So today saw me once more at La Divan du Monde for day 2 of Paris Metal France Festival. Once again, some of the lords of French metal, now veritable dinosaurs, walked the earth. More concentrated on hard rock than the previous night I attended the first 5 sets from the day, after that, my body kind of gave out. I saw the jazzy Morglbl, the young and restless Wild Dawn, the reborn rockers of Dygitals, the extremely rude Tears and the gloriously power metally Manigance. Pverall it was a good day of headbanging that has left my neck very sore.
Morglbl was a pleasant surprise to start off the day with. These jazz metallers helped pioneer the genre and they were a blast to see live. The second half of their set featured covers done with members of other bands helping out on vocals and guitar. Now while I understand that most people can't take 45 minutes of instrumental jazz-metal, I still wish they had dedicated a bit more time to their own stuff. As is though, it was a pretty fabulous set that showed off some truly brilliant and innovative musicians at the top of their game.
Wild Dawn got up next and played an absolutely killer set. It was funny to see such a young hard rocking band play for a group of older metalheads. (The average age was in the late 40s) I feel like they were limited by a lack of moshing. Yet their Gypsyhawk type sound and hard rock attitude won the crowds respect. They were a blast to see and a ton of heads were banging and fists pumping. They had a lot of energy and their lead guitarist walked through the entire crowd playing and extended solo. This is a band I would like to see again in the near future.
Dygitals, the third band, were a blast to see. I loved how these aged rockers still preserved their manic energy left over from the 80s. It was a pleasure to see how happy all of the band members were to be performing too. Their good mood spilled out onto the audience and we all had a great time. The one issue though was that they had major technical issues with their bassist, to the point in which he had to sit out a few songs.Yet they handled it professionally and ended the set with their classic Avé Caesar. They managed to overcome technical difficulties and put out a brilliant set.
Tears came on next and played all of two songs. After having their reunion highly flaunted by the festival organizers they could barely be bothered to play 7 minutes of music. No one knew how to react after this little fiasco. I for one found it to be very disrespectful, I mean, they could have at least warned the organizers that they didn't have a lot of material, rather than just up and leaving the stage after a couple of songs! It was a very disappointing moment for me in what was otherwise an absolutely stellar festival.
The final band I saw today was Manigance. This high energy power metal act was a ton of fun to see and even in my overtired state I could not stop headbanging. With a ton of tasty solos and synchronized headbanging this was heavy metal at its finest. Their songs had epic sing a long choruses and beautiful melodies. I really like the keyboard and synthesizer work on some of their more dramatic pieces. Overall, these guys still know how to rock and really got the crowd pumped up and arm waving. They were a nice conclusion to my day.
In conclusion, day 2 of the Paris Metal France Festival was fun and crazy. Even though my body gave out 3/4 of the way through I still had a great time and I think everyone else did too. Its very disappointing to know that this will be the last edition of PMFF. Yet today, all the bands were stellar (Except Tears) and were very tight and professional. They took the audience on a heavy metal journey and would not let them go. Metal madness for the masses this was a great event, if you failed to come, you really missed something grand.
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