Live review: Dynamo Metalfest 2019 Day 1 at Kunstijsbaan, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, July 19th, 2019

At the moment the 2019 edition of Dynamo Metalfest was announced the festival would be taking place on Saturday July the 20th at the Kunstijsbaan in Eindhoven. A while later it was announced that Friday July the 19th was added so that Dynamo Metalfest would be two days. The presale had already started and so the organization decided to keep the price of the tickets the same and make those tickets valid for both days. More metal for the same price, a great deal of course!

On Saturday there will be nine bands performing, on Friday there will be six bands with the first band beginning at four o’clock. One hour earlier the festival area would be opened, but that got a bit delayed. Around 25 minutes later than planned it opened. Once inside the festival area turned out to be set-up in a very spacious and clear way. In case you didn’t see the festival map a few things might call for a bit of searching, such as the place of the signing sessions, but the most important things, the stage, the token booths, the bars, the food stands and the toilets are easy to find and easily reachable. The weather forecast for this Friday predicted that it would be dry and hot, something that indeed became true. Whether that’s the same for Saturday…

Around four o’clock the first band enters the stage. It is up to Baest to kick off Dynamo Metalfest 2019. During the opening show it soon became clear that the bass-sound is way too loud. The other sounds are audible but the balance in the mix is a bit disturbed. Unfortunately this stays this way during this entire show and for the main part of this day. However, Baest delivers a pounding start of the festival. Due to this way too loud bass, but also in a more positive way, especially due to the nice buzz saw guitars of Svend Karlsson and Lass Revsbech. Both guitarists also show to be able to deliver some nice solo’s, such as in As Above So Below and closing track Crosswhore. Baest also shows a lot of enthusiasm on stage, something that’s cool to see. Frontman Simon Olsen shows to be quite energetic and the band has a lot of contact with the audience. The audience itself is also already quite enthusiastic as can be seen at, for example, the amount of fists up in the air during As Above So Below.

The second band of this Friday also is a death metal band: Jungle Rot. During this show the bass-problem is a bit less obvious, resulting in a better balanced mix. This makes that Jungle Rot sounds very powerful. That power clearly also passes onto the audience. A lot of people are banging their heads and there also is a moshpit going on, turning the dry grass into a cloud of dust. There aren’t many people crowdsurfing though. At least not until frontman Dave Matrise encourages this before starting Paralyzed Prey. Now, the first person is already crowdsurfing, even before the band started Paralyzed Prey, and soon many followed. During this show the nice atmosphere of a festival is getting better and better. James Genenz delivers a nice humming sound out from his bass guitar and Geoff Bub delivers a few very nice guitarsolo’s in a show that is very tight and well executed, including quite some tempo changes without losing brutality.

Then it’s time for a show where people can get a bit more rest compared to the two preceding pounding shows, it’s Grand Magus’ turn now. This show’s tempo is quite a bit lower. However this says nothing about the quality of this show, because Grand Magus delivers a very nice show. What is especially standing out is the drumming style of Ludwig Witt, which is quite heavy for this show’s tempo, but it fits very well. Besides that bass player Fox Skinner delivers, just as his colleague in Jungle Rot, a nicely humming bass sound. JB Christoffersson performs, besides his vocals, a few very nicely roaring guitarsolo’s. The audience seems to be a bit less enthusiastic than before, but that could also be the case because of the contrast between this show and two preceding shows.

After this show it gets busy on the stage, nine musicians are entering the stage, a few of them also playing some rarer instruments like the hurdygurdy, harp, fiddle and whistles. You probably already guessed it, Eluveitie is on stage. Soundwise, unfortunately the bass-problem is back, resulting in most of these rarer instruments being barely audible. The only instrument out of these rarer instruments that is audible quite clearly are the whistles. However, this doesn’t decrease the audience’s enthusiasm and energy during this show, as can be seen by the moshpit and the many crowdsurfers during Call of the Mountains. Unfortunately Fabienne Erni’s vocals seem to be a bit emotionless during this song. However, later on in the show it appears to not always be this way, especially not when she’s singing Artio. The other vocals, those of Chrigel Glanzmann, are also very well done. Besides that it also is nice to see that the band has a lot of fun during this show.

The next band that enters the stage is the first band that also brings a bit more show-aspects to the stage. Everybody that have seen Avatar, the band I am talking about now, perform live before knows what I mean. The band members are entering the stage with nice make-up and in very cool, characteristic outfits. It also is very clear who’s standing out the most, that’s frontman Johannes Michael Gustaf Eckerström. He is a true showman and really knows how to lead this show in a phenomenal way. He does so in different ways, by his eccentric way of talking in between songs, his movements as well as through his strong vocals. He and Avatar’s other members are getting the audience very enthusiastic and a lot of people are singing along with the lyrics. Avatar delivers a very strong show with quite a bit of variation included. This surely is one of today’s highlights.

After Avatar’s show there is one more band scheduled for today and that’s today’s headliner Airbourne. Airbourne probably brought their own sound guy, because the sound during this show is way better, a clear difference compared to the rest of the day. Airbourne doesn’t perform just a show, this clearly is a headliner-worthy show and the absolute highlight of the day. Airbourne executes their show in a very tight way and the audience is completely going crazy. A few highlights of this show being the toast to Lemmy and the moment that frontman Joel O’Keeffe is playing guitar while being walked around on someone’s neck through the audience to let a can of beer explode in the middle of this audience in a very intense way. Besides their show being very well done musically, the light show is also very nice and having some effect because of it getting darker.

Unfortunately the sound of this first day of Dynamo Metalfest 2019 wasn’t that great, something that hopefully is a bit better on the second day. Exceptions to this were Airbourne’s show with great sound and the show of Jungle Rot when it was a bit less obvious. Despite that this first day of Dynamo Metalfest 2019 was a nice day with nice shows with my personal highlight being Airbourne’s show, closely followed by those of Avatar and Jungle Rot.

Tomorrow we will post our live review of Dynamo Metalfest 2019’s second day!

Here you can read our live review of Dynamo Metalfest 2017. You can read our live review FortaRock 2018’s second day, when Avatar performed there, here, as well as our review of Avatar’s Feathers & Flesh here.

Dynamo Metalfest Official Website
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Airbourne Official Website
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Avatar Official Website
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Eluveitie Official Website
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Grand Magus Official Website
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Jungle Rot Official Website
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Baest Official Website
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