Text by: Luis Pires.
Pictures by: Wouter van de Kamp (more pictures available at Wouter's website.)
The thing about festivals where you have bands playing in different rooms at the same time is that sometimes you have to make a hard choice. That was the case of last year's Roadburn when Shining and Jarboe were playing at the same time. My choice ended to be watching Swan's former singer due to the age difference between them and although I don't regret it, Shining's last album Blackjazz is so good that for some time I kept checking their myspace to see when could I finally see them live. I was quite pleased when I saw they were playing again in Tilburg at the end of October and I could finally get some live blackjazz action.
The show took place in the Green Room, which is somewhere in between the Bat Cave and the Main stage (maybe a bit closer to the Bat Cave) and there were two opening acts, namely a Dutch band called Cube X that I didn't get to see (hence not mentioning them in the title) and Belgium avant-garde/sludge/some-other-name-to-describe-what-they-do outfit Drums Are For Parades.
It so happens that this trio has one EP (Artificial Sacrificial Darkness In The Temple Of The Damned) and one album (Master) out and what they delivered in the Green Room was enough for me to get quite curious about them. Somehow their sound reminded me of Melvins and Mastodon, in the sense of having the more metal-like sounding and heaviness of Mastodon with a melvinish approach to it all. All in all they were heavy, loud and pretty much everybody was banging their heads along the instrumentals (at some point there seemed to be some singing from both one of the guitarists and the drummer but it was not listenable in the middle of it all). Portuguese promoters (and others alike): get this guys to play as an opening act to a good and intense sludge/stoner band in a very small venue, I think the effect will be brutal.
The fact that I can actually remember anything of DafP is a bit surprising, considering the awesomeness of Shining's show. Also that the Green Room was enough to pack everyone who wanted to see them (and the tickets did not sold out) is also a sign of them being relatively unknown: quite unfair considering how good they are.
The set list was, as expected, mostly consisting of their latest album Blackjazz with only two songs from Grindstone. They changed their sound a lot from their first few records so it does not come as a surprise and gave the show a stylistic consistency that worked quite well. When one mentions consistency while describing something done by Shining that should be taken with a pinch of salt, in the sense that their sound is a bit insane. When you have such a style (in this case a mixture of jazz and extreme metal) it is important to have a good sound, otherwise you easily loose a lot of stuff during the show and unfortunately it didn't start very well and even though there was some increase in the definition throughout the show, it was normally so loud that unless you would buy yourself a pair of earplugs, the distortion and bass sounds would completely drown everything else. This was a pity, considering how strong the opening song is - The Madness and The Damage Done (also the opening of Blackjazz). Nevertheless, the sheer energy of that song was overwhelming enough to overcome the sound problems and get things started in a great fashion.
If that wasn't enough, following up with Fish Eye should make sure to keep everyone happy straight from the beginning. The rest of the show alternated between the more experimental sides of songs from Grindstone and the intensity of the Blackjazz stuff, intertwined with a Munkeby in a very good mood ("Jazzmetal hour!"). The ending with Healter Skelter and their version of King Crimson's masterpiece 21st Century Schizoid Man was absolutely amazing and put the exclamation mark the show needed.
Music wise, any quick listening to their albums leaves you with no doubt: those guys are very good. But when you are playing that fast and that loud and with so many overlapping details on your songs, it can be quite hard to avoid making a mess on stage. Fortunately, the live versions were as good as the ones in the studio and just like in the Armageddon Concerto they played with Enslaved in that same building earlier this year, I have to highlight both Lofthus (drums) and Munkeby (voice, guitar and sax). The first one is one of the most precise drummers I've seen on a live show and that precision was really what held everything together. Regarding Munkeby: he is simply a great frontman with a suiting dose of insanity and a very good voice. Add to that the fact that he is switching between sax, guitar, singing and some other instrument he used that I don't know the name and you can get a glimpse of the picture.
The highlight of everything I mentioned came in the aforementioned version of 21st Century Schizoid Man. In Blackjazz, Grutle from Enslaved is in charge of the singing duties while Munkeby plays sax in the album, while in this case he was really in charge of everything, switching from screams (his voice is not as deep and brutal as Grutle's can be but he did a very good job) to crazy saxophone playing. You can check a video of that ending below.
Esses gajos ao vivo devem ser tão bons...
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