Distortion
09-12-12
Klokgebouw, Eindhoven (NL)

By Laetitia
With festivals like (the no longer existing) Dynamo Open Air, Speedfest and Eindhoven Metal Meeting, Eindhoven was already known as the place to be for rock and metal fans. The town’s nickname, ‘rock city’, was once again established with the 2012 edition of Speedfest and a new metal festival: Distortion. With about 3000 visitors and performances of bands like Opeth, Fear Factory, Meshuggah and The Devin Townsend Project, both the organization and the fans can look back on a successful first edition.

The event started mid-day with Brassum and The Safety Fire. As most of the visitors (some with a nice hangover from Speedfest) slowly but steadily entered the Klokgebouw, Dystopia entered the Hell Stage. This group from Den Haag won the metal talent show and with that they got a great opportunity to get their music out to a bigger audience than usual. The guys brought the audience a heavy mix of death, black and thrash metal. The crowd had their mind set on making the best of this day, so there wasn’t much persuasion needed to get them going.

It’s never too early for a sickening dose of grindcore and the representatives of Grindhoven, Cliteater, Leng Tch’e and Rompeprop happily provided exactly that. Cliteater and Rompeprop did what they do best: taking grind to the next level. With skeleton outfits, blood paint, a voice transformer and song titles like ‘M.I.L.F-hunter’, most seriousness was taken out and the audience did only one thing: enjoy these over the top grindcore bands.

Decapitated put on a show that would have fit among the headliners of this evening. Even though these Polish musicians played at quite an early hour, their performance wasn’t less because of it. Also the people in the fairly crowded main hall didn’t feel restricted by the time or the fact that they hadn’t drunk much (expensive) beers yet. The fans were headbanging, raised their fists or devil horns and some moshed from the start until the very last second.

The American band Miss May I was there to indulge the cravings of the metalcore fans. The emo-punk looking boys were unequalled in their strong stage presence. The band members bounced to all the corners of the stage, whilst trying to engage the audience in a similar enthusiastic attitude. Unfortunately for them, the mood for turning a decent gig into a great one just wasn’t there.

It was hard to leave while Rompeprop was still raping ears, but the promise of The Devin Townsend Project proved convincing enough. After displaying several humorous clips, it was time for Ziltoid’s inventor and his bandmates to take over the stage. In between excellent perfomed songs as ‘Supercrush!’ and ‘Juular’, heavy Devy showed once again that he is a great entertainer. By also using irony, hinting at the sheer gayness of his own tunes and asking people to do a wacky hand move on his recent single ‘Lucky Animals’ from Epicloud, Devin Townsends show ended up being what everybody called the highlight of Distortion.

Death Angel was reminiscing about other concerts they in Eindhoven in the past. Thankfully, they also got around to playing some music. The groups thrash classics were an instant hit with the crowd. Shoes were lost in the pit, necks cracked and sweat flew around.
Every time one watches Meshuggah it’s amazing to see how they pull off such neat shows with such complex, polyrhythmic music. Their performance on Distortion was no different. The only thing that would have improved this gig would be the stage act of the Swedes. Even though the songs came across wonderfully, the band members looked a little static, unlike other shows of them.

Nostalgia was probably the key word for many fans of Fear Factory. As many people loved this band back in the day, the opportunity of seeing them live was not one to be missed. Yet crowd seemed very divided in their opinion at the end of the show. Whereas fans where enthusiastic about the band and the setlist, others noticed that vocalist Burton C. Bell messed things up and the other band members acted like playing another gig in a row of many.

Opeth was responsible for the mellow entertainment for the festival. They opened with ‘The Devil’s Orchard’ from Heritage, but the band also played heavier tunes like ‘Ghost of Perdition’ and ‘White Cluster’, resulting in a varied setlist. Even though Åkerfeldt feared they could not top Meshuggah’s gig (jokingly adding a ‘Fuck You Meshuggah’), he was wrong. Indeed, Opeth did not play a energetic, metal gig with an exuberant crowd, but the fans (who were the majority) certainly got a headliner worthy show.

Next years edition of Distortion was already confirmed. Let’s all meet on (Sunday) November 24, 2013!

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