After a long day of relatively peaceful folk and thrash metal bands it was time to blow our eardrums out with some brutal death metal, delivered courtesy of Canada’s Kataklysm.

Vocalist Maurizio Iacono felt that it was time to wake the crowd up (not that I had noticed we were sleeping) with a comment to party. “This is death metal, you have to fucking move!” was said and it didn’t take long for the audience to react on this; a heavy headbanging and various other activities of the turbulent type commenced as the northern hyperblast swept the ground like a pressure-wave after an atomic explosion.
In general, Iacono seemed to be in a very good mood, and he did a great job with getting the audience to feel like they were part of the show. “Austria was fucking loud, Switzerland was also fucking loud so come on Deutschland!” was shouted and met with great and above all loud response. Still, if this wasn’t enough of an incitement for people, Iacono also mentioned that the band was filming a 20th anniversary DVD, and that some of the footage would come from this gig. Well, you can just imagine what effect this had on the gathered fans, can’t you?
Later on, Iacono would also invite people to get up on the stage, although at this time I didn’t have a clear view of the stage anymore, and can’t say if this was allowed by security or not…

It wasn’t all fun and games though. As often is the case when you try and create something like a live DVD or CD, something breaks down. For Kataklysm, this something was something with the drums (couldn’t quite figure out what though), and this caused an involuntary break in the set. Here bassist Stephane Barbe was kind enough to throw some water bottles out into the crowd; even though evening was drawing near (the time was a little past 8 p.m.), the sun was still relatively high in the sky and it was still very hot indeed.

I must say I was quite impressed with how catchy the band was this day, especially since I don’t normally fall too much for them, and I would easily write this down as the best Kataklysm gig I’ve been part of so far.