With full force 2004
After the tenth anniversary last year it seemed like the WFF-organizors couldn’t beat the 2004 program. Wrong, they could! This year they were able to offer an even better ‘Best Of Metal, Hardcore, Punk And Crossover’-programme for the same ticket price(s). On the airfield of Rojtzschora played 69 (aha!) bands on two stages in three days for about 20000 till 25000 visitors.
Friday
Main Stage
Tape The band from Hamburg with the American female singer Dacia Bridges had been in the heavy rotation of some music television stations we don’t want to mention. Opening the acting on the Main Stage and sounding like a riddle between mainstream and innovative experimental ideas they just reached little reactions on the visitor’s side with their singles “Yeeha” and “Mother”.
The Real McKenzies The Punk-band also had to live with small number of listeners. Punk? Not only! Because they are Scots the group wore kilts and used bagpipes. Supported by this traditional element they started with this little crowd a cool party.
Soilwork Helsingborg’s finest were the first highlight of the festival to me. Björn “Speed” Strid, Peter Wichers, the two Ola’s and Sven Karlsson were supported by Dirk Verbeuren (lent from the French Death Metal-band Scarve) replacing Henry Ranta on the drums had more than enough strong material from their now five albums. Songs from the new release “Figure Numer Five” (“Rejction Role”, the title track, the new single “Light The Torch”) smashed the crowd which had growed remarkable in the meantime as much as the hits from former outputs (“Bastard Chain”, “Needlefeast”, “As We Speak”, “The Flameout”). Just the mainly wind dominated sound became a little desaster, but no reproach to the fantastic Swedes.
Death Angel The reunited and still pretty young guys from the Bay Area-legend had a more difficult position than on the “Metal-only festivals”. The fivepack had an earlier position and a smaller following on the visitor’s side. Nevertheless frontman Mark Osegueda, Rob Cavestany and Co rocked the stage spreading fun on the band’s as on the fan’s side with “Voracious Souls” and “Thicker Than Blood”.
The Exploited The Scottish Hard Punk-institution started with “Let’s Start A War” in a little chaotic set which is pretty convenient for fronter Wattie and his group. Supported by ex-guitarist Robbie they celebrated evergreens like “Dogs Of War” and “Sex And Violence” as new stuff like “Never Sellout” and “Chaos Is My Life”. Last one fitted to Wattie who needed to cancel two classics (“Fuck The USA”, “Punks Not Dead”) because of his long smalltalks between the tracks.
Hypocrisy The (live) quartett introduced with Horgh (ex-Immortal) a well-known new drummer who had replaced ex-member Lars Szöke. Opening the set with two tracks from the “Catch 22″-release Peter Tägtgren and his band got most fan support for the debut-classic “God Is A Lie”, the midtempo-monsters “Fire In The Sky” and “Inseminated Adoption” and of course for their biggest hit which they named because of the to the festival region closest big city in “Leipzig 47″. Well Done!
Life Of Agony The reunion of the Melodic Hardcore-legend from New York represented a much awaited one by their still numerous fans. Besides some new material the fourpiece concentrated on the songs released before the split. “Weeds”, “Let’s Pretend” or “How It Would Be” were celebrated, but the most jubilation got debut-hits like “This Time”, “Underground” and “Through And Through”. Of course and that’s why the main accent of the show lay on that album and the highlight was reached with “Method Of Groove” by another debut-classic when the stringers Joey Z and Alan Robert shouted and singer Keith Caputo sang the melodic chorus, a cool life presentation of that song! Generally this showcase was much better than those of the regular tour they had done before. But Keith should invest in a fashion manager who at least needs to hide his too big sunglasses with which he looked like a funny insect.
Hatebreed After somehow like a HipHop-Intro the nowadays biggest band of Hardcore must have felt honoured to be promoted to the co-headliner in comparison to their billing-position at last year’s WFF and to play after their legendary colleges. The big number of fans who had assembled in front of the stage showed why. So Conneticut’s finest took care of the first Main Stage-wall of death by “Live For This” and “This Is Now” (from the 2003-record “The Rise Of Brutality”) as by the title track and the set ending “You’ll Be Heard” from the current “Perseverance”-album. Just the band could have moved a little bit more like their “frontrunner” Jamey Jasta.
Slipknot The audience had to wait for about 50 minutes before the Nu Metal-band from Iowa entered the stage. After being transferred from the Roskilde festival in Denmark where they had replaced David Bowie (What a replacement for the Bowie-fans!) and having some technical problems while the soundcheck band as fans didn’t seem to have maximum motivation. Sure (single) hits like “People = Shit”, “Wait And Bleed” or “Spit It Out” were celebrated by the crowd, but enough spectators had left the Main Stage before the ninepiece finished. This appearance didn’t convince at all caused by different conditions as by the band’s engagement. Besides that just ten by the band’s management chosen magazines were allowed to shoot photos and we didn’t seem to belong to those band’s darlings.
Tent Stage: Hardbowl
Caliban Fronter Andy couldn’t have wished a better present on his birthday as this gig. Besides introducing new material (“The Beloved And The Hatred”) from the forthcoming album “The Opposite From Within” the metalcorlers from Essen partied with their numerous fans to “Forsaken Horizon” and “The Seventh Soul” followed by a few circlepits. Nevertheless their WFF 2004-gig had been better because this year’s stageaction was pretty low.
Donots The Funpunk-band is well-known from music television as from the radio. I don’t want to deny they are not my cup of tea. But live they were pretty okay, epecially their covers “We’re Not Gonna Take It” from Twisted Sister and “All We Are” from Doro.
Beatsteaks Germany’s nowadays hottest Rock’n Roll-band fascinated the hole tent and motivated its “inhabitants” to jump and party. Even if they’re also not my cup of tea or glass of beer the Berlin boys knew how to entertain even on such a festival.
Tent Stage: Knüppelnacht
Disbelief This Death Metal machine from Hessen leaves no option to be stopped. The band presented a strong selection from their release background between their self-titled debut and their current album “Spreading The Rage”. The band transferred that psychedelic touch which makes their Death Metal so unique on stage successfully. Besides that I need to mention Karsten “Jagger” Jäger is a great frontman. Well done!
Benediction The British Old School Death Metal-institution offered a sympathic appearance starting at 2:35 am. It was nothing special, but it convinced their fans and maybe won some new.
Saturday
Main Stage
A.O.K. Frankfurt’s Fun-Punkrock-combo began on saturday’s Main Stage and tried to amuse the first festivalsite visitors at 2:00 pm. With no success because there was nothing to be amused about and the music didn’t leave anything which is worth to be mentioned.
Ektomorf Hungary’s or Gypsy’s (Whatever!) finest animated much more visitors than the group before. To me they still sounded to much like a Soulfly-clone. Nevertheless the fourpack animated the crowd to take part in “Destroy”, “Fire” and the current single “I Know Them”.
Chimaira The Sixpack from Cleveland should offer a strong appearance while their set mainly consisted of the new release “The Impossibility Of Reason” without ignoring the debut “Pass Out Of Existence”. Frontman Mark Hunter did a great job while performing “Severed” or the last title “The Dehumanizing Process” to which he organized a wall of death from the sound tower to the stage.
The Bones Rock ‘n’ Roll from Sweden, a trademark which had won a big following inside the Rock/Metal-genre. Probably not on this festival or was it the wrong place-, wrong time-effect? Perhaps because somehow their party music didn’t disturb anybody, but it also didn’t reach that many interested spectators. Maybe next time!
Ill Nino Another strong performance should be brought by the Nu Metal-Latinos around the variable singer Christian Machado who also knew to keep the crowd in suspense. The fans jumped to “Revolution Revolución”-debut-tracks (“God Save Us”, “Unreal”, “What Comes Around”, “I Am Loco”) as to the new “Confessions”-songs (“Te Amo…I Hate You”, “How Can I Live”). A hammer appearance by an active band which calls more than enough hits their own.
Grave Digger Power Metal at the WFF: An experiment which had worked well over the last years. This time it didn’t! For some (Who knows for which?!) reason it started to rain while Chris “Bolle” Boltendahl and his bandmates walked on stage. They began with “The Keeper Of The Holy Grail” to present a Best Of-program (“Rebellion”, “Knights Of The Cross”, “Excalibur”, “The Grave Digger”, “Heavy Metal Breakdown”) without winning more than just a few die hard-fans caused by the weather, but also by themselves. Their (sometimes) ridiculous stageacting motivated a college from a print magazine to the statement: “Grave Digger got what they deserve!” Nothing to add!
Fear Factory After a break of disorientation, trouble with ex-guitarist Dino Cazares and the short split they were back, and what a comeback! While it was still raining the Americans which had switched two positions (Byron Stroud, known from Strapping Young Lad and Zimmers Hole, is the new bassist and Christian Olde Wolbers turned from bass to the guitar) started with the two first songs from their comeback-album “Archetype” (“Slave Labor”, “Cyberwaste”) into their set before turning over to the classics, especially to those ones of their breakthrough album “Demanufacture”. While playing its title track it suddenly stopped raining and the sun including a rainbow came out. The right sign to headbang, mosh and celebrate to “Martyr”, “Replica” or the wonderful title track of their new album “Archetype”. What a comeback!
Six Feet Under The Florida-Deathers played their second WFF-show in a row. While the action on stage could have been much more the band around fronter Chris Barnes still had enough material that rocked. The fans didn’t worry about the minimum of show and rocked on themselves. And so the band left the audience with their AC/DC-interpretation of “TNT”. Nice, but they can do better.
Agnostic Front Another comeback-gig on this year’s WFF! The Hardbowl on the Tent Stage had ended just ten minutes before. A good decision because everybody on the festivalsite, especially the numerous Hardcore-fans, was interested in that show. The NYC-icon still knew how to party. Furnished by the cool entertainer Roger Miret they animated the spectatorship to jump and to party with them to their singalong-hymns like “Gotta Go”.
Dimmu Borgir The Norwegians appeared on their exclusive only festival-show in 2004 and started with “Spellbound (By The Devil)” from their third and breakthrough album “Enthrone Darkness Triumphant”. Was it too cold or too late? Somehow many visitors left the festivalsite and somehow the band wasn’t able to create some headliner atmosphere. In my opinion a better sound could have helped a lot. Shagrath, Silenoz and Co were motivated and after stressing the two last orchestral orientated albums “Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia” (by “Progenies Of The Great Apocalypse”, “For The World To Dictate” or “Eradication Instincts Defined”) and “Death Cult Armageddon” (by “Hybrid Stigmata – The Apostasy” or “Puritania”) they closed Saturday’s Main Stage by “Spiritual Black Dimensions”.
Tent Stage: Hardbowl
Born From Pain After Caliban, Hatebreed and Six Feet Under the fourth band of this year’s WFF which had played on this festival the year before, too. The Dutch Metalcore-band and especially their fronter Chè Snelting proofed their agility once again. The circlepits on the spectatorside were just the obvious consequence. Because of the rain many visitors searched protection against the rain, and so after that cool performance they won some new fans for sure.
Lokalmatadore After the chaos-group “Die Kassierer” at WFF 2004 this year “Die Lokalmatadore” played the role as the band with the worst flavoured humor. With tracks like “Pillemann, Fotze, Arsch” no matter to them.
Ignite What now followed should be one of the best showcases I have ever seen. I came with little expectations and so I was surprised with which power the four Californians began. The spectatorship just seemed had been waiting for this 40 minutes of excellent Melodic Hardcore and the hole tent turned to a jump- and crowdsurf-party. Besides their great musical as live qualities the singer qualified himself with intelligent political statements which didn’t sound opportun anyway. Deepest respect to this live show of a great band!
Tent Stage: Saturday Night Fever
Mnemic Another hammer show was brought by this newcomers. After the release of their debut album “Mechanical Spin Phenomena” the Danish were something like a secret hint to me before the WFF. And the fivepiece confirmed and even excelled my supposition. They started with the record opener “Liquid” in their set which of course contained the “Mechanical…”-tracks. Singer Michael and band noticed from the beginning the tent was full at 0:15 and they took their chance. With their musical mixture between Meshuggah and Fear Factory and an outstanding live performance of their debut songs (“The Naked And The Dead”, “Ghost”, “Blood Stained”, ) as two tracks of their forthcoming album (“Door 2.12″, “Deathbox”) they strenghtened all the energy the spectators had left that night.
Sunday
Main Stage
Hanns Martin Slayer Because Slayer didn’t play this WFF after two years in a row the organizers engaged this German Slayer-tribute-band with the nice name. Their set obviously consisted of Slayer-material (“South Of Heaven”, “Angel Of Death”, the final and unavoidable “Raining Blood”) to wake up the crowd for the last festival day.
Hatesphere After the drop out of the Danish national team in the quarter final of the European Soccer Championship, Danish bands showed how to give a first-class billing their accent. Mnemic did it the night before and Hatesphere ruled in the early Sunday afternoon. Being on tour with Crowbar anyway the fivepiece replaced Exhumed. In spite of some circumstances which especially happened to singer Jacob and drummer Anders last drunk night we don’t want to mention about they should teach one of the best Thrash Metal-lessons that has been taught at the festival. “Bloodsoil” from their self-titled debut as “Plague” or “Low Life Vendetta” from the “Bloodred Hatred”-album were celebrated by the crowd. Their live-experience they had earned over the last tours was easy to recognize. Especially frontman Jacob Bredahl ran the stage as the photo pit up and down. Someone needs only to explain why the band was cut off short time before the last title “Deathtrip” would have been finished. Anywhay: Impressing!
Heaven Shall Burn Many supporters awaited Thüringen’s finest which demonstrated why they are together with Caliban Germany’s leading Metalcore-band. The fivepiece around the very active shouter Markus Bischoff introduced their new “Antigone”-album combined with “…In Battle” and “Whatever It May Take”-tracks. Despite the bad sound smashers like “Behind A Wall Of Silence” or “The Weapon They Fear” showed their effect on an outraging crowd which was told by Marcus to take care of their neughbour’s health. A strong appearance!
Crowbar Now everything was slowed down because the Doom-machine from New Orleans performed on stage. With classics like the opener “Self-Inflicted” or “All I Had (I Gave)” mainman / fronter Kirk Windstein and his comrades attended their fans, but nearly only them. This professional gig just found a lower number of spectators.
Shadows Fall And another astonishing appearance was showed by the guys from Massachusetts. Because of the horrible sound the visitor needed to choose the right position noticing and enjoying the showcase. Otherwise they could have missed a lot. Introducing very interesting songs (“What Drives The Weak”, “The Power Of I And I”) from their forthcoming album the fantastic live-band lead by front-dreader Brian Fair didn’t forget to celebrate their hits from the “Fear Will Drag You Down” (“The First Noble Truth”)- and the “The Art Of Balance” (“Thoughts Without Words”, “Destroyer Of Senses”)-outputs with the fan-crowd.
Rose Tattoo The Rock ‘n’ Roll-legend from Down Under taught one of their rock-lessons. That was the right music to a sunny late afternoon. The “kangaroos” needed to replace original guitarist Pete Wells who stayed in Australia because of cancer. The “performing metre” “Angry” Anderson looking in his white overall like a strange interpretation of some comic figure performed their songs with heart and soul. And with “Scarred For Life”, “Rock‘n’Roll Is King and the band hymn “Nice Boys (Don’t Play Rock’n’Roll)” they had enough singalongs to entertain the audience.
Dark Tranquillity To the well-known Melodic-Deathers from Gothenburg it was an easy job to excite their fanship. The fivepiece which apparently had never done a bad gig played another strong role on a festival. “Punish My Heaven”, “Hedon”, “ThereIn”, “The Wonders At Your Feet” and “Monochromatic Stains” were celebrated by the hungry crowd like the new song “One Thought” from their forthcoming album. And because of his stageacting I need to mention my suspicion vocalist Mikael Stanne was prepared by Haile Gebrselassie for this appearance. Maybe he got paid per metre / kilometre!?
Turbonegro Then the time had come for chaos-Rock’n’Roll from Oslo. Supported by a lot of fans (The WFF-organizers offered the first international (Turboyouth-camp which had seeminly found much consideration.) Hank Helvete and his group with the gay image started with “The Age Of Pamparius” into their set. But that just impressed their numerous die-hard fans, but not the majority of the interested neutral visitors. Of course the Norwegians had classics like the rocking “Get It On” (Why didn’t they play “Are You Ready (For Some Darkness)”), but after ten minutes this showcase became boring. Finally the stage-management didn’t do the fans as itself a favor by switching off the sound while the community was celebrating the hymn “I Got Errection”. Or was the late beginning of this showcase the band’s fault? Who knows!
Monster Magnet The groovy Dope-Rockers had one important problem which would have had every band on this billing position. No, it wasn’t the Backyard Babies playing on the Tent Stage. Rather it was the final of the European Soccer Championship which was showed on a big video screen on the campsite the band had to play against. Nevertheless bandleader/singer/guitarist DaveWyndorf and his formation fascinated by songs from the new album “Monolithic Baby” (“Supercruel”, “Radiation Day”, “Monolithic”, “The Right Stuff”) as by their elder hits like “Superjudge”, “Negasonic Teenage Warhead”, “Powertrip”, “Heads Explode” and “Spacelord”). Cool show by a cool band, next time hopefully with more luck!
Soulfly After headlining the Friday at the WFF 2004 it was the mission of mainman Max Cavalera and his band to close this year’s Main Stage(-action). They started with the current video-single and title track of the new longplayer “Prophecy”, followed by the hit of the former release “3″ (“Seek ‘n’ Strike”) and by the first Sepultura-classic of this showcase (“Roots Bloody Roots”) to what the crowd, which was growing bigger after the finished Eurpean Soccer Cup-final, reacted especially massive. Besides inspiring the fans by “Back To The Primitve”, “Bleed” and “Eye For An Eye” and stucking on their nerves by performing “Tree Of Pain” with Max’s son Ritchie again, they were celebrated the most for playing further Sepultura-classics (“Troops Of Doom”, “Territory”, “Mass Hypnosis”, “Inner Self”). While I still prefer the original Sepultura I need to say it was a good appearance, just the co-performance of Max’s family members does nobody really need.
Tent Stage: Hardbowl
Walls Of Jericho Before the WFF I read about this Metalcore-band with female voices (!) from the USA and I thought: Hey, there you can go, that might be cool! But it wasn’t, I could have better taken a sunbath. The music wasn’t really innovative at all, Candace Kucsulain sounded like an average hardcore shouter or even worse and her stageacting by fighting the evil air with dirty hits and nasty kicks turned out to one of the most ridiculous ones I have ever seen. Okay, it was an atempt (for this time a failed one)!
Blood For Blood The Hardcore-institution from Boston arrived 20 minutes after the beginning of their show because of too much traffic and so they had just 25 minutes left. Nevertheless the tent was still full awaiting them. And the show was short, but cool. Celebrating their party-grenades from their hammer albums “Livin’ In Excile”, “Revenge On Society”, “Spit My Last Breath”, “Wasted Youth Brew” and “Outlaw Anthems” the whole tent turned out to a Hardcore-/Punk-party.
Backyard Babies The Swedish Rock ‘n’ Rollers had as Monster Magnet on the Main Stage one problem taking inluence on their audience which is nearlier described in the Monster Magnet-review. I just say: ‘Soccer’! Dregen and Co rocked the stage and while “Friends” they got support by Turbonegro-guitarist Euroboy and the band The Peepshows. Despite the concurrence of the Main Stage and soccer a nice Rock ‘n’ Roll-party to finish this year’s Hardbowl!
Tent Stage: The Last Supper
Atrocity To the “Conan”-Soundtrack-intro the band around frontman Alex Krull (Or “Wolfgang Amadeus” Krull as one of my colleges called him, huhu!) entered the stage and opened their set by “Reich Of Phenomena”, “Blut” and “The Great Commandment”. But with classics like “Necropolis” or “Send Me A Angel” from their most elling record “Werk 80″ and the support of ex-Theatre Of Tragedy singer and Alex’s wife Liv Kristine Espenaes this performance didn’t really inspire too much and became boring by the time.
Tiamat After a long time I had the opportunity to watch the Gothic Metal-icon. After beginning with the phenomenal “Whatever That Hurts”, Johan Edlund and Co presented the band’s newer phase by “Brighter Than The Sun”, “Cain” and “Angel Holograms” and created a cool mystic atmosphere. In the end the Swedes considered their classics “In A Dream” and “The Sleeping Beauty” from the so-titled album and even with “On Golden Wings” a track from “The Astral sleep”-longplayer before finishing with the silent “Wildhoney”-wonder “Gaia”. Especially “On Golden Wings” and “In A Dream” hadn’t been played for many years. Great comeback on a “Festival From The Hard Side”!
Lake Of Tears Another Swedish band which I hadn’t seen for years. After a long live-absence they started with their “A Crimson Cosmos”-milestones “Boogie Bubble” and “Cosmic Weed”. Daniel Brennare who wore a fly agaric-cap, Mikael Larsson and Johan Oudhuis introduced their new album “Black Brick Road” by “Making Evenings”, “Crazyman” and “The Organ” and earned for those big applause as for “The Shadowshires” (from “The Neonai”) and “Pagan Wish (from “Forever Autumn”). But the classic “Headstones” got the most support while a cool gig. And so I can just recommend to play more classics like “Devil’s Diner”, “Ravenland” or some track from the “Greater Art”-debut next time.
The Vision Bleak The new German Gothic Metal-formation with the orchestral touch cooperated with the classic “department” from “Die Letzte Instanz” to perform the whole “The Deathship Symphony”-album (including “The Fog”-cover “Elisabeth Dane”) less one song and the variation they played “The Lone Night Rider” as the encore in the end. But this exclusive cooperation didn’t turn out be the big thing. It became to boring and much to pathetic. No chance against all the hammer appearances of this year!
Conclusion:
After our first visit at the tenth anniversary of the With Full Force last year it was clear we wanted to return. But this year excelled our expectations. Especially the high quantity of high quality appearances was overwhelming. That speaks for the strong, attractive and different billing! Additional to this the organizors offered a huge video screen to watch the second semi-final on Thursday as the final on Sunday of the European Soccer Champinchips. The visitor still had the opportunity to look at skateboard and motorcycle stunt-events. The organization of this festival was great and the prices for food and drinks were low again (e.g. 2,30 Euro for a 0,4l beer or softdrink). All of that the organizers offered for the same ticket price(s). Any questions? I don’t think so!
A special thanks to Susann “Susi” Raditzky and the WFF-team!!!!!
At the With Full Force 2004 rocked, partied and drank Tobi Wan Kenobi, Melli, Helga and Nicole!!!!!