Because of the increasing number of overcrowded, rip off festivals (I think I do not have to remember you of last year’s Wacken, right?) smaller events are getting more and more fascinating and the Party.San Open Air in the eastern part of Germany is an excellent example. Although the billing features semi-top acts like VADER, MARDUK or MALEVOLENT CREATION there are still numerous smaller bands, who get a serious chance to prove themselves in front of a bigger audience with a professional sound and light show. I consider especially the last two aspects as extremely positive factors, because at Party.San I really got the impression that every band is treated equally and with respect, which is definitely not a natural thing. Of course the aforementioned better known bands got stuff like pyros and the pleasure of playing in the dark, but in terms of sound all bands were great. Alright, but enough preface talking now, let’s have a look at the individual bands playing at Party.San 2003. Since I had to work on Thursday and it took my friends and me 4 ½ hours to get to Bad Berka I missed the bands playing on the tent stage and honestly spoken I felt the serious need to get fuckin’ pissed – and I got, just in case you are interested, what you’re not I guess.

FRIDAY:

...started with going to the swimming-baths, eating some French fries there and enjoying the cold water. It was quite a funny experience seeing all those Metalheads in shorts... I’ve never seen so much by beer consume created bellies at one time, I have one too of course. But now the bands: The first act I witnessed were German Deathers RESURRECTED, whose tight and damn brutal SUFFOCATION-inspired stuff was perfect to start my festival experience. After using the original ‘Human Waste’ intro they placed a great SUFFOCATION-cover quite early in their set, but their own songs were definitely strong enough to be compared with the mighty originators of technical brutal Death. Great show, which was honoured by the fans. Due to the merciless heat in Germany at the moment I went back to the tent after RESURRECTED and missed MUCUPURULENT, because I was resting in the shade of our pavilion, sorry guys! Then HELHEIM entered stage, but their strange mixture of Black Metal, Pagan elements, Psychedelic Rock and Death Metal was a little bit confusing, but could at least convince some die hards and I guess that HELHEIM create their music for no one but a few dedicated fans and themselves. Respect to the band for wearing chain mail in the sun, that’s tough! Then DISBELIEF entered stage and since around eight o’clock in the evening the heat got endurable I watched them doing their mix of alternative Rock with intense Death Metal vocals positively reminding me of OBITUARY’s John Tardy. Why don’t they play more oldschool-style Death Metal? DISBELIEF would have at least a very talented singer. Please change your style... Although I have seen them various times now and am extremely disappointed by “Into The Lungs Of Hell” GOD DETHRONED are still a very cool live band and songs like ‘The Somberness Of Winter’, ‘Boiling Blood’ or ‘Villa Vampiria’ simply kick fuckin’ butt! Because twilight began to add the right atmosphere to GOD DETHRONED’s gig I was satisfied and since people were starting thrashing around I guess the remaining audience, too. But the new songs are definitely extremely boring, GOD DETHRONED are great when they are fast, but this mid-tempo stuff sucks. The Dutch Deathers finished their gig with the mandatory DEATH-Cover ‘Evil Dead’ and then it was time for VADER. Poland’s finest are undoubtedly a great band, but one has seen them quite often in the last two years and I had to smile, when Peter said during two songs, VADER would NOT have been in Germany for some time now. I got the feeling they were nowhere else, but in Germany, haha. In terms of sound and setlist VADER were just perfect, the double bass was like a merciless firing Gatling-machinegun – brutal!!! Although mid-tempo stuff like ‘Xepher’ or ‘Nomad’ were pretty lame moments, a very fast version of ‘Vicious Circle’, my favourite ‘Cold Demons’ (songs about tanks rule, aarrggh!) and the encore ‘Raining Blood’ (you can’t do anything wrong when you play that song) left everybody happy, moshing and ready for MALEVOLENT CREATION, who had to enter stage earlier than planned. Phil Fasciana and his partners in crime had to get a flight in the morning and were forced to play before NAGLFAR, which caused the Black / Death-fans to leave the festival site and so MALEVOLENT CREATION had to deal with a slightly smaller audience. With pyros and a damn heavy sound the experienced Death / Thrashers unleashed a murderous storm of precise aggression and I was fucking crushed. Although I do not like the new singer’s Hardcore inspired stage acting, he gave absolutely everything, strangulated himself with the mike cable and delivered a very good performance. ‘Infernal Desire’, ‘Multiple Stabwounds’, the new track ‘Rebirth Of Terror’ or the exclusive performance of ‘Malevolent Creation’ left me wetting myself in total ecstasy. Fuck, you can’ be bad with such riffs, such songs and such intensity. Two thumbs up!!! NAGLFAR were extremely rare to German stages in the last couple of years and so there were many people desiring to see them live. They had a good, cold sound and the older songs (“Vittra” era) were excellent Swedish Black / Death, but the new material of the everywhere praised “Sheol” CD is just ordinary DARK FUNERAL-like fast Black Metal and bored me, but not the numerous Black / Death maniacs, who obviously enjoyed NAGFLAR’s show. Towards the end of the gig I went off and committed to getting myself pissed again. 

SATURDAY:

After spending some time at the swimming baths again and doing breakfast at Mc Donald’s (very recommendable, if you had too much the night before) the first band I enjoyed were DARK FORTRESS, one of Germany’s most talented Black Metal bands. Although it was three o’clock in the afternoon the good sound, an enthusiastic stage acting, fantastic songs, that have a lot of DISSECTION plus dark keyboard parts and surprising changes and breaks, left behind a very positive impression of DARK FORTRESS as a live band. I definitely have to see them again at a darker place, of course. Great band! KATAFALK were a little disappointing, their debut CD “Storm Of The Horde” was a cool fast mix of GOD DETHRONED and EXHORDER, but live the voice of singer Wokkel (funny name) sounded a lot weaker than on CD. His high screaming made KATAFALK sound like AT THE GATES on Thrash, which unfortunately is something a million bands are doing at the moment. Since it was awfully hot, not many people showed up and it was nothing special though... The same impression THORIUM left behind. They gave their best, attracted several Death Metal heads, but were nothing compared to the anticipated ABORTED, who were one of my personal festival highlights. Their brutal, aggressive Death Metal with oldschool parts and damn heavy, groovy breakdowns was just perfect and impressed me more than their last two releases did. Killer live band. Tight gutripping fuckers I can only recommend! I guess one of Germany’s most upcoming bands are DESASTER, who have developed from a rather mediocre Black Metal band to the best German Death / Thrash band. The new vocalist Sataniac was certainly a shock to the Black Metal fans who loved DESASTER in the past, but I love them now, because they resurrect the intensity of old PESTILENCE, ASPHYX since Sataniac sounds like Van Drunen. DESASTER live were always a pleasure and their gig on the Party.San was excellent, too. They always seem to have some sort of routine in being wild, aggressive and sympathetic on stage, because they manage to recreate the same intensity show after show. Although I missed one or two real surprises in their set like the POSSESSED-cover they did in Dinslaken, they proved once again that DESASTER is a band the German Metal scene can be proud of. As PRIMORDIAL’s Alan Nemtheanga admitted during two songs it was too hot for most people and especially Irish men. Well, he was right and Alan’s voice was not as strong as always and his stage acting obviously exhausted him. Still he did not gave in to the heat, he once again visualised the suffering, the deep-seated hatred, the wish to wake the spirits of ancient days and remember of our Pagan roots and pride. Sometimes he seemed like a potential and talented actor, that should try his luck in theatres not at Metal shows. PRIMORDIAL are one of the best and most intense bands around and ‘The Burning Season’, ‘To Enter Pagan’ or ‘Sons Of The Morrigan’ are masterpieces. I love this band and the numerous PRIMORDIAL shirts wearing people showed that many others think in a similar way... I missed DIMENSION ZERO and returned while BEHEMOTH’s intro thundered across the festival site. Loads of people had already gathered and some were even shouting ‘Poland, Poland’, guess it was some kind of home game for BEHEMOTH. Great lighting, pyros and darkness created a very supreme effect and BEHEMOTH’s sinister, technical and mighty Death Metal was really impressive. Unfortunately the vocals and guitars went a bit under, because the bass drum was too loud, but people enjoyed it anyway. Great gig! Then KATAKLSYM who had promised to do a special set entered stage and they were really cool, but except one old song from “Temple Of Knowledge” and an excellent brandnew tune they did not do anything exceptional. The sound was brutal and better than BEHEMOTH’s, but I have my problems with KATAKLYSM tending to implement many Swedish Death Metal-like elements into their sound. Sometimes the Canadians were like AMON AMARTH, so one can say that the technical aspects like stage acting, sound etc. were first class, but the song material had a few dark spots. Then the final act Sweden’s MARDUK were up to the game, but they just played a standard set with ‘Jesus Christ Sodomized’, ‘Wolves’ and so on and so forth and that’s it. MARDUK have a great past and even “Panzer Division Marduk” is a classic album, but over the last five years they have lost a lot of their power and intensity especially due to Legion’s increasingly weaker voice and two pretty boring albums. I guess just like IMMORTAL, MARDUK’s time is over now. To sum it up, in terms of bands Party.San 2003 was very strong, although there were a lot of standards. The festival site was cool, the people in Bad Berka were friendly (I will never forget the guy keeping law and order at the swimming baths yelling “Meine Herr’n, mit dem Bier aus’m Pül!”), there were no riots, no organisational chaos, enough place for every tent on the camping site, good prices for drinks and I am sure most people (including me) will return to Bad Berka next year. I would like to recommend Boy and his crew to get SADISTIC INTENT for 2004, that would be something really exceptional and the right setting for this band... please get them over to Germany!!! In all other matters just stay as you are...

www.party-san.de

Story: Stefan Franke
Pics: Martin Kropfinger, Mario Gallasch (taken from the Party.San website)

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