live4metal.com Arcturus, Red Harvest & Asrai The Underworld London 5/10/5 review by Pete Woods. Dutch band Asrai were not only colourful on stage but even had a merchandise stall attractively decked out in purple with red roses on it. I love this band ever since I was introduced to their Touch In The Dark album and think they display everything that a group marrying together Gothic and metal sensibilities should have in their armoury. As the sultry power of Whisper consumed us I was instantly blown away. Vocalist Margriet sounds powerful on album but by Christ, in the flesh she was both in your face and bellowing away with a force that demanded attention. For a first song of the night I couldn't have expected anything better and as for audience reaction I couldn't really tell you, as I remained at the front till they had finished. Those around seemed to be having a good time though. Despite having ladies on vocals, drums and keys there was an evident masculinity in the guitar and bass department. Musically this took me back to the 80s with these instruments very thick in the mix I could hear patterns not a million miles away from either The Sisters Of Mercy or New Model Army. In Front Of Me was a song that just sounded massive and should easily have the strength to propel Asrai to much greater things than an opening slot. Tower is a slower number, for some reason it slightly reminds me of Depeche Mode's Blasphemous Rumours and it was sung totally from the heart, something that you don't often find in music of this orientation. To say I enjoyed this would be an understatement, my only annoyance was that with Shadows, this brief 30-minute set ended far too quickly. I really don't know what to say to wrap this up but feel damn lucky to have witnessed 3 superb bands here tonight. All of them seemed to give us 110% I just wish all visiting tours could be like this one. Pete |
It was 5 o'clock in the morning when we all gathered arisen and shining at Margriet's place. While walking to the doorbell, Karin slid through an almost toxic waste-dump from a dog with a very big and bad diet.. The little bit of grass around the nearest tree wasn't enough to get rid of this evil substance. So it took some time to get rid of it, although the whole journey there was a strange and mysterious smell. |
There weren't any problems getting through customs and at 7.15 pm we were up in the air. |
Together we went to the Rotterdam Airport the catch flight HV 5095. Rik could't go to this gig so Mario did, together with Madeleine for the merchandise and Marcel as our soundengineer |
It was Martin's first fright flight |
We arrived at Stansted at 7.10 local time, we were totally surprised that it was so quiet at the airport; we almost started to miss the security check. |
Henk, our devilish driver, and Ingrid left for England with our gear the day before. They took the ferry from Calais and booked a picturesque hotel near Stansted. |
It wasn't difficult to spot them. So we all sat back in the van and let ourselves be carried away by the English landscape. We went back to the hotel for an authentic English breakfast. (Later on it turned out to be our only meal for that day.) |
With a full belly it was time to get through all 571 trafficlights to London and as promised at the Stansted airport, the average speed was 10 miles per hour due to the usual traffic jam. |
So we had more than enough time to watch the road and found the CAMDEN LOCK HOTEL LONDON easier than expected. While we where checking in, the ever watchfull parking police decided to provide us with a parking-fine in the first ten minutes of our arrival and we where glad they didn't clamp us welcome to London (For that matter all big cities are the same, so it almost felt like home) |
It was time for some relaxing, and what is more relaxing than to go shopping in Camden? |
We got to Camden looking forward to buying ourselves some brand new goodies but due to some difficulties the electricity went down. so hard to spot the shop in the dark. Paying was like a touch in the dark, so it was a bit disappointing and with almost empty bags (of course we did manage to buy some stuff) we went back to the hotel to get freshen up and pick up our gear to go to the Underworld. Of course some of us didn't care much for shopping and enjoyed a pint on the terrace in front of the shops. |
So we had more than enough time to set up the merchandise. |
A bit too early we arrived at the Underworld where Arcturus and Red Harvest were busy doing a sound check. |
That night Redemption television would be filming all performances and do interviews with all the bands. But the time schedule was a bit tight so due to our sound check we didn't have the time to do the interview in their improvised studio. And we decided that we would do it in between the gigs of Red Harvest and Arcturus. |
At 6.30 dinner was served, or so we thought, and we gave our orders. But with two bands and crew before us, and a little Chinese woman that spoke perfect Chinese but not a word of English to cook and serve us, 5 minutes became 15 minutes and the food wasn't in sight and half a hour later we decided it was better to play with an empty stomach than to be burping on stage. |
At 7.00 am the venue would open their doors and we started at 7.15.am; no time to eat it's time to rock! |
Waiting for dinner.. ? |
After Red Harvest show we ran backstage for an interview with Redemption TV. We had a nice interview with a really nice lady. (It's always nice to talk with someone how has the same vision about music, specially females in (metal-) music.) |
After Arcturus the place emptied in no- time sorry Mario, no after party. |
We loaded up the van and tried to find the Hotel, that wasn't that hard.but a legal way to park and reach the hoteldoor was another story. Some of us went to sleep. The hunger teased needed a bite. So we went into the night. (Not to far anyway, and not too long either. Long live the Doner Kebab! We definitely wanted to go back to the hotel when they started doing a jam session in the next room of the kebab-shop...aarrgghhh. What is it with British people jamming and karaoke (see our former UK adventures). |
It was really fun in the 100 m area of the hotel; karaoke, and a crash course in how to beat eachother up with beer bottles. And the beer wasn't that bad we were worried about our van. We awoke early, enjoyed breakfast together and thought about how to spend the rest of our day. We checked out our van and we were glad that it wasn't damaged. Mario had to go back to Amsterdam and the rest of us would fly back to Rotterdam. So we had to be at Stansted at 5 a.m. It was 11.00 o'clock in the morning.. So it's not difficult to guess what we decided to do..So much shopping to do; the black rose, etc..etc.. Hoping all electricity problems were solved we went back to Camden and yes all the problems were solved. We went back to load up the van at 2.00 p.m. and heavier than before we hit the road again. It was a good thing we went back on time, due to all kind roadwork we saw more from London than we wanted, and trying not to get lost. Near Stansted again and of course we needed a drink. So we went into a nearby pub. |
Thanks Matt ...for dropping some flyers |
Although we thought we had more than enough time, (time means nothing when you're having fun) so we couldn't enjoy a last meal together. |
Henk and Ingrid dropped us off at the Airport, we waved them goodbye and they drove to their hotel.. Instead of a meal in a local pub we had an airport meal while chatting about the gig and our upcoming flight not aware of what happened that day in Holland. |
The flight to Amsterdam was earlier than the flight back to Rotterdam, so we checked Mario in, kissed him goodbye, got back to the hall and decided to check in. |
So when we arrived at the queue we caught a last glance of Mario going through customs. |
The flight back was nice till almost the end of it.. We had a lovely time until the pilot had an announcement to make. About fog (always thought that was more for the British).. due to the fog and therefore bad sight we couldn't land in Rotterdam. Crossing our fingers and hoping the pilot made a bad joke and turned out to be a stand up comedian.. Which unfortunately he wasn't. We had to go to Amsterdam, (so in the end it wasn't necessary for Mario to take the other flight). Luckily enough there was a bus waiting for us to take us back to Rotterdam Airport and indeed there was a heavy fog, so no view at all. And later we found out that that day a Second World War bomb was found next to a Schiphol runway and that they had all kinds off problems that day. For us all problems faded away when we're coming home again. |
Marcel, doing some fine tuning |
Drummers ball |
