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AEBA, AMOK VEDAR, HIDDEN IN THE FOG, INGURGITATING
OBLIVION
Hamburg, Headbanger’s Ballroom - Nov, 24th 2002
 Headbanger’s Ballroom is Hamburg’s Metal pub No.1
and they’re doing quite a bit to please Metalheads in town: Classic Metal
nights, Extreme Metal nights and of course underground gigs. Follow the signs to
“Fischmarkt” when you’re going by car.
When East Frisia’s Death Metal hopefuls INGURGITATING
OBLIVION hit the stage at 7.00 p.m. the crowd more or less consisted of the guys
from HIDDEN
IN
THE
FOG, me and a handful of early birds. Well, we caught a
hearty worm indeed: the band started with an atmospheric intro (not the one from
their recent CD "Cadence And Perspective In Desolation", by the way) and
then took off with 'A Poet’s Fingernails', that rather short instrumental
on "Cadence…". What struck me first was the clear sound that night.
Didn’t they get a new P.A. at the Headbanger’s only recently? Good decision.
Back to INGURGITATING. This gig had been announced as drum god Dirk’s final
gig with the band but don’t panic, there is already a new berserk rehearsing
with the guys. Lead guitarist Florian was already in trance – probably he read
the chapter for transforming into a snake, he sort of looks like one when he’s
doing his strange “dance”. Bass player Sascha was banging off his head,
grinning like a lunatic while second vocalist / guitarist Karsten preferred some
evil posing this time, probably his neck was still hurting from the Protzen
festival a couple of months ago. And new singer Uli doesn’t need the lyric
sheets anymore. Well, the band played the whole "Cadence" mini CD as well
as crushing versions of 'Rapture' and 'Nyarlathotep', of course,
unfortunately leaving out the jazz part. This almost caused a riot as the HIDDEN
guys were protesting loudly. For those who know the song it has become an
essential part and why not confuse everybody else? Once again: a thrilling gig
by INGURGITATING
OBLIVION and with the guys from
HIDDEN in the audience, madness
was taking over as they sang along the guitar solo on 'Nothingness'!
HIDDEN
IN
THE
FOG were next. Among their songs of
grandeur and their precision, a refreshing combination of humor and evilness
surrounds this band on stage. They didn’t have any problems at all in keeping
the same breathtaking level their mates from INGURGITATING had let loose a
couple of minutes before, both musically and in terms of stage acting. A mixture
of professionalism and underground-buddy-mentality, if I may say so. Their
bombastic Black Metal is strongly influenced by EMPEROR, ABIGOR and even IRON
MAIDEN – a unique sound that catapults them among the best acts around. Among
other killer tracks, they played my favorite, 'The Nighted Deity', as well
as a promising new song they’re planning to record in December. So watch out
for that!
 AMOK
VEDAR from Berlin was the first band to use face
painting. Furthermore, they must believe in a very strict definition of Black
Metal as they call their style Black / Gothic Metal. But there was no opera diva
hurting my ears. The band does have a female bass player but she didn’t take a
microphone. In fact, the band even sounded a bit rougher than HIDDEN although
they had a keyboard player among them. There was even some kick ass attitude as
one of the guitarists reminded me of 80s guitar heroes, posing and banging like
nuts. Cool and absolutely not Gothic if you ask me. Unfortunately they
couldn’t play their last song due to curfew reasons.
Headliners were AEBA. Definitely not my cup of tea.
Nothing against primitive Black Metal but as somebody in the audience stated:
“they’re not the kings”. Compared to AMOK
VEDAR they had the brighter
white and the darker black on their faces but as soon as I located an optical
parallel to KNORKATOR, I couldn’t think of anything else. They wanted to be
evil (as much as KNORKATOR want to be funny) but couldn’t really get it across
until they were not allowed to play an encore (the curfew, remember?). At that
point they looked as if they were about
to demolish the pub! Hey guys, relax or you’ll soon die of a heart attack!
A handful of people had one hell of a night and not
surprisingly, the supporting bands kicked some serious ass. Probably Hamburg
gets too much Metal as almost every band stops over there for each and every
tour. Out in the desert we might have seen more Metalheads to show up. Cheers to the bands and good luck to Dirk and DESPONDENCY. Support the
underground and take a look at the great websites below!
Ramon Claassen
http://www.ingurgitating-oblivion.de
http://www.hiddeninthefog.com
http://www.amokvedar.de
http://www.aeba.de
http://www.headbangers-ballroom.de
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