Wild Nights

Last night I went to a metal gig: one of the bands (Nifelheim) had this guy as singer. Aren't you all envious now? Envious of that balding head, punched-in-the-eyes face painting, spikes and roofing nails?

But let's go by order: I needed to drink a beer or two, eat a burger (straight from the microwave!) and withdraw some cash from a cash machine with a long queue in front of it, so I missed the first band - Necro Ritual. But my mate told me they weren't worth it.

The Dutch band NOX (nitrogen oxides are not involved in this case) followed, and they played a no-nonsense canonic death metal. Nothing too original but very fast and well done; I quite enjoyed that gig.

Next band: Adorior. It seems I am always the shortest chap at gigs, so I have to struggle to see what's happening on stage. This time, first I heard a female voice announcing the band, and then a barely human growl over a maelstrom of furious guitar and drums. Finally I managed to find a clear spot, and I saw a chubby Asian girl in full metal attire (ammo belt included) growling into the mike with a truculent expression on her face. I'm not sure I would like to have her whispering sweet things into my ear - also because Cockney isn't a very sexy accent. Probably it's the least sexy dialect in the world. Adorior's music could be described as Sodom meet Venom and go out to raise hell with Darkthrone - or something like that. Classy? Not a chance in hell; they're a textbook example of how to be gross with thrash/black metal (not that Sodom have ever been posh anyway) . But Adorior have a powerful live impact, and know how to raise hell. And they're regulars at my metal pub as well - thus I went down into the pit. In order to introduce the last peaceful song, our sweet girl said "I wanna see blood, I wanna see broken fucking bones!" No thanks: I'm up for some moshing, but I actually broke my nose at The Haunted's gig, and it wasn't fun. I'm sure it underlined well the musical violence of the band, but I spent a miserable night in an A&E department and now my nose sports a slight bend at its top. Adorior's gig ended without accidents, and I went to have a beer.

The following band, the German Desaster failed to interest me although they weren't too bad, I think.

Then things began to degenerate, with the alcohol level reaching safety limits for many of the people in the venue. The idiot pictured above walked on stage, and graced us with songs such as "Satanic Sacrifice": that may sound outrageous to newbies and puritans, but actually it's so 90s. And due to the kind of sounds used by black metal - that is, full-throttle reverb over distortion - guitar is most often an undistinguishable mess. I prefer to actually hear riffs and eventual melodies. So I loitered around the bar area chatting with my mates. And what can you do when you meet a good-looking girl so drunk she is pretending/convinced she can only speak and understand Portuguese? I don't know about you, but I proposed her to communicate using body language. Anyway, a friend or whatever of hers arrived and dragged the girl away before things went totally downhill. The idiot on stage replied with a "Fuck you" to the crowd asking for more music when it was just 22:30 and the gig thus ended - and I decided it was time to have a last greasy spring roll at the food outlet next door to the venue and finally head home.