Bogfires visited the famous Graspop Metal meeting in Belgium, June 26.-29.2009. The Graspop festival was first organized in year 1986 as a local pop festival. In 1993-1994 Bob Schumacher joined forces with the original organizers and together they changed the format into a genuine metal festival. Over two decades later Graspop is one of the biggest and famous metal festivals in Europe, and in the course of its history over 250 bands have performed in the festival, including the biggest names in the metal genre, such as Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, Slayer, Megadeath, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and so on. This year’s headliners were Mötley Crüe, Slipknot, Marilyn Manson and Nightwish. Besided Nightwish the only Finnish band performing at Graspop was Children of Bodom. Both Finnish acts had their gigs on Sunday, so we had plenty of time to check out the other interesting bands, such as Heaven & Hell, Down and Mötley Crüe on Friday and Delain, Kataklysm, Volbeat, Journey and Slipknot on Saturday. Journey, an American band that was formed in the early 70’s by former members of Santana, was alive and well, with their new singer, Arnel Pineda from Philipines. The band had found the singer on YouTube singing covers of Journey songs. Interestingly, all Children of Bodom members were really excited to see Journey’s show on Saturday. The headliner Slipknot played a solid show with no surprises. On Sunday, Lamb of God had an early slot at one in the afternoon, but once again put up an energetic and sharp performance. Other interesting shows on Sunday were Suicidal Tendencies and Chicken foot, an all star line-up with members from Van Halen, Red Hot Chili Peppers and maestro Satriani on the guitar. Nightwish performed on the main stage before the official headliner Marilyn Manson at eight on Sunday evening. Their hour and a half set list differed a little from the previous festival appearance in Finland, featuring for example Ghost Love Score from Once and title track Wishmaster. Children of Bodom had a later slot, headlining the second stage (a tent) at ten. This is how the band bassist Henkka describes his experiences of Graspop on the band website: “Sunday was sort a reunion feeling, when Lamb Of God and God Forbid was playing too. And Suicidal. Saturday we managed to get to the festival in time to see Journey. We played on Sunday, and the tent was really hot. But the crowd was amazing. Best Graspop show ever for us”. Bogfires would like to thank COB and Nightwish for their generosity and hospitality once again.
Showing posts with label BogFires Focus Areas: Central Europe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BogFires Focus Areas: Central Europe. Show all posts
Friday, 17 July 2009
Graspop metal meeting (GMM) June 26-28
Bogfires visited the famous Graspop Metal meeting in Belgium, June 26.-29.2009. The Graspop festival was first organized in year 1986 as a local pop festival. In 1993-1994 Bob Schumacher joined forces with the original organizers and together they changed the format into a genuine metal festival. Over two decades later Graspop is one of the biggest and famous metal festivals in Europe, and in the course of its history over 250 bands have performed in the festival, including the biggest names in the metal genre, such as Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, Slayer, Megadeath, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and so on. This year’s headliners were Mötley Crüe, Slipknot, Marilyn Manson and Nightwish. Besided Nightwish the only Finnish band performing at Graspop was Children of Bodom. Both Finnish acts had their gigs on Sunday, so we had plenty of time to check out the other interesting bands, such as Heaven & Hell, Down and Mötley Crüe on Friday and Delain, Kataklysm, Volbeat, Journey and Slipknot on Saturday. Journey, an American band that was formed in the early 70’s by former members of Santana, was alive and well, with their new singer, Arnel Pineda from Philipines. The band had found the singer on YouTube singing covers of Journey songs. Interestingly, all Children of Bodom members were really excited to see Journey’s show on Saturday. The headliner Slipknot played a solid show with no surprises. On Sunday, Lamb of God had an early slot at one in the afternoon, but once again put up an energetic and sharp performance. Other interesting shows on Sunday were Suicidal Tendencies and Chicken foot, an all star line-up with members from Van Halen, Red Hot Chili Peppers and maestro Satriani on the guitar. Nightwish performed on the main stage before the official headliner Marilyn Manson at eight on Sunday evening. Their hour and a half set list differed a little from the previous festival appearance in Finland, featuring for example Ghost Love Score from Once and title track Wishmaster. Children of Bodom had a later slot, headlining the second stage (a tent) at ten. This is how the band bassist Henkka describes his experiences of Graspop on the band website: “Sunday was sort a reunion feeling, when Lamb Of God and God Forbid was playing too. And Suicidal. Saturday we managed to get to the festival in time to see Journey. We played on Sunday, and the tent was really hot. But the crowd was amazing. Best Graspop show ever for us”. Bogfires would like to thank COB and Nightwish for their generosity and hospitality once again.
Friday, 20 March 2009
Nightwish @ Brussels & Rotterdam
BogFires had the honour and pleasure to appear as guests in two Nightwish gigs in their recently started European tour with Pain and Indica: Forest National in Brussels (14/3) and A’hoy in Rotterdam (15/3).
The shows were the second and third on this leg after the sold out kick-off for over 4000 people in London (Carling Academy Brixton, 11/3). The size of the audience was reportedly around 5000 in Brussels and over 6000 in Rotterdam and comprised, as generally in the case of Nightwish, a mixture of young and old, women and men, metal heads and other Nightwish fans. Our small sample of interviews and general observations (as well as various YouTube comments) suggested that many of them regarded the concert as a great experience. Brussels crowd seemed to include many Finnish visitors, and a couple of white n’ blue flags were also spotted in the audience.
The audience was surprisingly loud, especially in Brussels where we watched the show mainly from the arena floor. Indica and Pain both already got people active, and Nightwish really exploded the place. The venue with the downward floor and wide profile is excellent for this purpose – despite the large size, the arena incorporates a certain feeling of closeness. A’hoy in Rotterdam is more of a normal kind of a sport arena, but also a pretty good one for concerts like this. AC/DC played there two days before Nightwish and the venue can be checked e.g. from various concert recordings like “Live & Off the Record” By Shakira and the DVD concert in “The Katie Melua Collection” set.
Finnish Indica filled well their opening slot, and the girls were seemingly enjoying their time on the stage. Their happy mood was transmitted to the audience as well, and the band probably got a number of new friends in both countries. The sets ended with Kate Bush cover “Wuthering heights”, an apparently risky choice, but which was carried out beautifully by the band.
Swedish Pain then took the sound and visuals to the next level, using basically the same stage setting as in their recent European headline tour. Despite small technical problems in Brussels, the set was intense, ending with the catchy “Shut your mouth”.
Nightwish performed a determinate, good sounding and fancy looking set on both days. The visual appearance of the show was particularly staggering with beautiful lights, grand and precise pyros, sneaking smoke, and other eye candy. The new sea theme with the majestic anchor and the wooden boat around the keyboards of Tuomas worked as a perfect background for the story line of the set. In particular, the transition from the intro with the secretively blue-lighted cross to the blasting “7 days to the wolves” was something one can only comment with great admiration.
Two days after the Rotterdam show, we spotted a short gig review in the Rotterdams Dagblad newspaper. Quite contrary to our experience, the reviewer gave 3/5 stars for the show and seemed to complain about the empty chairs at the venue and problems with sound quality. It is also quite strange that in such a short story, more space was used for the (seemingly eternal) comparisons between Tarja and Anette, and between (yes, in Holland, of course) Nightwish and Within Temptation than for actual concert reflections.
During the trip, we also checked the local rock magazines. Nightwish appeared in the cover of Belgian/Dutch Rock Tribune with a 4 pages long article. The French edition of RockHard also included a 4 pages long interview of Tuomas.
In addition to amazing concert experience, it was also interesting to follow how smoothly the organization of such a big enterprise functions behind the coulisse before, during, and after the gig. It really comes out that this caravan has toured the globe for a long period of time. Everything was managed with high professionalism, and the atmosphere backstage was remarkably friendly and relaxed.
BogFires really look forward to the next chance to see Nightwish live, which is not a very long away. We would like to express our warm thanks to Tuomas, Ewo, Toni, Adam, Peter, and the rest of Nightwish, Pain and Indica members and crew for their hospitality and such a nice time in Brussels and Rotterdam.
TMK & LL
Nightwish setlist (both days)
1. Intro
2. 7 days to the wolves
3. Dead to the world
4. The siren
5. Amaranth
6. Romanticide
7. Dead boy’s poem / walking n the air
8. The poet and the pendulum
9. Sahara
10. Nemo (Nemo played before Sahara in Rotterdam)
11. The islander
12. Escapist
13. Dark chest of wonders
Encores:
14. Ghost love score
15. Wish I had an angel
Scroll down to the bottom of the page to find gig videos in YouTube.
The shows were the second and third on this leg after the sold out kick-off for over 4000 people in London (Carling Academy Brixton, 11/3). The size of the audience was reportedly around 5000 in Brussels and over 6000 in Rotterdam and comprised, as generally in the case of Nightwish, a mixture of young and old, women and men, metal heads and other Nightwish fans. Our small sample of interviews and general observations (as well as various YouTube comments) suggested that many of them regarded the concert as a great experience. Brussels crowd seemed to include many Finnish visitors, and a couple of white n’ blue flags were also spotted in the audience.
The audience was surprisingly loud, especially in Brussels where we watched the show mainly from the arena floor. Indica and Pain both already got people active, and Nightwish really exploded the place. The venue with the downward floor and wide profile is excellent for this purpose – despite the large size, the arena incorporates a certain feeling of closeness. A’hoy in Rotterdam is more of a normal kind of a sport arena, but also a pretty good one for concerts like this. AC/DC played there two days before Nightwish and the venue can be checked e.g. from various concert recordings like “Live & Off the Record” By Shakira and the DVD concert in “The Katie Melua Collection” set.
Finnish Indica filled well their opening slot, and the girls were seemingly enjoying their time on the stage. Their happy mood was transmitted to the audience as well, and the band probably got a number of new friends in both countries. The sets ended with Kate Bush cover “Wuthering heights”, an apparently risky choice, but which was carried out beautifully by the band.
Swedish Pain then took the sound and visuals to the next level, using basically the same stage setting as in their recent European headline tour. Despite small technical problems in Brussels, the set was intense, ending with the catchy “Shut your mouth”.
Nightwish performed a determinate, good sounding and fancy looking set on both days. The visual appearance of the show was particularly staggering with beautiful lights, grand and precise pyros, sneaking smoke, and other eye candy. The new sea theme with the majestic anchor and the wooden boat around the keyboards of Tuomas worked as a perfect background for the story line of the set. In particular, the transition from the intro with the secretively blue-lighted cross to the blasting “7 days to the wolves” was something one can only comment with great admiration.
Two days after the Rotterdam show, we spotted a short gig review in the Rotterdams Dagblad newspaper. Quite contrary to our experience, the reviewer gave 3/5 stars for the show and seemed to complain about the empty chairs at the venue and problems with sound quality. It is also quite strange that in such a short story, more space was used for the (seemingly eternal) comparisons between Tarja and Anette, and between (yes, in Holland, of course) Nightwish and Within Temptation than for actual concert reflections.
During the trip, we also checked the local rock magazines. Nightwish appeared in the cover of Belgian/Dutch Rock Tribune with a 4 pages long article. The French edition of RockHard also included a 4 pages long interview of Tuomas.
In addition to amazing concert experience, it was also interesting to follow how smoothly the organization of such a big enterprise functions behind the coulisse before, during, and after the gig. It really comes out that this caravan has toured the globe for a long period of time. Everything was managed with high professionalism, and the atmosphere backstage was remarkably friendly and relaxed.
BogFires really look forward to the next chance to see Nightwish live, which is not a very long away. We would like to express our warm thanks to Tuomas, Ewo, Toni, Adam, Peter, and the rest of Nightwish, Pain and Indica members and crew for their hospitality and such a nice time in Brussels and Rotterdam.
TMK & LL
Nightwish setlist (both days)
1. Intro
2. 7 days to the wolves
3. Dead to the world
4. The siren
5. Amaranth
6. Romanticide
7. Dead boy’s poem / walking n the air
8. The poet and the pendulum
9. Sahara
10. Nemo (Nemo played before Sahara in Rotterdam)
11. The islander
12. Escapist
13. Dark chest of wonders
Encores:
14. Ghost love score
15. Wish I had an angel
Scroll down to the bottom of the page to find gig videos in YouTube.
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