Maximum Rock Festival, Turbohalle, 24-25.10.14

In the middle of a period where organisers/ bands aren’t exactly lining up for concerts, let alone festivals, Maximum Rock was a breath of fresh air. First of all, I wasn’t extremely familiar with most of the bands, but I had quite a few revelations (more about that later). Second of all, it was by far the best organised festival I ever went to. Of course the way the location is separated helped and also the number of people in the audience was considerably smaller then what the location could’ve held, but it was a great example of how a festival should look like. Except for the long wardrobe line at the end of the second day, I didn’t have to wait in line for anything – there were enough toilets, enough food&drink stands… everything flowed smoothly. I loved the idea of the drum stage, where you could pass the time during the breaks and I also love that the hall has a separate section where you can smoke and sit down for a bit. Compared to Helloween and Gamma Ray at the Roman Arenas, where the organisers forbade smoking but didn’t offer a proper solution (and thousands of people had to go in and out through a door the size of my bedroom door for a smoke and eventually gave up and smoked inside), this type of room separation “convinced” people not smoke in the concert hall in a natural way, without any need to impose or forbid anything. The only thing I can somewhat complain about was the sound, it severely handicapped a few of the bands, but I think it was mostly due to the acoustic of the hall and I can’t really blame that on the organisers, considering there isn’t a single indoor concert hall with truly good acoustic in Bucharest (at least not one suited for this type of music, I don’t think the Athenaeum was quite the right place to listen to Unleashed).

A special mention goes to the crowd. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a crowd so peaceful and civilised and pleasant. Well, I’m not sure if peaceful is the right word since the bands playing were all pretty aggressive and there were tons mosh pits and crowd surfers and furious headbanging for most of the show, but everyone was so civil, no one was pushing, no one was trying to get in front, no one stump your leg, no one poured beer on you… It was perfect. We stayed very close to the front row and yet there was so much space, you could breathe and move in peace, it was awesome. (no, that’s not the way Romanian crowds usually are, that’s why I’m so pleased, because it’’s a rarity to not get annoyed by the audience). Ok, enough about administrative aspects, let’s get to the music 😀

Day 1

Unfortunately I didn’t catch Neutron because of work and traffic, but they sounded pretty interesting in theory, so I’m kinda curious to see them live at some point.

I’m The Trip was one of the weaker bands of the festival. Even though everyone seemed to be captivated by the lady playing the bass, I wasn’t too impressed with her. She seemed like a nice girl, but way too stressed and trying waaay too hard to look like she was having fun on stage. They’re very young and just starting up, so it’s natural for them to be nervous, but this time it seemed like the emotions got the better of them. It didn’t help that the music was pretty boring as well.

Krepuskul was one of those revelations I was talking about. I wasn’t such a huge fan of melodic death metal to begin with, but this festival convinced me to give it a chance because there definitely are some gems inside a genre I used to pass off as boring. The guys were true professionals, the songs sounded really good and it was a well-rounded performance. I was pleasantly surprised to find out what good bands Romania has (and unpleasantly surprised by how underrated they are).

The second revelation of the night was Threshold (or should I say Damian Wilson?). I am officially in love with both of them. I wasn’t very impressed with Damian’s stage presence in Ayreon and Star One (although his voice is amazing, he always seemed very cocky to me), but last night he was perfect. In fact I can’t believe I didn’t like him before, he’s one of the sweetest and most charismatic lead singers I have ever seen, he made me smile from beginning till end, from when he asked the crowd to sing Happy birthday in Romanian for a girl in the front row, till the part where he came down from the stage and into the audience during an instrumental moment and went to the back of the venue, hi fiving people and shaking hands all the way. And in the middle of a death metal dominated setlist, they were able to not bore the audience as it usually happens with a softer band among more aggressive ones. I really have to get my hands on their whole discography and listen to them more carefully, because I was only a bit familiar with them and I feel I haven’t paid enough attention to them. At least not as much attention as they deserve.

Tristania is the band I was most looking for, considering it’s one of my favourite bands and the only time I saw them, they were the opening act and had about 40 minutes to give their best. Despite of the sound problems and of the fact that the details of their music were drowned in noise and you could guess them rather then hear them, they were really good. Anders is so cute looking all innocent and preppy and then throwing out death with his voice, Ole is a nice addition vocal wise and looks wise, Mary is generally awesome, but the one who completely stole the show was Kjetil. For someone who looks and sounds so scary, he’s actually quite adorable, very enthusiastic, with a huge happy smile on his face and very openly and warmly communicating with the audience. If you wouldn’t know any better, you’d think he’s the lead singer of the band, Mary (and everyone else for that matter) seemed a bit contained in comparison to him.

Loved the setlist, as they had at least one song from each album, with the exception of Widow’s Weeds. It was really nice that even though they had a huge change in style and focused on the heavier songs of their career, they didn’t overlook their history and at the same time, they managed to make the older songs fit in with the rest of the setlist and not sound out of place. Both Mary and Kjetil pulled out perfectly the older more melancholic and depressive style, as well as the newer more aggressive style. Also loved the vocal quartet, all of them have great voices and they complement each other very well. All in all, Tristania remain probably the only band that managed to keep me as a fan in spite of such radical changes, both in terms of sound and in terms of members.

Evergrey is where it really went to shit in terms of sound. Maybe it was because we changed position, maybe because all the other bands had a combination of voice + instrumentals that didn’t make them as susceptible to sound issues, I don’t know what happened, but I could barely make out Tom’s voice. Tom didn’t seem in such a great shape either, he seemed very tired and that also didn’t help. I like them, I was very excited about their show (in fact they were one of the bands I was expecting the most), but personally I couldn’t connect with them at all. Maybe some other time.

Day 2

Open Mind were the second alternative band of the show and the second moment of boredom (it had nothing to do with the genre, though). They tried really hard, but they just didn’t click.

Code Red was another band that failed to impress me in any way and this time I don’t think I can blame it on the nervousness, as they already have 10 years of activity behind them. It’s just one of those bands that doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest.

I usually try to familiarise myself with the bands I am going to see during a concert, but this time everything was so hectic for the past few months that I couldn’t do so. So I had no idea who Noctiferia were and what to make of them. Judging by the name of the band, I expected some gothic stuff, so it was an interesting surprise when I saw them on stage. Then, judging by the lead singer’s style, I expected some nu-metal stuff, so I was again surprised when they started producing a mix of death and industrial with some other influences here and there. Don’t judge a book by its covers, kids. They turned out to be pretty cool and engaging band (and I swear it wasn’t just because the lead singer was hot :P).

Elvenking were incredibly much fun, as I awaited them to be. Their music is very friendly and lively and as expected, it generated a ton of enthusiasm in the crowd. Encouraged by the head of the security company (of all people!), audience members started crowd surfing and moshing in the happiest and most endearing way possible. It was a very animated concert and the only minus I have for this band is the lead singer. For a second I though Damnagoras had left the band and been replaced by the metal version of Skrillex. I have no idea what in the world happened to him, but outside from the physical change, he also seemed very arrogant and self centered. At some point during one of the break, he came into the audience (that was one of the nicest thing of the festival, that a lot of the band members came into the audience after their shows and chatted with people without any fuss or pretence, like they were friends, not stars and their fans) and he kept starring at me and my husband and we were joking that since I sang along and screamed like crazy during the concert, he expected me to come ask for an autograph and was confused as to why I was ignoring him.

Unleashed aren’t my cup of tea and their concert did pretty much nothing for me musically, but nevertheless it was a pretty exciting show and that was mostly because of the crowd. Remember how I kept praising the audience? Well, during Unleashed they outdid themselves and the formed a mosh pit so big and hectic that it prompted some of the guys from Noctiferia (I think) to stand on the side and go „omg look at that, that’s crazy, omg they’re crazy” over and over again :)) And paradoxically, it was THE most friendly mosh pits I have ever seen. I stood right on the edge of it and absolutely no one touched me (that *never* happens here) and the best thing was that I had tons of space because the pit and could clearly see the stage (which again, almost never happens).

The final and most important revelation of the festival was, of course, Dark Tranquility. My husband is a huge fan and has been trying to convince me to give them a chance for ages, but I kept being narrow minded and saying that I don’t like the genre and I don’t like it when there aren’t any clean vocals to balance the grunts and bla bla bla. Well, the other night, my stubbornness met the impenetrable wall of awesomeness that Dark Tranquility are and it broke to pieces (the stubbornness, of course). Count me among the fans! Given the right atmosphere and state of spirit, they aren’t boring in the slightest, their music is so compelling and well written and the variety of the instrumental more then makes up for the slight monotony of the vocals and I love how you can actually understand the lyrics and feel emotions other then anger, which is such a rarity when it comes to growling. Like most bands I listen to, apparently DT needed „the click” (the bad thing is I still have absolutely no idea what generates this click, since I had tried giving them a shot multiple times and even saw them live a few years back and all without any result).

Music appreciation aside, Mikael Stanne from Dark Tranquility must be the second most charismatic lead singer I have ever seen (the first being Damian Wilson, of course), he had such a cute honest huge smile on his face when everyone was cheering for them and he seemed so genuinely happy by the beautiful welcome, he said like 5-6 times they *really* have to come back soon and you could tell it wasn’t the regular “we love you, we’ll be back” mantra. And he sounds so scary when he sings, but in fact he seems like such a gentle and nice person, he’s absolutely lovable. It’s amazing how much the presence of a good lead singer can influence your experience! And he crowd surfed! I can’t believe he trusted us with that, I don’t think I ever could and I’m just some random audience member, not someone everyone wants to get their hands on.