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K.I.T. VIII - Toine van Poorten (Netherlands) |
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Tuesday, 01 May 2007 |
DEFENDER really blew me away on this sunny Saturday afternoon! I truly believe that this band would have become very huge, if only they wouldn’t have disbanded shortly after releasing their much searched for “City Ad Mortis” album. Now they were back on stage and they sounded better than ever. What an excitement and what a presentation by singer Simon Menting, who is heating up the crowd in a more than perfect way.
The right spirit is still there, and next to an awesome show, we also got a free lesson in DEFENDER history, because the band performed with several line-ups this afternoon. Each line up performing about three songs or so. Songs, ranging from ‘unreleased’ material, like “Lady Vanished”, “Mum’s The World”, to the real classics like “City Ad Mortis”, “Moloch”, “The Redeemer”, “Deadly Peril” and “Defender”. To everybody’s surprise, they also played two cover songs:“Metal Church” (METAL CHURCH) and “Alison Hell”(ANNIHILATOR), which were received in a very positive way. And even if you weren’t positively impressed by their musical outings, the stage presentation of Simon would at least have made you smile. His enthusiasm reflected towards the public and no Marshall stack was safe for the clownesque act by this great singer. His wild escapades didn’t harm his vocal abilities in any way, and so they easily won the hearts of the crowd.
Of course the presence of Harm Noort, who a lot of people will know as Count August of GODDESS OF DESIRE, took care of a very positive vibe. Harm invaded the German stages maybe even more than he did in Holland, where they almost ignore GODDESS. And if he doesn’t show his face on stage, you can find him in the festival hall selling wristbands, studs, chains, buttons, flags and other metal merchandise stuff you are looking for. DEFENDER’s reunion gig was something, many people were looking forward to for a long time, and it turned out great. Their sound was so much better than in the eighties, when I had the privilege of seeing them live with ICE AGE, TOXIK and JEWEL many times. During the last song “Defender”, all band members joined in, and it was performed by seven ‘defenders of the faith’!! What a marvellous experience!
After the festival, we heard that DEFENDER will be supporting DIAMOND HEAD in Holland in September this year. It will be another chapter in their book. And I hope, that this will last much longer than the first short chapter.
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