In Germany the festival season ends traditionally with the Up From The Ground (UFTG), which took place for the seventh time this year. The popular festival has always been growing and in my opinion itīs now losing itīs reputation of being a small festival. This yearīs rush was even so big, that it was impossible to get some parking place on the campground on Friday evening, so people had to look for some place in the village.
The UFTG slogan is still "from fans for fans", so the guys from Final Breath are organising this event every year. When it comes to the music itself, the focus is clearly on the harder stuff, whereas there were also some UFTG-untypical bands like e.g. Sonic Syndicate. Camping directly besides the car was possible (if you were there early enough that is) in the meadow campground. So it was a ten minutes walk to the mainstage, at most. New was the "Elldorade", a little party tent, where the aftershow parties took place, every evening.
Friday, 24.8.2007
The brothers of Krisiun from Brasil left most of the festival visitors standing there agape. The drums, which let every drum computer explode, are simply inhuman. In addition to that precise and fast riffs. Alex (voc) spoke out about the speed by telling fans, that he doesnīt care about what others think. If they were too fast for some people, they should simply listen to something else.
Illdisposed around founding member Bo is simply great. The show started with the Gothic intro from Burn Me Wicked, which is also the title of their latest album. This track seemed to be endless, especially the refrain passages. I still donīt know from where Bo conjures up his voice, some growlers surely envy him because of that, and this makes the Danish guys so unique. But the childish (wannabe-funny) announcements of Bo are less pleasant. Some fans love them, I for my part donīt see the fun of it.
The German fronter Angela from Arch Enemy is known as a power woman, but what was provided at UFTG is done by every better band nowadays, too. The Swedes screwed up as a headliner this time, because you simply canīt come up with soundproblems as a professional band. The melodic riffed "Nemesis" or the groovy "My Apocalypse" sounded so bad that you were on the verge of shouting some mean words towards stage.
Saturday, 25. 8. 2007
Early forenoon, tickled by the sunlight, there were some options to get awake. Either you drank the beer leftovers from the evening before, which had been placed on the engine hood, or you started for a little walk (about 10 mins by foot) to the city to scare the villagers. :) After a very good breakfast in an "All you can eat" bar, it was time to go back to the festivalground in the heat.
Scarecrow from Finland? Please not yet another Scarecrowband, since there are already three of them and now even a Finnish one. Well, entertaining partymusic in front of approximately 150 people.
Yayaya, whatīs that?! Grind Inc., well ok, a grind band. How on earth can you be on the ball at that time? I was desperately looking for some shade and cool water and the guys from Krefeld played a bombastic show in the midday heat. Great gig!
Sadist from Italy seemed to be on every bigger festival this year, and this is good. They were already great in Slowenia at the end of July and at UFTG they were simply ingenious. What the guitarist/keyboarder was doing there had almost circus character. He was juggling two instruments at the same time - he was playing guitar with one hand and playing keyboard with the other - a must see! Incredible!
Where are Vomitory? Helloo, where are you? Aaaah ok they had hidden behind all that hair, since there were no faces to be seen. Old School Sweden Death - they rocked!
Testament What the headliner of today did, was something I hadnīt seen for quite a while. At first they let us wait and wait and wait. There was not the slightest bit of information about what was going on and the fans were whistling furiosly and started throwing mugs towards the stage. Finally after nearly one hour, the band came up on stage and there wasnīt even an excuse or explanation for being so late. They immediately started to play until the electricity broke down and the fans had to wait again. Iīve had it, I preferred going to the bar.
Conclusion :
The UFTG has become really big by now, it was bursting at the seams this year. But it was amazing that there were no problems with food or drinks at all. I never had to wait and got everything pretty fast. Parking outside the festivalground wasnīt the end of the world, but still unlovely. Apart from the fact the headliner were not that convincing it was a great festival, nevertheless.
Christian Girstmair, transl. Cornelia Wickel
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