Photo Reports

Eventhough I was born 10 years after The Kids started playing, they – and the Belgian punk scene – defined a big part of my youth. Today we celebrated The Kids playing for 45 years (!) in one of the most beautiful historic venues in their home town. And they brought along the next generation with Midnight Tattoo and Captain Kaiser!

We started off with the melodic street punk of Midnight Tattoo. Also Antwerp locals and just as well part of my youth as I grew up in the same neighbourhood. I saw their first show in a tiny bar that doesn’t even exist anymore, on a stage that was no more than 30 square feet. Midnight Tattoo plays typical British sounding party punk that everyone loves to dance or sing along to. In their signature outfit (jeans, plaid shirt and suspenders) they put everyone in a dancing mood. After that Captain Kaiser took over the stage. With their heavy “Kempenpunk” as they call it (hard and fast punk rock) they blew the roof off of De Roma. A perfect intermezzo to prepare the crowd for what was coming.

And then, finally, we got to celebrating the 45th anniversary of legendary Belgian punk band The Kids. The gig started on a minor note as singer Ludo Mariman asked the crowd for a moment of silence to honour his dear friend and fantastic actress Reinhilde Decleir, who passed away the day before. Of course Ludo couldn’t help himself making a little joke, saying: “I’d like to ask you for a moment of silence before we start. Not a minute, ’cause after all we are a punk rock band and a minute is a very long time for us, so just a moment of silence will do…” after which they rocked just like 15 years ago.

In 2020, Brother Firetribe released their latest album ‘Feel The Burn’, which was the first one without founding member and guitar virtuoso Emppu Vuorinen. We had a lovely conversation with vocalist Pekka shortly before the official release (find the interview here), but didn’t get the chance since then to catch them on a stage with their new music. So now that Master Events was bringing them around Helsinki to the legendary Tavastia rock club for a show, we really didn’t want to miss out on a night of upbeat AOR and melodic rock. With them they brought the up-and-comers of One Desire to warm up the crowd and we knew it was going to be good…

Finally metal concerts in Munich without restrictions! The impressive Napalm Records created European tour “Double The Metal” with label mates Nervosa and Burning Witches is raging through the continent and made a stop at Backstage in Munich! Here are the pictures of that show with support from the Indian outfit SystemHouse33!

Piere’s in Ft. Wayne, IN was stop #2 for Fozzy’s latest tour, ‘Save the World’ with GFM, KrashKarma, and The Nocturnal Affair. It may have been April Fool’s Day, but this show was no joke! Each band brought a unique sound to this fun and rockin’ tour. If you’re lucky enough to hit up a stop, you’re bound to have a stellar time that you won’t regret!

It’s not all too common for good industrial acts to strike down in the metal-loving country that is Finland, so when the opportunity arises, we tend to jump at it. One good source for such events is the promoter Elektrik Products, who has been bringing some stellar artists through Hellsinki Industrial Festival. But throughout the year they have smaller shows as well and this time they were bringing the brand new show of Nachtmahr for us to experience as one of the first in Europe! With the addition of the Estonian misfits of Freakangel and Finnish duo Miseria Ultima, this was simply a night we could not let pass us by…

On their current European tour, The Sisters Of Mercy stop in Belgium no less than 5 times! Their first Belgian stop was in Antwerp last night and GRIMM was there to provide you with a photo report of that show! After half an hour of warming up with psychedelic fusion band Hugs Of The Sky, the sold-out Trix hall fills up. At 21h00 It’s time for the Sisters Of Mercy!

“We are a rock’n’roll band. And a pop band. And an industrial groove machine.
We are intellectual love gods.”

… That’s how they describe themselves. For most of the attendees  though, they’re still that early New Wave band they grew up with.

The year is 2022, lock-downs seem to have ended… Fuck that, we’re going back to 1998! Janez Detd have just released their debut album, so let’s throw a big punk-rock party!

I even came on my skateboard.

On a one-off event, the band played their debut album from start to finish, followed by a set of their greatest hits. Judging by the broad smiles and happy eyes, I was far from the only one that was looking forward to a good party, which Janez Detd more than delivered.

Gwyllions came before to get the crowd in the mood and a surprise performance of a dance troupe linked the 2 bands.

All Belgian night tonight in Trix Antwerp! Co-Headliners Hippotraktor and Cobra The Impaler set the place on fire. They both released a new album recently and were tonight supported by warm-up band Divided. When entering the venue, we were welcomed by warm-up band Divided on the small stage right across the bar. After they wrapped up the night proceeded on the bigger stage inside, where both bands played impeccable shows. Even though Hippotraktor‘s guitarist Sander Rom wasn’t allowed to carry the weight of a guitar due to a surgical procedure, he still attended the show as a purely vocalist.

With only 4 more shows to go, the ‘Euro tour 2022’ of french black metallers Celeste in support of the release of their latest album ‘Assassine(s)’ is running to its end. They’ll have played 30 shows throughout most of Europe of which 2 stops were in Belgium. We were in Antwerp this week to witness their signature “red headlight in the dark” performance. Little light, a lot of heavy smoke and heavily pounding drums throughout the entire show. That’s what was on the menu with both Celeste and support act Conjurer…

Last year, the Danish band VOLA released an impressive new album with ‘Witness‘. An album that was received by many people as one of the best albums of the year 2021, including us (check out “Albums of the Year 2021” list here)! Now they were in the neighborhood to play their new music live for the very first time and we knew we couldn’t miss out on this. Support came from the Swedish Port Noir who was about the release their new album and the Finnish “Northcore” outfit Atlas. For one of the first shows after the pandemic craze, a whole lot of people showed up at Jäähalli, filling up the Brewer’s Street part of the big building quite much for what ended up being a stellar night!