Last year I got blown away twice at the Summer festival by the mighty rockers Helmet, a legendary and influential band that rocks as heavy as a ten ton hammer. I had never encountered them before, so when they announced a European tour for this year I felt like checking out a club show of this band. Here’s what it was like.
Opening band tonight was the local band Heist, a band prior unknown to me. They brought along three guitars to make a lot of heavy noise, but I sort of felt like they didn’t really know in which direction they wanted to go. There were elements of postcore, doom metal and stoner, but also rock ‘n’ roll and even some funky parts passed by. Only the guitars had a pretty thin sound. And to top it all, it seemed like the vocalist had the idea he was in an awesome grunge rock band. At least that was the voice he was trying to lay down, unfortunately it didn’t sound too pretty although he did manage to keep himself in tone. One more thing to nag about, it seemed that the bassist was suffering from a severe post-Limp Bizkit syndrome or something, with his little lights on his bass guitar and his New York Yankees cap on, but that was just a personal point of irritation. Heist is nothing really interesting, yet.
Along on tour with Helmet is the threesome Totimoshi, which is a very funny name I think. The band consisted of a tight, grooving drummer, a woman on the low end and a very talented and skilled guitarist who also handled the vocal duties. There was some very fast and complex guitar riffing going on, which was also the main asset of the music. Backing it up are powerfully displayed matching drums and the lovely sound of a Rickenbacker bass guitar. A great band to check out if you’re into guitar virtuoso with a love for experimental noise rock. Think of Melvins, Harvey Milk and more obscure rock stuff.
Helmet frontman Page Hamilton and his in 2006 recruited band came to destroy the Patronaat tonight, and so they did. The volume was very loud, which suits this ultra heavy rock band perfectly. The grooves that these guys pack is out of this world, and they deliver it with supreme tightness. Unfortunately I don’t know any song titles except for ‘In The Meantime’ which they didn’t even play, but I managed to catch ‘Just Another Victim’ which is an awesome track originally recorded as a duet with House Of Pain. The crowd let the mayhem overflow them enthusiastically, and it was actually quite funny to see that this band, that started out in 1989, still attracts a lot of the old fans that still go crazy about them. Quite a lot of aged people in the ‘dance-moshpit’ this evening. Which is proof that Helmet is still relevant today, for they still attract their old fans as well as harvest new souls with their splendid live shows. It’s just too bad that Page Hamilton isn't the best of singers out there, but one can forgive him for that as soon as he blasts with his guitar. If you dig these guys I definitely recommend to go see them on this tour.
