NEW JERSEY MARCH METAL MELTDOWN FESTIVAL!
Asbury Park, MARCH 12-13/1999 -
I was fucking stoked a fest of this nature was so close to me (1½ hour to 2 hour drive)! Many a moon living back in Canada I envied those close enough to go to the Milwaukee Metalfest and now here is it's twin sister in the back of my new yard! Was it all I expected? To a small extent no, but to a large extent yes it was for the most part but could have been more ideal in a few ways. It could have been much better, organized and it would have been cool to not have security that are, old fuckheads! Not to mention a heated building as it was cold as hell inside the entire time, especially the Relapse stage which may have well been outside on the ocean baordwalk. The highlight of the weekend for me was meeting people who I have been writing to for years. First and foremost I got to meet, ride down with and share a hotel with Phil of Brutalized 'zine/distro - good to finally meet this metal warrior face to face. Others I got to meet and greet were Bart of Satan's Candy Basket 'zine, Jenn of Metal Mafia 'zine, Luc of Gorguts, Jeff (who is a killer guy) of Metal Rules! 'zine, Jim "Ghost" of The Forgotten, Sherwood of Skinless, Rich of United Guttural/Fleshgrind, Chris Forbes of Metal-Core 'zine/Listenable Records (though this was not our first meeting), Jeff Wagner of Metal Maniacs, Marco Barberi & Ula Gehret of Century Media, King of Deceased/October 31 plus more!! Bands I managed to catch (there were 3 stages and no one I wanted to see would play for hours and then all the sudden all the good ones were on different stages at the same time), on this '80's metal theme weekend that really rocked were: Gorguts, Skinless, Riot (very impressive performance), Gothic Knights, Deceased (Killer), Whiplash (best band I seen all weekend they fucking kicked ass with friends doing gang choruses and all - pure metal!), Anvil(!), Incantation, Bloodfeast(!), Exhumed, Dying Fetus (unfortunately only stayed for 2 songs, had to go catch Skinless), Divine Empire, Vader, The Forgotten, Mortician, and Bloodstorm. Bands that threw me off-guard as I wasn't expecting very much were: Slaughter House, Darkmoon (really suprised me, has a ex-guitarist of Demonic Christ), Garden Of Shadows, Butchery (new band w/ deadly female growler), The Dillinger Escape Plan (on their insane live show alone not bad for a bunch of clean-cut preppy boys!). Bands I missed that I wanted to see were: Cryptopsy (seen them before though - great live!), Napalm Death, Hatebreed, Madball, Anal Blast, Raven, Myself Am Hell, Hypocrisy (hunger and sleep deprivation pulled away from this one), Vital Remains, Enslaved, Sarcophagus, Solus and Candiria. Lastly bands I seen that sucked were: Earth Crisis, Profane, Grim Reality, Death Kids, Disarray, Morgion, The Step Kings, Iced Earth, Amorphis, E-Town Concrete, Lord Of All Desires, and Gutwrench. All in all I must say Asbury Park is a shithole, and the fest for me was a cold exhaustive great time! You absolutely have to go to one of these big fests (Milwaukee or NJ) at least once and I plan on being there every year if possible! METAL FOREVER, FOREVER METAL!!!!
