Stoned from the Underground, Alperstedter See, Erfurt-Stotternheim, 07-13-2017 – 07-15-2017
This festival definitively became our living room due to the spectators, the security, and the folks behind the bars. All this together built a unique atmosphere. And as always, each and every festival is like a buffet from which you can take and taste the food you like. Your choices make the buffet a great one.
We have arrived just in time to choose a good and nearby place with an agreeable neighborhood and to built up our tent close to the entrance.
We are just arriving inside the big top to see Steak from the UK, we meet the Turbojugend Bamberg F.T.W and Schwoiga, spectators we met two years ago, before we get the permission to adore Steak and their strongly influenced by 90´s Grunge and early Stoner and 70´s blues Heavy Rock. This is a massive performance with a good sound a sensational voice.
After cheering and greeting our friends we almost miss the Berlin based Samavayo. This band goes back to end 60´s Blues and early Progressive Rock, powered by a power station on drums and refined by warm and sharp guitar and a powerful voice. Their highlight: Arezooyar Bahar, a Stoner song sung in Farsi.
Sasquatch are really nice blokes beside the stage and for the third time we don´t arrive to appreciate their kind of music. Every song has got one or two really good moments or minutes, but the rest makes you despair about the lack of quality in the rest of the time or moments. And sorry, Keith Gibbs´s voice fades after halftime of every concert.
So we prepare us for the night and the concerts. First of all, CJ Ramone offered us a best of Ramones-Set. It´s like your grandma offers you the old chips from her cupboard in her living room. A wet, not a crispy affair.
The highlight of this evening is the appearance of Nashville´s All them witches. Their music is a tasty stew consisting of Delta Blues, Psychedelic, The Doors, Hard Rock, Country, Southern Rock, refined with this narrative and incredible distant voice of Charles Michael Parks jr. Even if you know the songs, you´ll never know which direction or dynamic the song will take. There is tension from the first until the last chord in this fantastic music, perfumed by fantastic musicians. Cheers!!
The good morning spaceship Giöbia from Milano kicks us in space with a vocoder distorted voice, pounding and driving drums, a leading bass, guitar melodies and keyboard samples. Wow, we saw Hawkwind one month before at the Hellfest and went completely nuts. But this concert and this band impress us just with their music and their coolness and confidence on stage. What a start in the second day!!
Mothership is next. We saw them 2016 as co-headliner with Wo Fat and we have thought to know all grimaces, solos, duck walks and other poses from guitarist Kyle Juet. No, he is a never ending dwell in doing a great show on stage, amplified by his brother Kelley on bass and vocals and Judge Smith, this beardy octopus on drums. Mothership´s music is the sample of 1979´s music, whether USA or UK. I grew up with this music and needless to say that I really have enjoyed this concert.
A lot has been written about Dool, the Dutch bastard of The Devil´s Blood and Gothic Rock. Brilliant musicians mix their best ingredients to tasty menu. This concert is just one perfect song lasting almost one hour.
Monolord are doing some quite depressing, static and slow Doom Metal. This is not our music, but anyhow, this band gets some spectators to bang their heads.
Now, this is the moment we have waited for twelve years. Zeke live on a German stage. Zeke means 30 songs in 50 minutes with no time to tune the guitar, maybe one minute to say anything stupid, no time to have a sip of water and no goodbye to the spectators. Despite the upcoming rain, the audience, mixed with Turbojugend and other crazy folks, gets mad. You cannot resist the speed, the tightness, and the timing of their songs. No matter who´s joining Blind Marky Felchtone on stage. What a hell of a concert.
With our misbelief, that Elder will bore us again like two years before at the Hellfest and at the Stoned from the Underground, we leave the festival area and go to bed. A bad decision, because we didn´t see the group, but a good decision to relish their complex songs, organic arrangements and unexpected breaks. Only and constant criticism since three years is Nick DeSalvo´s voice, not his skills on guitar.
The band´s name Hallucination Generation is harder to spell than to follow their music during the next morning. It sounds again like 1979 and the band is as pleasant and semi talented as most of the NWOBHM bands in 1979. Nice start for the last day´s countdown.
The contrast follows, as the German Drums and Bass Duo Beehoover enter the stage. Complex beats and rhythms, combined with a free and fully effect boarded bass and two different voices showing how tricky music can be and how free you are on stage with the right partner. The music is endurable for half an hour, but an excellent and exciting half an hour.
The band Egypt gives us the impression that their music is work and not a joy. It´s a riddle for us that people enjoy and create depressive music. My personal hope to save this concert is the song “Endless Flight,” but they don´t play it. Of course, it´s too groovy and filled with hope.
Child does a formidable job on stage, although they have arrived to late. Their Blues has power chords and no lamenting vocals, that´s how should it be. But, as I said before, just a short impression of what this band is able to perform.
The German Sludge band Earth Ship and the US doomers Acid King have switched my personal mood after this previous great concert. Sludge and Doom are really tortures for my musical comprehension.
Karma to Burn has changed my way of composing music, the instrument I have played for years and also my way of playing guitar. So we are very exciting about to see our favourite band for the first time on a real open-air stage. K2B are just pure and consequent in their creating music based on hooks and riffs. You sing them along as long as you will have a sore throat and you dance until your legs are hurting and you bang your head until your neck aches. This was our best K2B concert.
We have missed Kadavar due to the expected situation on the German Autobahn on Sunday during holidays. We left this festival but this festival didn´t leave us.
We haven´t been angry about the bands and styles we don´t like. We are thankful for meeting our favourite bands and the time we spent and the subjects we talked with them. Thanks to Stoned from the Underground to made it possible for us, to meet Zeke, Karma to Burn, Matte and Seppi from My Sleeping Karma, Mothership, Steak, Hallucination Generation and for this fantastic familiar festival.