Metal and hardcore was the topic of the day. And let's start with Nerveuze who
sounded rather alternative to me. Not too bad, but not too good either. This band seems to stand at the
beginning of their career, so I have to see them some more times in smaller venues to make myself an
opinion. It was ok, but that was it already. Work on a better stage presentation, too.
Ex-Inferis won the award for having been the rock stars of the day, even of the festival. Their drummer didn't like the drumkit, so the band refused to play. No one thought that was cool. In fact they should have left that very moment, but Ex-Inferis preferred to sell some more merchandise. I only wonder who actually bought their stuff. [edit. note: I talked to a band member about 2 months later and heard their version of the story too. I was told that the Kulturfabrik promised Ex-Inferis to have the drumkit set up the way they want it, and that the KuFa didn't keep their promise, although other bands had the freedom to set up their stuff the way they wanted. The KuFa's story was of course altogether different, so that I decide to be impartial without making any judgment towards KuFa or Ex-Inferis. Only the gods know what really happened ;-) ]
Pronoian Made is a band I will never become warm with. I think they sound
sterile. Sure, they are experienced musicians, but the lack of a real flesh-and-blood drummer makes
their music sound dead to me. Enough people liked it though, which is what should matter to the band.
A lot of fog on the stage, which made it hard to take good pictures.
I love Desdemonia. So much about them. They are an excellent death metal band,
and nice people too. The audience really got into their music a lot, and they played a nice mix of old
favourites and songs from their new CD. Anyway I used to work with their singer, so I am hardly in a
place to be objective, but they really kick ass a lot.
Clean State always kick ass anyway. Their performance as opener for the Emil
Bulls was more powerful, but they still showed that they are one of Luxembourg's most important metal
bands.
Next it was Orange Squad’s turn. Some of them (but please don’t ask me who)
used to play with Tommy’s Toxic Tongue Twister, and many people already told me good things about Orange
Squad. Unfortunately, their music didn’t set me aflame. It’s stoner rock alright, but I had expected more.
The singer has admittedly a very interesting hoarse voice, and reminded me more than once of the bastard
son of Lemmy Kilmister and the singer of Leatherface. But the songwriting was rather weak: nothing seemed
to make me wanna move my feet, and all the songs sounded simple to me. I might be unfair now, but when I
talked to people afterwards, it seemed there are only two kinds of people: either you love this band or
you just think they are uninteresting. Or maybe I need more time to get used to them. Bad luck for
tonight then.
Clark Kent split up before the festival, so they had Short-Kut playing instead.
That was really awful to my ears, way to modern, totally mixing hardcore with hiphop. Music for kiddies,
but not for an old conservative male person like me.
D-Fact was great like always, I think to remember. The Ösling's most
important hardcore band, but seriously they are good. Not as fierce as Def Dump probably, but still
one of the really good bands from Luxembourg. Good performance too.
This night it was Dreaming In Red who had to end the concert, and a lot of
people left already. Not their fault, but when you have to play at 2 am in the morning, you can't expect
people to be wide awake.
Next time, it would be better to have less bands playing, so that people could concentrate better on the music. And also it was mostly considered a bad idea to have musical apartheid. A lot of bands in fact expressed the desire to me that they would have liked to play with bands more different from them, just to see how their fans react to their music.
Let's just hope that there will be a lot of Sonic Faces in the years to come, and a big thank you to Bloe Baaschtert, A Sak Voll Véi and KuFa for having organised such a nice and cosy festival.