Lock Up was bringing the speed and brutality of grindcore to the Black Stage of Wacken in an attempt at punishing its many happy visitors.

Sadly, this plan failed miserably due to two major miscalculations.
First off, and most surprisingly, there weren’t really all that many who had come out to see them. I actually believe that this was the smallest crowd I saw gathered at the main stage of this particular festival for this entire year!
Secondly, and not so surprising considering the festival, was that although the band hammered away frenetically at their instruments to make our eardrums bleed from the abuse, their music didn’t really have this effect. Admittedly, our eardrums bled, but for a very different reason; namely the absolute shit sound which was coming from the speakers!

“We’re Lock Up from Birmingham, Santiago and Sweden. It’s a pleasure being here!”
- Tomas 'Tompa' Lindberg (vocals)

Still, the band seemed glad to see us, and greeted us in a hearty way. At once I recognized Shane Embury (Napalm Death) who is one of the driving forces of the band, and I also vaguely recognized Tomas Lindberg from seeing him with At The Gates two years previous. The other two, as I gather, were guitarist Anton Reisenegger (Criminal) and drummer Nicholas ‘Nick’ Barker (ex-Cradle Of Filth, ex-Dimmu Borgir), but their appearances did not immediately ring any bells of recognition in my mind. Not that this meant much, as the time for them to show off if they meant this or not was now.
Oh, and how they all meant business.

Lock Up didn’t necessarily have what you would call a long time to play in, but they made every second count, and as the genre often bids it, the songs were very short in themselves, so even though they could not play all that long for us, Lock Up still managed to rip out one hell of a lot of songs! As I am no great connoisseur of the band, I can’t tell you which ones though… Luckily, for those of you who are interested, someone else can. Lunah (Lauridsen, our photographer) managed to get a snapshot of the setlist, so here it is, the way the band meant it to be.

Now, I wasn’t too grabbed, or not at all actually, by Lock Up’s performance, and so far the day was looking rather weak. Maybe things would have been better had the sound been done more satisfactory, but I doubt it would have done more than a marginal difference; this simply isn’t, and has never been, something for me.

Setlist:

Slow Bleed Gorgon / Pleasures Pave Sewers
Feeding On The Opiate
Triple Six Suck Angels
Castrate The Wreckage
Violent Reprisal
Detestation
After Life In Purgatory
Slaughterous Ways
Retrogression
The Dreams Are Sacrificed
Leech Eclipse
Horns Of Venus
High Tide In A Sea Of Blood
Submission
Broken World
Delirium
The Jesus Virus
Hate Breeds Suffering
Storm Of Stress / Fear Of Napalm
Cascade Leviathan