By Jase Walker
Easily one of the furthest trips I’ve made in the Netherlands so far, and tonight it’s time for Austrian Death Machine with Distant and Ghost Iris, what an unbelievably filthy lineup and I’ve made it just in time!
I’m happy that I managed to turn up to the venue just as Ghost Iris kicked things off, it’s been a rush but thankfully the trains didn’t let me down today and I’m here for the openers! It’s no secret that I bloody love the mental Danes in Ghost Iris, I’ve been a fan of theirs for a while and seen them rip it up in Manchester a few times and after way too long, it’s time for them to tear Eindhoven a new one.
They are not fucking about here, they may be the openers but they’ve got a solid turnout and they’re stamping around the stage like they own it! Even the singers jumped down to the floor to get things going with an actual baseball bat and slams it into the ground to drive the energy.
You’ve got 30 minutes, how else are you going to spend it other than throwing everything you’ve got at the early birds to make an impression? Looks like the stage techs are having a fun time pushing each other around on trolleys too, there’s no rules here, just balls out going mad, love it.
One of my favourites off ‘Comatose’ gets a spin, ‘Coda’, showing off Ghost Iris’s knack for writing mega aggressive riffs and vocals, if anything this band has gotten progressively more heavy as the years have gone by. What’s with the random buff dude sprinting across the stage too? Great way to open the show lads.
Taking in this new venue to me I can’t help but feel amused by the fact that there’s tables dotted around the venue floor, especially at a metal show? The Dutch do seem to do things quite differently. They’ve got a dedicated intermission DJ here too? What extravagance is this?! They’re playing a deathcore version of Smash Mouth’s ‘All Star’ too… what on earth have I walked into? This is amazing!
Anyway next up tonight is Dutch deathcore lovelies in Distant. I’ll never tire of watching the sheer brutality they put out. These guys aren’t messing about either, especially considering in the middle of their opening song that people run on stage and feed them beers in the middle of it. But wait, there’s more (beer) to come! Distant sound legitimately massive tonight, whoever is doing sound has got them just on that sweet spot of clarity and outrageously fat sound.
It’s not taken long for the pit to get going with people smashing into each other and flinging their arms about, Distant commands it. God, don’t you just love it when a deathcore band is like “We’re gonna play the same riff again but slower” while the singer makes all manner of inhuman noises? Yeah, me too. There’s something about bands like these, Lorna Shore, Osiah, Brand Of Sacrifice, that have properly switched me onto deathcore: it’s just straight up, balls out “punch your mate in the junk” music – and I love it.
Also is that a fucking ‘Tokyo Ghoul’ and ‘Attack On Titan’ music video playing? Oh god, it’s a clash of my two favourite things: obscenely heavy metal and anime… incredible. Throwing hi-vis jackets into the audience for people to wear, what is this? A Pintglass show? Crowd surfers sailing all the way to the bar carried by the same four people, outrageous riffs and insane energy, Distant have absolutely killed it once again.
- Distant support Suffocation on their upcoming ÜK and Ireland dates, kicking off at Chalk in Brighton on 11 June and visiting The Globe in Cardiff, The Hairy Dog in Derby, Dolan’s in Limerick, Opium in Dublin, Limelight 2 in Belfast, La Belle Angele in Edinburgh and Tapyard Studios in Newcastle Upon Tyne, finishing at Colchester Arts Centre on 19 June.
As I’m waiting for a beer, the screen at the back of the stage shows a countdown timer to the start of the Austrian Death Machine set while playing random ‘Terminator’ clips. Opening with none other than the ‘Terminator’ theme, because of course they would! Following up with the most recognizable line from the ‘Terminator’ films, “give me your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle”, we are going full send right from the start and the centre of the crowd is already falling over each other to scream the words. It didn’t take long for me to get half my beer spilled over me from the domino effect of the pit either; this is just how it’s gonna be for the next hour or so! I mean we’ve got a song about lifting as well, what’s not to like? There’s even a guest spot from a buxom “Sarah Connor” as well: this is very very silly yet incredibly awesome at the same time!
The “Sarah Connor” guest has some serious pipes as well, her raw vocal work reminds me a lot of the likes of Angela Gossow or Alissa White-Gluz. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a song live that’s shouted the words “chill out dickwad” as the chorus but here we are watching a ‘Terminator’ themed metal band so anything goes I guess? Oh, well, I guess it’s more just Arnie as we’re crossing into ‘Predator’ territory with ‘If It Bleeds, We Can Kill It’, also featuring a Predator outfit clad guest vocalist.
With the way the crowd is reacting I feel like I’ve walked into a showing of ‘The Room’ or ‘Rocky Horror’, everyone seems to know the script by heart except me (not that I’m not revelling in it). The sound for this show tonight is exactly what you want a metal show to be, every part of the band is perfectly audible but the sheer force behind it all is fantastic. Also as a bit of a gym rat myself, who am I to disagree with a song that’s main message is “please re-rack your weights”? You’d be surprised to know how few people do!
Hang on… is that the fucking cookie monster? Put that cookie down! Nope, it’s not happening, he’s running around the stage ramming cookies into the band members mouths. Just when I think I’ve seen everything at a show something like this comes along and ruins it, I mean they’re even throwing cookies into the audience, eh?! Admittedly it feels a bit short but that’s probably because this show started about an hour and half earlier than most shows I go to. Ending the main set with ‘I’ll Be Back’ and an encore of ‘One More Rep’, this wraps up the end of the set and also the end of the tour.
Legitimately very silly but also real fuckin fantastic show that’s marked my first excursion over to Eindhoven, I don’t think I could have wanted it any better. Right, time for a 90 minute train back to Amsterdam I guess; I hope I’m sitting near a toilet because I’ve fully broken the seal.
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