Because of the cancellation of the Fields Of Rock festival many venues have booked a show with one or more acts from this festival in this weekend. The show of Dimmu Borgir at the Patronaat, Haarlem was one of those shows. As a support Why She Kills was asked to warm-up the crowd for these Norwegian black metallers. As an after-party, there was the possibility to watch the soccer match between the Netherlands and Russia on a big screen.
Arriving just after 7 o’clock at the venue, there were many people standing outside the building waiting to get in. After a cold beer in a bar across the street the row was practically gone and I entered the venue. The Dutch extreme metal act Why She Kills was already playing, but I wished I would have stayed in this pub to drink another beer, because I didn’t like the band at all, or should I say the two vocalists. Musically the band wasn’t that bad, not original, but certainly nice to listen. The two female singers were a whole different story though. The one who screamed was trying too hard to be Angela Gossow, while the other one, who sang clean, wasn’t that talented either. Besides these remarks, a karaoke-singer probably would have had a better charisma… All in all, not that impressive.
At 20:15 the lights went off again and the guys from Dimmu entered the stage to begin with ‘Spellbound’. The volume of the lead guitar was a bit too low, but furthermore the sound was great and also the voices of vocalist Shagrath, with a Gene Simmons inspired outfit, and backing vocalist ICS Vortex were surprisingly good. Something that didn’t work out that well was the slide show / PowerPoint presentation on a big screen behind the band. The whole thing looked a bit amateurish and it added nothing to their show. During ‘The Serpentine Offering’ they showed a little piece of the video clip of it, but furthermore it consisted of some photos and really awful GIFs. The reactions of the crowd towards the band were very positive though, especially during songs like ‘The Chosen Legacy’ and the encores ‘Progenies Of The Great Apocalypse’ and ‘Mourning Palace’. After a show of approximately 75 minutes, the band left the stage, leaving an enthusiastic crowd with the memories of a decent, but a little bit too short, show.
After their show, many metalheads stayed to watch the match between the Netherlands and Russia, but I think everything has been said about that match already…
