I had seen Subway To Sally twice at Wacken Open Air, and this evening they were to conclude the first day of the last Blackfield Open Air Festival as headliners. Throughout the day, the sky was watched, and a storm was forecasted for the evening. Fortunately, it took a different path, so one could listen to the rock-medieval sounds of the seven artists around singer Erik Fish without getting wet.
I had previously known the guys around frontman Chris Harms mainly for the calm and classically acoustic “Swan Songs”. Today, it was to be shown that they could also strike harder tones. The amphitheater was now quite well-filled, and the weather was getting somewhat better. With the opener “Kill It With Fire”, the direction for the set was immediately set, and the audience was immediately involved.
Let's stick with EBM. After Spetsnaz, the Belgian veterans Absolute Body Control followed the same direction. Founded in the early '80s and disbanded in '84, the project by Dirk Ivens and Eric Van Wonterghem has been making music together again since 2006. This was especially interesting for fans of their older pieces.
Just before the Swedish EBM duo Spetsnaz was able to enter the stage the festival moderator announced a severe weather warning and they were hoping that they would not have to evacuate the festival as Cologne already was under water. Luckily, the severe weather passed by Gelsenkirchen and the party could go on.
Originally, at that slot the band Seasurfer should be playing but due to personal reasons they had to cancel on short notice. As substitute the Bottrop band Pre/Verse spontaneously stepped in. The electro-rocker mixed different sound elements what made it to a very attractive mixture.
With the Blackfield I went to a festival of the black scene which was something completely different to me. Unfortunately, it should take place for the last time ever this year due to several reasons (mainly financial ones) but that did not do any harm to the good atmosphere.