My first gig in over two years took place in some religious holiday that in countries dominated, at least historically, by Protestants, is day off. All in all, I forget about it every entire year, for obvious reasons (who knows, let’s call it, my approach to the matter, know why they’re so obvious). And only thanks to a certain person did I not break up early in the morning, by the way. I also knew that there wasn’t a point in going to Copenhagen earlier, because almost all stores and so on are closed. So, I arranged everything for myself (took accurate train (between Malmö and Copenhagen they drive really often) to be under the club, which’s very near central train station, shortly before the concert, even if I was so fucking excited, I couldn’t do anything before I left home. I hit two quick beers outside Pumpehuset and went into battle. When I entered the club, there were not too many folks, but the situation changed with each passing moment and the closer it was to the start time of the first band, the ticker the crowd became.
Finally, 9 pm came and after obligatory intro four inhabitants of Rennes playing in an ensemble called Fange entered the stage. I think I’ll write a little more about their creativity on another occasion. Here I can only tell you this is quite specific, but at the same time even such an old orthodox Metalhead like me felt this is surely extreme music. And alive it sounds more extreme than on CD, actually. Probably their very good and energetic as hell stage work, especially the vocalist’s, had a lot to do with this. And it was one of the reasons, maybe even the main, why they got a good response. I mean, good for the customs here at concerts. I wrote “here”, because from what I noticed it’s very similar with fans’ attitudes on gigs both in Denmark and Sweden. We had some headbanging, especially under the stage – first two, maybe three lines, and that’s it. Anyway, I’m not sure, but I suppose guys concentrate on presenting stuff from their last released album not too long ago. Why do I only suppose it? I’ll write about the reason for it at the end, because it’s the same for both bands. And it wasn’t connected with the fact they had no setlists laying on the stage.
After some not too long break, our metal brothers from the most populous city of New Zealand entered the stage. And maybe this is only my impression, but I feel there are even more people coming to Pumpehuset to see them. In any case. It actually wasn’t the first time I had got an opportunity to see them alive. They played something like three years ago together with Polish Mgła in Malmö. So, I knew what to expect and that really good show awaits me. I, of course, wasn’t disappointed at all. They played more or less one and a half hour, which means they presented not only whole material coming from their last full-length “Cutting the Throat of God”. And to be honest if not one quite important during the gigs, even if I’m not over sensitive about this thing, I’d enjoy it even more than I did. Well, I somehow feel most of us had such an impression. By the way, the reaction of the crowd was the same, maybe even a little better than in the case of French. Well, it seemed for the better and more, let’s call it (even if it sounds for me bizarre), wilder, because of the number of fans.
Generally, both ensembles gave good shows, and I came home very satisfied. As I wrote earlier, my happiness would be even greater if it weren’t for the spoonful of tar in the barrel of honey. It’s about the fact that the man responsible for the sound didn’t do his work very well. The drums, during both bands’ shows, were far too much forward. At the same time vocals were absolutely not heard. And it didn’t matter how close to the stage you were. It caused me more and more irritation, and I have no idea how the hell I survived until the end of the concert! Such a situation is extremely strange for me, because metal gigs take place very often over there.
