Introduction => 98-08-14&15&16 HardCore – The Next Generation festival

Laurent Chopard (from Besançcon, France) wrote in his zine Co-existence (that he did with his mate Olivier Bresson): >>On Sunday I enjoyed ‘Lifecycle’, which I didn’t really like last year. The female vocals add a lot of extra. ‘Inflexible’ showed that metal-wise things are better in Poland than in Belgium. Style-wise, we can say that it’s successful. The Germans of ‘Caliban’ played slightly metal emo. I found it not bad but I was (like a lot of people) satured with metal. I was afraid that there would be more incidents since it was the Belgians of ‘Arkangel’ hit the stage. Nothing serious happened, except the pitiful hard-dancing duded happy to bust each other’s noses.

On a musical level, we got a long way from HC, it’s more like not too bad death-metal. On the other hand one may wonder if it’s useful to preach veganism in front of an informed and converted audience and if their “vegan revolution” doesn’t sound a bit ridiculous when you see their beautiful brand-clothing. Hopefully they’ll get there while growing up.

Finally emo! Yeah, the elders of ‘Kosjer D’ and ‘Reiziger’ gave a superb emo-rock concert which was a long way from some of the kiddy-play. ‘Eyeball’ disappointed me a bit, the audience loved it, it was very much old-school but I believe there’s much better style-wise. Guess who was closing the festival?… ‘Congress’! Yeah, some cancellations and there you go!: they call upon the local glories that are already playing every year. Well, let’s not be too mean: regarding metal H8000 style, it’s still the best.

We won’t insist too much on the ‘did-you-see-me’ attituded and the consumption at the festival, everybody should know by now; the same goes for the dirtyness of the site (Maybe it takes more SxE bands writing songs explaining how to get rid of trash in a garbage-can!) and and the bad smell in the venue. Well, I’ld better calm down because there’s at least there no cigarette-smoke. I regret (and I’m not the only one) the cancellations (‘Serene’, ‘Grade’ [cancelled for family-matters], ‘Bob Tilton’, ‘As Friends Rust’, etc.) and the absence of Swedish bands this year (let’s not even talk about French!) and on the other hand I’ll remember the good times and the people I met there. I don’t know why but this year almost the entire French scene was in the audience!<<

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‘Reply’ (Lint/Kontich/Wilrijk): Kevin Meylemans (guitar), Jimmy Wouters (drums; replaced Yannick (Muylle?) and after that Brian De Bondt – author of the anti-windmilling flyer for 96-08-16&17&18; Jimmy also did a distro called Petition Of Menes and played in ‘One For Sorrow’) who left the band because of disagreemebts), Sven Roevens (vocals; also did Hoeëmai zine), Dries Verhaert (bass) & Michael Camerlinck (2^nd guitar later on but not here). Sven & Yannick also did Constructive zine. Kevin described his band’s music as “solid, intense metallic (emo) HC”. Their split-7” with ‘One For Sorrow’ came to the world in ’99 (Funtime recs, Firestorm recs, Fallen Angel recs). In 2000 they did a CD entitled Nine Batteries To Fuel Our Dying Teenage Love Affair (on Funtime recs).

‘D.S.A.’ was a local band that played the V.V. several times (see 97-06-27, 97-10-25 & 97-12-26). They also had a track on this year’s festival compilation-CD…

Sofie – ‘Lifecycle’s singer – wrote me (May ’98) that their bassist Jürgen had quit the band a few weeks earlier (“We did more shows without him than with him.” His last show was May ’98.) and that they were no longer an SxE band. They were gonna try out a girl as bassist but apparently that didn’t work out… They also had gotten the proposal to release a 7” on SoberMind recs. Check out their many other V.V. performances…

‘Inflexible’, from Łódź in Poland, were: Maciej ‘Maciek’ Derfel (bass), Piotr ‘Carlos’ Szambelan (vocals), Sebastian Niciński (drums) and ‘Vanila’ Piotr Bujnowski (guitar). Their music was described as mosh-core and they had a tape out entitled Progress By Hatred (Youth Culture, ’97). In ’99 their album Born To Hate was released (Shing recs). The band’s members were the founders of the B.D.H.Crew (or 248 Crew), a group of people from central Poland who wanted to promote HC & straight-edge scene.

The Good Life promo-talk on ‘Ashlar’ went like this: “Limburg metal-core following in ‘Kindred’s footsteps, with a more metal and Cleveland (‘Ringworm’, ‘Integrity’) influenced sound”. They were Rob Moonen (vocals; “a maniac on stage”), Raoul Cuypers (guitar; later ‘Sons Of Irah’), Frank Rogiers (bass; later ‘Ekzeem-A’) and Bert Daemen (drums). That year they released a mini-CD entitled Enthroned In A So-Called Heaven.

‘Ashlar’ (+ Rudi Brans); source unknown

‘Caliban’ are (they still exist and became ‘major’) a metal-core band from the ‘Ruhrpott’ area. The line-up in the beginning was: Engin Güres (bass), Robert Krämer (drums), Marc Görtz (guitar), Claus Wilgenbusch (guitar) & Andreas ‘Andy’ Dörner (vocals). ‎That year they did a self-titled EP on Lifeforce recs (the recording of their 1^st demo) and the next year the A Small Boy And A Grey Heaven LP on the same label (from Leipzig).

‘Caliban’; source unknown

‘Firestone’ (Kortrijk) were a H8000-metal band had played at the V.V. already (96-08-16, 97-06-27). Not sure who did vocals here (Thomas Desimpelaere or Alexander Baert or Pieter-Jan or Iris Walgraeve.), Mathieu Storms (drums), Diederik Claes (bass), Matthias Desimpelaere (guitar; later replaced by Ward Dufraimont – who was also in ‘Liar’) and Lennart Bossu (guitar; also ‘Liar’, later ‘Janez Detd’, ‘AmenRa’). They released an EP entitled Element on Sober Mind recs (’98) and an LP Aim For A New Tomorrow on Genet recs (‘00).

‘Arkangel’ (Brussels metalcore) were: Baldur Vildmurdarson (vocals), David Vande Zande (drums), Numa (guitar) & Mehdi Thepegnier (bass; or was it Vince(nt) Meseeuw of ‘Length Of Time’?). Kirby Michel (guitar; ex ‘Mental Disturbance’, ex ‘Deviate’) replaced Numa later on; they became a five-piece with Julien Chanut (guitar). Their EP Prayers Upon Deaf Ears got out on Alain Herszaft’s Released Power Productions (1998) and their LP Dead Man Walking on GoodLife recs (1999). Filip Staes’ girlfriend Adina ‘Storm’ Hepworth was ‘Arkangel’s webmaster and she started working for GoodLife.

‘Reiziger’ evolved from ‘Kosjer D’; their music was described as “post hardcore” and “emocore”. I think they were an ‘indie’ band on the edge of the DIY scene… The band consisted of Sven Gielen (drums), Pascal Hens (guitar), Kristien Hendrix (bass) & Geert Plessers (guitar/vocals). The year before Bruno (Genet recs) had released their 1^st (12”) EP Don’t Bind My Hands. And I think now the split-12” with ‘Bob Tilton’ and their LP (Our Kodo) was available from the same label. Tracks for a 7” (Grab And Nailed) on the Czech label Day After were recorded (at Patrick Delabie’s 195 studio) Nov ‘99. Other show of this band at the V.V.: 97-06-14 & 97-08-15.

‘Reiziger’ (photo by Vincent Troplain)

‘Eyeball’ was a German SxE HC band with Daniel Frankowski (guitarist of ‘Spawn’) on vocals. Ingo Engelhardt (the guitarist) also played in ‘Degradation’ & ‘Upright’. The others were Tim (bass), Thorsten (guitar) & Jörn (drums), Peter Hoeren informs me… Christoph (‘Spawn’) used to play bass in the beginning but he soon dropped out of the band. Their slogan ‘Tri-City Straight Edge’ refers to the fact that the members came from different cities. Crucial Response recs released their Talkin’ Straight 7” in 1998 & More Days To Come LP in 1999.

‘Eyeball’; photographed by Philippe Tuffet

1998 was the year of Angry With The Sun (LP on GoodLife recs) for ‘Congress’. It featured the usual gang: ‘U.J.’, Ilja, Pierre, ‘Josh’ and Michael. They also played the Graspop Metal Meeting that year…

Brob

‘Reply’ and my friends always meant a lot to me. We played there – replacing a band – on borrowed equipment (of the guys of ‘Building’, I think). The intensity and charm of that shed behind the original Vort’n Vis has never been surpassed; it was unique, even with all the shortcomings that came with it. We played there another time [???].

Kevin Meylemans, ‘Reply’ guitarist

I don’t have any stuff from that time (flyer etc.) but some good memories… I have been to the V.V. a couple of times…and yes, we played there too… I remember drinking my first Alpro soja choc drink there… And listening to ‘Queen’ in the car outside…and enjoying a lot of great bands there (‘Arkangel’ here, ‘Swing Kids’ & ‘The Locust’ on other occasions, and tons of more) and meeting friends…

Claus Wilgenbusch, ‘Caliban’ guitarist

The ‘Ashlar’ pic was from the infamous set where ‘Spirit Of Youth’ played a few songs – that got ‘Ashlar’ kicked from SoberMind recs even before there CD was released!

Rudi Brans

‘Spirit Of Youth’ (Vincent Theeten & Sim Strike One); source unknown

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

additions wellcome!…

Introduction => 99-08-20&21&22 Ieper HC festival

Laurent Chopard & Olivier Bresson (from Besançcon, France) wrote in their zine Co-existence:

(1&2) This year we went to the famous Vort’n Vis festival again. Our car was filled to the brim. After a long drive we arrived in the ever charming town of Ypres, where we had to find the new place where the festival was (the old one had become too cramped). This new place happened to be in the yard of an old school. The joys of the outdoors!

(1) I was disappointed to have arrived too late to see ‘Hebriana’ that first day… We had to wait until a local thrash band (read: H8000) stopped playing to see the first interesting band: ‘Discount’ that I only knew by name until then. Poppy punk rock with female vocals. Nice surprise! Their gig was pleasant and many made a diary-entree because of the singer. ‘As Friends Rust’, who accompanied ‘Discount’ on this tour, gave a good concert musically (tinged with emo and metal), that brought the audience together. On the other hand, I was rather disappointed by the performance of the ‘old-school heroes’ in ‘Mainstrike’, compared to the concert they gave two years ago. Normally this was their last concert. The band of the day was undoubtedly ‘Hot Water Music’: they offered the audience an excellent energetic emo-rock concert. A lot of people were there for them and they even managed to convince the youth-crew 88 (like Olivier; who even bought their CD); congratulations guys!

(2) We weren’t hardly out of the car when metal chords of the worst kind reached our ears. A shiver ran through my body. Would I once again have to endure a treatment of metal during this Belgian weekend? Fortunately we were just at the end of ‘Heaven Shall Burn’ (phew!) The rest of the day (in my opinion) more accessible groups were scheduled. I was pleasantly surprised to discover ‘As Friends Rust’ and ‘Discount’ that I didn’t know yet musically. On the other hand the performance of the grandpas of ‘Mainstrike’ disappointed me a lot. It was super flabby. The last band of this first day was ‘Hot Water Music’ and something that didn’t really had to happen, did happen. It was a revelation. I’m still in love with it. Emo rock’n’roll at its best.

(1&2) After this busy first day we had to find the famous camping-site (where no one pays) and especially find ourselves a place, something rather difficult at past 1 a.m. Most seemed to believe that everyone had a soundproof tent. After this very ‘white night’, restless people had decided to skate at 7 a.m., destroying all chances to close our eyes…

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‘Tumult’ – “Ruhrpott powerviolence” – were announced but apparently didn’t play. It was a fast-core band from Bonn/Köln with Christian Czerwinski (vocals), Marco Andree (guitar), Dirk Weißenfels (guitar) and others. They did a few 7”s: The Heroic Bloodshed (Defiance recs ’97), a split with ‘Gomorrha’ (on Anomie recs & Marco Andree’s Bastardized recs ’98) & a split with ‘Yacøpsæ’ (Spiral Objective 2000); and a self-titled LP on Per Koro (2000). For some reason they didn’t show up…

‘Hundred Years Of Forgetting’ – “Rocking slomo emo HC.”. A Belgian SxE band. Vincent ‘Pit’ Maes, the singer of ‘Instinct’ was in this band… So was Bjorn Dossche (One Step Down zine). The band had a demo out. Both guys were later in later ‘The Deal’ & ‘Rise And Fall’.

‘JR Ewing’ – “Noisy & pissed off, feat. ‘Amulet’ member – split set with ‘O.N.A.’.”. Norwegian HC band with (at that time) Andreas Tylden (vocals; ex ‘Lash Out’, also ‘Amulet’), Erlend Mokkelbost (guitar), Martin Molden (guitar), Jonas Thire (drums) and Nils Petter Strand (bass). At that time they had 3 7”s (also compiled by Scorched Earth Policy) out on Dance Of Days Recording Coalition: a split with ‘Break (97), Integritas.Consonantia.Claritas. (98) and another split with the Belgian ‘S.Y.C.’ (99). Together with his gig they did 5 (!) other shows in Belgium (Kontich, Leuven, 2 in Antwerp & Tongeren).

‘Once…Never Again’ – “New school, CD presentation – split set with JR!”. A “heart-core band” (as their label dubbed them) from the Antwerp area. Originally a straigt-edge band but that changed… They did a CD entitled Others Came Along And Killed My Dreams (on Funtime recs, ‘99) which was referred to as resembling ‘Morning Again’. Members: Bram De Laet (guitar), Hans De Groef (guitar), Kristof Van Den Broeck (drums), Stijn Op De Beeck (bass) & Stijn Davignon (vocals).

‘Surface’ – “Metallic new school mosh!!”. Another “Ruhrpott metal-core band.” (with 5 sXe-ers): Frank Knöfler (drums), Sven Pust (bass), Thorsten Kleine-Hegermann (guitar), Boris Pracht (guitar) and Sammy Eftekhari (vocals). They did 2 albums on Mad Mob recs: To Millenium…And Beyond (’97) & Shadows Cast By The Light Of The World (’99); toured with ‘Snapcase’ in ’98.

‘Hebriana’ – “Rapid, distorted Merksplas emo-core.”. They’d just played the V.V. (99-06-27) supporting ‘Shai Hulud’. Stijn Colson (guitar), Sven Hoskens (bass/vocals; later ‘Confuse The Cat’), Peter Bols (drums) & Vaast Colson (guitar/vocals) came from a little town in the North of Belgium and were described as an emo/post-HC band with references to ‘Reiziger’. They did a split-7” with ‘Leiah’ (from Sweden) ‎on Genet recs in1999. A review mentioned their music is “herky-jerky post-hardcore with vocals that are pretty shouty, kind of Dischord-y”…

‘Heaven Shall Burn’ – “Blistering H8000 style metalcore.”. A “melodic death-metal/ metal-core” band from Thüringen (Germany). They’d released some demos, an EP (In Battle…There Is No Law) in ’98 and a split-LP (with ‘Fall of Serenity’) in ’99. At that time they were Eric Bischoff (bass), Maik Weichert (guitar), Marcus Bischoff (vocals), Matthias Voigt (drums) and Patrick Schleitzer (guitar).

‘Discount’ – “Poppy punkrock/HC, female vocals. Shake it up!”. In the band (from Florida) were: Alison Nicole Mosshart (vocals; nowadays ‘rockstar’), James Parker/Todd Rockhill (bass), Justin Focco/Bill Nesper (drums) & Ryan Seagrist (guitar). Comparisons with the melocic HC band ‘Tilt’ were made. To mention just a few of their relases: a split-7”with ‘As Friends Rust’ (GoodLife recs 1999), split-LP with ‘J Church’ (on Rugger Bugger Discs 2000)… In 1999 their album Crash Diagnostic was released (recordings with Alison, Todd, Bill & Ryan).

‘Sad Origin’ – “DMD brutal stomping HC – LP/CD presentation.”. Their album A Double Edged Sword In A Triangle of Emotions was released by Genet recs. They did a demo in ’96 and a ‎mini-album entitled Window Of Sarcasm on Inner Belt recs (‘98). The band (from Dendermonde) consisted of Robin ‘Robby’ (bass; replaced Peter De Bondt who played on 98-08-15), Wim Aerts (drums), Wesley Steels (guitar) and Hans ‘Link’ Teirlinck (vocals). Peter XKombatX did backing vocals on the Genet CD. Some people reviewed it as “metal with an early ‘Morbid Angel’ sound” or “metalcore with NYHC influences” or (On Display #3) “bad death-metal”. Alain Herszaft put out the split-CD with ‘Misura’ on Released Power Productions in 2000. Some of the members went on as ‘Die My Demon’.

‘Sad Origin’ (source unknown)

‘As Friends Rust’ – “Damien & co back in Europe!”. American punk/hardcore band founded in 1996 in Gainesville, Florida; with Damien Moyal (vocals: ex ‘Culture’/‘Shai Hulud’/‘Morning Again’). In early 1996 Jeronimo Gomez (bass), Henry Olmino (guitar) and Matt Crum (drums) were jamming and recruited Damien. After recording six songs and making a three-track demo, the band soon disbanded and was not picked up until 1998 when Damien revived it with new members, mostly from the breaking up band ‘Culture’. The new line-up recorded a single new song, and used four from the demo, to come out with the debut The Fists of Time (GoodLife recs). A year later, with a slightly different line-up, the split with ‘Discount’ came out and they quickly went on tour. Another line-up change and the new EPs God Hour and As Friends Rust were released on GoodLife recs. Damien posted a video of ‘As Friends Rust’ playing Encante at this festival here. They came back the next year…

‘Mainstrike’ – “Youthcrew masters.”. They played the V.V. before They did their last gig 99-10-30 at their hometown’s Goudvishal (where Pytrik Schafraad interviewed them for It’s Raining Truths #4) so this was probably their last Belgian show… On the www there’s a video of ‘Big’, Jonas, Jeroen, Johnny & Pepijn performing their song Break The Cycle… In May 1998 they’d recorded the album No Passing Phase. And in January & April 1999 four songs meant to be for two split-7”s (with ‘Ensign’ and with ‘True Blue’); but the band later decided to put all the songs on one record. The self-titled 7” came out in 2000 (a year later after they had already had broken up). Former V.V. gigs: 95-04-09, 95-08-19, 95-10-20 & 97-08-17.

‘Mainstrike’ (photographed by Marco Pasini)

‘Hot Water Music’ (pics courtesy of Stijn Vliegen)

‘Hot Water Music’ – “Leading Florida emo hardcore.”. Melodic punk/hardcore band. Releasing material on No Idea recs and more recently Epitaph recs. The band still exists (hotwatermusic.com). Members of the band are Charles Allen ‘Chuck’ Ragan (guitar), Christopher James ‘Chris’ Wollard (guitar), Jason William Black (bass) and George Rebelo (drums).

Brob

The first revived line-up of ‘As Friends Rust’ – the one that recorded Home Is Where the Heart Aches (1998) was me, Tim Kirkpatrick (drums), Joe Simmons (guitar), Kaleb Stewart (bass) & Gordon Tarpley (guitar). The ‘Discount’ split line-up (1998): me, Tim, Joe, Kaleb & Peter Bartsocas (guitar). The God Hour line-up (1999): me, Tim (drums), Joe, Kaleb and new guitarist James Glayat (guitar).

It was the first year in that outdoor space. Great energy. I think that was sort of a peak year for us in Europe…

Damien Moyal

Actually I do have some pics and stuff of that festival. Stories too, cause we slept in our cars most of the time.

Sammy Heininger, ‘Surface’ vocalist

I know I have some pics from when we played that Vort’n Vis fest in ‘99. Just need time to find them…

Jonas Thire, ‘JR Ewing’ drummer

From 1999 on, when ‘ADESIATOE’ was recorded, Robin took over the bass.

Peter De Bondt, ‘Sad Origin’s first bassist

Bruno (Genet recs) asked us to do a split-set with ‘JR Ewing’… Can’t remember which band we had to replace. [Probably ‘Turmoil’ from Germany] Our band only lasted about one and a half year.

Stijn Davignon, ‘Once Never Again’ vocalist

One of our band-members had to work a bit longer than expected that day so we weren’t sure if we could make it in time. We asked the organiser (the Genet recs guy) what would happen if we’ld arrive later than planned in the time-schedule. He replied “If you’re to late, you won’t play. You hàve to be there in time otherwise you won’t play.”. I remember him being quite inflexible, not giving us the chance playing later, so we quickly decided to stay at home. We were really looking foward to play Ieper but that guy didn’t give us any leeway. Imagine us in a hurry arriving like 20 min late and that guy’s like “Tough luck, you’re too late.”. To avoid this awkard situation a.k.a. trouble we decided not to show up at the fest. That’s it.

Christian Czerwinski, ‘Tumult’ vocalist

I’m not 100% sure about our line-up because we had a change that year but it must’ve been me and Tommy on guitars, ‘Sabbel’ [Christian] doing vocals, Jens on drums and bassist Marco. That’s at least the line-up we recorded our LP with that year.

Dirk Weißenfels, ‘Tumult’ guitarist

I recall that we were all super nervous. It was our first ‘big’ concert (I was only 16) and everything was pretty overwhelming. Because of the tense nerves we played our set twice as fast. Actually one of our worst gigs ever. But we were, and still are, proud for being able to play the Vort’n Vis fest. And we could see the rest of the bands for free. A gift of the gods for a 16-year old with a flat wallet…

Hans De Groef, ‘Once…Never Again’ guitarist

We only played the festival in 1999 (and 2002), I believe. At least when I was in the band. Unfortunately I can’t say that much because we went there in an overnight drive, played in the afternoon and left in the early evening. We were supposed to play another festival in East-Germany the next day, early afternoon. I only remember that it was a rather bad show for us, but a good way to introduce ourselves to a wider audience. I wish we could have stayed longer and watch the other bands…

Matthias Voigt, ‘Heaven Shall Burn’ drummer

additions wellcome!…

Introduction => 99-08-20&21&22 Ieper HC festival

Laurent Chopard & Olivier Bresson (from Besançcon, France) wrote in their zine Co-existence:

(1) Overall, the second day announced to be more metal/old-school HC and it needs to be said, the least enticing. I’ll remember however some likeable stuff such as ‘Reveal’ and their wild cover of ‘Inside Out’s No Spiritual Surrender, ‘Lifecycle’ [???] and their SxE hard-rock, ‘Bloodpact’ for the very militant side, ‘Ananda’ and their chaotic metal or ‘Mörser’ for the impressing aspect (3 singers, bassists) more than for the music. Big disappointment was ‘Sabeth’ who seem to want to be early ‘Helmet’ without getting anywhere much because of an incredibly monotonous voice. As for ‘Ensign’: they quickly tired me despite the giant mosh-pit in the audience during a song.

(2) On Saturday the festival started with a band of local heroes, with little importance, that allowed me to finish my night. I arrived on the site for ‘H Street’, who made a good impression. I took advantage of the next bands to replace Laurent at the distro (Sell or die!) and make a tour of the record-fair. This day only the performances of ‘Bloodpact’ (We can be old-school and committed, right Guy?) and ‘Ensign’ (boys-band on tour) challenged me.

(1&2) Determined to take advantage of this night, we took some precautions (earplugs,…) but unfortunately the Belgian summer-nights don’t resemble nights of Ibiza, so we found ourselves victims of a chill we rarely experience in the East. Laurent managed to sleep an hour, Olivier none. Once out of the tent, surprise, the Belgian army paraded outside of the camping-site, determined to recruit two or three depressed vegan warriors who were looking for a new home since hardline stopped. In addition the soldiers organized their own festival in the camping-site. What a contrast to the troops heading for the Vort’n Vis.

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‘Ochtenddauw’ – “H8000 twisted power Metal.”. A local band (from Ieper; they rehearsed at the V.V.) with Wouter Keirse (guitar; keyboards in ‘Eclipse’, guitarist of ‘Warcraft’), Vince(nt) Tetaert (guitar; drummer of ‘Lifecycle; also in ‘Alignment’), Peter Leuwers (bass; also in ‘Lifecycle’), Ward Spruytte (drums; also guitar in ‘Solid’) & Steve Lammertyn (vocals). They had a demo out that year.

‘H-Street’ – “Snotty old school, start piling up now!”. SxE band from Vienna, Austria with Dan(iel) ‘El Toro’ Braaf (guitar), Thomas ‘Tom’ Krutzler (vocals), Mario Schöbinger (bass), Rob(ert) (drums) and Georg Ondrak (guitar). They did a demo (’98) and a self-titled 7” (’99). They got a massive response for covering ‘Token Entry’s The Edge here…

‘H-Street’ (photo by Marco Pasini)

‘Stroke Of Grace’ – “Limburg softcore! Great riffing!!”. Band from Belgian Limburg playing “pretty original and diverse metallic emo-core” with references to ‘Refused’ or ‘Abhinanda’: Stijn Vliegen (vocals), Jurgen Werelds (guitar), Steven Duchateau (guitar), Manu Fredericks (bass) and Luc Nicolaers (drums). Their CD The Body, The Soul, The Spirit was released in ‘98 (Flying World recs). They were also on some compilations.

‘Stroke Of Grace’ (photos courtesy of Stijn Vliegen)

‘Redemption’ – “Vegan metal mosh – split mCD presentation.”. From the “Roma Straight Edge Legion”. A band that was compared to ‘Catharsis’. They did a self-titled 7” & a mini-DC (Until The Next Day) on Surrounded recs (Maurizio Ricci’s label) in ’97 & ‘98, and a split-mCD with ‘Timebomb’ out on War.ds (’99). ‘Gipsy Rufina’ (Emiliano) was the “founder and everlasting member of the band”. The members were Liv Cosentini (guitar), Pierpaolo Perilli (vocals), Simone Achille (guitar), Dario (drums) & Emiliano Liberali (bass).

‘Ananda’ – “Terrifying metallic HC, sort of ‘Acme’ meets ‘Carcass’.” had already played at the V.V. on 95-07-02 & 96-09-22. They switched vocalists in 1998 which “marked a drastic change in their sound from screamo to heavy gloomy hardcore sludge”: Michaël joined in December ’97. Their Profane LP (2000) co-released by Snuff recs (Didier Severin & Roderic Mounir of the band ‘Knut’, Genève) and Molaire Industries (label run by Fabien Thévenot of ‘Iscariote’). Members were Jérôme ‘Gunthar’ Lacombe (bass), Jérôme Mizou (drums), Michaël Clergeot (‘Mikachu’; vocals) and guitarists Stéphane ‘Stu’ Joly (ex ‘Undone’) & Thomas ‘Tom’ Guillanton (ex ‘Fingerprint’/’Jasmine’).

‘Ananda’ (courtesy of Vincent de Roguin)

‘Sabeth’ – “Turbo stuff, like ‘Helmet’ meets ‘Botch’?”. Band from Böblingen, South Germany with Carsten Pflugbeil (bass), Felix Böhlken (guitar/vocals; ex ‘Dawnbreed’), Thomas Hahn (guitar; nowadays Thomas Harsem, producer) and Steffen Falcke (drums). Marten Thielges was only on their debut. They did their first (self-titled) 7” themselves (’96). Their next releases were on Marco Walzel’s Join The Team Player recs: the Zwei 7” (’98) and the Cobrajet LP (’99).

‘Product – “Rapid old school by really dedicated people.”. Italian poison-free (vegan SxE) band from the Milano area. Stefano Bertelli (guitar; was in ‘By All Means’ – but not when they played the V.V. in 95-08-20), Stefano Milani (bass), Chris(tian) Paracchini (drums), Dan(iele) Casti (vocals) & (Pier)Paolo Bruschi (guitar). Green recs put out their Dedication 7” (‘98) & Not An Answer 7” (’99). A 7” (Watch Your Step) came out on Genet recs (’99), together with New Type Crew (a mCD version of the 7” containing bonus-tracks previously released on their 1^st 7”).

‘Product’ (courtesy of the band’s fanpage)

‘Mörser’ from Bremen were not announced; apparently they replaced ‘Enemy Of The Sun’, who had split up. They played diabolic ultra-fast death/grind with 3-4 singers, 2 bassists, guitarist & drummer. At that time (I think): André Wendelken (drums; also ‘Carol’, etc.), Sven ‘Svenion’ Nienaber (guitar; also ‘Minion’, etc.), Matthias ‘Matze’ Trenne (bass; also ‘Carol’, etc.), Sven Seelkopf (bass; also ‘Metöke’, ‘Systral’), Björn Schmidt (vocals; also ‘Carol’ & ‘Systral’, etc.), Denny Schmidt (vocals; also ‘Systral’), Daniel ‘Grabi’ Grabowski (vocals; also bass in ‘Assay’, ‘Rusty James’) & Ulf ? (vocals). At that time they had an LP (Two Hours To Doom, ’97) out, and a split-7” with ‘The Swarm’ (’98) on Markus Haas’ Per Koro.

‘Mörser’: (1) Sven Seelkopf [taken from Bords Perdu fanzine] – (2) Sven Nienaber [courtesy of Sven]

‘Reveal’ – “Emo-metal, ‘Unbroken’ meets ‘Converge’?”. Another GoodLife – Genet recs band: Dissection Of Thought EP (GL 97), Through The Eye Of Perfection Evolution Dies Slowly CD (GL 98) & To Explore The Invention To Create CD (Genet 2000). Maarten van Oers (drums), Mischa van Rodijnen (guitar), Geert van Hoesel (vocals) & Dave van Beek (bass) were from Dongen (near Breda, NL).

‘Reveal’ (pic by Peter Hendricks) [drumset switched around so one can see the crowd]

‘Spineless’ – “Emo-metal, H8000 rocker-jacks! Last show?”. This band (from Kortrijk) played their first gig at the Vort’n Vis on the fest in August ’96. They were Kristof Mondy (bass; Yoda zine; later ‘AmenRa’), Colin H. Van Eeckhout (vocals; later ‘AmenRa’), Pedro ‘Fifi’ Fioen (guitar; also ‘Congress’), Mathieu Vandekerckhove (guitar; replaced Koen Sandra in ‘97; later ‘AmenRa’) and Stefaan Buyse (drums). Their music was brutal sXe H8000 metal-core. After their initial demo (’96) Hans Verbeke of Sober Mind recs released the Painfields 7” (1997) and the A Talk Between Me And The Stars album (1998). The band played the V.V. quite a few times. After Spineless ended in 1999, 3 members started a new band called AmenRa, which is still going nowadays.

‘Bloodpact’ (USA) were described as “old-school feat. ‘Earthmover’ & ‘Trephine’ members” or “political pissed-off hardcore”. They were from Ann Arbor/Detroit (Michigan): Andy Dempz (vocals; +/- recs, ex ‘Earthmover’, also in ‘Ruination’), Annie Sullivan (bass), Dustin Schoenhofer [see below] or Adam Arola (drums), John Skinner (guitar). At the time of this tour they had a split-LP (with ‘Varisty’; on +/-) and a 7” (As Good As Dead; on Element recs) out. Later they would release some stuff on Reflection recs and on Genet recs.

‘Thumbs Down’ – “Belgium’s old school HC pride.”. ‘This band (from Antwerp) played “youth crew hardcore”. They’d played at the Vort’n Vis before (97-08-16, 98-05-10 & 98-08-15): Roeland (De Keulenaer?) (bass; or was he already replaced by Andries Beckers?), Ken or his replacement Benjamin Buschgens? (drums), Raf(aël) Balrak (guitar) and Steven Tuffin (vocals). They were signed to Genet recs (Going For Gold 7” – with bassplayer Roeland – in ’97, No Retreat No Surrender 7” and Crossroads LP in ’99).

‘Pray Silent’ – “Clevo style HC – LP/CD presentation.”. A Swiss (from Sankt-Gallen) vegan straight-edge band (metal-core) signed to Bruno VdV’s Genet recs. They’d played the fest the year before aswell (98-08-15). The band consisted of Andi/y Grob (guitar), Attila Varga (vocals), Etienne Geyer (guitar), Philipp Zimmerman (bass) and Roger Cadalbert (drums). They were compared with H8000 in ads…

‘Ensign’ (courtesy of the band’s fanpage)

‘Ensign’ – “Topclass old school, back after touring with ‘S.O.I.A.’!”. Hardcore punk band from New Jersey. Nathan Gluck (bass; replaced Walter Svekla), Ryan Donoghue (guitar; replaced John Fraunberger), Ryan Murphy (drums; ex ‘Undertow’; replaced Chris(topher) Ross) and Tim(othy) Shaw (vocals). Early on they were signed to Dave Mandel’s label, Indecision recs. They came back the next year (2000-08-18)…

Brob

For us it was the hugest audience we have ever played. It was a pleasure for us to play there. I think it was the biggest HC festival in Europe and everybody was there. I am not involved in the HC-scene anymore but I think about the gig in Ieper very often. I loved it.

Carsten Pflugbeil, ‘Sabeth’ bassist

I was at the ‘Ieperfest’ as a stage-hand ‘for Sabeth’…

Johannes Schreiber, ‘My Hero Died Today’

Thomas Harsem had taken over guitar for me when I moved to ‘Dawnbreed’ (now ‘Monochrome’).

Marten Thielges, ‘Sabeth’

I have a couple of pictures and 2 videos (‘H-Street’ & ‘Mainstrike’) from that Ieperfest.

Danny Braaf, ‘H-Street’ guitarist

That was an amazing gig!!! We came over from Bremen only for that night. I think we’d just come back from our US tour a few days before. So it wasn’t sure we could make it over to this festival. The organiser decided to put us on the running-order as a secret special headliner. We played before ‘True Blue’ I think. [These played the next day.] Even most people of the festival-team didn’t know we were the ‘special guests’. When we got on stage there were already rumours running through the crowd and a lots of people were already standing waiting up-front. And a lot of people surrounded us on stage (as you can see on photo). After the show we met some guy of ‘As Friends Rust’ in the backstage-kitchen. He was totally sad about missing us because he was informed too late were playing (he was on the camping-area). At that time ‘Mörser was: André – drums, Sven – bass, ‘Matze’ – bass; ‘Svenion’ – guitar, Daniel ‘Grabi’ – vox, Björn – vox, Denny – vox.

Ulf had left the band earlier to move to Berlin. Hajo (short for Hans-Joachim) was the guitarplayer of ‘Carol’ and ‘Rusty James’. There were much more bands we all played in but not every band released something.

Sven Nienaber, ‘Mörser’ guitarist

One of the Top 5 shows in 20 years.

Sven Seelkopf, ‘Mörser’ bassist

I believe we opened on Friday??? This was something we’d been looking forward to for a long time. I’d been visiting the fest for several years. That weekend some of my favourite bands were on the bill (‘As Friends Rust’, ‘Hot Water Music’, ‘JR Ewing’, ‘Reveal’, …). Some of them played in Tongeren (Pumpkeskal) aswell. There were quite some people from the beginning of our set; one of the biggest crowds we had. It didn’t go smoothly though: because of nerves and the over-enthousiasm, I myself as singer was the cause that the lead-gitaar was out of tune from the first note on. That wasn’t very helpful to calm us down :-). In the end it mustn’t have been that bad because Bruno [Genet recs] asked us that very day if we could play at the Frontline together with ‘The Get Up Kids’ a few days later. I still have the live recordings of our set somewhere. Apparently all bands were recorded. What also stuck, is the fact that is everything was so well organised. We didn’t have to ask anything: everything was made clear to us from our arrival. Something we didn’t anymore later on. ‘Ieperfest’ was a starting-point for ‘Stroke of Grace’. That was because of the international character of the fest. Because of that we got the opportunity to play a number of shows in Germany.

Stijn Vliegen, ‘Stroke Of Grace’ vocalist

Always loved playing at the V.V.! A personal highlight will always be ‘IeperFest’ [not yet that name] 1999, I think it was. Where we had the hugest circle-pit I’ve ever seen!!!

Nathan Gluck, ‘Ensign’ bassist

Hey, I did play in ‘Ensign’, was one of the original members, but left the band in 1996 or 97 before they toured Europe. Tim and Nate were definitely in the band. Not sure if Chris Ross was still drumming or not at that point. John F had been playing guitar but was probably out. I think I saw them in Seattle in 99 or thereabouts…

Walter Svekla

I did not play with ‘Bloodpact’ in Europe.

Dustin Schoenhofer

additions wellcome!…

More on this concert: 96-09-22 Strain – Ananda – Systral – Elision – Sektor – Vitality – Family Of Dog

photo-shoot by Sarah Van de Mosselaer

Eric Thorkelsson, ‘Strain’ bassist

Chris Rayes, ‘Strain’ drummer

Jody Taylor, ‘Strain’ singer

John Franco, ‘Strain’ guitarist

Sean Lande, ‘Strain’ guitarist

‘Strain’ [Jean-François Fleury video-taping]

‘Elision’

Introduction => 99-08-20&21&22 Ieper HC festival

Laurent Chopard & Olivier Bresson (from Besançcon, France) wrote in their zine Co-existence:

(1) The third day also had its share of boring bands. Regarding metal: only ‘Jane’ was a little out of the lot. I was curious to see what ‘John Holmes’ looked like and I didn’t get hooked (because of the voice?). On the other hand, I waited impatiently for ‘Leiah’ (with an ex-‘Serene’ band-member, the others having formed ‘Children Of Fall’) and my waiting was rewarded. I was told that there were 2 girls in the band but I actually think that the people who told me this aren’t acquainted with the glam-look, because indeed, it was indeed a singer (who could have played in ‘Pretty Boy Floyd’). During the concert, the drummer even told the audience that the y didn’t attend a ‘Marilyn Manson’ concert, despite appearances. The sad melodies of the band really fascinated me and I found the bassist (who made fun of the virile attitude of the band before) original. The curtain-call was done with just one guitar as the singer had the bad idea to throw away his (ah! rock’n’roll…) Otherwise, I saw a little bit of ‘Facedown’ (who play every year!) and it was pretty good even though the ‘Earth Crisis’ cover wasn’t mandatory. The long-awaited band that closed this edition was none other than the ‘Get Up Kids’ and I think this was the perfect band to finish in style. Everyone was dancing and singing along to the lyrics of the band. An excellent concert!!!

(2) The last day, two old-school bands opened the ball, unfortunately I didn’t get to see them, too busy finding food other than french-fries (I know it’s the country but three days in a row at noon and at night gets disgusting!). When I came back ‘True Blue’ was playing; it wasn’t bad at all, a little bit like early ‘Cro-Mags’, and the rest of the programme wasn’t very uplifting, except for ‘Leiah’ who bewitched Laurent. To believe that he fell in love with the androgynous singer (Ah! glam-rock when you get to us!). The organisers had the great idea to end the festival with the ‘Get Up Kids’, which literally set things on fire. I found it quite pleasant, even if at times the ‘college band radio side’ was a bit annoying (these Americans: all rock stars, ah ah!).

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‘Instinct’ – “Tielt old school youth-crew mosh.”. These guys were indeed from my hometown (and Deinze). A “positive old-school” band. They’d played the V.V. a bunch of times before (97-03-01, 97-06-27, 97-07-12 & 97-08-15). Alex Dierickx & Thomas Hauttekeete played guitar, Vincent ‘Pit’ Maes sang (he was also in ‘Hundred Years Of Forgetting’ who played the first day of this fest, later played bass in ‘Rise And Fall’ & ‘The Deal’), Pedro Tallieu did the bass and the drummer was Tuur Delodder. They did a 7” on Marc Decaigny’s label Braveheart recs, entitled Friendship, A Lifetime Commitment, that was released that year (the release-party was 98-04-18).

‘Point Of Few’ – “Wicked fast-forward HC/power violence.”. A band from Hoogeveen (The Netherlands) playing “political fast-core”. Some dubbed them “the new ‘Man Lifting Banner’”, others made comparisons with ‘Seein’Red’ & ‘Insult’. By that time they had done a self-titled 7” on Jeffrey Kroesen’s label Discontent recs (’98) and the EP There Is Not Much Left (Coalition recs, ’99). The band consisted of Marco ‘Creshi’ Klopstra (vocals), Jop Hoekstra (bass), Martheun ‘Bolle’ or ‘Bizkid’ Poolman (guitar) and Rik Penninga (drums).

‘Point Of Few’ (fanpage-pic)

‘True Blue’ – “Cromagnon HC, ex-‘Spawn’, rocks as hell!”. Patrick Kitzel (vocals; sang in ‘Spawn after Chris left, Repel zine), Flo(rian) Kehbel (bass), René Natzel (drums; ex ‘Feeding The Fire’, ‘Spawn’), Daniel Bebber (guitar) and Frank Olma (guitar). They had a tape out entitled Friday May 13th (‘98) and the 7” The Ice (Crucial Response recs ‘99).

‘Jane’ – “Ruhrpott metalcore, moshes hard!!”. A chaotic metal-HC band from Duisburg with Matthias Drost (guitar), Mike Masurczak (guitar), Marc Hess (drums), Thomas Kuhn (bass) and Markus Hohn (vocals). They had released a split-CD with ‘Shaft’ (Chorus of Doom) on Sascha Franzen’s label Alveran recs in ‘98 and their CD A Doorway To Elsewhere (same label, ‘99).

‘Sunrise’ – “Stripped vegan XXX metal mosh.”. A Polish (melodic) metal-core band from Ostrowiec. On their first demo the line-up was Daniel Kryj (guitar), Maciej Mazur (drums), Marcin Podsiadły (bass) and Patryk Bugajski (vocals). Adam (Tomasz) ‘Vegun’ Stepien did “ghost sounds”. At the time of this fest they had 3 releases under their belt: Fire Walk With Me (tape ’97), Generation Of Sleepwalkers (album ’98) & Child Of Eternity (mini-album ’99 SoberMind). The people in the band in 1999 were Daniel, Marcin, Patryk & drummer Piotr Grabinski.

‘Reaching Forward’ – “Old-school youth-crew, straight-forward HC.”. From the south of The Netherlands (Den Bosch). ‘JZ’ Johnny van de Koolwijk (vocals; ex ‘Mainstrike’; replaced 1^st singer Cay), ‘Mila’ Emiel Laurant (guitar), Arthur ‘Tuur’ Bek (guitar), Harm Haverman (bass) and ‘Bakkie’ Pieter Hendriks (drums; later Ries Doms). They released their first demo, Bite The Hand That Feeds in 1997 (without Tuur). They did the recordings (according to Arthur with ‘JZ’, not Cay) for the Pride Is Everlasting 7” (Commitment recs, ‘98). Their LP For The Cause came out on Reflections recs (‘99).

‘Leiah’ – “Gävle powerclass emo – 7″/mCD presentation.”. The music of ‘Leiah’ (Sweden) was decribed as indie-rock/emo-punk (“clone of the ‘The Get Up Kids’…”) by some, others called it pop-music. The band consisted of Annsofie Lundin (bass), Anders Gustavsson (drums; in 2000 Gunnar Forsman), David Lehnberg (vocals/guitar) and Klas Joakim Eriksson (guitar; ex ‘Serene’ – who’d played at the V.V. a couple of times). In 1999 they had 3 releases on Genet recs: a split-7” with (the Belgian) ‘Hebriana’, a 7” & CD entitled Mood Shifting Tones. I few months later they played in the V.V. pub: 99-10-31.

‘Leiah’ (photo: Laurent Chopard)

‘Vitality’ – “H8000 coastal mosh. Terrifying!!”. See earlier shows at the V.V.: 96-08-19, 96-09-22, 97-08-17).

‘John Holmes’ – “Old farts playing ‘Reversal Of Man’/‘Botch’/‘Deadguy’ style.”. The guys in this Britisch band (based in Leeds) were Brian Puplet (vocals; ex ‘Catharsis’, ‘Embittered’, ‘Manfat’, …), Dale Tomlinson (guitar; ex ‘Catharsis’, ‘Manfat’, …), Alastair Gordon (bass; ‘Force Fed’, ‘Geriatric Unit’, ‘Hard To Swallow’) & ‘Sned’ (drums; too many bands to mention). Earlier that year they had recorded for the El Louso Suavo LP (that came out on ‘Sned’ & Alec Mac’s label Flat Earth). The same year there was also a split-7” with ‘Canvas’.

‘Facedown’ – “Leading Belgian metal new school mosh.”. sXe band from the Antwerp region that played quite a few show at the V.V. (96-08-16, 97-08-15, 97-10-12, 98-08-15)…

‘The Get Up Kids’ – “Nice & gentle emo indie-rock.” – was an emo-pop band from Kansas City (Missouri). A correspondent of mine, ‘Huey Proudhon’ Kevin Zelko (who visited the Vort’n Vis in August ‘97), released their 1^st 7” in 1996. This was followed by a shitload of records on commercial labels such as Doghouse recs, Sub Pop, Epitaph, etc. in 1999 their LP Something To Write Home About came out. It was recorded a few months before this fest with James Dewees (keyboards/vocals), Jim/James Suptic (guitar), Matthew Pryor (vocals/guitar), Robert Pope (bass) & Ryan Pope (drums).

‘The Get Up Kids’ (pic by Laurent Chopard)

Brob

I played the second guitar and then the bass but not in 1999 (or I don’t remember it).

Adam (Tomasz) Stepien, ‘Sunrise’

For couple of years I had heard stories about the mythical ‘mekka’ of European hardcore, THE Ieper Fest. Some of my friends had been going there since 1994, I believe and I finally made it with around 20 Polish hardcore kids in 1997. The local hardcore kids such as the mighty xStvx [Steve Lammertyn], the ‘Lifecyle’ kids and others hung out with us everyday while Jan [Claus], Stephen [Quintens] and the rest of V.V. crew were super hospitable to us and let us stay upstairs. We came back the following years and each time we spent a couple of weeks in Ieper, working doors at the fest, which was also pretty helpful. We met so many people from all over the world – from the Czech Republic (friends who later turned to be the masterminds behind the mighty Fluff Fest), Italy, Holland, Brazil and what not. With some of them I’m still in touch to this day. We traded stuff of the bands we were in, brought things home for distribution. We spent time in the pool or snacking the Aldi gingerbread with chocolate-cream (the Ieper diet). I’ll never forget the few dozens hardcore kids dancing to ‘Technotronic’ like nobody’s watching in the bar downstairs. Great times. Good gigs, too. My fave one was ‘Blindfold’ one that was supposed to be their final show [97-08-16]. ‘Liar’, ‘Purification’, ‘Culture’, ‘Morning Again’, ‘Abhinanda’, ‘Building’ – massive crowd-responses and stage-invasions. My band ‘Sunrise’ made it to Ieper in 1999 when the fest was held outdoors for the first time. It was still great, although I prefered the indoor one much more for its vibe. Our band at that time was Daniel Kryj on guitar, Marcel/ Marcin Podsiadly on bass, Peter/Piotr Grabinski on drums, and myself on vocals. We weren’t that tight, to put it nicely, haha. It might have been our second or third gig that year with hardly any rehearsals, so go figure. I remember myself being nervous as fuck, standing in front of a foreign crowd for the first time in my life. Good that I made it in one piece. We closed the gig with ‘Raid’s Blood Green. Bummer was that I skipped ‘The Get Up Kids’ gig that year, as I wasn’t into them. Bruno was so nice he invited us again in 2002, I remember it grew bigger and that was great edition. Last time I went to Ieper was 2003 and the highlight was Ken O’Keefe [anti-war and human rights activist] ’s speech. Lifechanging. Anyway, Ieper trips were always fun and I looked forward to them all year long. It has never been about Xmas or New Year, it was about Ieper Fest, that was the cycle I lived by. Blessed to be part of it in this way or another. “These days are gone but they’re not forgot [sic; ‘Judge’ quote]”.

Arkadiusz ‘Arek’ Lerch, Marcin Andrzej Czajka (‘Czaja’), Marcin Kucharski were people that played in the band later on…

Patryk Bugajski, ‘Sunrise’ singer

I only remember Alpro soy-desserts and some good vegan biscuits. And the public showers. And lots of nice and friendly people…

Daniel Kryj, ‘Sunrise’ guitarist

‘Hard To Swallow’ or ‘John Holmes’ never played at the V.V. [pub] We were meant to in ‘96 but van-trouble forced us back to the U.K. ‘John Holmes’ played the Ieper festival in ’99…

Alastair Gordon

I remember Ieper. We had a good time as far as I can remember… I liked all the tents and shit; pretty cool. It’s pretty funny to read that review there about ‘True Blue’. Kids always talked shit about us back then… And now they would never admit that… That wasn’t news to us at all though… A lotta jealous people and shit-talkers out there who didn’t understand this band… All I know is that I’m still playing after all these years… (‘EgoDestroys’ from Syracuse, NY) Hardcore is my life and I won’t slow down…

Daniel Bebber, ‘True Blue’ guitarist

I don’t remember much. It’s 20 years ago. ‘True Blue’ had an OK response. I don’t think there were that many people there when we played. I do have lots of fond memories of the original Vort’n Vis. Lots of great shows around 93/94. Also remember a great ‘Mainstrike’ show. That one was already in the bigger place in the back.

Patrick Kitzel, ‘True Blue’ singer

If I’m not mistaken, that was our last ‘Instinct’ show. Some internal troubles, friendships fading out… What I still know: we’d asked Bruno if we could play and he’d it was “OK, providing you don’t quit after that”. And we went like “No, no…” while we knew damned well that we were gonna stop. Empty Promises (One of our ‘Instinct’songs by the way).

Pedro Tallieu

I joined ‘Reaching Forward’ in 2001… But I did attend this fest in 99.

Ries Doms

I’m not very good at remembering specific stuff. Of course I recall playing there though. It was pure magic. I was a late teenager and guess I had a million feelings flying around all at once. I remember all the people up on stage. And how empowering that felt. I’m happy to read that I made fun of some macho guys. That makes me proud of my self. It was very special being in such a male-dominated culture playing and touring with ‘Leiah’. But the years on tour with ‘Leiah’ were also so magical and I’m so happy for all the wonderful meetings with different inspiring people. Our fans where always really cute and friendly. I learned so much during those years and it really formed me to be the one I am today. As an artist I have so much to be glad for that I have been on stage (wich was my absolute favorite part of ‘Leiah’) so much during my teens. I’m really interested in digging in this – seeing pictures and have been asking G (Anders Gustavsson) about the documentary that was made about ‘Leiah’ – but he’s not fast with replying. Being a part of ‘Leiah’ is absolutley a big part of my life and a big part of my artistery with ‘Min Stora Sorg’.

Annsofie Lundin, ‘Leiah’ bassist

I recall ‘JZ’ having a total black-out when we played a ‘Minor Treath’ cover. That’s it. I believe ‘Mila’ has a video of that show…

Arthur Bek, ‘Reaching Forward’ guitarist

I’ve been in Vort’n Vis only once for the festival, the year ‘John Holmes’ played.

Silvain Fayard, Tranzophobia zine (Saint-Etienne, France)

additions wellcome!…

More on this concert: 96-09-22 Strain – Ananda – Systral – Elision – Sektor – Vitality – Family Of Dog

photo-shoot by Sarah Van de Mosselaer

‘Sektor’: ‘Lenny’ Wouter Cael (bass), Bert Guillemont (drums), Piet ‘Pete’ Cardoen (guitar), Vadim Vandekerckhove (guitar) & ‘Jerre’ Jeroen Therry (vocals)

‘Vitality’: ‘Chief’ Steve De Clercq (vocals), ‘Noptje De Mens’ Bob Van Lierde (guitar) & ‘Alien King’ Chris Paccou (guitar), Olivier ‘Ollie’ Dobbels (drums) & ‘Switch’ Marc Paccou (bass)

[bottom pic: St-Niklaas crew with Nicolas Malfeyt)]

Introduction => 2000-08-18&19&20 Ieperfest

Laurent Chopard & Olivier Bresson (from Besançcon, France) wrote in their zine Co-existence:

Arriving at the entrance it seemed like we heared a well-interpreted cover of ‘Serene’; in fact, to Laurent’s great despair, it was the last piece of a surprise reunon of the band. And to add to our frustration we also missed ‘Ariel Kill Him’ and ‘With Love’. Things started off in a bad way. In addition we were denied access to the distro-space. The bouncer in service at the entrance claimed there was a lack of space, even though we had only two miserable boxes. Once the distro was set up, we could finally enjoy the sweet metal melodies.

It wasn’t until ‘Reiziger’ we found a little consolation. But Olivier found that a little too long. Fortunately for him the English legend ‘Voorhees’ took the stage. For Olivier it was the best concert of the festival, Laurent got tired of it after 5 or 6 songs, and the mangled ‘D.R.I.’ cover didn’t make things better. ‘Ensign’ concluded the evening in a déjà-vu kind of way (not to sound mean).

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‘AmenRa’s performance here – “Mix of hard and soft mid-tempo doomy core; all star formation!” – was their first time in Ieper… That was with (ex ‘Spineless’ guys) Kristof Mondy on bass, Mathieu Vandekerckhove playing guitar & Colin Van Eeckhout singing; plus Bjorn Lebon on drums & Jan Maelfait (ex ‘Spirit Of Youth’, ‘Blindfold’) on extra bass.

‘Ariel Kill Him’ (from Gävle, Sweden) – “David ‘Leiah’ solo with guests! Acoustic emo-pop” – was indeed the band of David Lehnberg (guitar/vocals). That year the album She Wears The Stars Like Him (alternative/indie rock, emo) was out. No idea who supported him: Alec Ahlénius (drums)?, Magnus Björk (keyboards)?…

In 1996 ‘With Love’ was added to the bill last minute. (96-08-18) In 2000, the band (from the Triviso area, in Italy) had an album (entitled I Love Cul-De-Sac) out on Green recs that year. It was recorded with Paolo Riscica (guitar), Giovanni Donadini (bass; canedicoda.com), Nico Vascellari (vocals; pinchukartcentre.org), Andrea Giotto (guitar) & Nicolò Fortuni (drums). They were described as “screaming emo rock”.

‘With Love’ (courtesy of Paolo Riscica)

‘Lvmen’ (Prague, Czech Republic) were announced wit the phrase “As pompous as ‘Neurosis’, as bright as ‘Unbroken’!”… The band at that time consisted of Petr ‘Husar’ Proft (vocals/keyboards), ‘Melnick’ Robert Taschner (drums), David Mirda (guitar; R.I.P.), Tomis (guitar), Tschepitz/Čepic (bass; ex ‘Rat Race’). They had several releases on the Czech label Day After recs (ran by Miroslav Pátý) by that time 2 albums (a self-titled one and Raison D’Être).

‘Lvmen’ (source unknown)

‘Cataract’ – “Brilliant brutal metalcore/mosh presenting their new CD” – was a band from Zürich, Switzerland. In 1999 they did a couple of EPs (one of which was on Marco Walzel’s label Join The Team Player recs). In 2000 Carl Severson released the album Golem on his label Ferret recs (with vocalist ‘Mosh’ Chris(tian) Ebert, guitarists Simon Füllemann & Greg(or) Mäder, bassist Michael ‘Michi’ Henggeler and drummer Patrick ‘Ricky Lions’ Dürst). Federico ‘Fedi’ Carminitana probably sang for the band here…

‘Cataract’ (source unknown)

The German band (from the Münster area) ‘January Star’ – “Soft & delicate emo-pop! Like drinking a mineral water on a sunny day…” – had an album out on Genet recs in 2000: Home Without A Heart. Line-up: Andre Beyer (bass/vocals), Lars Röhm, Jan Flick & Henrik Neumann. They were often compared with ‘The Get Up Kids’…

‘January Star’ (source unknown)

‘Building’, a “youth-crew style” SxE HC from Antwerp, had played at the fest before (98-08-14). Supposedly this here was their goodbye show. The line-up probably was: Olivier ‘Paco’ Packolet (vocals; later ‘True Colors’), Jelle De Cremer (guitar), Werner Boes (bass, also ‘Kombat’; replacing (P)Andy Van Den Wijngaert) & original drummer Bruno had left and was replaced by Gert Jacobs (drums; later ‘Dead Stop’). They released material on SoberMind recs: In Time We’ll Grow (1998) & split-7” with ‘Up Front’ (1999). There’s also a live-tape of them playing at the GoodLife 1999 summer-fest. “Old school mosh heroes, nailed to the X!”

‘Cast In Fire’ (originally named ‘Full Assault’) – “Brutal, stomping, slow & heavy Detroit m-o-o-o-s-h”. In 2000 they had a split-7” out with (the Belgian) ‘Kombat’, and Genet recs released their Apology ‎album. The people in the band were Jake Dufour (drums), Vincent ‘Vinny’ Dufour (guitar), Nate Stickney (guitar), Ricardo ‘Fire’ Hernandez (bass) and Len(ny) Adams (vocals; ex ‘Earthmover’).

‘Cast In Fire’ ([1] & [2] photographed by Roel Brals; [3]?)

‘Out For Blood’ – “BXL style moshcore, back on the map!” –  was a hatecore band with Alain Herszaft on vocals (he ran Released Power Productions label and was the singer of ‘Mental Disturbance’ in the 80s). Apparently they didn’t make it over. There was a surprise show by ‘Serene’ (see 97-08-16). Read the remark below…

‘Reiziger’, announced here as “top quality European emo HC”, had played a few fests before this one: 97-08-15, 98-08-16.

‘Voorhees’ (“Power-violence legend, around since ages!”) hadn’t been ablo to make to the Vort’n Vis 1994. In 1999 they had their album entiled 13 released on Richard Corbridge’s label Armed With Anger recs. It was recorded with a totally different line-up than in ’94: only vocalist Ian Leck remained. The others on that were Andrew Wright (bass; ex ‘Ironside, ‘Unborn’), Dave(y) Allen (drums) and guitarists James Atkinson & Rich(ard) Armitage (ex ‘Ironside’). It was followed by a split-12” with ‘Out Cold’ in 2000 (on Ian Glasper’s Blackfish recs). The split-7” with ‘Kill Your Idols’ was recorded in August with Steve Stewart on bass (who’s mentioned in the guestbook). It was released by Dave Mandel on his label Indecision recs.

‘Ensign’ with ‘Fedi Edge’ of ‘Cataract’ (pic taken by by Patrrick Federli)

In the announcements for this fest, Bruno poses the question “Remember last year’s circle-pit with 1000 kids?!” referring to the show they played the year before (99-08-21)… ‘Ensign’ was a hardcore/punk band from New Jersey. I read somewhere that guitarist Ryan Donoghue had left the band before that tour. Read Nate’s remark below though… Nate ‘Edge’ (Nathan Gluck) switched from bass to guitar and Chris Oliver became the new bassist on the tour. Tim(othy) Shaw was the vocalist. In June 2000, the band recorded for the For What It’s Worth EP with drummer John ‘Vince Vegas’ O’Neill.

Brob

I totally had forgotten about his… How I experienced it?… Ieperfest was always THE show/experience of the year. Back then it was still the biggest underground HC festival I think, so everyone was looking forward to it. Internet was not that prominent but people were eager to meet up with international friends. I remember being impressed by ‘Knut’, ‘Children of Fall’ and ‘As Friends Rust’ [the next days]. The first 2 became real friends: I played with some of the guys of ‘Knut’s new band; I did the drawing for the cover of the ‘Children Of Fall’ CD… ‘Knut’ played that off-beat hardcore (Hydra Head recs) that sounded super-tight live. ‘C.O.F.’ was in the Swedish emo-core vein, live one big lump of passion. And ‘As Friends Rust’… a party on stage, poppy up-tempo hardcore with one of the best frontmen of that era (Damien Moyal). Sweet… Good times!

Kristof Mondy, ‘AmenRa’ bassist

Our first show ever, I believe. Not many people know this or took note of it but in the beginning (just a few shows) we had 2 bassplayers. The second was Jan Maelfait.

Colin H Van Eeckhout, ‘AmenRa’ vocalist

First time ‘AmenRa’ was indeed Colin, Mathieu, Bjorn, Kristof Mondy (with cowboy-hat, if I remember correctly) & Jan.

Lennart Bossu, later ‘AmenRa’ guitarist

One of my clearest memories was watching ‘Serene’ doing their one-off reunion gig here. Not the complete original line-up. Olle [Johansson], the drummer of ‘Serene’, got a nasty infection on his leg after doing a huge tattoo while we were on tour. I think he had to cancel Ieper because of that and go home?

Gunnar Forsman, ‘Leiah’ drummer

I didn’t play in ‘Reiziger’ anymore there…

Arne Van Petegem

Pretty sure that was the line-up with Murph on drums (ex ‘Undertow’) and ‘Mackenzie’ [Ryan Donoghue] (the younger kid that played/recorded with ‘Ensign’ on Cast The First Stone and did most of the touring with us) on guitar, plus me & Tim obviously. I know ‘Circle’ played, love that band. Most likely it was either Mad agency [Ute Füsgen, Berlin] or Avocado booking [Marco Walzel, München] that booked our tours, I just don’t remember off the top of my head. I believe in 2000 I was playing guitar at Ieperfest and our friend Chris was filling in on bass.

Nathan/Nate ‘Edge’ Gluck a.k.a. Nathan ‘Voorhees’

This was our last show on a ‘real’ European (3 weeks), before leaving for a tour of 10 days in Japan… I remember that that show started really well, good and powerful sound…but there was a technical problem after the first song (no more electricity?) and when the problem was solved the sound was awful! Good memories anyway…

Paolo Riscica, ‘With Love’ guitarist

After our appearance in 1996 [96-08-18] I think we weren’t able to play the festival again untill 2000. Our second album (I Love Cul De Sac) had been very well received and we left that summer for what has been the longest and best tour for With Love: an entire month around Europe and Japan. We were still excited by the vivid memories of the concert in ‘96 at the Vort’n Vis: that was absolutely one of those tings we were mostly looking forward to. We actually wanted to play there so badly that we accepted Bruno’s invitation even knowing that the day before we were playing in Barcelona (1.400 km away) and that we would have to play in the early afternoon as one of the first bands. That meant we would have had to start driving immediately after the show in order to catch our flight to Tokyo in Venice 2 days later (another 1.300 km). We arrived and basically had to get on stage immediately. The show started and it was incredible. There was so much energy in the air. At least for the first song. Than the electricity failed and it took what seemed like an hour (it was probably just 5 minutes) to be fixed. It happened again during the 3^rd or 4^th song of our set. That was surely one of the most frustrating and horrible shows we’ve ever played. Then we took of for a 16 hours drive. I’m not even sure why I miss touring sometimes…

Nico Vascellari, ‘With Love’ vocalist

Swiss guys living it up (shot by Patrick Federli)

Pat Federli came with us if I’m not mistaken…

‘Ricky Lions’, ‘Cataract’ drummer

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

additions wellcome!…

Introduction => 2000-08-18&19&20 Ieperfest

Laurent Chopard & Olivier Bresson (from Besançon, France) wrote in their zine Co-existence:

After a a few hours of sleep, we took the distro to the site early enough so that they would let us in this time. A nice first band (‘5 Day Get Away’) opened the day. We decided we could better enjoy it because a series of retarted metal bands was lined up. It wasn’t until ‘Point Of No Return’ (from Brazil) that our ears opened up again. Not al that original but with quite some sincerity. ‘Knut’ delivered an impressive show of chaotic technicality. Hard to get into though (except for Phil ‘Burn Out’). The hardrock of ‘Firestone’ could have been fun if it hadn’t been so rickety. ‘Leiah’ unleashed the elements, including Laurent, without much surprise, remembering last year. The rain continued to poor when ‘Good Clean Fun’ took the stage. A nice concert that could’ve been even better if the weather had been good. To finish up this 2nd day, there was ‘Grade’: good concert despite the weak singing in the melodic parts and a ‘did-you-get-to-see-me’ attitude. Since the day ended early, we found ourselves in J.P.’s (Jean Paul of ‘Nothing To Prove’) van, listening to the latest gossip of Gael and laughing.

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‘5 Day GetAway’ was ‘Blindfold’ directly after they’d split up, without Hans Verbeke and Mich Decruyenaere: Wim Vandekerckhove (guitar), Jan Maelfait (bass), ‘Chatn’ Sacha Baelen (drums), with the addition of Vincent Maes (vocals; ex ‘Instinct’). Discriptions of their music went from “melodic/rockin’ HardCore” to “emo with a punky old school touch”. There was a (6-track) self-titled CD released in 2001 that was distributed through Genet recs and they had a song on the The Crossroad Project compilation-CD.

‘Posession’ (from Aviles, Asturias, Spain) put their album Anoxia (and some of their other releases) out on my mate ‘Uge’s labels Don’t Belong and Throne recs. Their music (“stoner rock/death-metal”) was compared with ‘His Hero Is Gone’, Systral’ & ‘Dystopia’. The people in the band were Pablo Muñoz (guitar), Titi Muñoz (guitar/vocals), Xuxo ‘Suso’ Gallego (bass/vocals) & Richard (drums; later Ivan Rubio).

‘Circle’ (from Landen, Belgium) consisted of Dries Olemans (vocals; later Hypertension recs), Arne Robijns (drums), Danny Kempeneers (bass), Dimitri Degreef (guitar) and Kristof Uittebroek (guitar; later ‘Customs’). They did 2 albums for Funtime recs: Radiostation Infiltration (2000) & Vaudeville (2003); their EP The Day Elvis Shook His Ass was came out on Genet recs (2001) There was also the Phonography / Leaving The Parade EP (Reflections recs 2003) and a split CD with ‘Reply’, ‘PN’ & ‘Exit 19’.

‘Dawncore’ (Budapest, Hungary) – “new school mosh à la ‘Morning Again’” – were Ács Máté (bass; he replaced the 1^st bassist Attila Bozo), Tibor ‘Tibi’ Szalkai (guitar), Ferencz Zsolt (drums), Németh ‘Szabi’ Szabolcs (guitar) and Soos Balázs (vocals). Around that time they were preparing for an album that was released on Marco Walzels’ label Join The Team Player recs: Entertainment For The Rest. Before they had released, besides other material, the EP Obedience Is A Slower Form Of Death on Trottel recs.

‘Dawncore’ (pictures: 1, 2 & 3 courtesy of Ferencz Zsolt; 4 by Pat Federli)

‘Negate’, a metalcore band from the Charleroi area, released a demo in ‘97 with Arnaud Detry (guitar/vocals), Saïd (bass/vocals) & Stef (drums). That year there was also a split with ‘Negative Verdict’ (France) and they recorded for a mCD entitled Between Anger And Pain. Some more releases followed and their final release was a CD – Enemy – for GoodLife in 2003 (with bassist Justin Veronesi, drummer Niko Collaer & guitarist François-Xavier Marciat). The guestbook here was signed by Arnaud, Greg (Gregory Avau), Niko & Moulain…

‘Point Of No Return’ (São Paulo, Brazil) was vegan, straight-edge metal-core band with 3 singers: Alexandre Fanucchi (a.k.a. ‘Kalota’), Frederico Freitas (fredericofreitas.org) & Marcos Suarez. Their music was described as “a mix of ‘Earth Crisis’ metal-mosh with death-metal elements”; they had political lyrics in Portugese focused on the Third World struggles and on the animal liberation fight. The musicians were: Tarcisio (De Arantes) Leite (guitar; also ‘Personal Choice’), Paulo Júnior (‘Juninho’, Paulo Sergio Sangiorgio Júnior; guitar), Jefferson Queiróz (a.k.a. ‘Tigrilo’, bass) – here: Pedro Carvalho – and Luciano Juliatto (a.k.a. ‘Lobinho’, drums). They had a self-titled EP out on Catalyst recs and had recorded for the Centelha LP a few months before this fest. There was an interview with Tarcisio (conducted at this fest) in Co-existence zine.

‘Point Of No Return’ (pics courtesy of the band)

‘Born From Pain’ – “brutal mosh” – (from Dutch Limburg) recorded for the album Reclaiming The Crown in May 2000 with Rob Franssen (ex ‘Wheel Of Progress’, ‘Feeding The Fire’, ‘Backdraft’) on bass, Wouter Alers (bass on ‘F.T.F’s last CD) on drums, Stefan van Neerven on guitar and Ché Snelting singing. Nowadays Rob Fransen sings…

‘Knut’ was described as a “sludge/mathcore” band but also as a “noisy rock outfit” from Geneva, Switzerland. I believe they were friends of Joris De Buysser (who ran Conspiracy recs). In April ’99 Didier Severin (vocals), Jeremy Tavernier (bass), Philippe Hess (guitar) & Roderic Mounir (drums) were in the studio for their 7” Ordeal (on Fabien Thévenot’s Molaire Industries) and in November did some live recordings for a split-10” with ‘Ananda’ & ‘Botch’.

‘Withdrawn’ (where Chris(topher) Meadows of Clear Perception zine used to be singing – he was also the drummer of ‘Unborn’) with Martin Von Bargen and Ian Leck of ‘Voorhees’ had line-up problems and re-formed as ‘Evanesce’ – “vicious vegan XXX metalcore” from Liverpool. In 2000 the band’s CD Sower Of Sedition – recorded with ‘Onion’ Martin Von Bargen (guitar; ‘Solstice’), ‘Mortiis’ David ‘Dave’ Fergusson (drums), Jay/Jason Hearne (vocals), Colin Robertson (bass) and Danny McDermott (guitar) – came out. The music was described as “black/death-metal influenced metalcore”.

‘Firestone’ (from Kortrijk, Belgium) had played the Vort’n Vis a few times already: 96-08-16, 97-06-27, 98-08-16 & 2000-07-16. The line-up here was Iris Walgraeve (vocals), Lennart Bossu (guitar), Diederik Claes (drums), Mathieu Storms (drums) & Ward Dufraimont (guitar). They presented their debut-album Aim For A New Tomorrow.

‘Firestone’ (photos: courtesy of Iris Walgraeve)

‘Sad Origin’ (from Dendermonde) played at the 1998 fest and presented their LP during the 1999 fest: A Double Edged Sword In A Triangle Of Emotions (‘adesiatoe’) was released by Genet recs. They had done a demo in ’96 and a ‎mini-album entitled Window Of Sarcasm on Inner Belt recs (‘98). The band (from Dendermonde) consisted of Robin (bass), Wim Aerts (drums), Wes(ley) Steels (guitar) and Hans ‘Link’ Teirlinck (vocals). Peter XKombatX did backing vocals on the Genet CD. Some people reviewed it as “metal with an early ‘Morbid Angel’ sound” or “metalcore with NYHC influences” or (On Display #3) “bad death-metal” (not to use the generic term “Tuff-Guy HC”). Alain Herszaft put out the split-CD with ‘Misura’ on Released Power Productions in August 2000. Some of the members went on as ‘Die My Demon’. No idea if they actually played here (they’re not in the guestbook)…

‘Leiah’ (Gävle, Sweden) had played at the V.V. pub on 99-10-31 and the ‘Ieperfest’ the year before (99-08-22)…Their music was indie-rock/emo-punk: Ann-sofie Lundin (bass), Gunnar Forsman (drums), David Lehnberg (vocals/guitar; he’d also performed here with ‘Ariel Kill Him’ the day before) and Klas Joakim Eriksson (guitar; ex ‘Serene’). In 1999 they did 3 releases for Genet recs and this year Bruno released the LP Tigra Songs.

‘Leiah’ (photos courtesy of the band)

‘Good Clean Fun’ – “old school Hahahardcore” – was a vegan straight-edge positive hardcore punk band from Washington D.C. As influences they mentioned ‘Gorilla Biscuits’, ‘7 Seconds’, ‘Minor Threat’ and ‘Youth Of Today’. In 2000 they had the album, entitled On The Streets Saving The Scene From The Forces Of Evil, out on the Dutch label Reflections recs (Johan Prenger from Tilburg). On these recordings: Mike ‘Phyte’ Mowery (bass), Andrew William Black (drums), John Delve (guitar) and Issa Diao (vocals). Probably they toured with another line-up: in the guestbook there’s a drawing of Casey a.k.a. Chuck Water Music [NÓT Chuck Ragan of ‘Hot Water Music’], Issa, ‘Phyte’, ‘Scooter’ & a drummer…

‘Good Clean Fun’ (pics: source unknown)

‘Grade’ (photographed by Pat Federli)

‘Grade’ (from Burlington, Ontario, Canada) “blended metallic hardcore with emo” and were inspired by ‘Integrity’ and ‘Chokehold’. Bruno’s marketing lingo: “top speed emo hardcore with a really driving edge”. In 1999 they had signed to Victory recs and their videos were played on MTV. Members at that time, I believe, were Matt Jones (bass), Chris Danner (drums), Shawn Magill (guitar), Greg Taylor (guitar/vocals) and Kyle Bishop (vocals).

Brob

It was me singing, Scott Affront (guitar) & Casey Watson (guitar; no relation to ‘Hot Water Music’), Mike ‘Phyte’ (bass) & Geoff (drums).

Issa Diao, ‘Good Clean Fun’

I believe I only performed once with ‘Firestone’ in Ieper (the band had a number of singers before), on Ieperfest. I can’t remember a great deal about it. I was studying for re-exams and just popped over for our gig, driving along with our bassist Didier (who had to work until a certain time) – singing along with to ‘Hammerfall’ CD to warm us up.

A bit after performing at Ieperfest we were addressed by Bruno (Genet recs). Larry [Watts] of ‘Standing Tall’ wanted to do a project with Lennart and myself, after he’d seen us play. We rehearsed twice with Larry and Louis [Louie/Luis Gonzales ?] in the back of the Pyrrhus shop and then we went into the studio. Lennart played bass and I was singing together with Larry. The project was named ‘Bracelet’ but nothing happened with that. Larry continued it on his own but the songs we recorded were never released because Genet didn’t want that.

Larry & myself did go see American Psycho, together with Bjorn Dossche…

Iris Walgrave, ‘Firestone’ singer

I remember that we played the V.V. these twice but nothing more. I played in ‘Circle’ from ‘98 to 2004. We did this one and played also on 2001-08-18 with ‘Leiah’, ‘Liar’, ‘The Locust’, ‘Facedown’, etc. In 2001 we also did a gig in the pub (Oct 19^th) with ‘Severance’. Later we played the Animal Truth Benefit with ‘Liar’, ‘Absone’, ‘Firestone’, ‘Severance’, ‘Empathy’ & ‘Bloodshed’; and the Ieper HC Fest on 2002-08-18.

Danny Kempeneers, ‘Circle’

I would like to thank those organising the fest in 2000. The Vort’n Vis was legendary for us in Brazil and it was a great honour to play there. I remember we had a blast. It was such a great time! I have the sense that at the time the fest was beginning to stray away from its DIY roots towards a more commercial mode of operation but I think it still retained some of its old ethos.

Our bass-player had to return to Brazil before the end of the tour and our friend Pedro played bass in Ieper. We also had other friends from Brazil who were following us, so many of the non-stage 2000 European tour pictures on our page have them mixed up with the band.

Frederico Freitas; ‘P.O.N.R.’

From 1999 on, when ‘ADESIATOE’ was recorded, Robin took over the bass.

Peter De Bondt, ‘Sad Origin’s first bassist

If I remember well, we were just on tour with the band. I really liked the location, we liked the party. Food was delicious. After our show we stayed at the festival the next day… I can say it was an honor to play there.

Ferencz Zsolt, ‘Dawncore’ drummer

‘Leiah’ were not that DIY even if we did most stuff like any other punk-band. We played squats, smaller venues, printed shirts, owned a shitty van, eat beans and vegan stews and got wasted. We were all young punks and the party had just begun and we partied alot. I joined ‘Leiah’ in 2000 playing the Tigra Songs LP tour. I played there 2 times: 2000 & 2001. I remember all the vinyl and vegan food. And I’ve never in my life seen so many ‘Liar’ T-shirts at one place. The moshpit thing was brutal, not my kind of thing though. Most bands played really strict metal-core/ old-school and I guess our more Swedish mid-western emo-thing was a welcomed pause from all the heavy stuff. I was really psyched up playing in 2000 since I knew from the response of the first show that ‘Leiah’ (at the time the EP with ‘Hebriana’) got a nice welcoming.

Nowadays, David and Ann-sofie are doing music far from the punk-scene and they do it successfully. I don’t think they care that much about punk-music these days. Anders and Joakim had some band together years ago that was in the vein of ‘Strike Anywhere’ (melodic and fast). I moved up north after 10 years in Stockholm and I’m still keeping my D-beat band ‘Terror Attak’ from ‘99 alive…

Gunnar Forsman, ‘Leiah’ drummer

‘Knut’ played off-beat hardcore that sounded very tight live.

Kristof Mondy

I remember that I already felt completely alienated from that scene…

Sacha Baelen

This was since 20 years ago, a time where flemish kids enjoyed meeting walloons like us. I remember arriving by car and seeing a lot of people coming from the railway-station to find the place. I also recall the amazing vegan food…

I also met Ovidie (the french porn-star) at the fest and we had a real cool discussion about what she was doing there.

Arnaud Detry, ‘Negate’ guitarist

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

additions wellcome!…

Introduction => 2000-08-18&19&20 Ieperfest

Laurent Chopard & Olivier Bresson (from Besançon, France) wrote in their zine Co-existence:

3rd day: some interesting bands in the afternoon such as ‘Bobby Peru’ (hard rock’n’roll emo) or ‘Oil’ (original HC). For Laurent, ‘Children Of Fall’ gave the best concert of the festival, despite the vocal problems of the singer and especially the penultimate concert worthy of attention. ‘Stigmata’ gave occasion to a good bit of fun for most of us French, entering into some ‘caterpillars of death’ in the pit. We were waiting for ‘As Friends Rust’ but their gig was brief, since the police decided to put an end to the festival. A little disgusted but not too sad because there’s enough opportunities to see this band (that roams the old continent for quite some time).

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‘Severance’ (Brugge/Knokke-Heist) did a “blend of the post-hardcore thing with some indie rock”; they’ve been compared with ‘As Friends Rust’ & ‘Hot Water Music’. The band was started in 1998 by Bert Degraeve (guitar), Jochen Verledens (vocals), Koen Barbier (bass) en Pieter Deroo (drums). Tim Debrabandere became the 2^nd guitarist in 1999 and Ivo Debrabandere replaced Pieter on drums in 2000. Their first release was a split-CD with ‘DeathBeforeDisco’ on Eye Spy recs (2001). A couple of years later Genet recs would release their CD Let’s Talk About Us…

‘Bobby Peru’ – “Rock on emo-power!” –  (emocore from southern Germany) played a “frantic, chaotic style of hardcore; heavily influenced by the ‘Swing Kids’ and other San Diego bands of the time”. They – ‘Bobby Belmondo’ (bass), ‘Badass Peru’ (drums), ‘Bobby Fett Peru’ (guitar), ‘Cpt. Loco Peru’ (guitar) & ‘Byron J. Peru’ (vocals) – released 2 7”s: Liberate Tute Me Ex Inferis (Two Friends recs 1999) and The X-File Conspiracy (Strange Fruit 2001).

‘Chispa’ (from Hamburg) were people who’d played in ‘Loxiran’: Dennis Becker (guitar; he had been at the V.V. with ‘Lebensreform’ in ‘97), Norman Kolodziej (guitar), Oliver Koch (bass), Thomas Tröger (drums) & Ulf Stolley (vocals). “San Diego all over it!”… Markus Haas (Per Koro) released their 7” Obstinator (’99) and there was a split-CD with ‘Enfold’ on Bloodlink recs. They were announced but didn’t actually play.

‘Inane’ (from Bottrop, Ruhrpott area, Germany) – “Mörser with grunts” – playd brutal metal/death-core with frantic drums/guitars and hellish vocals. Their album Zeitraffer was released on Sascha Franzen’s label Alveran recs in 2000. Markus Haas (Per Koro) did their second – Kill ‘Em & Grill ‘Em – in 2001. There was also a 7” on Autumn Leave Network… The band consisted of ‘Ollie’ Oliver Hapke (bass), Oliver Hemker (guitar), Jörg Fenhoff (guitar), Michael Heidenreich/Christian S (drums) & Heiko Nickel (vocals). No idea who Wes was (see guestbook).

‘Course Of Action’ (from the French-speaking part of Belgium: Wavre/Louvain-La-Neuve) played “technical/melodic metal-core with the emotion and intensity of bands like ‘Converge’ or ‘Morning Again’…”: ‘JP’ Jean-Pascal Bolle (drums), David Scurr (bass), Tiago Lemaitre (guitar), Phyl Bautzer (vocals) & ‘Max’ Maxim Polya-Vitry (guitar/vocals). They put out a self-released tape (entitled Ocean Of Despair) in ’98). Then there was the CD No Redeeming The Sunlit Path Of Bliss ‎(Hellbound Corporation, ’99) and GoodLife recs released the Carving Our Way By Tearing Our Faith ‎CD (2001). They came for the fest in 2001.

The album Definition Delta by ‘Oil’ (from A’dam & R’dam) was recorded July 2000, with guitarists Jasper Uhl & Robin van der Kaa, bassist Peter Heemskerk, drummer Marcel Wiebenga (also ‘Das Oath’) and singer Nicholas van den Doel. It came out on Jeroen Vrijhoef & Marcel Palijama’s label Coalition recs. They were a hardcore band; in Bruno’s marketing-lingo: “Like ‘Rocking From The Crypt’ going old-school.”.

‘Purification’ – “vegan straight-edge mosh metal terror” – played already on the fest in 1997 (97-08-15)… This Roman vegan sXe metal-core band, I believe, consisted at that time of Maurizio Ricci (vocals), Paolo ‘Uccello’ Castagna (bass), Fabio ‘Kappa’ Cappabianca (drums), Emiliano De Santis (guitar) and Andrea ‘Monster’ Campanelli (guitar; also ‘Comrades’). They did a split-CD with ‘Unborn’ in 2002. Watch their set…

‘Children Of Fall’ (“emotional metal-core”; from Malmö) did several records; one of which was on Genet recs (2000): Riding A Broken Vehicle. A later album was also released on tape by Marko Rusjan (Choose Life label). The band was: Olle ‘Hård’ Johansson (guitar; ex ‘Serene), Anders Näslund (vocals; ‘Serene’), Emil Björkander (bass) & Linus Rösell (drums). Olle got replaced for this show (see comment below).

‘One Fine Day’, a “post-hardcore” band, had already played at the ’98 fest already. In 2000 they released a split-7” with ‘Dead Inside’ The band consisted of Adriano ‘Baulo’ Fontaneto (guitar), Alessio Fornasiero (bass), Andrea ‘ics’ Ferraris (guitar; also ‘Burning Defeat’, ‘Permanent Scar’, etc.), Luca ‘Mouth’ Fontaneto (vocals; editor of the zine Outlet) and Stefano Bosso (drums). In 2002 they would release a CD on Bruno’s Genet recs: “Mixing heavy ‘Botch’-esque sounds with more rocking ‘Swing Kids’-alike madness.”. Their set here was video-taped: 1^st part & 2^nd part.

‘One Fine Day’ (pic courtesy of the band)

‘Standing Tall’ (Gainesville, Florida) – ‘Starkweather’ meets ‘Converge’! – had 2 releases on Genet recs: the album Swallow The Gods (released right in time for their European tour 2000) and the EP To Suffer Discomfort For Compassion (’99). The band consisted of Larry Watts (guitar/vocals), Tony DePaolo (bass/vocals), Louie Gonzales (drums; he replaced Andy Seltzer); don’t know if guitarist Ruben Lopez was in the band at this timepoint. The guestbook was signed by Lew (Larry), Luis, Tony & Dani (read below). Their music was described as “wicked, discordant and messy HC” and also as “destructo-core influenced by ‘Starkweather’, ‘Botch’, ‘Coalesce’…”.

‘Reveal’s second appearance (first one: 99-08-21). “Driving hardcore/noise whirlwind, new LP/CD out now!”. They’d left GoodLife and switched to Genet recs for the To Explore The Invention, To Create CD (2000). Maarten van Oers (drums), Mischa van Rodijnen (guitar), Geert van Hoesel (vocals) & Dave van Beek (bass), from the south of The Netherlands.

‘Length Of Time’ was a metal-core band from Brussels with Michel Kirby (guitar; ex ‘Mental Disturbance’, ex’ Deviate’), Yves ‘Ross Demon’ Van Geel (vocals), Christian Zegers (drums) & Vince(nt) Meseeuw (bass). They did 2 albums and an EP for GoodLife recs between 1998 & 2000. Someone wrote about them: “Our lives were full of agony until we heard this magic band.”…

Michel Kirby (source unknown)

‘Stigmata’ was a hardcore band from Albany, New York; with Bob Riley (vocals), Buddy Armstrong (bass), Jason Bittner (drums; later ‘Overkill’ etc.), Jason/Jay Sunkes (guitar) and Mike Maney (guitar). In 1999 Victory recs had released their album Do Unto Others…

‘Stigmata’ (source unknown)

‘Walls Of Jericho’ – announced as “Ex ‘Earthmover’, brutal mosh metal with harsh female vocals” – was a metalcore band from Detroit. At the time of this fest they had a demo out, a 7” (A Day And A Thousand Years) and an album (The Bound Feed The Gagged, on Trustkill recs). At that time: Candace Puopolo/Kucsulain (vocals), Aaron Ruby (bass), Wes Keely (drums; ex ‘Earthmover’), Kevin Kroeger or Chris(topher) Rawson (guitar) & Mike Hasty (guitar; ex ‘Earthmover’). ‘W.O.J.’ didn’t actually make it here. ‘Earthmover’ played an earlier fest on 98-08-15…

Damien Moyal sporting a ‘Liar’ T-shirt (source unknown)

‘As Friends Rust’ had been here the year before aswell: “Melodic, fastforward hardcore harmonies! A pleasure to have them back!”. Another band from Gainesville, Florida! Damien Moyal (vocals: ex ‘Culture’/‘Shai Hulud’/‘Morning Again’) was the main man. After a major line-up change the double-7” God Hour (GoodLife recs 1999) and the 8” As Friends Rust (Doghouse recs 1999) were released. The line-up at that time was James Glayat (guitar), Joseph ‘Joe’ Simmons (guitar; also ‘Culture’, ‘Morning Again’), Kaleb Stewart (bass) & Tim Kirkpatrick (drums).

Brob

I have very good memories regarding Ieperfest and the Vort’n Vis. I was indeed the guitarist – later bassist – of ‘Oil’. As it happens I missed the concert on Ieperfest in 2000 because I was ill. Nobody replaced me, I was such a limited guitarist that they could do with the one giutar.

Robin van der Kaa, ‘Oil’

Wasn’t the ‘As Friends Rust’ concert interrupted by the cops because of complainys about the ‘noise’?

Nikos Houzet, drummer ‘Eliottt Ness’

I have memories of Damien ‘A.F.R.’ singing through the kick-drum microphone when they played. The vocal microphone ended up getting smashed with all the people climbing the scene. Fantastic show and great guys!

I think Joakim did stand in guitar for Olle at the ‘Children Of Fall’. Not 100% sure though. He got a nasty infection on his leg after doing a huge tattoo while we were on tour. I think he had to cancel Ieper because of that and go home?

Gunnar Forsman, ‘Leiah’ drummer

Yes, it’s true that I had a medical condition that sent me straight back to Sweden and into hospital. It was actually a really bad tattoo infection But I don’t think the band cancelled any shows, the guys from ‘Leiah’ filled in for me when I went home…

Olle ‘Hård’ Johansson, ‘Children Of Fall’ guitarist

Ieper was an absolute blast. It was built up in my mind from all the stories I heard from our friends in ‘Culture’ / ‘Morning Again’ / ‘As Friends Rust’ and when we got there it certainly did not disappoint. New/old friends, bands from all over the world and a great atmosphere both at the fest and in the city made Ieperfest a fantastic experience. One of my favorite things about the fest was the fact that there were so many bands from different parts of the world and how welcome everyone was made to feel. Our Belgium shows were some of my favorite of the tour due to the fantastic crowds that came out. Our Ieperfest crowd was among one of my favourite of my career due to the fact that they were so patient with us. We had no idea what we were doing as we had never played on a stage that big before. Add to that technical difficulties, rain and a non-English speaking crowd, and you get a potential recipe for disaster. We got the exact opposite and it was awesome. Our Ieperfest set also doubled as our CD release show for our second offering from Genet recs. If not for Bruno having faith in a bunch of kids from Florida, we never would have been there. That European tour was one of the best experiences of my life and kicking the whole thing off at Ieper was incredible.

The Swallow The Gods line-up was Larry, Louie and myself. Ruben and Andy had moved on at that point. The European tour was with Dani on vocals, a guy from Spain who came to Gainesville in early 2000. He hung out with us until his visa ran out and he had to go home. He played a few shows with us in the States but he went back to Spain a few months before the tour. We met up with him in Gent at the start of the tour and we played as a 4 piece.

Tony DePaolo, bassist of ‘Standing Tall’

‘Children Of Fall’ belonged to the Swedish emo-hardcore scene but played bone-hard live… One lump of passion. They became real friends and I drew the cover of their CD. ‘As Friends Rust’ was…a party on stage; poppy up-tempo hardcore with one of the best frontmen of that era (Damien Moyal). Awesome… Good time!

Kristof Mondy

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

additions wellcome!…

More on this concert: 94-01-08 Growing Concern – Congress – Blindfold – Shortsight

Here’s a series of photographs taken and donated by Jean-Paul Frijns:

(also present: Chantal Collard, Jan ‘UJ’ Vandekerckhove, Joeri Hoste, Vik Bulik, Jeroen Lauwers, Dominiek Denolf, Bart Van Mulders, Peter Hoeren, Chris Van Dornick, Rob Franssen, Illona Stephan, Nick Royles, Nico Peeters, An Caers, Stef Goos, etc.)

BLINDFOLD

SHORTSIGHT

More on this concert: 93-06-13 Bloodline – Transcend – Schizma – Spirit Of Youth – Wheel Of Progress

Here’s a series of photographs taken and donated by Jean-Paul Frijns:

(also present: Bart Van Mulders, Chris Van Dornick, Peter Hoeren, Michael Müller, Nick Royles, Dirk ‘Scum’, Stef Goos, Wim Vandekerckhove, etc.)

SPIRIT OF YOUTH

WHEEL OF PROGRESS

We (and probably the other bands too) were contacted by a German guy to play at the V.V. No-one local seemed to be involved. I think there were only about 5 paying visiters (the rest were band-members). I don’t think we played there with ‘Breathstealer’ [as Tim Debrabandere suggested]. This is the flyer of that ‘Legion’ show in the pub.

Mike Coens, ‘Legion’ guitarist

In 1997 ‘Born From Pain’ (Limburg, The Netherlands) recorded a demo with Rob Franssen (bass), Wouter Alers (drums), Servé Olieslagers (guitar) & Ché Snelting (vocals). Same line-up did the recordings for their Immortality EP in July ‘98. The next time they were on was 2000-08-19.

‘Surface’, from the Ruhrpott-area, played metal-core. The band was Frank Knöfler (drums), Sven Pust (bass), Thorsten Kleine-Hegermann (guitar), Boris Pracht (guitar; later in ‘Caliban’) and Sammy Eftekhari (vocals). They did 2 albums on Mad Mob recs: To Millenium…And Beyond (’97) & Shadows Cast By The Light Of The World (’99). They played the fest on 99-08-20.

‘Anticipation’ (Germany) had a CD out (entitled Rude) on the German metal-label MDD (run by Markus Rösner).

‘Legion’ (Jabbeke/Knokke/Brugge, Belgium) were Maarten Berkers (bass), Mike Coens (guitar), Wim Jacobs (vocals; later ‘Blood Redemption’, ‘Crimson Falls’) & Frederic ‘Fre’ (DJ Flameboy) Flameygh (drums; ex ‘Burn Fight’, also briefly in ‘Vitality’). The band played typical H8000 style metalcore (“more deathmetal than hardcore”, references to ‘Deformity’). They did a (self-titled) demo (98) and released a mCD (Embedded In Darkness) on the British label Days Of Fury in 1999. The latter was with Dieter ‘Minx’ Meyns (later ‘Flatcat’) playing second guitar, and ‘Wulf’ (Kristof Dewulf) of ‘Deformity’ doing back-up vocals.

‘Legion’ (source unknown)

No idea about the Belgian ‘Conspiracy’…

‘Breathstealer’ was Davy De Schrooder (guitar; Distract zine; later vocals for ‘Disengage’ & ‘Maudlin’), Tim Debrabandere (guitar; later ‘Severance’), Maarten Berkers (bass; later ‘Disengage’), Mike Coens (drums) & Ken(ny) Jones (vocals; R.I.P.). They had a demo out in ’98.

Brob

I thought ‘Breathstealer’ and ‘Legion’ played together at the Vort’n Vis (the pub, not the festival) in 1998.

Tim Debrabandere, ‘Breathstealer’

additions wellcome!…

Intro: 98-09-18&19 10^th Leedfestival

‘King Creole’ (from Deinze) was the band my mate Frederik ‘Fré’ Danneels (who ran Bezoumny distribution and was part of our Newland collective) played bass in. The others were ‘Zimmerman’ Pieter Teirlinck (vocals), Bram Walgraeve (guitar; ex ‘Sincerity’) and Frederick De Vogelaere (drums; ex ‘Sincerity’).

‘Charlie Don’t Surf’, from Aarschot/Leuven, was Kurt De Bont (drums), Roberto Gasparini (bass), Gert Goris (vocals; gert-kleinkunst.be), Kurt Van Asselberghs (guitar) and Philippe Anthonis (guitar). That year their 7” Six Songs To Die For came out (co-released by Funtime recs, Kurt’s label Hageland Strikes Back, Filth-Ear distribution). The year after there was a split-CD (with ‘End Of Ernie’, Funtime recs & Hageland Strikes Back). Earlier that year they had already played the benefit for Dirk Van Alboom (guitarist of ‘Time Out’)’s wife and kid (98-02-13).

The band ‘Lieselotte’ did a tape (titled Pakita M.S.) in ’98, a split-LP with ‘Bagger’ (with some people of ‘Viktor’s Hoffnarren’) in 1999 and had 2 tracks on the Swiss Punk Benefit LP (Romp productions 2000). They were: Pipo (drums), Riket (guitar), Rob (bass & vocals) and Kroll (vocals). ‘Lieselotte’ were from Genève (active in the autonomous cultural centre L’Usine) and played “grind with a touch of death-metal and sludge”. They sung English, French and Spanish lyrics.

‘Money Drug’ had been the only band that played on the day that Dirk of ‘Tme Out’ died on the V.V’s stage (97-09-19). They were from Gdansk (Poland), played crust/grind and shared some members with ‘Filth Of Mankind’ (who played the day after this (98-09-19). The band consisted of vocalists Filip ‘Kalka’ Kalkowski (nowadays graphic artist) & Selim (replacing Paweł ‘Balon’ Szymański), Miłosz Gassan (drums; nowadays in ‘Morne’) and Sławomir ‘Młody’ Białecki (bass). Maciej Kowalski played guitar but (according the F.O.M. website) he wasn’t present here. ‘M.D.’ had a split-7” with ‘Wind Of Pain’ (Finland) out on Scream recs (’95) and 2 live tapes (’96 & ’97).

‘Hellfiller’ was actually ‘Holefiller’ (97-02-28 & 97-12-26) with the addition of Billy’s electronics: slow, dark, doom-metal mixed with industrial parts. Sometimes they performed as a trio producing industrial noise, then they call themselves ‘Hellfiller’. ‘Holefiller’ was with ‘Leffe’ (ex ‘Chronic Disease’, etc.) on guitar. Drummer was David Stubbe (ex ‘Neuthrone’), bassist Karel Busschop.

Not sure if the local ‘Hellcorn’ (see 98-04-18) played aswell?

Brob

I definitely didn’t play this one… I ripped the ligaments of my ankle during soccer…

Kurt Van Asselberghs; ‘Charlie Don’t Surf’ guitarist

After ‘Holefiller’ quit, David & Karel went on to play in ‘The Plague Of Gentlemen’. Karel mentioned that they had “kicked those crusties out”. A lie… Billy and I left because we felt like we were appendages to the others.

‘Leffe’

We were very proud that Michael invited us to play. It was stressy to get there on time, being a Friday-evening. We had 2 rehearsal-spaces at that time and Pieter was waiting at the wrong one. No cell-phones then. I got pretty pissed and the atmosphere was not optimal, but that blew over. When we got there eventually I was probably so nervous, on the verge of fainting, that I wasn’t very conscious about anything…

Fré Danneels, ‘King Creole’ bassist

We played in the pub. I didn’t wear my glasses so didn’t see anything. In those days we also still smoked on stage.

Pieter Teirlinck, ‘King Creole’ singer

Since ‘Money Drug’ didn’t release any records/tapes when I was in the band, my name isn’t anywhere. I replaced Paweł who sang for up until ‘97 (he played drums in ‘F.O.M.’)

Selim

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

“thank you for the beers”

“that’s life”

additions wellcome!…

This one was announced as a presentation for the new ‘Spineless’ album (A Talk Between Me And The Stars), released by SoberMind recs (Hans Verbeke)… but Roland Frey might have taken care of some of the organisation… Their Painfields CD had also been wellcomed with a release-party (97-06-27)

‘Canvas’, a noiseHCdeathmetal band from Leeds, were Andy Sutcliffe (guitar), Dan Kearns (drums), Gareth ‘Gaz’ Brown (bass), John Sutcliffe (vocals) and Karl Fieldhouse (guitar; later ‘Born From Pain’). They did 2 split-EPs in 1999 – with ‘John Holmes’ (on Devil Rock) & with ‘Hard To Swallow’ ‎(Contrition recs), and 2 albums on Household Name recs: a self-titled one (‘98) & Lost In Rock (2000). The music of the latter was described as “psychedelic rock/metal with electronics, synthesizers, effects, soundscapes; an unpredictable musical experience”.

‘Arkangel’ were/are a metalcore band from Brussels. The line-up in the beginning was Baldur Vilmurdarsson (vocals), David Vande Zande (drums), Numa (guitar) and Vince(nt) Messeuw (bass; ex ‘Out For Blood’; later replaced by Mehdi Thepegnier). Guitarists Julien Chanut & Michel Kirby (ex ‘Mental Disturbance’ & ‘Deviate’) would join after the turn of the century. Alain Herszaft did a miniCD (Prayers Upon Deaf Ears) on his label Released Power Productions (’98) and their LP Dead Man Walking would appear on GoodLife recs (’99). They were invited to play on the fest the next year (99-08).

‘Spineless’ (from Kortrijk) played their first gig at the Vort’n Vis on the fest in August ’96 and came back a few times. They were Kristof Mondy (bass; Yoda zine; later ‘AmenRa’), Colin H. Van Eeckhout (vocals; later ‘AmenRa’), Pedro ‘Fifi’ Fioen (guitar; also ‘Congress’), Mathieu Vandekerckhove (guitar; replaced Koen Sandra in ‘97; later ‘AmenRa’) and Stefaan Buyse (drums). They played brutal sXe H8000 metal-core. After their initial demo (’96) they did the Painfields 7” (‘97) and the A Talk Between Me And The Stars album (‘98) – an album inspired by their “near-dead-experience’ (car-crash on tour) – for Sober Mind recs.

‘Belief’ (Liège) wasn’t on the poster but the V.V. notes mention them playing. This was a metalcore band with – at that time – Pierre Boudry (vocals), Tito ‘Fury’ (guitar; vocalist of ‘Surge Of Fury’), Jef(f) Pauly (drums) & Ange Koetz (bass).

The ‘Sektor’ line-up had changed by then (since early ’98)… ‘Lenny’ had taken over vocals from Jeroen Therry. Wesley Bral replaced Piet Cardoen. A guy named Ringo played bass (later ‘Wulf’ Kristof Dewulf of ‘Deformity’). Drummer Bert Guillemont (also ‘Liar’) and guitarist Vadim Vandekerckhove stayed put.

‘Natural Order’ had already played here (97-10-12). They were a vegan sXe hardcore / hardline band (“violent dancers and pro-life” as someone described them once) with Roland, the brother of Cindy Frey (Hans’ girlfriend at that time) singing, hence their track on Animal Truth’s Animal Rights Benefit Sampler (out on Sober Mind recs in ‘98). The others were guitarists Pedro Fioen (also ‘Spineless’) & ‘Lenny’ Wouter Cael (also ‘Sektor’), bassist Clovis ‘Vez’ Segers (also ‘Congress’) and the drummer of ‘Spineless’ (Stefaan Buyse), I believe.

‘Outcast’ (from the Gullegem/Kortrijk area) started out as “a heavy NY-styled mosh-band”. Also dubbed as “deathcore” or “tuff guy hardcore death-metal mosh” (in 1997). They used to be an all straight-edge band. Their guitar-player also played bass in ‘Sektor’ (Wesley Bral – also played the bass in ‘Strong Individual’, together with ‘Sektor’s Lenny & Bert, and Outcast’ vocalist Gerrit). I believe their line-up here was Tim Vanglabeke & Wesley Bral (guitar), Nick Vanglabeke (drums), Nico Degroote (bass) and Gerrit ‘Gerre’ Van Horebeek (vocals; quit halfway ’99; replaced by Pieter Vanham). Read Tim’s comment below. They also played the V.V. on 2000-09-16.

Brob

‘Outcast’s first line-up was with Nico Degroote op bass (also played with us in ‘Whatever It Takes’). The vocalist and bassist changed a few times and we also had a couple of 2nd guitarists. Our first Vort’n Vis “show” was in the rehearsal-space upstairs, with ‘D.S.A’ & ‘Spineless’. In ‘98 this had to be one of our first shows with Wesley. Gerrit quit halfway ’99; later Pieter Vanham did vocals…

The line-up here was Tim Vanglabeke (guitar), Nick Vanglabeke (drums), Nico Degroote (bass) and Gerrit Hannicar (vocals). Wesley joined later as 2nd guitarist.

‘Outcast’ original line-up (courtesy of Tim V.)

We were the first band in the H8000 area that played slow slam HC-style… We were, because of circumstances, an sXe band: Gerrit and myself used dope when were younger and decided to become clean. So we ended up with SoberMind but a few months later we already dropped the X’s and our record was never released. We did a second demo instead.

‘Natural Order’ started after they’d seen us play in Kortrijk. The slow-paced bands emerged like mushrooms. We already had ‘Sightless’ in ‘95, later ‘Ignorance’, ‘Stronghold’ and that became ‘Outcast’. I also played in ‘Strong Individual’…

Tim Vanglabeke

I only played one show with ‘Outcast’… Not this one here…

Gerrit Van Horebeek

Jeroen was in the band until end ’98. We still did a 97-98 winter-tour with him Jeroen. The people in the guestbook were myself, Wesley, Vadim, Bert & Ringo (don’t know his full name)…

Wouter Cael, ‘Sektor’

I used to drive bands around in ‘Doom’s van. I drove the band ‘Canvas’ from Leeds round Europe. They played a straight-edge gig at the Vort’n Vis. I felt very intimidated and fucking hated all that hardline shit. I couldn’t believe the stupid violent karate dancing. Some young girl got accidentally kicked in the face and they all thought it was hilarious. Needless to say I sat outside for most of it and got drunk on lovely Belgian beer.

Brian Talbot

We played in Belgium a couple of times with ‘Canvas’. [Brob: I only know of GoodLife Fest 98-12-31] My memory is fuzzy, to say the least…

Karl Fieldhouse

We played the V.V. a number of times.The first time there we were really impressed with how the scene was compared to the UK. There were some really strong Belgian bands at the time. We nearly recorded something for GoodLife but for some reason it all fell through… After a while we became a bit more technical but the kids weren’t that into it as they all just wanted to do that generic hardcore dancing and show-off pit-moves that I believe still goes on today… As time went on the UK scene got a lot better and the bands were much more varied and by the time we were ready to come back over to play one last V.V. show, we broke up! Happy memories of watching ‘Regression’ and ‘Convinced’ and ‘Deformity’ etc. in the sun. Got to meet and hang out with some really awesome people.

John Sutcliffe, ‘Canvas’

We had a second guitar-player later… I just remember ‘Arkangel’ was playing that show; for the rest it’s too long ago, just that it was a sunny Sunday.

Tito ‘Fury’

excerpt from the V.V. guestbook:

“windmills are fun; a boot in your face aswell”

additions wellcome!…

No idea if this was an actual gig at the Vort’n Vis… The only indication is the entry in the guestbook below… But the date mentioned is a Wednesday (which would be pretty unusual for a gig at the V.V.)…

‘As Usual’ was a local band that had a couple of V.V. shitworkers among their ranks. They’d done a few shows here already (93-09-18 & 94-03-05). The band consisted of Frederick Wyckaert (drums), Dimitri ‘Dimi’ Loones (vocals), ‘Boeze’/‘Booze’ Johan ‘Yoan’ Seys (vocals), Danny Suffys (bass) and Michael Maes (guitar). The latter 3 later formed ‘Carcer Molochi’.

Before this they had “experimented” under the name ‘Suffocating Emotions’, covering other HC/punk bands (‘Zero Positive’, ‘Nations On Fire’). ‘As Usual’ started in 1991. In an interview they stated ‘Sedition’ and ‘No More’ as influences… Around the end of ’93 they recorded a first demo (rehearsal; no mention of ‘Boeze’ yet) and they did a split-tape with ‘Hiatus’ (distributed by Olivier Hogie from Toulouse). They were also on the compilation-tape Possessed By Death (put out by Frederic Driessens in 1993).

So there’s this clipping from the guestbook but no indications to other bands playing. Perhaps the band was rehearsing? It was mid-summer and there were probably no concerts at the V.V. around that time, even though there’s mention of “gig”? Or they were being hosts for the UK band ‘Dirt’ that was doing a few shows in the neigbourhood)? (29 jul ’94 @ ‘De Kelk’, Brugge & 30 jul ’94 @ ‘Jeugdhuis’, Beverlo) ‘Yoan’ is referring to a ride to the latter…

Brob

According to me ‘As Usual’ didn’t exist anymore by then; but I can be wrong, my memory might play tricks on me…

Michael Maes

excerpt from the V.V. guestbook:

additions wellcome!…

This was a concert organised by Frederic Driessens, a fan of black/death/doom metal.

Davy ‘nachtthoth’ Bauwen (co-organiser of the Ieperfest, vocalist of ‘Edgecrusher’)

‘Distress’ was the D-beat band (Alkmaar, NL) of ‘Boycot’-members Billy (here on drums) & Lennaert Roomer (guitar/vocals; was also in bands such as ‘Wartorn’ & ‘Solstice’ with Rich Militia), and bassist John P. ‘JP’ Kuiper (Billy’s brother). They did a self-titled 7” and 3 splits: with ‘Karma’ (on Tim Leten’s label Filth-Ear, ’96), with ‘Boycot (10”, ’97) and with ‘Mind’ (Resuscitate recs, ’98). The V.V. notes don’t metion the band so not enirely sure if they actually played this one but they were announced again on 99-09-11…

‘Sufficide’ was a death-metal trio from Amiens (France): Guillaume Larnicol (bass/vocals), François Bonet (guitar) & Marc Lechifflart (drums). They self-released 3 tapes between ’93 & ’96: Cranial Cremation‎, Putrescent Growth & Material Thrown Out.

‘Suppository’ was a grindcore band from Dutch Limburg. Boris ‘Bastard’ Cornelissen (vocals), Max ‘Goulash’ Duys (bass), Rutger ‘Ragout’ Noij (drums) and René (guitar) recorded their first efforts in March ‘97 (released on a split-7” with the Greek ‘Rakitis’ in ’98). The same year there was a CD with ‘Agathocles’ where Matty replaced René on guitar. More releases followed… They also did a German tour that year with ‘Cornucopia’.

‘Dead Infection’ was a grindcore band from Białystok (Poland). The songs on the split-tape with ‘Infected Pussy’ ‎- entitled Pornogore Live – were recorded at this gig. Playing here were ‘Cyjan’ Sławomir Cywoniuk (drums), ‘Tocha’ Tomasz Naliwajko (bass), ‘Mały’ Adam Andrzejczuk (guitar) and Jaro (vocals).

‘Kadath’ was a German grindcore/death-metal band from Aachen (with a Belgian drummer): Erling Aggebo. The others were Holger Friedenberger (vocals), Marc Leclerc (bass) & Markus ‘Mockel’ Mouhlen (guitar). They did a split-7” with ‘Immured’ (96), Twisted Tales Of Gruesome Fates EP (97) and a split-7” with ‘Evoke’.

Brob

Played there several times… Always great! We once got into an accident driving down there. The day with ‘Dead Infection’…

Boris Cornelissen, ‘Suppository’ vocalist

We were there to see ‘Dead Infection’…

Seb, ‘Sublime Cadaveric Decomposition’

I have quite some photographic material (92-97): I was always in the background shooting pics. I also have some video-material of Vort’n Vis shows. But I lack the time to get it sorted…

Frederic Driessens

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

additions wellcome!…

The V.V. notes mentioned that ‘Lorre’ (Laurent Peene) & ‘Sientje’ (Nico Sinnaeve) were on bar-duties that day. The bands were mostly, if not all, locals. It probably wasn’t an announced gig (because there’s no other traces) but more like a get-together…

‘Lifecycle’ (‘new-school’ HC – H8000 but not with that typical sound, Ieper/Kortijk region) was one of the ‘house-bands’ of the V.V. in that periode (97-06-27, 97-07-12, 97-08-17, may ’98-05-10). The line-up: Sofie Vantomme (vocals; co-founder Vincent Merveillie soon went on to sing for ‘Spirit Of Youth’), Karel Deweerdt (guitar), Steve Noyelle (guitar), Jan Volckaert (drummer of ‘Resist The Pain’; was stand-in a few times for Jan ‘Relle’ Verhelst ex ‘Convict’) and Jurgen Degryse (bass; later there were a few others). In a letter from May ’98, Sofie mentions that their bassist Jurgen Degryse had quit the band. His last show was in that month. He was replaced by Maarten Kinet (who later played for ‘AmenRa’)… Later the band had a few more changes…

‘Sorehead’ (from Ieper) played the V.V. a bunch of times (see: 97-06-27, 97-07-12, 97-10-25, 97-12-26, 98-05-10). They did a 5-track demo in 1997. Laurent ‘Lorre’ Peene did vocals; the others were Dries Verclyte (bass), Pieter Derycke (drums), Pieter Desmyter (guitar) and Jan Lazeure (guitar). ‘Lorre’ died in 2003.

‘D.S.A.’ (Ieper area) – old-school NY Hardcore – was the band of Nico ‘Sientje’ Sinnaeve (drums; later ‘Retaliate’), Frederik Vanhee (bass; later ‘Retaliate’), Davy Verhoye (R.I.P.)/Maarten Verschaeve (vocals) and a guy called Pieter-Jan (Vandenberghe?; guitar)… Have a look at 97-06-27, 97-07-12, 97-10-25, 97-12-26, 98-08-16 for their other V.V. shows

‘Striker’ (H8000 metalcore) was a band that Laurent ‘Lorre’ Peene joined but he didn’t sing here fro them yet… The rest of the line-up: ‘Gerre’ Gerald Goedhart (guitar; later guitarist of ‘Core of Anger’), ‘Tomme’ Tom Bordeaux (guitar), PJ Vandamme (bass; later guitarist of ‘Retaliate’ & ‘Outcast’) & David ‘Terre’ Termote (drums). They released a demo entitled High Hopes For Nothing in 1999. Check also 99-11-27 & 2000-09-16.

‘Ignominy’ was a vegan straight-edge band; their guitarist Ward Dufraimont went on to play for ‘Firestone’. The others in the band were Ward Cecat (bass), Wouter Debonnet (drums; also ‘Rhymes Of Destruction’), ‘Jakke’ Jacob Vanluchene (guitar) & David Derammelaere (vocals). They recorded a demo (A Cry For Justice) early ’98.

‘Kalashnikov’ (metalcore from Diksmuide, so also H8000) would be back at the V.V. on 99-11-27 & 2000-09-16. The band was Thijs Plovie (guitar), Dave Willaert (bass), Tom Verheecke (vocals) & Bart Gouwy (drums).

‘Powers Of Discipline’ had the bassist of ‘Minotaur’ and ‘Archao’ in their ranks.

‘Inside’ was an emo band linked with people from the first line-up of ‘Minotaur’

Brob

I can remember vaguely that we did this gig with the bands but nothing more…really.

Gerald Goedhart

I recall we did a ‘Merauder’ cover: the vocalist at the time sang the lyrics of the verse and chorus the other way round and people came up to me after the show saying that the new song resembled ‘Merauder’ a lot. (smile) It was the day we stole ‘Sorehead’s singer.  Before him we tried out some local guys: the first one was in ‘Evangelist’ [Frederik ‘Zwartn’ Deswarte], the second one couldn’t keep rhythm and became our roadie [Vincent Degryse]. ‘Lorre’ joined by the end of ’98: we played the old set a few times with him and then restarted with new tracks. He was one the demo.

PJ Vandamme

We always said ‘D.S.A.’ was short for ‘Download Society Agression’ but in fact it was more like ‘Dikke Stront Affaire’ [“a huge load of crap”] from the very beginning. ‘Sien’ and myself started ‘Edgecrusher’ to take a totally different direction (thrash-metal). ‘Retaliate was supposed to be a side-project; ‘Edgecrusher’ came earlier.

Freddy Vanhee

I only remember I liked ‘Striker’.

Wouter Debonnet

I remembered little of that show but a fellow band-member gave me some info. The bands were all just starting out; it was a matinee type of thing in the afternoon (so hardly any people whowed up – the same day there was a mega-cool show in Wevelgem with ‘Sektor’, ‘Vitality’, ‘Arkangel’, etc.), organised by ‘Schmitters’ [Stijn Desmyter], in the Vort’n Vis pub. We played with our original line-up: Wouter, Jacob, Ward, David & myself.

Ward Cecat

additions wellcome!…

Second day of the 1999 Leed festival – “a meeting of grind, HC, punk, crust & noise” – organised by Frederic Driessens.

The day before (99-09-10) ‘Yacøpsae’ played and their guitarist ‘Stoffel’ summed up the bands that played here: ‘LoggerHead’, ‘Container Crusties From Hell’, ‘Bloodsuckers’, ‘Disbeer’, ‘Distress’, ‘Suppository’ & ‘Insult’. ‘LoggerHead’ was supposed to play the first day but because they couldn’t make it so they gigged the following day.

Dave ‘Opoespook’ (‘Container Crusties From Hell’ drummer) insists that they never played the Vort’n Vis…

There was a third day announced (with sXe bands) but there’s no indications that this actually happened…

‘Insult’, from Dutch Limburg, played powerviolence/fastcore (on the flyer compared with ‘Infest’). They were ‘Grizzly’ Rob Herraets (guitar), Loek(ie) Peeters (bass), Rob Nabbe (drums/vocals; also vocals for ‘Mallorn’) and ‘El Sancho’ Willem-Jan ‘Edge’ Kneepkens (guitar; also ‘Mallorn’). ‘Scumbag Duke’ screamed on the split-7” with ‘B.S.E. (recorded summer of ’99). Most of their vinyl was released on Roy Meijnen (Slaves Of Mainstream zine)’s Balowski recs.

‘BloodSuckers’ had played at the V.V. before (97-05-18). They were from Wallony (Arlon area, in the Belgian province of Luxembourg) and played grind/crust. The guys in the band were Pierre Marchal (drums), Chris(tophe) Pels (guitar), Gregory Pels (bass) and Michael Thiry (vocals). They had a few tapes out, one of which was a split-tape with a thrash/metal-HC band with the same name from Slovenia. In 2001 ‘Kisaac’ (Isaac Roelens; later drummer for ‘MatrakAttak’) did a 3-way split CD with his band ‘Bob’s Bizarre Bazaar’ and ‘Angry Minded’ on his label Anvil Of Fury… In 2000 guitarist Stany Lamock (‘LoggerHead’) joined the band…

‘LoggerHead’ (described as “fast grind/mincecore”) were from the French-speaking part of Belgium (Fauvillers). They had done a split-tape and were featured on a couple of compilations (e.g. Music For The Dead Masses, on the French label Noise Solution recs)… Later there was a split-CD with the Japanese ‘Unholy Grave’ (on Romain Trocherie’s label Revolution recs). The band consisted of Stany ‘Lamince’ Lamock (guitar/vocals), Anne-So(phie) (guitar) & ‘Boule’ (drums/vocals).

‘Disbeer’ (Auch, France) also played at the Vort’n Vis already (on 97-10-28). This crusty metal-punk outfit consisted of Fred ‘Utopia’ Jourdan ‘the bomber’ (drums; ex ‘Enola Gay’), ‘the hammer’ (bass) and Michel Cebrian ‘the motherfucker’ (guitar/vocals; ex ‘Enola Gay’, also Reality Of War zine). In 1998 they had 2 releases out: Panx recs (from Toulouse) put out the Beer Drinkers & Hellraisers LP and Olivier Lacoste (Murder recs from Bordeaux) did a picture-EP entitled The Frost.

On their first release (2000) – a selftitled EP – ‘Sickness’ (a crust-punk band from Auch, France) were ‘Lolo’ Cyril Prieto (bass; ex ‘Enola Gay’), ‘Pit’ (drums; ex ‘Vomit Yourself’; R.I.P.), ‘Murdock’ (guitar) & ‘P.P.’ (vocals). They also did a demo in ‘98… At some timepoint Anne-Gaelle Manceau (bassist of ‘Enola Gay’ on 95-11-05) was also in the band (vocals) & before Greg Dupart played bass (when Cyril played guitar).

‘Distress’ (Alkmaar, The Netherlands) also had a previous passage at the V.V. (97-05-31). The band (D-beat style) at that time consisted of ‘Lucky’ (drums; replacing Bill ‘Boycot’) & Lennaert Roomer (guitar/vocals; was also in ‘Boycot’ and bands such as ‘Wartorn’ & ‘Solstice’ with Rich Militia), and bassist John-Peter ‘JP’ Kuiper (Billy’s brother). They did a self-titled 7” and 3 splits: with ‘Karma’ (on Tim Leten’s label Filth-Ear, ’96), with ‘Boycot (10”, ‘97) and with ‘Mind’ (Resuscitate recs, ‘98).

‘Suppository’ (Dutch Limburg) had been invited to the Vort’n Vis twice already: 97-05-31 & 97-10-04. Boris ‘Bastard’ Cornelissen (vocals), Max ‘Goulash’ Duys (bass), Rutger ‘Ragout’ Noij (drums) and René (guitar; later Robin de Boer) played grindcore. They had recorded their first efforts in March ‘97 (released on a split-7” with the Greek ‘Rakitis’ in ‘98). The same year there was a CD with ‘Agathocles’ where Matty replaced René on guitar. More releases followed… They also did a German tour that year with ‘Cornucopia’.

‘Container Crusties From Hell’ were the band of Dave ‘Opoespook’ (drums/vocals) & Ronan Gallou (guitar/vocals); Pepijn van der Geld (also in ‘Mihoen’) played bass. Their music was fast grindy/thrashy crust-core with anarchist lyrics in English and French. I used to correspond with Dave: he ran the Paria Collective and was involved with Anarchist Black Cross in Utrecht. He also booked bands at the Pariaschool squat in Veldhoven (The Netherlands). Only Ronan was from Dijon (France). In 2000 Maloka (punk collective from Dijon) released a split-7” with ‘Mihoen’. After the turn of the century Maloka also put out a benefit-LP the band did for the Food Not Bombs chapter in the Philippines. Plus they did a track for the album Au Pied Du Mur (Anarchist Black Cross benefit-compilation, Maloka 2001). There’s also a demo and a live-tape (recorded in the Czech Republic) out there.

Brob

This gig ‘Distress’ did in ‘99 was already with ‘Lucky’, the drummer after me…

Bill ‘Boycot’ Kuiper

I’m not sure if we actually played this gig. I know we had to cancel a few concerts but not why. It could’ve been that Bill had wuit and we had to find another drummer… By the way ‘Lucky’ is DJ at Baroeg in Rotterdam [venue for “alternative” music]…

Lennaert Roomer

After ‘Vomit Yourself’ [95-02-11], I played drums in ‘Sickness’ and also bass in ‘Ultimate Disorder’.

‘Pit’

In ‘99 I didn’t play for ‘Sickness’ anymore… Cyril Prieto played bass at that time.

Greg Dupart

I wasn’t in ‘Sickness’ anymore…at least I don’t think so…

Anne-Gaelle Manceau

An incredible evening with lots of alcohol… It was the eraly days of ‘Sickness’, with ‘P.P.’ singing.

Cyril Prieto

Pepijn ‘Mihoen’ lives in the U.S. nowadays…

Michael Kopijn

I believe us, ‘Suppository’ & ‘Distress’ were the only dutchies, can’t recall ‘C.C.F.H.’… We slept on the beach afterwards [Ieper’s not on the coast though], fucking cold…

Rob Nabbe

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

additions wellcome!…

An almost forgotten gig with local ‘bands’…

The second gig of ‘Dreft’ here (a year after 89-07-09) – from the Izegem-Kortrijk area. Here in their grindcore phase (they started in ’85 but things got ‘serious’ in around ’88); with Dominik ‘Nolf’ Denolf (vocals), Pascal ‘Scalle’ Desplancke (vocals), Sammy Windels (guitar), Kris ‘Mosh(terd)’ Maes (bass) & Bernard ‘Narre’ Demeulenaere (drums). The death-metal sound came later when Erwin De Vriendt took over the guitar (without ‘Nolf’ & ‘Scalle’; ’88-’92), and in an even later stage ‘U.J.’ played bass and ‘Josh’ guitar ’92-’93?). Their demo Butchered was recorded September 1991 with Kris doing vocals…

‘C.O.D.A.’ (‘Co-operation Of Death Alcoholics’) was the band of Andy ‘Wanky’ Debaere (growls). There were two vocalists (Benny & Swatn), a drummer (another Andy) and a bassist, Patrick Foré – no guitarist. They were from the Roeselare/Torhout area and surroundings. There’s a demo from 1989 entitled Growing A Moustache Isn’t Hardcore!? with 30+ tracks (labeled “noise-thrash”).

Brob

K.U.N.T. (‘Krisis Und Neurosis Theater’) was a figment of Dieter [Roelstraete]. He had lyrics and wanted to do something in the vein of ‘ Einsturzende Neubauten’, proto-noise with costumes and tribal drums. If I remember well ‘K.U.N.T.’ was myself, Fabrice Baclet, Dieter Roelstraete, Jeroen Vanhandsame and Philippe Dassonville [‘Fluppe the Hardrocker’]. We performed once together with a little project that Jeroen ‘nationsonfire’ [Lauwers] had: “The Jeroen Machine” – a benefit for god-kows-what. One hand-written poster, nothing more. Just a racket: everyone ‘played’ a character from Dieter’s lyrics; the idea of what later would become ‘Anus Mundi’ – Dieter’s little artist-club in Gent.

David Stubbe

We only did 2 gigs with ‘K.U.N.T.’, At First I was bassist, then drummer… We didn’t have songs; we did pure jam-sessions. Rather wild parties…

Philippe Dassonville

I think David Stubbe made a few too many wrong combinations of alcohol, mushrooms and other chemical substances in his life…

Jeroen Lauwers

‘K.U.N.T.’, ai, that was for fun really, just as that tape with 1001 ‘songs’ that David and I made under the moniker ‘Anal Disobedience’. Can’t believe we ever played live…

Dieter Roelstraete

‘C.O.D.A.’ was called ‘Chronic Death’ at first and had a guitarist.

Ben Adams

Benny was thrown of the band because of fascist ideas. Then I joined… I don’t have any recollections of this gig but I might’ve been there…

Andy Debaere

Half a year after their previous appearance (92-05-02) Bristol-based ‘Nessun Dorma’ were back already. In Oct 1991 their Chew It Over LP was released on Mike Foster’s label M.C.R. so they were promoting that extensively… The band was Seamus Cummins (bass), Paul Perry (vocals), Phil (drums) and Ju(lian) Newby & Tony ‘Tone’ (guitarists). They came a couple more times…

‘Bad Influence’ were supposed to be guiding Steve ‘Ignorant’ (ex ‘Crass’; real name Steve Williams) around on his puppet-show tour… But I can’t recall have seen him at the V.V. He came over with Stratford Mercenaries (98-03-29).

‘Bad Influence’s line-up changed quite a few times in the 90s. About a year after this, on 93-09-04, the baddies had Tim ‘Crow’ Shapland (ex ‘Zygote’) as bassist and Egbert ‘Eggy’ played guitar. On the New Age Witch Hunt LP – which was released in ’92 (recorded May/June) – it was Pat Delabie & Thomas Noppe.

‘Pleum’ (‘Pleûm’), a punk/HC band from the Rouen area (Normandy, France), were: Nico (bass), Ludo (guitar), Fred ‘Frédo’ Lachnowich (vocals) & Cyril(lo) (drums). They did a tape called Et ça Craint (D.I.Y.; 1989) and a CD Pue-La-Merde (1995) on a label from Poitiers, called On A Faim! They were also on a bunch of compilations (see discography).

Brob

My guess is that Steve had canceled last minute. We played with ‘Labie’ and Thomas then…

Holy Herwin

I don’t think I still played bass for ‘B.I.’ at that time…

Pat Labie

additions wellcome!…