The hosts of metal, abundant but discreet, face each other these days at a Rock Fest that has suffered to consummate its return after the pandemic suspensions of 2020 and 2021. Liberating bathroom of hard rock and ‘heavy’ accents of all conditions , this Friday in the park of Can Zam around a parade of bands that crowned one of the inventors of the cotarro, Alice Cooper, climbing the turrets of his nightmare castle along with the classics of ‘shock rock’.
If there are shows that you have to see at least once in your life, Vincent Furnier’s is among them. Theatrical early-hour rock, which to vital skeptics will seem stiff, but which retains the grace and trace of innocence from the opening theme, ‘Feed my Frankenstein’, with that chained monstrosity enlivening the stop. The singer, in a long frock coat and top hat, showed good vocal status at 74 and, leaving aside his latest album, ‘Detroit stories’ (2021), he delved into a ‘greatest hits’ that covered different stages of his career, because he is not one of those who depend on one or two albums: from the beginning, mid-season songs like ‘Bed of nails’, ‘Hey stoopid’ or ‘Poison’, with a more metal-AOR touch, crossed paths with the old trophies, more ‘hard’, of the caliber of ‘No more, Mr. Nice Guy’ and ‘Be my lover’, this one from the days when Alice Cooper was the name of a band.
The adorable guillotine
Blockbuster band, with three guitarists, and very agile rock operetta development, without pauses, seasoning the illustrious pages (more classic: ‘I’m eighteen’, ‘Under my wheels’, ‘Billion dollar babies’) with humorous numbers: the extra with a whip, the diabolical baby scattering confetti, the bride with a bloody skirt and, foreshadowing the climax, the decapitation number towards the zombie chant ‘Escape’. And the song to the eternal youth rebellion of ‘School’s out’. Hey, we had a lot of fun.
Before Alice Cooper, honorable mention for a veteran British band, ufoon that farewell tour that, through a pandemic, has been kicking off since 2019. At the head of the device, Phil Moog, a distinctive voice, always situated between harshness and sensitivity, with the company of another original member, drummer Andy Parker, and of the eighties titleholder Neil Carter (in the square of Paul Raymond, who died three years ago), passing from the supply of guitar ‘riffs’ in ‘Only you can rock me’ to the keyboard arpeggios in the heartfelt ‘Love to love’ . 70’s Milestone Concentratewith the ‘tour de force’ of ‘Rock bottom’ (Vinnie Moore, distancing himself from Michael Schenker’s original solo), and the cheers ‘Doctor doctor’ and ‘Shoot shoot’.
The time of pachanga-metal
Another brand with a long history, Diamond Head, was withdrawn at the last minute due to a delay in its flight, although its performance was rescheduled for this Saturday. His place was taken by BlackØwl, a Barcelona band crazy about Bon Scott’s AC/DC, from whom he recreated an applied ‘Let there be rock’, in addition to touring his first album, ‘Fly away’. They were followed by a couple of picturesque proposals: Kontrust, an Austrian combo with a Polish singer, metal with choirs and dances with regional costumes and bouncy songs rich in bass (at least, with the sound of Rock Fest), and Alestorm, a troupe of Scots attached to a tavern pachanga-metal at ‘happy hour’, a clash of Blind Guardian and Celtas Cortos with folk violins (solved with a synthesizer and ‘keytar’) and songs with titles like ‘The zombies ate my pirate ship’.
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More serious was crisis, a group from Igualada that stays true to the essence of that genre once considered extreme called thrash metal, with its saturated textures in honor of Kreator, its quotes from the recent ‘Pizza EP’ and a ‘medley’ based on Metallica, Anthrax and Panther. Crisix stood at the antipodes of ‘flower power’: “hate is something necessary in our lives, we are all fucking ‘haters’ & rdquor ;, exclaimed the singer, Juli Baz, although we all know that, beyond appearances, as the slogan said, “heavy metal is not violence & rdquor ;.