Friday 22 February 2013

Angel Witch Baroeg Rotterdam 17 February 2013

On a Sunday afternoon driving to de Baroeg in Rotterdam means metal. De Baroeg is a dark place in the south of Rotterdam which oozes metal. Perfect sceneray for a straight forward Heavy metal show. Openers were Enforcer from Sweden, who might have got the largets response of the day, also helped by a recent release which got good reviews. I enjoyed their show with Heavy Metal as it is being played in its purest form. Closer of the afternoon/evening was also from Sweden Grand Magus. A doomy power trio which played good songs, best compared with a slightly less impressive version of The Quil (thanks Hans)

My main reason was the fact that  thirty something years after its release I finally could see a live performance of one of NWOBHM's most Classic albums being performed live. After my rediscovery of the NWOBHM I bought their 2012 release As Above, So Below. This album also showed the renewed relevance of Angel Witch and came back twice in the set. Of course the core of the set was focussed around the debut album and from Atlantis through Confused, Burn the White Witch, Angel of Death we ended with the Classic title song Angel Witch. This song is amongst the most representative ones for a whole genre, so obviously the roof came down and the Baroeg went banging, jumping and screaming. One to scratch of the list, songs you should see live even if only once.

My expectations were high for this show and they were easily met. The playing was great and the sound met with the level of the show. Main question after the show to me was, where did things go wrong?  The debut album matches Iron Maiden's Killers or Saxon's Wheels of Steel in my view.
Let's put it down to unlucky, but after the live show the album only lives more and shows how relevant classics like these still are. Thanks to the revival, I'm hoping to see more shows like this soon.


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