Mirador Festival

Tweed, Ophidian, Infiniti, Everday Zulu, Holy National Victims, Kyrenee, (band from Belgium where I forgot the name) in Centre A Roudemer in Steinfort on November 15th, 2003

I think that this was the first edition of the Mirador festival which was organised by the local youth club. A billing of 7 bands is quite respectable for a start. But as this was the weekend of the release of the new Mario Karts Nintendo game, I just had the time to see three bands.

The festival opener have been Tweed, a band I saw about two years ago at an Emergenza preselection. Luckily I missed them because my motto about them is "No need for Tweed".

When I entered the Centre A Roudemer, Ophidian had just started playing. The sound was disastrous and the light show was even worse. First of all, it was annoying for the audience to get the spot lights right into their eyes. Then it is very unusual that it's brighter in a concert hall than on a Spanish beach. But Ophidian were acting professionally and didn't care about those disastrous disadvantages. As it had already been the case for their three Emergenza gigs, Ophidian were again showing who is number one in Luxemburgish metal. Guitar, bass and drums are played at a top level and singer Cassy Wire didn't have problems fascinating the more or less male audience [I consider myself absolutely male, but I don’t know about Lex... only more or less... mmmh; ed.]. But I doubt that her physiology was the only attracting point. She's able to use her voice in very different and sometimes even unusual tones. Ophidian were also playing some new songs which are just as good as those from their debut EP.

Next band were Intebinni who really are terribly bad, but it is always fun laughing at them. I remember well throwing sangria fruit pieces and jellybeans at them during their 'Rock um Knuedler' gig some years ago or making remarks about the singer's moustache. But after this gig, I've been searching for ten reasons to avoid Intebinni.

1)	Intebinni cover a song by Böhse Onkelz who had an extreme right past and they're still a bit eerie to me. If you have to cover a song in German, take i.e. something more intelligent like a song from the new Kassierer CD (for instance 'Meister aller Fotzen').
2)	The singer has a big moustache which avoids him from singing clear syllables.
3)	They cover an Alice Cooper classic ('Eighteen') and present it with the same enthusiasm as a news speaker on TV.
4)	They covered an Iron Maiden song in such a bad way that Pascal thought it was a Queensrÿche cover.
5)	There are two Pecherten and one police officer in the band.
6)	Their music brainwashes the spectators' minds. One guy came during this gig to Pascal, was slightly touching his belly and calling him Bodo. I think he has serious problems.
7)	One man ran in a hurry out of the venue yelling 'Where have we landed here?'. A clear proof that he didn't like the music.
8)	They attract very strange people who pretend liking the music.
9)	Even Obi got brainwashed and he would have bought the new Intebinni EP if Pascal hadn't stopped him in the last minute.
10)	Intebinni sent an SMS to RTL to greet Nazz Nazz.

The next band was of course much better. Everyday Zulu had impressed me about a year ago at their gig in a castle in Useldange so much that I first thought they would be the headliner In Extremo. Again they showed today that they are one of Luxemburg's most spectacular bands. Although the music is surely seventies rock influenced, the folk elements supplied by Cyber Piper make the sound very extraordinary. Cyber Piper is the most outstanding figure in our national music scene. He's an optical mix of a Star Trek Borg and a medieval knight. His wrong bald head, his armour, his futuristic glasses and the display on this belly look strange enough to catch the audience's attention. Rock music with flutes and electric pipes is very rare in Luxemburg so I really enjoyed their performance.

After three bands and many more beers, I decided to drive home, so I missed three more acts:

-	Holy National Victims (not a too bad Emergenza discovery, but you can read more about them in the Lord Bishop live review which is two weeks after this festival)
-	Kyrenee (their four track demo CD isn't very promising)
-	a band from Belgium but I forgot their name

Some interesting remark about the audience. Pascal noticed that Luxemburgish metal girl don't suffer from famine and he was completely right. Then he and Obi got in contact with my secret hippie friends and I felt very embarrassed. Finally there were two popular German entertainers forming a romantic couple among the spectators. The male part was occupied by Guildo Horn and the female by Marianne, one part of the folk duet Marianne und Michael. What more to expect from a real metal event?