HAPPY BIRTHDAY, I HATE MONDAYS RADIO!

SKARHEAD, Vendetta, Last Hope, Redound, Death Squad
19.11.2010,В Party clubВ '4 РљРњ', Sofia - Bulgaria
Words by Stefan Yordanov-Stiff, photo:В Nikolay Iliev

The word festival was used and abused so many time that its meaning (especially in Bulgaria) was contorted to the simple association with a lawn and stage on which four or five bands play one after another and you stay there waiting for hours for the next one to start.

On the contrary, IHM radio’s third birthday was nothing like that. There was a certain festival feeling around. And the place it took place in, the Party Center, helped that feeling a lot. Despite its concrete communist architecture, the crazy curtains which remind me of a depressive English movie and the giant pillar in the middle, as soon as you get in there, you realize that the atmosphere is more important than every each of these negative aspects.

Death Squad started around 21.00. While the first riffs instantly hooked some of the people, outside the hall Shutta (Vendetta) plus some others were quite busy selling t-shirts, beanies, CDs and work shirts. There were plenty of people scattered everywhere. Death Squad have been developing their game for quite long now and they are really good at what they do. The Bear spent 1/3 of the time down there among the punters.

We fuelled our greasy engines with some vodka and try to walk around one more time but as soon as the beatdown heroes Redound started, it became a tough thing to do. Still there were massive clusters of people talking, drinking and yelling outside the venue, but these activities stopped abruptly around 11 P.M. when Last Hope punched the audience with ‘Go Fuck Yourself’ - one of the best gig openers in the world. I mean it!

With Naso, Last Hope seemed even more aggressive, menacing and slayerish. Half an hour was more than enough to prove that the tour experience makes things unforgiving. These guys performed like a well-greased killing machine. And they have a DVD released plus an EP coming out very soon.

Vendetta kill in a similar but in the same time very different way. For 45 minutes these lads have taken the full throttle approach. They have traditions and style and they do not betray any of those. If the metal scene in Bulgaria was that diverse, things would look much better.

While Vendetta were doing justice to their name, Skarhead showed up for the first time outside the hall. They gave away some stickers and left a box full of t-shirts at the merch stand.

Half past midnight the New York hardcore legends showed everyone what they were capable of. And it was a lot. Believe me. When the opener ‘Kings At Crime’ kicked off, almost 350 throats start singing along the lyrics word by word. Danny Diablo (or Lord Ezec if you prefer) greeted the Bulgarian audience officially after they executed Duck Down from the new album ‘Drugs, Music & Sex’.

They knew what they were doing in every second of the gig and no one stopped moving around. Despite the small size of the stage it was a pure mayhem happening there. I couldn’t help but thinking that Mike was going to pummel some of his colleagues’ head with his bass while making those crazy turnarounds. It was a balanced set list - classics and new stuff. 

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And we helped a lot by chanting and singing along. The floor was covered with broken beer bottles and the walls were wet with sweat. Punk rock, baby! We celebrated it all the way. Happy Birthday IHM radio!

GALLERY