Marduk performed here on Tuesday, 7th Dec 2011 2010. This was the scene outside the Substation before the show started; lots of camaraderie & small talks among friends. If the authorities were concerned with a gang clash possibility, heightened by the music genre's subversive underlinings, then they should look elsewhere. I'd personally recommend Downtown East (Pasir Ris), the various open spaces at Bukit Panjang & more recently, the Yishun neighbourhood.
I sincerely believe, at the heart of every virulent black metal performance, there exists a Marshall to push tone to the limits & I was right. There were in fact two JCM800s in use, the Number 2 unit was a stand-by with no guitar cables attached but was switched on throughout the show, at the ready to take over proceedings should things fail at the eleventh hour. When the show started, despite not being able to see the stage floor, there should be a distortion pedal in use or a booster unit of sorts because the distortion punch was incredible.
I was the only chap who came to the show without displaying any black metal allegiance on my t-shirt; I donned my black ESP t-shirt because I had a strong feeling Morgan Hakansson would wield his ESP guitar & he did. I paid too much attention to Morgan actually, the guitarist affiliation was there so that naturally happened.
I walked away from this Marduk date feeling very satisfied, the delivery was top notch in terms of impact, presence & instrumental execution. If you've been to the Substation indoor performance venue, you'd know how limited the room would be so I was still puzzled as to why monitors were used at all because it overwhelmed the venue & caused ill-definition for some of the faster songs. I believe the drums had no problem in delivering volume but there should be more confidence in what a stacked amp set up could do- mic'ing them up (for both guitar & bass) was unnecessary. The other take-away from this performance was for us to acknowledge how important guitar clarity was in a band context. The drum & bass was already booming, imagine the guitar joining in the fray- you'd get ill definition for sure & this devalues your performance. So all you scooped-tone lovers, take note.
PS: Thanks to brother Chan of Inokii for sparing me the Morgan pic here. Hails!
9 comments:
black metallers are musicians. entirely different breed of people from the pathetic teenage gangsters here.
despite this acknowledgment, there were actually complaints about the MARDUK date here leading to the organizers rearranging some presentations. i deem this pathetic.
heh, typical singaporeans.. they trash whatever they don't understand, or whatever differs from the "norm" or "normal singaporean".
i also don't see any similarity between black metal and the ah bengs' "gangsta rap and chants" and techno
there is no way to change others mindset as long as we have the mindset of them not understanding us and cant see the differences.
Afterall, we, also cant see their point of view on not able to differenciate between wrong and right
i'm not drawing the similarities between groupies but the fact that such gathering might manifest a hostile environment. then again, the black metal posse proved their pedigree. respect!
to anonymous poster at December 11, 2010 4:42 PM, are you trying to say that black metallers, like teenage gangsters, can't differentiate between wrong and right?
i think he's referring to the people who complained about black metal peformances here, not the black metal camp...
7th Dec 2011. ?
not 2010? :p
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