Live review: Dynamo Metalfest 2019 Day 2 at Kunstijsbaan, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, July 20th, 2019

After a short night the second day of Dynamo Metalfest 2019 already starts quite early. The first band that is performing at this Saturday July the 20th already starts at twenty-five minutes past eleven. Due to this the moment the doors are opening is scheduled at half past ten. This again gets a bit delayed, the doors are opening around eleven o’clock. The weather forecast predicted high temperatures and thunderstorms. It sure is hot and once inside it is still dry.

However, during the show of today’s openings band, Alien Weaponry, there already falling a few drops of rain, but in an amount being refreshing rather than being annoying. The fact that this first show is scheduled quite early doesn’t seem to be a problem for many people. Quite a lot of people already are present to see Alien Weaponry kick off this second day of Dynamo Metalfest 2019. With their grooving sound they deliver a very nice and pounding show that will make you awake if you were still a bit sleepy. Due to this, energy is something that seems to be present quite fast, on stage the band members are showing quite a lot of energy, as well as in the audience, with quite a lot of people headbanging and creating a moshpit and a wall of death. Soundwise the bass-sound is, just as on the first day, quite loud, however the mix of this and the other sounds seems to be balanced much better, a clear improvement compared to the main part of the first day.

While the sun is shining through it is time for a show where that sunshine isn’t quite fitting, Tribulation is on stage now. As soon as the band members enter the stage they clearly attract the focus of many people. This isn’t weird though, because all Tribulation members are very nicely dressed and face painted, all in a different way. Probably standing out the most is guitarist Jonathan Hultén. This however is not only due to his cloths and face paint, but also is due to his special and nice way of moving around the stage during the show. The sound of the guitars, his as well as his colleague Adam Zaars’, is also very special, while they also deliver quite a few very nice guitarsolo’s. During the beginning of this show Johannes Andersson’s vocals are on a bit of a low volume, but this soon was fixed. The audience seems to be a bit less enthusiastic than at Alien Weaponry’s show, but Tribulation’s show also seems to be more of a watch- and listen-show rather than being a physically go crazy-show.

The next band, Armored Saint, played their first Dutch show thirty years ago at the 1989 edition of Dynamo Open Air. Now they’re back at the same location, the Kunstijsbaan in Eindhoven, this time at Dynamo Metalfest. So, this clearly is some old school metal. The audience doesn’t seem to react very enthusiastic during the songs, but they in fact clearly are very enthusiastic as can be heard at the loud applauding in between songs. At some moments yesterday’s bass-problem seems to come back, such as during Win Hands Down, but luckily this isn’t constantly the case and not as much as the main part of the first day. Guitarists Phil Sandoval and Jeff Duncan deliver a very nice sound out of their guitars, such as during  Last Train Home. Besides that Phil Sandoval also delivers a few nice solo’s.

Up next a legend is coming to the stage, Philip H. Anselmo. He is performing here with his current band The Illegals, so fully named Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals. The band starts with an instrumental intro while half way into this intro Philip appears on the stage. Immediately the audience is screaming their lungs out out of enthusiasm. After that Philip asks the crowd what they want to hear, The Illegals-stuff or something else? Soon the crowd is only screaming one specific bandname. So, something else it will be. The audience goes completely insane during this show while Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals are only playing Pantera songs. Even a huge shower of rain and hail isn’t stopping the audience or the band from going crazy. Quite some people are hiding for the rain and hail at the roofed parts at the sides, while others are still going insane in the rain and hail. The trampled grass is soon changed into mud. Almost everyone is screaming along with every lyric, while they raise their fists in the air, people are headbanging heavily and a huge moshpit and huge wall of death are also present. During Walk Max Cavalera also gets on stage screaming alongside Philip. What an energy, what an insanely nice and intense show. This surely is today’s absolute highlight!

While the next band, Metal Church, is entering the stage it still is raining heavily. Later on during the show the rain stops and the sun is coming back again while the temperatures are a bit lower due to the rain. It probably will get difficult to surpass the atmosphere of Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals’ show. However, the audience isn’t out of enthusiasm during this show, many fists are up in the air and many people are banging their heads during this show of these old school thrashers. Metal Church definitely plays a very tight and powerful show. Especially Kurdt Vanderhoof and Rick Van Zandt’s strong guitarriffs and Stet Howland’s drums are sounding very powerful. On top of that frontman Mike Howe also delivers some very strong vocals.

While the sun is already shining quite brightly Max Cavalera is back on the stage. This time not to be delivering guest vocals on one song, but to deliver main vocals on different songs with his own Soulfly. Unfortunately those vocals are not clearly audible at all times. What really stands out though are the very strong drums done by the younger Cavalera in Soulfly, Max’ son Zyon as well as the nice guitars by Marc Rizzo, including a quite long but very nice guitarsolo. Soulfly pounds quite heavily and a moshpit surely should be part of that, as it is.

The next band, Carcass, also pounds quite heavily. They deliver a bulldozer show in an all-destroying way. However, Carcass doesn’t pound just for the sake of pounding. Of course it all is delivered at a raging pace, but they executed it in a very tight and well done way. Something that of course has to be resulting in a moshpit and that indeed happens. Carcass also put quite a bit of variation into their show, with frontman Jeff Walker putting quite some variation into his vocals and guitarist Bill Steer also doing some vocals, resulting in a nice combination. Besides that there’s also room for some nice guitarsolo’s in this heavily pounding show, coming from both Bill Steer and Tom Draper, some solo’s done by one of them, some others done together.

After this there are only two bands left to perform at Dynamo Metalfest 2019 and then it’s already at its end. The first of those two bands left is Steel Panther. Musically Steel Panther perform their show very well, they all are great musicians that exactly know what they are doing and they seem to do their thing with quite some ease. However, at the same time this also is a bit of the disadvantage of this show. Every detail seems to be completely thought through and almost done on automatic pilot. This especially seems to be the disadvantage in between the songs. Their repertoire of jokes, mostly sex-related, seems to be ready for expansion and renewal. For those who’ve already seen Steel Panther live a few times the jokes are getting quite predictable. However, today it seems that many people in the audience are seeing them live for the first time, so many people don’t seemed to be bothered by this and are very enthusiastic. And I have to be honest, they do show a bit of expansion of their repertoire of jokes, I only think it could use a bit more of that. I don’t know if this expansion is completely new, but at least to me it was new. At one moment frontman Michael Starr is faking that his microphone is not working properly. Then he, together with his microphone and a stagehand, leaves the stage. Guitarist Satchel takes this moment to talk a bit to the crowd and he wants to show the audience his Randy Rhoads personification. He tries to change his hair a bit and then starts playing the intro of Crazy Train. Then Michael Starr comes back on stage in his Ozzy Osbourne personification singing the lyrics of that same song, a nice and fun moment.

Today’s headliner is Arch Enemy. In my opinion they also deliver a show that is thought through a bit too much, with almost no room for spontaneity left. Every detail seems to be determined exactly. However, musically Arch Enemy delivers a very tight, headliner-worthy show. Frontwoman Alissa White-Gluz seems to have some minor difficulties delivering her vocals during the beginning of their show, later on in the show this seems to get way better. Besides the music Arch Enemy also delivers a nice show. They brought their own lights, besides the festival’s lights, and the lightshow also is quite nice, especially now that it is getting dark. They also brought something else in case people were getting cold, a lot of flames are fired into the air.

And so Dynamo Metalfest 2019 already came to an end. Luckily the predicted thunderstorm skipped Eindhoven so that the festival didn’t have to be stopped prematurely. Besides that the sound also was much better during this second day.

You can read our live reviews of this year’s Dynamo Metalfest’s first day here, as well as our live review about Dynamo Metalfest 2017 here. You can read our earlier live reviews of Arch Enemy here (FortaRock 2018’s first day) and here (Heineken Music Hall, 2015). We also wrote two album reviews of Arch Enemy’s Will to Power (here) and As the Stages Burn! (here). Here you can read our earlier live review of Soulfly at Doornroosje.

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Steel Panther Official Website
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Soulfly Official Website
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Metal Church Official Website
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Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals Facebook
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Armored Saint Official Website
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Alien Weaponry Official Website
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