Ein fantastisches neues Jahr 2010! Happy New Year! Feliz Año Nuevo! Bonne Année! Gelukkig Nieuwjaar! ... HELL GOES ON!

And my very first show in 2010 gets celebrated by no one less than my favorite death metallers DISBELIEF! :) A year cannot start any better ;) The guys made themselves pretty scarce during the last year… on the other hand… that is what makes shows to something special ;) Apropos special… second tidbit on this tour is of course GORILLA MONSOON I took to my black heart when I saw them playing live first back in 2006. And LAY DOWN ROTTEN I did not see for ages…
Ok, weather in January might be an unpredictable thing, especially when every snow flake becomes a natural disaster, made by people. Hey guys, this is called winter! That can happen in January. However, highways have been cleared and salted; I got my driver’s license and my car back… so let’s go to Bremen’s Tower to attend the tour kick off of the Hell Goes On Tour!

:: pics ::

Contrary to all seen announcements there was a local support entering the stage first. The death/thrash metal gents from :: MINION :: delivered a brutal and fast set, yet seemed to be a little unorganized at points and had some probs with the tiny stage, as all bands this evening had to struggle through too. Musically speaking MINION perfectly suited the package playing a couple of brand new tracks that only have working titles so far. Remembering back the last record Out Of The Carnage... Let Me Back In dates back on December 2007. Time to enter a studio again, right? Audience welcomed them benevolently. Nice warm-up!
Setlist: Choking On The Sands Of Time, (Bleeding Into The World), Emerged From Fire, (Deep Sucking Roots), (Catatonic), (Shovel Dirt)

The Tower is surprisingly well-filled and next up was :: GORILLA MONSOON :: who looked pretty out of it. Well, first day of a tour is mostly a stressy matter. It took some time till they had their equipment on the tiny stage that made the musicians stumbling, especially singer Jack Sabbath who started swearing right after. After all, the Jacky-Coke-glasses weren’t kicked ;) GORILLA MONSOON started playing as if there was no tomorrow, rockin’ their asses off. Only Jack Sabbath stayed somewhat of reserved, thanked the audience for coming but then mentioned that he is looking forward to the next gig in Ludwigsburg. And his voice sounded even more wrecked. He got a cold, hoarse? ;) Set was a mix of songs from Damage King and Extermination Hammer and a brand new one entitled The Dark Side, which is just a working title. This song is doomier as the stuff you know from GORILLA MONSOON. Anyway, crowd freaks out and is completely enthused. What a great show! Erm... STOP! Did I miss Extermination Hammer??? They did not play this song??? WTF! Bassist Chris told me afterwards that they didn’t play this song due to Jack’s groggy voice but promised this song for the show in Essen. Ok, word!
Setlist: Law'n Order, Damage King, Death Revolution, Night Of The Wolverine, 50$ Whore, “The Dark Side” (new), Born To Lose, My Way, Codein Commander

Now it was up to :: LAY DOWN ROTTEN :: to send the audience to the death metal heaven. As already mentioned, I didn’t see them for ages and already forgot how fucking great they are. Damn! What a mighty power! Songs from their new record Gospel Of The Wretched are neck-breaking crushers. Who needs Swedish death metal bands when you can get these guys? Just awesome! Sound was a bit undifferentiated, you couldn’t hear out much of the sophisticated guitar work, instead the guys were headbanging like berserks, which wasn’t an easy thing on this stage. The guys seemed to be in best mood and especially singer Jost and basser Uwe had a lot of fun, loving each other and fooling around ;) How cute. Audience was even more rocking the house. What great atmosphere! And now I gonna deal with Gospel Of The Wretched!
Setlist: Intro, Gospel Of The Wretched, Where Spirits Lie Dead, Sound Of Breaking Bones, Through Purple Woods And Ashen Plains, Altering The Whore, He Who Shows Hate, Hours Of Infinity, Reconquering The Pit

Fans moved closer and :: DISBELIEF :: opened their set with songs from 2003 album Spreading The Rage, before they led over to the current and still awesome masterpiece Protected Hell, where DISBELIEF played most of the songs from. 20 years of DISBELIEF and the guys are not a bit quieter :) Visually a little change happened: Alex is still Alex but the hot-blooded Spaniard became a blonde Bavarian, means, Alexander Hagenauer from Bavarian death metallers Soul Demise fills in for Alejandro Varela. I could see and hear some little mistakes in playing but all in all he did a good job :) Generally speaking it seems the guys are really keen to play live again, as they played and acted as lively and energetic as possible on this stage. Also frontman Jagger was much enthused by the large crowd, couldn’t say thank you enough and the great mood on both sides made this show really special. Whoops… there was also some life in the lights now. Coming to an end the classic Rewind It All was played seeing the fans singing along and afterwards screaming and chanting for an encore, which was heartily granted with No Control and Misery.
Setlist: Intro, To The Sky, Ethnic Instinct, When Silence Is Broken, Hell Goes On, One Nation’s Son, Nemesis Rising, The Return Of Sin, Sick, Hate/Aggression Schedule, Intro (Hell), A Place To Hide, Room 309, Navigator, Rewind It All (Death Or Glory) // No Control, Misery

1am in the morning and the show is over. Fans are happy and pleased and leave with a smile on their faces. I’d say: that was a great tour kick off. I wouldn’t have expected so many people. It was really great :) I treat myself with a GORILLA MONSOON girlie, which I promptly forgot on the merch desk, while thinking about to get me a DISBELIEF zipper too. Me headless it seems ;) Luckily it was just the first show of this tour… yeah!