After reviewing Lionheart’s The Will To Survive and with previous, pleasant shows of both Born From Pain and Sworn Enemy in the back of my mind, it wasn’t a hard decision to go to Rotterdam for a show of these three bands. Also playing were Freya and CDC. Unfortunately I missed the whole show of CDC due to some traffic delay, so Lionheart was the first band I saw that afternoon.

With the same intro as the opener for The Will To Survive, Lionheart kicked off their set. Right from the start they immediately presented themselves as the loud and heavy hardcore act they are, without the unnecessary bullshit. The audience didn’t react that much though. There were some violent dancers in front of the stage, but never more than five of them at the same time. There was the polite clapping after each song, but the band definitely deserved more with its performance. These guys gave a lot of energy, they played their songs more than well and the sound was quite good. The audience wasn’t there for them though, unfortunately.

Up next was Freya. This band with members of Earth Crisis did get some more bodies moving than Lionheart did, but still it wasn’t very shocking. Personally I’m not a big fan of Freya's vocal department, but all in all they were entertaining. The short, but powerful warming-up for Sworn Enemy’s performance was a decent one, but if they want to play in the ‘Champions League of hardcore’ they definitely have to step up a bit more.

And then it was finally time for the main attraction, Sworn Enemy. From the moment the band members entered the stage the crowd went completely wild. The biggest part of the audience was singing along with all the lyrics, there were more moshers than during the other acts in total and the band played pretty damn tight. Especially during the public-favorites like ‘We Hate’ and ‘Sworn Enemy’, the energy-level in the venue was really high. Sworn Enemy did what they were expected to do and they didn’t let anybody down. Great performance, great band.

As a dessert we were treated with a show of the (at the moment partly) Dutch band Born From Pain. Due to the start of this package at approximately 3 pm I became very hungry, so I missed the first part of BFP’s show. During the last couple of songs I saw a band playing some fine hardcore, but due to the many (mainly left-wing political) speeches of the singer I couldn’t enjoy their show as much as the one of their predecessor.