Il portale della musica Heavy Metal

Hammer Open Air 2012 - Day 2 - 7/21/2012 - Mannin Navetta - Lieto (FI)

The second day opens with a (somehow expected) surprise: rain! The archenemy of every festival-goer and especially those who are camping. Luckily it’s not too bad, as the sky clears out in the afternoon. But still the ground gets quite muddy, and the poor guys of Vorum and Krypts, the two bands playing right when it’s raining the most, don’t have much of an audience.
Better goes with Forgotten Horror, which shares members with JATAO (and Deathchain) as well, in case people there didn’t notice. The band plays from their debut "The Serpent Creation", another work dedicated to the occult theme, but with a more thrash-oriented style with black metal traits. The show itself is nice, although there is nothing fancy to add to the performance, just plain people playing music. And there is no need for it. The impact is good, and the guys work as a warm up for this second day. Besides, the weather is getting warmer itself.
Next on the nearby tiny little stage is Gorephilia, death metal from Vantaa. I have seen these guys play many times in the clubs of Helsinki and nearby, and they do know what they do. At last they managed to publish their debut "Embodiment of Death", and in September they will even have the occasion to open for Sadistic Intent, one of their sources of inspiration. Way to go, I’d say! The crowd seems to be enjoying the gig, maybe just the sound is not really the best, as it’s been a few occasions in this Metallihelvetti stage. But that doesn’t affect the overall gig much, and sooner than expected it’s already time for the next performer: Charnel Winds.
One thing I like about festivals is that there is many bands you usually don’t know, and as such, you have the opportunity to check them out. Now I can say that CW didn’t surely waste this occasion, as they put up an hell of a nice gig. This relatively young black metal band seems to have what it takes to capture their audience, not only with the music but thanks to the charisma of their frontman Zetekh, and the guitar player/back vocalist Shu-Ananda, also part of Saturnian Mist (other great stuff!) along with Wyrmfang. The sinister looks of the bassist Desolate complete the picture of what seems to me one of the most interesting surprises of the weekend. Very good performance, with the singer nonchalantly drinking wine and smoking cigars during the gig.
CW set a proper atmosphere, but then Portrait changed it completely with their more involving and "brighter" approach. The Swedes have lots of energy to spend, and the singer looks a bit funny with all that white face-paint while singing his higher notes (reminiscent of King Diamond). Well, the style after all is quite close to the old Mercyful Fate, also in the attitude, and the themes are also close to other young Swedish bands such as In Solitude, for instance. Anyway the second album, "Crimen Laesae Majestatis Divinae", is just brilliant, and if you don’t get lost in trying to follow the singer moving here and there and everywhere, then you can get caught up easily in the mood of their music.
The following band, The 11th Hour is just too slow and depressive for me to enjoy, but Necrophobic is a totally different thing: I did remember something of them from a few years ago, but I had never seen them live and from cd they didn’t really enthusiasm me. Damn I was wrong. The show was extremely funny, and the music itself sounded also so much better live!
Sure the line-up changes in the last 3 years might have also something to do with this, still I am happy to say that this was quite unexpected. Of course the fact that the singer Tobias reminds me in some faces and moves of the Muppet’s frog Kermit is one more reason to be amused, but seriously, the guys kicked ass, and now I’d like to see them again live soon.
Asphyx is instead one of the "bigs" of the event, and one of those acts I was keeping the highest expectation for. That’s maybe why even though they were really good, I wouldn’t say the show was actually great. "Deathhammer", "MS Bismarck", "Asphyx"… all in-your-face and brutal as they should and thrown at the public who has a small attempt of a circle pit. But somehow Mr. van Drunen and company leave me the feeling that they could do even better. Funny moment for the entertainment of everyone when a pair of panties is thrown at the stage, and Martin pick them up, smelling them. I hope for him there wasn’t any surprise...
Buy anyway these were still some of the most intense 60 minutes of the day, so, thanks guys, and come back soon!
I was curious about Root because I missed them in their previous appearance a couple of years ago. Their original and mystical approach is praised by their Finnish followers as it can be seen by the people shouting in the audience, and the band itself seems to be quite keen of the Finns. Big Boss in his mimetic vest made of green-brown patches keeps laughing and seems to be having a lot of fun, and so the other guys of the band (without the crazy laughter). In front of his bookstand, turning each time the page by the old practice of licking your finger, the show has some ritualistic aspect to it, but in the good way. After this nice parenthesis, it’s the turn of Eyehategod, American sludge/doom.
And till here all ok. What I don’t like instead is how incredibly wasted the singer was, he seemed about to pass out any minute, and was spitting all over the place. Luckily for him, also the audience at this point had a good level of alcohol in their system, which made it seem as drunk music for drunk people. Not really nice. At least the guitar player was keeping up the show (and the vocalist), and continuously inciting the fans. That worked well. But personally it’s usually hard to enjoy a show where someone is so drunk, especially if I go there for the music. With bands like Barathrum of course is another thing, you expect Janne to be drunk -otherwise it just doesn’t work - but here is different, at least for me. The audience is of a totally different opinion it seems, and nothing to say about it, after all people in festivals just come to have fun and drink with their buddies.
What happens next can just be described in one world: Marduk. The Swedish guys, from the "shitty small stage" (as defined by themselves), totally ruled the festival. By the way, I still don’t understand how Marduk had to play in there when the following band performed instead in the bigger stage. That was really odd.
I said it many times, and I’ll repeat it. The ONE show I will always remember of Marduk was the Panzer Division special gig they had back in Party.San 2009, Germany. That was just killer. Tonight the guys are still protagonists of a very good performance, with Mortuus dominating the stage and Evil as a right-hand. There is something special about certain black metal bands that makes the difference from those pretenders that you can find everywhere: the attitude. It’s something that you can’t fake. You either believe in what you do or you don’t, and it shows. Again, a small minus is the not-too-perfect sound, but there is many pluses, starting from the involvement of the audience (which even stopped throwing beers! - here, the only problem of having people drink throughout the whole festival area), to the very fact that it’s Marduk playing! The rough voice of the singer echoes as the night is getting dark, and when "Panzer Division Marduk" comes, rather than 1 hour it seems only 20 minutes have passed. The magic of a successful show.
Last (official) performed of HOA 2012 is Shape of Despair, funeral doom with members of Impaled Nazarene, Finntroll, Throes of Dawn, to name a few. I fail to understand the logic to place this kind of band as the very last, if not to let people leave earlier, because the atmosphere gets quite dark and sleepy. The band hasn’t released a full-lenght album since 2004, and I’m pretty sure this was mostly my being dead tired speaking, but I really couldn’t follow much the show. Which gave me time to get a good old "vohveli" (waffle) to eat.
I’m then grateful that somebody tipped me off on the extra show that was about to come, because while the crew was taking away everything from the stage, Mr. Rob Coffinshaker accompanied the end of the festival with an absolutely amazing acoustic performance. That was the BEST way to conclude the evening, and seeing the people left still singing along all together (somebody even with lighters in their hands…) made for a great atmosphere. Pure awesomeness and that made me get back to the camping even more satisfied.
At this point the party went on until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore, and the awakening the morning after wasn’t the best ever, with the nasty farts from the neighboring tent, and the security of the camping yelling around on the loudspeaker to get the fuck out of the place before noon, when not playing some muslim songs through it. As they say here: ei kiva!

Summing up, Hammer made it through it’s 3rd edition, with some very interesting bands and shows (Marduk, Necrophobic, Asphyx, Charnel Winds, Sólstafir, Deströyer 666, Urfaust), but there is still some adjustments that would make the whole experience better: the strictness of the water policy at the entrance (I left for 5 mins to walk to the media tent, and had to throw away all the water I just got from inside the festival area!); the food, is really good and not expensive at all, but there is just one stand; the location, is not the best ever, and the camping could have been closer. A few other small details to smooth here and there. Must be said that this was the first time in the new location, and still, practice makes perfect. Besides, this is one of the best festivals in Finland for the atmosphere, and smaller festivals have always the best passes (with schedule printed on the back!), so thanks guys for that! And above everything respect for the people who make the effort to bring us good music and arrange such a nice festival, which is not an easy task.
My opinion: keep it small, keep looking at talented finnish bands and interesting or "cult" foreign acts, and keep doing things with the same passion: a metal festival arranged by metalheads.


Click here to see the photos:
Hammer Open Air 2012 - Day 2

Report a cura di Marco Manzi