Doom over Bucharest II, Club Quantic, 26.11.16

After not catching on quick enough that the first doom-themed festival in Bucharest will be sold out weeks before the show, this time we decided to buy tickets so far back that we weren’t even sure who was playing. We saw A dream of Poe there and it was enough.

Sadly, it was exactly A dream of Poe that opened up the show. And I say sadly because that meant they had the shortest setlist and the smallest audience. With how long their tracks are, I don’t think they sung more than 3-4 songs, or at least that’s how it seemed to me. I am probably biased since they were the target of the festival for us, but they were by far the best band of the night, at least musically. The stage presence, however, was a bit unusual. If the guitarist weren’t pretty much the mastermind behind the band, I would’ve said he doesn’t really know what kind of music he’s playing. He kept trying to get us to „hey-hey” and scream and do stuff and frankly, it was the last thing I felt like doing. Considering how burdening and atmospheric the music was, I wasn’t exactly in the mood for agitation, I just wanted to be in my own world. And I guess I wasn’t the only one, judging by the looks of those around me and by Miguel’s „Bucharest, you are the perfect doom audience” (I hope that meant we were living the music and not being utterly depressed and miserable :P).

After than, Witchsorrow tried to liven things up with a slightly more energetic brand of doom, but it seemed to me like they were trying way too hard. The music was ok (heavily inspired by Black Sabbath), but for me doom is a genre powered more by emotion than by the sonorities and this performance lacked soul. It seemed forced and artificial and although I can’t say I truly disliked it, it didn’t do much for me either.

But if I thought Witchsorrow were artificial, little did I know about the next band. They at least try to get us involved and make it seem like they enjoyed being there, but Black oath took trv-ness to a whole new level. These guys were a mystery to me. How can a band sound so good and irritate me so much at the same time? Musically I enjoyed them a lot, during the songs I was quite captivated, but when the songs would end and I would see their blank looks… I guess they intended it as a part of their enigmatic image (face painting, frowned looks and not discussing at all to the audience), but to me it came more across like they were too arrogant to address us a few words, a smile or any indication that they were happy to be there. I don’t need them to be sappy and tell us they love us and we’re the best audience every other minute, but I would at least like to see some sort of  recognition that they are playing in front of some people who came there for them.

The last band for us was Ataraxie, that came with the conclusion that no matter how much I like melodic death metal, the pure sister (mother?) of death metal is not for my ears. Usually I am able to cling on to something and enjoy at least a small part of what I’m witnessing – maybe the instrumental, the voice, the atmosphere….something. This was one of those rare moments were I was bored to tears and couldn’t find anything to get me out of that state. Just  nothing. Blank. Also, disturbingly loud compared to all the other bands. I have some small problems with my ears, which have been fried by years of loud music, so now I’m wearing earplugs for live concerts (unless I want to develop permanent tinnitus or maybe even lose my hearing) and even with earplugs the noise was seriously bothering me. I don’t even want to imagine how it was listening to it full blast.

Pantheist was not that enough of an interest for us to get through more than an hour of Ataraxie and Batushka (whom I actually was curious in seeing, despite of the remarks that they are highly kitchy) had cancelled, so we called it a night.

For me this was more of an experimental concert. My husband really wanted to see A dream of Poe and we both enjoy doom a lot (certain subgenres of it, at least), so we figured that it would be a good opportunity to discover more bands. I don’t regret going at all (even though it was reconfirmed to me that I’m not by far the kind of trv metalhead that enjoys satanic incantations barfed into the microphone). For all the darkness within the music, the atmosphere was very warm and friendly in the crowd. I love club concerts, everyone is so relaxed and open, there’s no security, no one telling you to stay away from the stage, the artists walk right by you to buy a beer and no one bothers them (not even with pictures and autographs, let alone with touching them), you can sit down between concerts, you can leave your drink on the table instead of having to watch it all the time… and I just love the metalhead community in Romania. When you look at the audience from the outside, they all seem so scary – mostly guys, tall, big, with lots of leather and spikes – but when you start blending between them, everyone is so attentive and sociable and I always feel safe when I go to these shows, even when I’m alone. Beyond the music, the joy of seeing your favourite bands and the energy of a crowd, there’s also this feeling of cosiness and of belonging (even when you don’t know all the lyrics or even enjoy all the bands) that’s really pleasant and rewarding.