Loreley
The arena
Umbra et Imago
Das Ich
Das Ich
London After Midnight
London After Midnight
DAF
DAF
DAF
Within Temptation
Within Temptation
Andreas
Towe
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Zillo-festival 2004
The Zillo-festival is quite a small festival, no more than 24 bands on just one stage and some 5000-6000 visitors but it's well worth visiting. Located on the beautiful Loreley cliff with a fantastic view over the surrounding Rheinvalley the camping and festival area is a marvellous experience and with this years line-up including among others Alien Sex Fiend, Skinny Puppy, Umbra et Imago and London After Midnight, the German alternative magazine Zillo is dressed for success. On arrival we are however soon aware of the lack of working co-operation among the festival crew. No one seems to know anything about anything, the press manager for instance didn't know until the second day of the festival that there even was a press/VIP-area. We found it ourselves and showed it to him... Everyone we talk to are anyway very nice and helpful. Strange is also that if you're equipped with a press/VIP-ticket you have to pay 15Euro for the camping but if you have an ordinary ticket only 6Euro. It also seems like the festival crew is only expecting visitors from south Germany since the camping is not opening until the first day of the festival, meaning that visitors like us who are arriving Thursday has to pay extra for using the regular tourist camping. The camping is on the other hand very good. It's split in two parts and on the one we used there are free showers and real bathrooms while on the second one the visitors had to use dixies.
There is on the whole an atmosphere of gaiety on the camping. People are friendly and in a constant party mood and almost everyone are making new friends. No one seems to be more interested in their look and attitude than in the actual reason they are there. The true vampires probably don't leave their coffins again until the next WGT in Leipzig. Interesting is also that the average visitor is about 25-30 y.o. The lack of teenagers among the visitors might be explained by the fact that getting to the festival is a tricky business if you don't have a car. We had to climb the Loreley cliff by stairway, carrying our camping equipment and it's NOT recommended! The only thing annoying about the other visitors is that about seventy-five percent of them are smoking pot, all the time! The camping constantly smells like a Dutch coffee shop. Not very nice if you're not interested in that kind of stimulantia yourself.
The actual festival area is a five-minute walk from the camping and is one of the best festival areas we've ever seen. Starting off with a small gothic shopping centre just outside the main gate were you can buy almost any addition to your outfit, record collection or live role playing equipment (if you're by chance into witchcraft and hocus-pocus you'll probably find what you need here too) without paying a fortune for it. From the main gate you can almost see the stage, just up the hill and you're there. And what a stage! An amphitheatre mostly used for operas and classical concerts having the best sound conditions there are to get. Even when the music seems very loud you are still able to talk to one another without shouting. No annoying ringing noises in your ears after the concerts and since it's an amphitheatre you can still see almost everything happening on stage even when standing in the last line, very nice for those who normally never sees anything at concerts because they are not tall enough. There are only two negative things to say about the festival area. First, the lack of toilets and second, the offering of vegetarian food. The latter is probably not the festival organisers fault but the people selling food. If you like sausage, beef, pork, sausage and sausage you'll find tons of food to tease your palate with but if you're a vegetarian you just might end up like one of us, with food poisoning. If you find something that even looks vegetarian that is. If you're a vegan; don't get hungry.
Friday starts with a so-called newcomers contest. The basic idea is to let unestablished bands get a chance to perform live at the festival in order to contest about who are the best. We never really found out who won this contest and are not familiar with the rules either. What we can say is that none of the bands were very good, especially not the heavy metal act Moonrise with a vocalist who sounds like someone is trying to drill a hole in his head or something even more terrible.
If Friday didn't start very good it ends much better. Last band on stage this evening are Umbra et Imago and except for the tiny little goth chicks involved in an on-stage bondage performance it's absolutely brilliant. At the beginning of the show we are a bit sceptic. Lead vocalist Mozart enters the stage waving two heavily smoking torches, dressed in a practical joke mask which makes him look like a Sand people warrior right out of Star Wars but as the show carries on it just gets better and better. Umbra et Imago's music is perfect for open air live performances and they prove to be very talented musicians who just keeps it coming, never losing tempo in the show. Mozart is a great entertainer with a big portion of humour. When the bondage show isn't going the way it was supposed to he starts joking about it and makes the whole audience laugh. As mentioned the only big problem is the bondage show. First off the show doesn't seem to be made in a very serious way which makes it boring, but even worse is the young girl who looks like she wants to be anywhere but on that stage. That really makes us feel sad and uncomfortable. The concert final on the other hand is fabulous. While Umbra et Imago performs their cover version of Falco's "Rock me Amadeus" the sky over the hill opposite the stage explodes in a huge firework! None of us has ever seen such a bombastic end to a concert and that is the main topic of conversation as we walk back to the camping.
On Saturday the heavy cavalry rides in on stage. Or how about London after midnight, Alien Sex Fiend and Skinny Puppy, all on the same day. And as if that wasn't enough the program also contains Das Ich and Suicide Commando.
Das Ich is always a good live act but this is not one of their more memorable gigs. Stefan and Bruno shows all their energy and are performing a very good mix of the new "Lava"-material as well as older classic songs. As many bands, Das Ich would probably have been a much better visual experience if it had been evening. As it is, they're playing in broad daylight and that kind of takes away some of the cool elements in the show. After the gig they are mingling about with their fans in the VIP-area and are just as nice and humble as always. Impressive after the kind of performance they make.
The daylight problem is the same for London After Midnight who unfortunately also seems to suffer from a monitor problem. Sean Brennan has due to this quite some problems playing his guitar. Still it's a very good concert. London After Midnight are really doing their best to convince the audience that this is not the last we'll be hearing from them. Just too bad they're not playing more new songs. The old material dominates the whole gig but the new material presented is even better and we're really looking forward to hear more of that. At this concert the audience also takes part in performing music. Since it's Sean's birthday the whole audience starts singing Happy Birthday.
After hiding from the rain at the camping we're off to see Alien Sex Fiend. Due to the rain we miss the first song but then comes "I walk the Line" in a brilliant live version. Nik Fiend is walking around the stage dressed up as a priest with his old hat on his head and the make-up we're used to see him in. The old recipe still works and tastes even better! On his left is his wife and keyboardist Mrs. Fiend with all her machines still working and still sounding the same just like no time has passed since 1981. On his right is a keyboardist and guitarist dressed in a slaughter-apron and a muzzle, similar to the one Hannibal Lecter has in Silence of the lambs, and with a hunchback. The stage is all covered in skulls, bones and spider web and during "Now I'm feeling zombified" Nik Fiend opens a box full of bones and skulls and starts throwing and kicking skulls out in the audience while screaming the classic lines of the song. We also get the big pleasure to hear a very good live version of "Katch 22" where ASF really proves that they know exactly what they're doing, it's quite a complicated song (or more like a medley really) but it sounds terrific. Before saying goodnight they perform their most classic song "Ignore the Machine" during which the stage crew put in several inflatable bananas on stage and everything is just wonderful...
Saturday evenings last band on stage are legendary Skinny Puppy. It's really hard finding the words to describe this concert; we both have a constant goose flesh during the entire gig. As we discuss it afterwards we agree that Nivek Ogre and Cevin Key has the ability to dig deep inside ones brain just to strike the right nerves. The way Ogre is letting the small stage cameras focus on him and what he's doing mixed with the video show that's going on above his head is absolutely astonishing. A picture of Adolf Hitler or a nuclear detonation double exposed with a live feed of Ogre smearing himself with oil(?) and blood crawling over the stage with a face so desperate it would scare the hell out of anyone is very effect full. Ogre is moving like a zombie, jumping around like a mental patient, crawling around in that greasy stuff he's smearing himself with, all the time desperately screaming out the message of one of the world’s greatest live bands ever. Right behind him Cevin Key is trying to virtually kill his keyboards with his bare hands, meanwhile the other musicians are taking good part in the show as well. As the show comes to an end after over two hours of industrial hammer beats Ogre is "roping off" parts of the stage using the American police forces crime scene tape (you know the yellow one saying "police line - do not cross"), after which he kneels drawing the outlines of a body on the floor screaming "America, America!". After this they all leave stage in a cacophony of noise with Ogre's voice still ringing over it for about a minute or two, and all of a sudden everything is dark and dead silent... Wow!
With such an end to an absolutely magnificent concert nothing can be more disastrous than what happens next, they all get back on stage for an extra song. Why, why, why? It makes absolutely no sense. Skinny Puppy have just proved they are the most provocative, touching and stunning show for ages and then they ruin the whole effect of a splendid final by getting back on stage after less than two minutes. We do hope there is a reasonable explanation to this lunacy! Still, this is doubtless one of the top five concerts anyone of us has ever attended, and we've been to quite a few.
The DAF concert on Sunday is very predictable, as always. They play much of the new material but of course "Verschwende Deine Jugend", "Der Mussolini", "Sato Sato" and so on. There is nothing wrong with the energy on stage or the tempo in the gig, but seriously, DAF are growing boring. If you have seen one DAF concert you've seen them all. Of course they end the whole thing with playing "Der Mussolini" again (didn't see that one coming, did you?). OK, it's fun that Gabi calls it "Tanz Der Adolf Hitler" the second time but after being around for so long it maybe, just maybe would be about time to think things over a bit and start planning for extra songs instead of acting surprised each time it happens.
Later in the afternoon The Crüxshadows are entering stage. After seeing them in Stockholm about a month ago, reviewing the gig as horrible, we want to give them one more chance. Maybe they weren't in the right mood in Stockholm, maybe something had happened that made them do a bad gig, maybe they are really good when it all comes around? Well, they're not! The Zillo concert is even worse than the one in Stockholm.
1. He can't sing. Seriously people, he can't.
2. The silly little gothic cheerleaders can't dance and we don't give a crap for how many Super Bowls they've been doing. This is a rock concert and they're not up to it.
The Crüxshadows is probably the most pretentious and pathetic live act in the world at the moment.
The last band on stage of this years Zillo festival are the romantic metal band Within Temptation. A very good end to a very good festival. While pictures of waterfalls and unicorns are shown on a video screen on stage, vocalist Sharon den Adel are reaching tones that ought to make most sopranos jealous. Her voice is really getting its space in the mixing as well. While most heavy metal bands are mixing the guitars very loud, Within Temptation are focusing on the vocals mixing up the other instruments when needed. Talk about good communication between the musicians and the engineers. Within Temptation are a band who obviously are eager to do everything live. Everything that's on a recording with the band is also there live. Very impressive, especially when it comes to mentioned vocalist but also the keyboardist who constantly is filling the air with atmospheric soundscapes to back up the guitars, the bass and the drums. The feeling of hearing a live performance of the beautiful ballad "Our Farewell" with every single note in the right place is fabulous.
Within Temptation would probably have a lot to earn on not trying to go for the heavy metal concept all the way. It doesn't feel right with bombs and fire on almost every song, when listening this kind of metal. It would have been a good idea to save the firecrackers for the last songs. But on the whole the concert gives that feel-good mood that only a really romantic concert can give.
/Andreas Nilsson
Towe Rundgren
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