Sara Hammerzmith

If there was any tour I was looking forward to this fall, it was this one. Crashdïet is one of my original favorite bands from a long, long time – we are talking 11 years here – and them playing together with my newfound heroes in The Cruel Intentions it was simply not an option – I HAVE TO BE THERE.

Said and done, I took the flight down to Belgium, and once at the airport I was greeted by Ivan and we took the train home to Antwerpen – the long route because of broken wires. Oh well, never hurt a soul.

Anyway, my stay in Belgium is a whole different story – on Saturday we hade our way to Gent and got picked up about two hours before doors opened by my dear friend Ginny and made our way over to Roeselare. We had a good drive, catching up on what was new in life and everything and arrived pretty safely and easily at the city. Headed over to the venue where Ginny caught up with some friends of her, and we waited til the doors opened.

Once that happened, we were inside and we.. took some kind of spots. De Verlichte Geest is one of those small club venues, so it isn’t exactly to run up to the front row, but we got some decent spots on the side. Why not?

And after some time, the first band of the evening entered the stage.

Highride

Highride is yet another band to come out of Stockholm and though I had tried listening to them prior to the show, I never really quite fell for them. But they still gave a pretty good show.. for those like seven people who were there.

They played for around 20 minutes before it was time for them to leave it over to someone else. Not any less than 15 minutes later, The Cruel Intentions entered the stage.

The Cruel Intentions

So, you guys knows that I fell head over heels for this band some time ago once I listened them through, and been in love since the moment I got their debut album. There was quite the turn out as the band walked on stage, which I was both surprised and not about. I didn’t realize they had grown so popular, but all the same they deserve it!

They opened the set with “Weekend Suffering” and both me, the crowd and the band were feeling it. The band continued on with “Accidently Intoxicated”, which is one of my personal favorites of them.

The band actually put on quite an amazing performance. Perhaps it’s the fact that I’ve waited very long to see them – a year and a half since I saw them the first time – and that I see them so rarely that made everything become a big blur and static euphoria rather than anything else.

Everything was simply perfect. Setlist, setting, the band, the crowd – all of it. And my heart weakened a little extra when they wrapped up their set with “Sick Adrenaline” which is ultimately the song that made me fall for them. And then they left the stage.

And.. A large part of the crowd did too. That, I did not actually expect at all, but on the same time, why not?

A little while later, the heroes of the evening entered the stage.

Crashdïet

They opened up the set with “Reptile”, and I couldn’t have imagine a better opening song, to be honest! “Tikket” was next to follow up and you know.. As they started with “Down with the Dust” I got this warm, familiar feeling spreading in my chest. They are back. You know?

And Gabe is one hell of a performer. It felt like I was watching a younger Erik Grönwall who had merged together with Jocke Berg from Hardcore Superstar, making him the ultimate little duracell rabbit and he got the crowd going really, really good.

“Legion” was next on the list before they headed back to “The Savage Playground” with “Cocaine Cowboys”. And after this, “Rust”.

And this song… You know. After giving the album a few listens, and really absorbing this song in particular something just clicked. This band has been through more, in this short period of time, than most bands out there ever have to go through. But for every single setback, they keep pushing through. Some times it takes a long time before they are back, but they get there eventually. And this song has grown to be one of the most important for me because of it, as it represents that. KISS fans, Lordi fans and Eurovision fans may be loyal.

But us Crashdïet fans has be given one fat pat on the shoulder as well, for enduring through all of this.

Next up, Gabe started talking about all of us ladies out there.. And I just knew “Queen Obscene” was coming up next. It’s really a strange feeling, when you see a band that.. You know. Crashdïet was the original band I toured for. My friend and I would travel around as much as we could during Generation Wild era to see this band. They are the OG band.

“In The Maze” followed up, and then back to the beginning with “Breaking The Chainz”.

“Idiots” from the most recent release was played and then.. a song I really wasn’t expecting. “Chemical”, from “Generation Wild”. This song was my favorite song off the album, if we don’t include the bonus track from the vinyl.  So getting to hear it live was just… perfection.

And it seemed to be my kind of evening. My personal favorite song off “The Unattractive Revolution” was next, “Falling Rain” before taking it down a notch with “It’s A Miracle”.

And for the ending… we got “Generation Wild”. If that isn’t the perfect ending, I do not know what is.

And that was just pure bliss.

After the show, we hung around for a while to talk and hang out before heading back toward Gent where Ginny dropped us off after a perfect evening. I hope to do this soon again!

// Sara

This entry was posted on October 15, 2019 at 4:51 pm and is filed under Concerts, Music, Uncategorized with tags Crashdiet, highride, the cruel intentions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.