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V-HAJD (GER), Crashtime (SWI)
Presented by Rockfact Music Club & IRON-T21
Rockfact Music Club, Münchenstein,  Switzerland – 18.09.2021
It's been almost a year since the last event of the association IRON-T21 took place at the Rockfact Music Club. Fortunately, the wait is over, because a first concert has been announced with the bands V-HAJD and Crashtime. A charge of old school metal for every traditionally minded headbanger and metallist who falls into joy at this kind of sound. Finding such music and seeing groups of this direction live in this day and age isn‘t as easy as it was back in the 80‘s. As long as physical concerts are possible, people should go and support the organizers and musicians. At 8 PM, you could enter the club after a Corona certificate control at the entrance. In the venue you could listen to traditional rock and metal from the speakers and prepare with a drink at the bar for the upcoming shows. Exactly at 9:15 PM
Crashtime from Olten were allowed to perform. The five-piece served a powerful, energetic power sound in the classic power metal style. Thereby also facets from the 80‘s and 90‘s appeared combined with modern influences. Singer Al's voice was convincing from A to Z and he put in his best to heat up the audience and at the same time giving them a lot of pleasure. The guitarists let their guitars speak for themselves and showed with solos and driving rhythms how it must sound to inspire the audience. A good opportunity, because the band recently released their latest album "Valley of the Kings". Al and bassist Schmidi shared the vocals in between and guitarists Barry and René had duels with each other. During the song "Howling Wolf" the audience had to celebrate wolf howling together with singer Al and thus give more depth to the live spectacle. Tempo changes followed and Al asked the audience to sing along with the verse "We Play Metal Every Night, We Play Metal Side By Side, We Are Metal Proud and Loud, We Are Crashtime Shout It Out" during "CT Metal" and held a board in the air for this, because teleprompters weren‘t available. This didn't work out badly and pleased the guys, who were on fire. You could find traces of NWOBHM legend Iron Maiden in their music, which was noticeable in the vocals and guitars and singer Al showed some nuances of Bruce Dickinson in between. After "King or Clown" the performance should‘ve been over. However, the audience liked the performance so much they wanted to hear an encore. Before that, the audience enjoyed a drum solo by Devil. Finally, the encore "No Pain No Gain" was played and rounded off the great performance of the old school metalheads from the canton of Solothurn. 55 minutes was enough to leave a good impression. Thank you very much, it was a pleasure to see and hear you. Hopefully they’ll return for more concerts to canton of Basle-Country. Setlist Crashtime Valley Intro Valley of the Kings Circle of Tyrants Howling Wolf Together Alone Today’s World Mirror Maze CT Metal King or Clown No Pain No Gain A short break occured and V-HAJD was on stage at 10:30 PM, because both bands shared the same backline. The Teutonic Swing Metal band from Lörrach was extremely looking forward to tonight and had already scored with stage decoration. "Good Luck In Hell" announced the gig and the symphatic singer Derek Rock presented himself to the audience with an aggressive voice. The stomping rhythm section around lead guitarist Harry Wilkens (ex-Destruction) and rhythm guitarist Jörn Wilkens provided a fat sound carpet with lots of melodies and harshness. Besides that, Harry shone with melodic guitar solos. With "Le Misantrophe" a song in French followed, which felt very special, because this is very rarely offered. After that it was switched back to English with "Gods Of The Nile". The songs were unique and contained elements of heavy, power and thrash metal as well as some progressive elements and borrowings from early Candlemass when Derek brought out his low register and showed a different side to heavy metal screams. It was a pleasure seeing him as he really put his foot down and smiled throughout the evening on stage. With the song "Hocus Pocus" a cover by the band Focus was played, which contained yodel vocals and was a surprise compared to the normal cover versions, which belong to the standard assortment. With "Freak Asylum" a new song was introduced, which was progressive but still catchy. With "Borderless Metal" Derek explained that this number reflects their origins, because three members have their roots in Germany, one member in Switzerland and he as the singer comes from nearby Alsace, France. A so-called heavy metal tri-border area. After "Hag Riding" and "Mockery" followed the announcement of the last song "Cannibal Greed". After that some members left the stage while the audience demanded an encore. Drummer Dirk Heidenreich came up with a drum solo and the other members returned to the stage. The audience was able to enjoy "Endless Horizon." The appearance was over and the band members said goodbye. 80 minutes of playing time with an independent mixture of different metal styles was enough to make a good impression. Setlist V-HAJD Good Luck In Hell I Don’t Need Face The Facts No Man’s Land Le Misanthrope Gods Of The Nile Hocus Pocus Hedonist Freak Asylum Borderless Metal Hag Riding Mockery Cannibal Greed Endless Horizon A nice concert evening with two bands ended after midnight and it was nice being at a metal concert again. I had a lot of fun and went home in a good mood. Thanks to all involved for the fantastic evening. Livereport by Dominic Latscha