Off course tonight is evolved around one band only, but the Devil’s Blood brought along two bands that are friends of them and where they feel connected with. First band to open up for the crowd were Tilburg black ‘n roll band Heretic. First thing that was noticeable was the nicely dressed up stage, with upside down black crosses, black candles and even goat heads. The venue was already nicely filled when this band started off with their intro and first song. This band plays simple, raw, but effective black ‘n roll with influences from black-metal and rock ‘n roll. Think off a mix between later Darkthrone and the Misfits. The more rock ‘n roll songs like ‘Hail Satan’ got the most response out of the crowd. A nice opening band, but I don’t understand why they don’t have more songs like ‘Possessed Forever’ which was there last song. This song is simply awesome and miles above all the other songs.
 

Simply based on their name, I was suspecting a doom-metal band, but I really got my ass kicked by an old school heavy metal band out of Uppsala from Sweden. This young old school heavy metal band is around for a couple of years and is already known by a lot of ‘true’ heavy metal fans. Musically In Solitude plays loud and aggressive old school heavy metal in the vein of Enforcer, UFO, Iron Maiden, mixed with occult rock like Black Widow and Thin Lizzy. Their singer looked like Jim Morrison who goes black-metal, with subtle black shade under his eyes. Looking at the response in the crowd, there were already quit a lot of people familiar with this band and hands were raised and heads were banging for this band. This band was a real pleasant surprise, the outfits of the members looked totally retro 1980 and the music rocked the crowd. This energetic band was the perfect warm up for the Devil’s Blood. Awesome band, especially if you want to relive the early 80’s.
 

I’ve seen this band already a dozen times before, but since this was supposed to be one of the last small club-shows of these occult rockers for a long time, I thought I might want to check it out and let them surprise me once again. First off all, I must give the Devil’s Blood credit for the fact that they tagged along two young bands they believe in and that they shared all their equipment and stage settings with these bands. It started off kind of rough with a noisy sound, but after a couple of songs the sound became a lot clearer. The stylist contained every song of the Come, Reap album, except for the Roky Erickson cover ‘White Faces’, filled up with almost the entire The Time Of No Time Evermore album. The band played for over an entire hour and again they struck a nerve and seemed to yet again amaze me! This band is unique in what they do; everything is perfectly balanced within this band. The simple but effective rocking base, the catchy tunes, the serene female vocals, the dark occult vibe and above all two excellent lead guitar-players that love the dual with one and each other! Absolute highlight this night was the improvised, psychedelic jam versions of the song ‘The Heavens Cry Out For the Devils’, which was stretched out to a length of 15 minutes. They seem to jam and improvise with songs so easily it’s unbelievable, this is also what makes this band every time exciting to watch. Also the last song that started off with the crowd favorite ‘Voodoo Dust’ which slowly transferred in a psychedelic jam and into the song ‘River Of Gold’ was amazingly done. Again I can only conclude that the success and hype around this band is entirely deserved, they are simply a unique one of a kind band!