Sunday night’s performance of the reunited Goblin brought Birmingham’s Supersonic Festival to a close, a fitting conclusion to a great weekend for me and Jurgen.
Goblin - Supersonic 2009
One of the special things about Supersonic that we noticed was how much time the musicians from the various bands on the bill spent hanging out in the crowd and watching other bands -- something very similar to Roadburn. It felt like a comfortable, familiar scene, especially on Friday and Saturday. The friendly atmosphere led to some great exchanges of energy and inspiration. Along with the fact that it all took place in Birmingham, of course. It is the birthplace of metal, after all!
It was also incredible to see how certain bands responded to each other, with one great performance spurring another, especially on Saturday night, cumulating in the majestic, enthralling and crushing set of Japan’s very own Corrupted.
Thorr’s Hammer, featuring Stephen O Malley, Greg Anderson and Norwegian goddess Runhild Gammelsæter brought some monolithic, gut-wrenching doom. The band totally lived up to the high expectations surrounding this widely anticipated reunion.
Seattle’s Master Musicians of Bukkake got into some uncharted Hawkwind, Gong, Magma territory with Alejandro Jodorowsky at the helm. Crazy!
Highlights on Sunday included Jarboe, backed by members of Esoteric and Black Sun. She held the main stage totally enraptured during her performance. Head of David is still very much the industrial / noise / post punk powerhouse. Then of course there were the cosmic freakouts of Earthless, buzzing away like it was Friday night all over again.
Our ears were still ringing from the battle for decibel domination waged by Sunn 0))) and Scorn, also among the absolute highlights of Supersonic 2009. Or should we say Scorn 0)))? It was pretty amazing to hear Sunn 0)))’s low end assault with Scorn’s industrial dub step on top of it. The sonic clash that birthed this imaginary band could only be experienced in certain locations around the venue!
Many kudos to the Capsule girls, Lisa Meyer & Jenny Moore (and their wonderful staff, of course) for curating such an amazing event. We will be back next year for sure.
Walter on behalf of Jurgen & Roadburn.
Supersonic 2009
Tags: capsule birmingham, corrupted, earthless, esoteric, goblin, greg anderson, head of david, jarboe, master musicians of bukkake, Randall Dunn, Runhild Gammelsæter, Scorn, stephen o malley, sunn o))), supersonic festival, thorr's hammer
This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 at 10:12 pm and is filed under 2009, News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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