Five bands toured through Europe under the moniker Power of Metal – all more or less power metal, hence the name. I’m normally not much interested in power metal, oh some early Helloween would be fine. But other than that, no thanx. But this toured featured no less than the recently re-united Psychotic Waltz. A progressive metal band from California who I had missed when they were active mostly in the nineties. So it was time to catch up and drive to Tilburg on this sunny Sunday afternoon.

The opening band was already playing for a while when I came in. This was the Finnish band Thaurorod and pretty much straight-up power metal. They were okay but not really my interested.

After a short time to change the stage around, the Danish lads from Mercenary came on stage. I had seen them before so I know more or less what to expect. But they had a couple line-up changes. This was more thrashy or death metalish power metal with some grunts and some clean vocals. I didn’t like them before and I still don’t like them.

Then it was time for Psychotic Waltz in their original line-up. This includes of course Brian McAlpin who is stuck to a wheelchair. It looks a bit strange on stage but nevertheless it never hurt his playing or so it seems. They opened with the amazing intro of their second album “Into the Everflow” called “Ashes”. Soundwise it was pretty much okay, a bit bass-heavy. Their complex, technical music was executed splendidly. They treated us with a 45 minute set covering all four albums. They included “Into the Everflow” which is one of my all time favourite songs and a whole deal of songs from their debut album. Buddy (now called Devon) missed a few notes here and there, I guess the long tour had taken some effect on his vocals, but nothing too bad. They promised us a new album and a return to the stage, hopefully as a headlining club tour that time so they can play longer. But this was already quite excellent.

Set list:

• Ashes
• Spiral Tower
• Haze One
• Into the Everflow
• Morbid
• Halo of Thorns
• Nothing
• I of the Storm

Then we got the US band Nevermore. A bit of a so-so band who I had seen more than 10 years ago. They didn’t impress me much then, as I can barely remember anything from that gig, except the drummer ruined a couple of drumsticks during the set and went to take a piss half way through one song. He didn’t do that this time. I didn’t care for their thrashy / groovy power metal which sounded quite flat and dull. Neither do I understand why people seem so impressed by the vocalist as he is quite generic.

Last band was Symphony X probably the most true power metal band on the tour, and they co-headlined. I had never heard them before – live or on album – so I didn’t really know what to expect. It turned out to include lots of cheesy sounding synths, wanky guitar leads, another not very impressive singer and otherwise rather boring as a whole. So I decided to leave after two songs and drive home.