Delain and Epica at Wâldrock Festival, Frisia
Review By Erwin Van Dijk - Date Of The Event : 13 June 2009
Wâldrock is a festival in Frisia, a province in the Netherlands. You can compare Frisia with Scotland: it has a different language and it used to be an independent country in the middle ages. Today no foreigner will notice the difference between Frisia and Holland, which is the dominant part of the Netherlands. In fact, all the things connected to “Holland”, wooden shoes, cows, cheese, tulips and windmills are also a part of the Frisian heritage.
Only at the late hours of the festival, when most of the local population is drunk the differences between Frisia and Holland can cause problems. Most locals will revert to the Frisian language and then it is the Frisian peasants vs. the city boys from Holland again.
Wâldrock started in the late eighties as a “normal” festival. When the number of visitors started to decline the organisation decided to take a gamble and book only metal bands for a change. This was a success. Today Wâldrock has about 12,000 visitors each year. In the past years bands such as Iron Maiden, Moonspell, Within Temptation, Morbid Angel and Slayer were guests at Wâldrock. With the exception of Iron Maiden Wâldrock will never have the budget to book the real big names. Instead, it is a relative small, relax and friendly festival.
The Friday before there was a warming up party to keep the people at the camping site busy. Four bands did a gig at the tent stage: Napalm Death, Dragonforce, Legion of the Damned and Existence Denied.The only two female fronted bands were Epica and Delain, two bands which operate in more or less the same genre and have the same fanbase. Usually you can find the hardcore fanclub of Delain and Epica at every gig those bands do in The Netherlands, but not this day. In short: they have missed one of the better gigs of these bands.
Delain was the third band at the main stage, at an early 14:30. The weather was perfect, sunny and not to hot. At this time the mainstage was blocking the sun. To my surprise Floor Jansen together with a beer, and we all know who she is, the host of today.
Delain is sometimes compared to Within Temptation, which is logic. However, since Within Temptation will only do seated theatre shows next year (the kind of theatre you can see Shakespeare) they are almost written off as metal. Delain is more heading to a nice rock sound.
As said before, none of the usual fanclub members were present. It was also early, the beer was cold and the usual Wâldrock visitor prefers a bit louder music. As a result it was not really crowded. But Delain did a nice gig. After three songs Charlotte got rid of her leather jacket (at this time the main stage was well hidden in the shadow but still too hot for leather. And what she wore beneath it was a lot better looking ;)
But Frisians have the reputation to be a bit “stug”. This has nothing to do with the “Stig” from Top Gear or the Stugs (tank killers) from WW II era Germany but with the dour character of the Frisians in general. Some remarks of Charlotte did not really work – like the “nekpijn for mietjes” (see setlist with all the remarks she wrote on it).
Still is was a good gig and a lot more entertaining than the one at Haarlem last month
Entirely different was the Epica gig. You might have expected them at the main stage but gothic does not work with bright sunlight. Besides, nobody would notice all Epica’s special effects then.
Unlike Delain Epica is still trying to be a metal band. And with the fresh mercenaries from God Dethroned it is very unlikely they will become soft. For Epica this was a good gig. (And I am not going to clean up the tent stage after those confetti mortars exploded!) Like Delain Epica did a mix of old and new songs. The God Dethroned boys gave the band new and much needed energy for the live shows. The tent was crowded but being honest, Stuff like Killswitch Engine attracts a different audience of course. Much later, while waiting for Motörhead I saw Simone with her boyfriend from Kamelot.
Conclusion: Two nice gigs from Holland’s leading female fronted bands. And they added a much needed varity to the festival.
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