Hard Features |
MILWAUKEE METALFEST 18JULY 30 & 31, 2004 by John Haseltine My review of this two day legendary metal fest may contradict some of the things you may hear, or read elsewhere. I fully enjoyed both days, and all the bands I was able to witness. Granted yes, there were some moments where you could possibly agree with the bullshit chants of a couple of the bands as well as that of a few of the patrons attending the show. Some of the comments from a couple of the bands were totally unprofessional and uncalled for in my eyes. But then again, who the hell am I? Nobody really. Just a metalhead with a pen and a camera who appreciates the fact that Jack Koshick Presents, as well as others put on these types of festivals so that new bands can get out and play a major show. And for the fans, as I am also one of them too, can see a gathering of such talented underground bands that you may never get to see. No matter how many demos or cds of theirs you buy. I'm guessing that many of the festivals problems stemmed from the fact it was moved from the U.S. Cellular Arena, to the much smaller Modjeska Theatre. I know of a few bands who had dropped out of the event due to the change of venue. I don't believe this hurt ticket sales any. In fact it made it seem as if there were more people in attendance. With the move of venues, they had to put up a tent outside for one the three stages they were going to have this year. This of course created a scheduling problem. As with any festival of this magnitude, they never get all the bands up and off right on time. As well, the city of Milwaukee had a 9;00 pm cutoff time for the outside stage. So some bands had to move indoors. Which along with a few bands being late themselves , really screwed things up for the inside stages as well. Pushing 80 plus bands through a two day concert is not such an easy thing to do. If it were, you know everybody and their brother would be doing it. A brief pause to applaud Koshick & Co….. I also applaud James Rivera of Seven Witches for I think he was the only one who took a moment out of their shortened set on Saturday to say a big thank you to Jack & Co. for all he's done for the metal world over the years despite what may be going on this year. And that we need to all stick together as a metal family to keep the flame strong. There were a few discrepancies over the sound inside as well over the two days. But this also was only from a select number of bands. Hmmm. Overall many, and I say many of the bands on this years lineup were very pleased and happy to be playing the festival this year. The weekend seemed dominated by more death metal acts than the rest. With equal amounts of progressive and black metal acts as well as a couple hardcore bands. There were also quite a few thrash bands. A well rounded lineup of genres. My apologies right now to all the bands I did not get a chance to see. There were so many great bands this year and it was hard to be in two places at once. And this is not a suck ass line either , as if you were at the festival, there would be no way you could disagree on this matter. Some of Fridays highlights were as follows, Milwaukee's own heavily death influenced Barwhore and Dark Shift. Heavy boot stomping Malice420. From Colorado, the young and upcoming "diverse metal" band Elctrikchair, Skeleton Witch, Watch Them Die, Cattle Decapitation, Mortal Decay, Deeds Of Flesh tore things up. And Goat Whore was amazing. Potential Threat, Stone Vengence, Deflagration, Gauntlet. The Black Dahlia Murder were what I suppose you could call the feature act before the headliner. I'm not sure what was the exact incident to set them off, but besides playing a few songs that they ripped out very well, the only thing they featured was how they felt about the festival. TBDM were very adamant about their feelings towards the festival and it's problems. How it sucked. How it was bullshit, wa, wa, wa. Well they did kick some ass up there for the amount of time they were allowed to play. Hope the rest of your tour goes as well as you hope. The Bay Area legends Death Angel hit the stage. Back after 14 years as if they were never away. Death Angel wailed through many classics. 'Evil Priest, Disturbing The Peace, Seemingly Endless Time'as a couple off the new 'Art Of Dying' release 'Thrown To The Wolves, Thicker Than Blood, and Famine'. Death Angel killed 'em. They as a band are tighter than ever. The one and only complaint at the festival, I must say I agree with, that was very, very wrong was when Death Angel were on the last song of their shortened set, 'Kill As One', the wonderful city of Milwaukee cut of the electricity. This after turning all the house lights up. Yes it may have been 2:00 am, but that was just unsacred. But then again just seeing the guys together again, even if it was just for one song, was well worth it. Day two ,Saturday , most bands and people were expecting much of the same as they had the day before. Seeing as the day before ran up until 2:00 am, the city set a cutoff time for the whole night to end by midnight. Yea, midnight on a Saturday. Didn't figure Milwaukee for such a non-concert town. Well everything starts rolling well on into the afternoon and evening with great performances by all. SF's Down Factor& Kaos kicked ass for the day as well as Condemned, Beyond Glory( great progressive metal band reminded me of early Fates Warning), End Unseen, Stabcorp, Summon, Necromis, Point Blank, Try Redemption, Emaciation. 9:00 pm was coming quick out in the tent and Nasty Savage took awhile to get things going. Not happy with the mics I think. Well we got to see them for about 14 minutes. Just enough for three songs and for Nasty Ronnie to beat the shit out of himself with a couple of Tvs. Back inside Macabre's brand of murder metal seemed to be one of the festivals highlights. The crowd was very into them. Power metal band Attacker hit the stage for about 15 minutes. Seven Witches and Cephalic Carnage put on stellar performances. Not enough time though. Everyone was face with shortened sets. This left only 40 minutes for The Misfits to belt out a ton of classics. Jerry Only was a riot. He'd say 'want to sing a song? No? Fuck it. Here we go anyways. Sorry no time for bullshit, just the music.' they hammered through many songs. Good I suppose is the fact that their songs are pretty short so we got to hear quite a few in a short amount of time. Last Caress, Attitude, Halloween, Lobotomy, Die Die Die My Darling, a well as the Ramones' 'I Wanna Be Sedated'. Dez and Marky Ramone were great. As was seeing Only and The Misfits. Hope they come around soon. Well all, that's the Milwaukee Metalfest review in short, as I saw it. Will I go again? Hell yes! Will more bands wanna play there? Hell yes! We're talking the Milwaukee Metalfest here. Will there be scheduling problems next year as well? I'm sure there will be. But you know that's the nature of the beast. Sorry folks, we all can't live in a Walgreen's commercial. Please check out all the bands I've listed here, as well as those listed below. Do your part to support the underground metal scene. Whatever your genre preference may be. Again a salute to all the bands of the festival this year. May be off a band or two: Twenty Ripped Angel, Dark Grave, Soul Demise, Tenabrae, Hebron, Gorgasm, Planet Delirium, Unumbium, Core Device, Dark Shift, Funeral Rites, Life Of Sin, Beyond The Flesh, Stone Vengence, Winerfell, Deflagration, Gauntlet, Dragfoot, Barwhore, Malice420, Elctrikchair, Stricknine, Without End, Chainsnap, Onus, Skeleton Witch, Fallen Hallow, Scarred, Watch Them Die, Cattle Decapitation, Mortal Decay, Deeds Of Flesh, Goat Whore, Black Dahlia Murder, Death Angel, H.G.H., Hellchurch, Down Factor, Tazumul, Dead To Silence, Deadlock, Soul Reclusion, Condemned, Beyond Glory, Vex, End Unseen, Facture, Potential Threat s.f., Sixt9, Black Widow, SOH, Sumeria, Wrath Of Killenstien, Krawl, Wartorn, Point Blank, All Or Nothing, Paylface, Try Redemption, Unscarred, Emaciation, Pushing Earth, Face Cage, Kaos, The Apostacy, Little Green Men, Iron Cross, Nasty Savage, Stabcorp, Summon, Vesperian Sorrow, Throcult, Necromis, Anal Blast, Origin, Beyond Therapy, Nuclear Winter, Macabre, Attacker, Seven Witches, Cephalic Carnage, The Misfits |
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