Norwegian Spike-Covered Blasphemy Live in Moscow
Finally it happened... The legendary Norwegian Black Metal act gave a single show in Moscow at "Tochka" underground club. The show was organized by Moscow-based Metal Agen records and was supposed to take place on the 7th of October, 2001. However, the band and the management were delayed on the Russian frontier due to some unexplained reasons. Therefore, the concert was postponed for October, 10. The whole event began with the press conference for Metal media representatives. The band members were asked questions whether they would split after this tour or not, how they evaluate the modern BM scene, etc, etc, etc. Blasphemer handled most of the questions and he denied rumours that MAYHEM were going to split up after the tour. He also stated that in his view Black Metal should evolute in order to avoid stagnation of the genre. Being asked about what he thinks about the fact that the antichristian Norwegian events in early 90's massively contributed to the popularity of the genre, Blasphemer joked that due to these happenings people ceased perceiving Norway as the capital of Sweden. After the conference I was lucky enough to chat with Hellhammer for quite a while. He told me that among all of his side projects the participation in ARCTURUS was the most impressive and productive. Anyhow, let us pass to the show itself. Russian ROSSOMAHAAR were expected to perform as the opening band. Unfortunately, due to sudden disaccords with the organizers, their set was canceled. MAYHEM came out on stage almost two hours later than they were supposed to, making the crowd roar relentlessly in admiration. I was somehow disappointed by the fact that the band used sensored drumming instead of live drums. Perhaps, the guys were too lazy to tune the drum-kit properly. The set featured some old material such as the cult "Deathcrush", "Funeral Fog", "Buried by Time and Dust" and "Chainsaw Gutsfuck" as well as several tracks from "The Grand Declaration of War" CD. Another significant drawback along with sensored drumming was enormously fuzzy guitar sound, which from time to time faded Maniac's vocals. By the way, Maniac showed the audience his traditional gimmick: cutting hands with the barbed wire and inserting knifes into pig heads. A funny thing it was.
All in all, regardless to the badly regulated sound and sensored drums, the show pleased me and it's not a surprise since MAYHEM will always remain a cult band and the godfathers of contemporary Black Metal genre. All hail the Norwegian impurity! (Krasniy; 07.11.01)
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