"Tattoo The Planet"
mit

SLAYER (US, CA)
CRADLE OF FILTH
DESTRUCTION
BIOHAZARD
THORN.ELEVEN
RISING DOWN

Böblingen, Sporthalle

29.09.2001

The "Tattoo The Planet"-tour did not turn out to be a standard one. After the terror-attacks on the 11th of September to the World Trade Center in New York three of the sheduled bands cancelled their participation: PANTERA, STATIC-X and VISION OF DISORDER. But nobody really understood especially why PANTERA did not show up, because they were in Ireland at the time of the terror-attacks and then returned to the USA, while BIOHAZARD, who live in New York, stayed on the tour.

Anyway - adapting to the motto of the tour at the venue the needles were singing, while at twelve stands people were getting new tattoos. Also you were able to be shocked by the incredible prices from the merchandise: about 25 US-dollar for a t-shirt and more than 30 US-dollar for a long-sleeve.

While I was missing the first band RISING DOWN, a hardcore-band from Hamburg in Germany, in the meantime the second of the newly booked bands tried without success to gain the audiences attention: THORN.ELEVEN. There was exactly one guy in the crowd who was headbanging and raising his fist in the air. The band was playing a Nu-Metal/Hardcore-mixture and the most impressing thing was the view of the singer, who was completely dressed in white and wore a bullet-belt. So T.11 left the stage quite frustrated after the DEPECHE MODE-cover ›Blasphemous Rumors‹.

What a change for BIOHAZARD! After a five minute-intro, which contained parts from the "Star Wars"-soundtrack the crowd was getting mad, and it seemed like the stage-security had to handle millions of crowd-surfers. And the band just acted the same: They showed a highly energetic performance and were jumping around like kangaroos. Except from that bass-player Evan Seinfeld was telling the people what he experienced in New York at the day the terror-attacks took place and was holding a flaming speech against terrorism. Also guitarist Billy Graziadei was wearing a shirt with the words "I Love NY". As always - and now even more - in BIOHAZARD there was a combination of music and politics.

The next band was DESTRUCTION who also were added to the billing of the tour recently. As the band comes from the same region as the concert took place there were quite a lot DESTRUCTION-fans present. While outside the hall the SLIPKNOT-shirt were gathering the band gave us with the opening-song the motto for the next 45 minutes: ›Thrash Till Death‹! The band played a good combination of old classics and new songs and gained good response from the fans. But there were two drawbacks for DESTRUCTION: First of all the sound was not very good, and except from that there was not a lot of action on stage. Guitarist Mike is more a calm performer, and so the only movements were created by bass-player and singer Schmier, who was switching for each new vocal-part between his three (!) microphone-stands.

Then it became dark - not only because now all the black-dressed guys entered the hall, but also because CRADLE OF FILTH prefered a dark atmosphere on stage, and so the lights were turned down very low. While singer Dani was barking his soul out of his body, the British band was welcomed euphorically by their fans. They even didn't seem to take care about the fact that the sound-quality was simply horrible. But for non-CRADLE-fans there was another special: A guy and a girl on stilts walked the stage to enlighten the show a bit.

And then the venue was packed and the tattooers outside didn't have one more customer. SLAYERing time! With the opening-track ›Angel Of Death‹ they set a promising signal for the rest of the evening: The old killers reigned over the new material which not every SLAYER-fan could really dig. In the first part of the set there were some tracks from the last three albums like ›Disciple‹, ›Bloodline‹ or ›Dittohead‹, and the rest of the show was packed with classics from ›Die By The Sword‹, ›Chemical Warfare‹ to ›Altar Of Sacrifice‹. And as the first encore SLAYER even unwrapped their "dance-hit" ›South Of Heaven‹.

It became so hot in the hall, that the black and white painted CRADLE OF FILTH-fans began to drip… Except from that SLAYER played with an enormous loudness so they even could be heard in hell. But it was much more interesting to follow Tom Araya philosophying about the fact that God hates us all, but that we love God... SLAYER acted on a quite simple stage-set: They had a backdrop showing the inside of a church and two big MARSHALL-towers on both sides of the stage. But there was nothing else necessary to turn the fans into a headbanging and moshing rage.

Stefan Glas

Photos: Stefan Glas

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››››› weitere Artikel über BIOHAZARD ›››››

››››› weitere Artikel über CRADLE OF FILTH ›››››

››››› weitere Artikel über DESTRUCTION ›››››

››››› weitere Artikel über RISING DOWN ›››››

››››› weitere Artikel über SLAYER (US, CA) ›››››

››››› weitere Artikel über THORN.ELEVEN ›››››

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