout the whole set as well. A very positive experience indeed!
Papa Roach presented their recent hit “Hollywood Whore”, which is quite a catchy song in overall, but did not otherwise create any remarkable feelings. Fair Warning from Germany, being surprisingly popular in Japan, in turn managed to put smile on the faces of most spectators, but really approached being a comedy act with their gestures and wind machines (which probably was not the intention). Another sort of a comedy act, Anvil, was not convincing at all. They really don’t have good songs, and the performance is merely embarrassing. But yes, I guess one should take a look at the much appraised movie that was also clearly promoted in Loud Park.
Children of Bodom, the sole Finnish representative in this year’s festival, performed a rather basic gig; no surprises were provided. The band appeared less energetic and more passive as usual, and quite little contact was created with the audience. The COB signing session before the show gathered one of the biggest crowds at the front of the autograph booth.
Alexi of COB at the signing session
COB arrived in Tokyo Saturday afternoon and Bogfres had an opportunity to catch up with the band. The guys had just had a couple of days off in Hawaii where they also finished the North American part of their lengthy “End of the World Tour” (started in Buenos Aires on September 8th). COB management had also come to Tokyo for Loud Park and other meetings. Both the band and the management seemed very pleased with the tour so far. After Loud Park, COB was off to Hong Kong, Taipei, and Beijing. BogFires also met the promoter of these three gigs in Taipei a few days after. According to him, the concerts went really well, although the atmosphere in these concerts with some 500 to 1000 spectators must have been quite different from that of Loud Park with several thousand noisy fans. After Asian gigs, COB headed Moscow where the last show of the Blooddrunk tour – that started in April 2008 – was to come to the end. The band will next have a break. For Alexi, this means going back on the U.S. tour with Hypocrisy already in November. In February 2010, COB is going to start to write new material and to practice for their next album. Studio time is scheduled for June 2010.
Rob Zombie, in turn, was something very different. This was the absolute highlight of Sunday in terms of the show value. Rob and the band were professional and entertaining. Rob had an excellent contact with the audience, climbing down to be touched upon by the fans every now and then. However, Rob had to wake up the audience a couple of times to break the typical Japanese silence between the songs. The set was visually impressive with the weird videos and stage gimmicks – and ragged Rob is visually impressive and a highly credible rock star himself. Guitarist John 5 (who played with Marilyn Manson, by the way, before joining Rob’s new band in 2005) with his clown painted face was also fun to watch and to listen. Overall, the sounds were solid and discernible, and the songs grooving and stomping, even though sharper melodic hooks are missing.
Rob Zombie
The Loud Park 09 was closed by Slayer. And Slayer was Slayer, not more, not less. If you’re not really within their realm, the set is pretty much seen after a couple of songs.
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BogFires want to express warm thanks, again, to Onta from Creativeman for hospitality. And thanks for all old and new friends in Tokyo for such a nice time!
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Anyway, when news about the Mr. Big reunion tour emerged and finally resulted in a list of dates also including Helsinki, I sure got interested in seeing the band live, not only to experience the great Sheehan-Gilbert duet but also to check if Eric Martin (singer) still sounds and look the same (yes he does) and to see how well the songs have managed the test of time. Then, by chance, I happened to be a week later in London and seven weeks later in Seoul when the band played in these cities. Even if Mr. Big may not really lie at the core of the BogFires interests, this trilogy also offered a nice opportunity for some analytical contemplation. It was interesting to experience the band and audiences within three different cultures and settings: at the Nosturi club, a semi-sized venue in Helsinki, in a theatre environment at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London, and in a larger arena atmosphere of the Olympic Gymnastics Gymnasium in Seoul.
The show thus worked well in a club, in a theatre and in an arena, which I guess is a sign of strong professionalism. What concerns the audiences, they were different. Helsinki and London crowds appeared, in general, quite similar in their behaviour, seemingly happy to see the band alive and kicking after many years. But the Seoul gig was definitely the loudest and wildest of these three, the audience jumping up and down, making good noise and singing along the songs. The concert only filled half of the seats of the large hall in the first Seoul night (followed by another one on the following day), but the atmosphere was great. High profile ending for the trilogy indeed!
