Sad news: The music world mourns the loss of Ray Manzarek (74), founding Member and keyboarder of The Doors, White Zombie drummer Phil Buerstatte (44) and Uriah Heep bassist Trevor Bolder (63). R.I.P.!
German Hardrockers BERSERKER will donate 18.000€ to the Berlin cancer charity for children on May 25. November 2011 BERSERKER front man Schröder was diagnosed with cancer, now he is cancer-free. In 2012 the band collected money for this charity at their concerts and will also continue to do so in the future. Slayer´s Jeff Hanneman is dead: he passed away at about 11AM on May 2nd near his Southern California home because of liver failure due to an infection after a spider bite. R.I.P. Jeff!
The Siberian Jay music video "I´m Holding" featuring Mikko Sirén from Apocalyptica on drums - we reported about the videoshoot in our "1h with" Special - can be watched here: http://youtu.be/C-hSNurZVcs
For a few years now, the Unity-Tour has been traveling around Germany and in the meantime, this event has really established itself in the metal and hardcore scene. This year they kick off again with a big name, Agnostic Front. We’ve seen them many times before, but aren’t these guys always worth seeing?
The band Black Friday 29, whose debut album „The Escape“ is presently doing very well, opened the evening at the quite crowded Zeche Carl in Essen. The guys around singer Björn Esser kicked ass with their mixture of old school hardcore and lots of power and they were well-received by the audience.
The Boston band Death Before Dishonor, who replaced the band Terror that had cancelled at the last minute, nontheless convinced the audience with their aggressive mixture of metal and hardcore. The band from Massachusetts really rocked, but didn’t come across quite as brilliantly as one might have expected after hearing the album.
Diecast had more of a hard time to please the crowd. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that they didn’t present much new material, since they only played three songs from the new album? Anyway, it took a while before the ice between the band and the audience was finally broken – during the Slayer cover „Raining Blood“ it melted completely – and it stayed that way, because now it was Agnostic Front’s turn, the band that the whole audience had apparently been waiting for.
Agnostic Front currently have their 13th studio album „Another Voice“ out, and they brought half of Essen, well, at least the Zeche Carl, to boiling point. Depsite the fact that the protagonists of NY hardcore have played many many times before, it seemed to me as if the fans had had to wait years for this gig, that’s how much they partied with the band, who aren’t all that young anymore. Really – it was a brilliant hardcore package! The audience seemed to be a bit cool and reserved at the beginning of the evening, but I think they were just waiting for Agnostic Front. And it was worth the wait..
