Speedfest is one of the festivals that I’m looking forward to for months. Over the years the guys from Peter Pan Speedrock manage to assemble a great amounts which makes every Speedfest stand out from all the other festivals. On this year’s edition bands like Obituary, High On Fire, Refused, Danko Jones, Carcass, Eagles Of Death Metal were added to the roster. As if it wasn’t enough they decided to stretch the festival even more by adding a after party til 3 AM.

Due to some unforeseen circumstances and a huge line outside of the building was Scorpion Child the first act I witnessed. After getting some tokens and a beer witnessed these Texans played their set with a huge amount of passion. Their seventies rock sound is very common nowadays and that’s probably one of the reasons why the vast amount of people that are present in the building are not giving their full attention. Chatting with friends seems to be more important then shut the hell up and listen to the band. Although after checking them out for a couple of minutes it came to me it all sounded a bit too safe. I missed some balls in the set. 

Backyard Babies" title="Search for Backyard Babies">Backyard Babies were up next and since my friends where still in the process of getting inside I decided to grab not an ordinary draft beer but a craft beer. This years Speedfest has the premier of Speedrock Premium Heavy Lager. Indeed the guys from Peter Pan Speedrock have their own beer. Pretty oke, nice hops but maybe a bit to sweet for me. Well back to the Babies. Their seventies rock is pretty okay I guess but to be honest it didn’t work out for me. 

After a quick look at Radio Bikini and their crazy ass grindcore I figured out I had been wasting my time at the Backyard Babies. The band was already at the end of their set. Certainly one to remember. Since Radio Bikini ended before their time I decided to check out the foodcourt and ofcourse the Rooie Neger, which is the resident DJ of Speedfest. Compared to last year not much changes had been made, which concerned to be honest. Earlier this week Speedfest announced that it was almost sold out. So I was wandering if the foodcourt would turnout into a battlezone around feeding time. Luckily this didn’t happen around that time  but the amount of foodstands could be increased in next years edition. 

One of the bands that I was looking forward to was Pro-Pain. Their latest effort is a typical Pro-Pain album but to be honest is quietly drowned into a huge sea of releases last year. Starting with “Deathwish” from the last album I hoped they would quickly go for the old material but that didn’t really happen. Which made a lot of old school fans walk out before they finally got to their hitsongs. It would have been really cool if they stuck to the first couple of albums or do a special show. Bummer. 

After this slight debacle I hoped for Obituary to flush away the slightly bad taste. Oh boy, they did. Tight set, great sound and a good setlist. The Tampa Bay deathmetal outfit did gave a flawless show combined with the huge amount of fans present made it a great party. On with Napalm Death to take it up a notch.

The last couple of days Barnie had been back to England to deal with some personal matter and it seems that he wants to make up for those lost shows. Although despite all his efforts the show of Napalm Death was pretty okay. The sound was too blurry to really made the difference between the songs. So if you have to guess the song titles by the amounts of seconds that they are playing it’s pretty much time to see the next band. Even the Nazi Punks cover couldn’t repair this damage.

Another band that I was looking forward to was High On Fire. Simply because the last time they made huge impression on me during the Roadburn Festival in my hometown and their latest effort Luminiferous is probably in my yearlist. If they have a crystal clear sound their stonermetal ends up like a sledgehammer in your face. But sadly enough this didn’t happen today. Standing almost 10 meters from the sound guy I hoped for some good quality but it didn’t happen. 

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Carcass was the last band to show their skills on the already beat down crowd. Considering the huge amount of death metal t-shirts it was a good move of the organisation for having those bands. This wide programming even had the result that the festival eventually sold out on the day itself. But like a lot of bands on the Wrecker Stage has Carcass also some sound issues. This sadly takes of the edges of the songs as wel. This means that the most recognizable tracks still got some nice respons but it all could’ve been a lot better. 

Danko Jones" title="Search for Danko Jones">Danko Jones has been on Speedfest before and really know what to expect. One thing that I like about Danko Jones is that their night isn’t okay if the fans aren’t pleased. The band gives themselves always a two hundred percent and if that means that they don’t drink after the show because of their killing tour schedule I think that’s even more rock ‘n roll than any band onstage having a hangover. Besides giving themselved 200 percent they do have the songs to speak in their advantage. Easy rhythm, catchy hooks, great frontman and a good sound. Even if you don’t like the music you can’t suppress a smile during their set.

Refused" title="Search for Refused">Refused released their album ‘Freedom’ since sixteen years and it’s my first time seeing them after this release. Since the sound problems on the Wreckerstage earlier this day I was a bit scared that this also would effect this show. But from the very beginning the sound is just crystal clear. So that didn’t affect the show in any form. Still I missed a great deal of audience that maybe already had enough beer and was heading home or just the left wing message of Refused that didn’t look appealing to them. In the end the show was pretty cool. The new songs certainly don’t have the impact of their older material and probably never will simply because it’s not good enough. Still I enjoyed it like you enjoy a conversation with an old friend. 

After this it was probably time for the most impressive moment of the entire evening. Around 0:10 Peter Pan Speedrock came up onstage on the slot that would have been for the Eagles Of Death Metal for a minute of silence. It gave me goose bumps all over. Around 5000 misfits, skinhead, punkers, metalheads etc that after a day of heavy drinking are complete silent just to remember the tragedy of Le Bataclan. The set afterwards of Peter Pan Speedrock was even more devastating. The message was pretty clear. The day all of us stop making music, is the day they win.