Überbyte

Well it is was my first ever Summer Darkness, and I think it was AWESOME! Been to Utrecht last year before X-mas and even then I thought things were nicely organised.

Day of the gig: I must stress that it was an annoyingly hot summer day, it felt pretty uncomfortable at the venue, there was no fans (ventilation) or air condition backstage, which made it a bit difficult to get ready, as I cannot do my make up, anyway, sorry, but that really annoyed me.

Well let’s see, mistake number one: Decided not to bring crew, our soundman had the “swine” flu and couldn’t make it, and our rodie, unfortunately got dismissed, so don’t have one, but we are looking for one. Anyway, because of this, we ended up line checking our own stuff and having to carry our stuff to the stage, which wasn’t ideal, as we were the second band in the bill, therefore there was already people in the venue, and it just doesn’t look right, and by the end of this we were pouring with sweat, that was awful, I hated it. And again, only one fan near the mixing desk, and none on stage, next time I won’t forget to request one in our rider, it is essential, especially during summer gigs. Anyway, we all know that in big festivals the “in-between bands” don’t really get a soundcheck, and without our soundman, I guess things did go a bit down hill.

Anyway, it was time for us to come on stage, and everything was great, venue was full, the lightning on stage was good, as I love UV lights, makes my hair and make up stand out. We thought we were doing alright, but we did notice that the audience looked a bit confused, in the first couple of songs, but obviously, we didn’t know that people could not hear the music, properly, “apparently the KICK was non existent”, this is what we heard from some of the friends, but by the third song, we noticed people were dancing a lot more and were more energetic, but now we know why, we were having fun as well, regardless of nearly passing out due to the heat. But now we know what went wrong. But all in all it went great. To be honest, the sound at the Udergracht wasn’t as good as the Tivoli de Helling, but that is my opinion.

After our performance, it was finally time to have fun, and we did, especially, Richard, who teamed up with some of the members of Tiskke Ludder and got totally totally shitfaced drunk. And ended up going back to the hotel quite early, just to get woken up at early hours in the morning by some band member (who’s name I wont mention, or which band) who was next door to us, and was knocking on our balcony door, was completely NAKED, and was dyeing his hair (black) and all he wanted to ask, was if the hair dye was all over his hair and that he didn’t miss any spots..hehehe, I can think of one….Anyway it was hilarious, because on the other balcony there were some old ladies having their tea or something and they were in SHOCK…I bet they enjoyed it…hehehe, because they stayed there.

As for the rest of the festival, we enjoyed ourselves very much, we stayed till Sunday afternoon. We usually, just play and leave the same night or next day. But we wanted so see some of our mates perform. Covenant were awesome as always, Grendel and Reaper excellent. I think Saturday night was the most fun. Sunday afternoon, we were getting ready to go back home, so couldn’t stay to watch Noisuf-x. Maybe next time.

Summer Darnkess is an awesome festival, and one thing is for sure, we’ll be back again!


Sieben

My second year at SD festival, and both were most excellent times. I love the city, the audiences are attentive, friendly and discerning, the venues always pretty amazing. Especially so this year- its hard to describe what a pleasure and a humbling experience it is to play somewhere like the Dom church. Thank you to everyone who came, to both shows. And a big heart-felt thank you to the staff of SD. As a festival, its always efficient as a smooth-running machine, but more importantly there is always a friendly and helpful face, a personal touch that all bands, performers and festival-goers must surely appreciate. A truly special festival in a beautiful setting.

Matt Howden