I think it hasn’t been since Wâldrock 1994 that I went to an open air festival. But this second edition of Into the Grave was interesting enough to go back again to my former home town Leeuwarden. And it was held actually down-town on a former graveyard (hence the name) next to the leaning tower Oldenhove (like in Pisa). Some 3500 other folks seem to have go the idea that this would be a great little festival as well with an excellent line-up.The first band was Nom de Plume – a local band and they were have way through their set when I arrived.It’s a kind of screamo or something, which I don’t care much about at all.Second band were the German thrasher Dew-scented as ever a rather mediocre thrash band. Not bad, but nothing really interesting or refreshing.

So the festival got a bit of a slow start, but never mind that. Then there was Corrosion Of Conformity. I band I new only by name and were big some 20 years ago, had reformed in their classic lineup and were now touring. I guess I never missed much since their midpaced groovy thrashy whatever-they were metal couldn’t interest me that much.

Things got a lot better when Obscura Entered the stage. After the intro, they hurled their fast-paced technical death metal towards the audience. And they were tighter than last time I saw them. And a decent set list, though I missed songs of their first album.

A gig I had anticipated a lot was from UK resurrected NWOBHM band Hell. The album they released last year was one of the best of that year. And now they got some 45 minutes to play. And during that time they much overwhelmed me with a very tight set and a great show around it. All of them painted white – a prototype form of corpsepaint. And the singer started off wearing a crown of barbed wire on his had. During the gig he changed into a habit, a preacher outfit and one time came back covered in blood and with a cat o’nine tails. And besides all that the music, albeit nearly ancient (1980s) is still amazing and rather varied. And their singer is actually quite good. This certainly would be an awesome band to see in a smaller club, without the bright sunlight.

Then we got Grave. An old school death metal band I like a lot but that always seems to slightly disappoint live. I’m not sure why, but there seems to be something missing or a bit too routine. Anyway, they were announced to play the entire “Into The Grave” album – their debut. Well they started it off with Deformed and In Love of the debut but then they changed the plan. Okay so we got Day of Mourning off the debut as well, but then they skipped to a new song followed by Turning Black and You’ll never See. Another new song and tho more of the debut, of course the title track and Hating Live. They ended with another new song which turned out to be rather slow and pretty much killed the pace of the earlier songs. Their sound was a bit muddy, so all in all not their best gig but the music is still awesome. Although I’m not sure the new album is that good, judging on the songs they played. But I guess I’ll just have to wait a bit.

Enslaved is a band I haven’t followed anymore since their album “Eld” – after that they started to experiment more with Pink Floyd like elements. And on this festival they were co-headliner. I didn’t know any of the songs which were mostly midpaced, instead of the rather aggressive and fast songs of the earlier albums. So I thought they were actually quite dull, and least of all why the fuck do they play a Led Zeppelin cover. Instead they should have played some Loke or Fenris, or Eld.

So there was just one band left on the bill and that was no less than the mighty Bolt Thrower. This is their sole gig this year in the Netherlands and one of the few anyway. So excuses aplenty to attend this festival anyway regardless of other bands. In fact this turned out to be an average Bolt Thrower gig so that means that it was excellent. After the traditional intro from Battle of Britain sounded of the PA, they started with the classic “The IVth Crusade”. Followed by a shit load of classic tunes – not in the least the awesome “War Master”. The sound was nothing but amazing and the on-setting darkness improved the overall atmosphere. And the band seemed to enjoy themselves on stage facing headbanging, moshing and crowdsurfing crowd. After “Powder Burns” they returned for a four-song encore.

So a really good episode of a small outdoors festival with particularly Hell and Bolt Thrower living up to my expectations or even exceeding them. And as such worth the trip to Ljouwert.