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Witnessed
Municipal Waste, Victims, Reproach, 2010-01-21
26/01/10 || Habakuk
After a strong beginning to their back catalog in the form of “Waste ‘em all”, Municipal Waste released another stellar achievement, namely “Hazardous Mutation” and from there on kind of went downhill, with only a few quality songs as redeeming factors. Do we therefore write them off? No. They are definitely a band that has to be witnessed live to be judged in all their class. Off I went and didn’t regret it.
I don’t know where all these people came from as I hadn’t seen most of ‘em ever before at any actual old school show, but the place was packed with young guys and gals that looked like the 80’s had never ended, “Suicidal” hats, Whiplash and Exumer backpatches included. To this a fine selection of apparent crusties in studded leather jackets and whatnot was added, which raised my hopes for a decent pit. It happened, but not quite at this stage.
After a good hour’s wait (indoors, thank fuck) due to dodgy statements regarding opening and starting times on the venue’s page, the time of musical trash talk between me and our former band’s guitarist who happened to attend ended and Belgian Hardcore/Thrash/Punks Reproach entered the stage. Energetic as they were, they got a few die-hard heads banging and apart from that mostly left the impression that they could do with another background singer dude, since the guitarist with that job had a very lame “oooloonooloooo” kind of abusing the mic. Their set was about 15 minutes long, and this is not exaggeration. However, they packed in a songs dedicated to the metal heads, the skate punks and both other bands. Yesss.
Next up in the bill were Swedish crusters Victims that mercifully played a longer set than their forerunners. I had heard one of their songs on the infamous Skitliv compilation before, and that one promised a set full of d-beat frenzy and dirty crust, which is exactly what happened. Swedish crust for some obscure reason is just something that works, and although the sound was kind of shitty, they were more than entertaining. Movement in the crowd was still limited, though. Nevertheless they made me buy two of their CD’s plus a T-shirt after the end of show. Got some stickers for free, too. Thanks, Victims. Thictims. Municipal Waste merch was ugly, by the way.
Anyway, we got another pause during which the stage was changed with Bonded by Blood playing in the background. The topic of our conversation didn’t really change, but the other dude’s alcohol level did (mine, not so much. As responsible GD staff, I don’t drink and drive), so we ended up talking about this infamous scream at length.
Municipal Waste finally got their shit together and unleashed their D.R.I. meets 80’s thrash upon the crowd. Fuck yes, these guys deliver. Their gig made idiots with backpacks lose their shoes in the pit, punk-ass drunkards dangle from the light girders, hardcore dancers get tackled, and me it convinced, sometime during the third or fourth circle pit, that I had to write this review.
Think of retro thrash what you may, if you’re looking for an intense thrash gig, catch these guys live – it won’t get much better. Obviously they’ve built themselves quite a reputation as they even made people in fucken Munich pay heed and go out to raise some hell. And the band obviously know what people want to hear, so we were spared much of the latest album, instead they concentrated on material from “Hazardous mutation”, spiced up with newer stuff here and there. They even fired up “Waste ‘em all” and ‘” Toxic revolution” from the debut, which resulted in a happy and badly bruised Habakuk.
The set ended with “Born to party”, and if you know this song, you know it’s the perfect way to stir shit up for one last time, and there were no empty promises made: Municipal Waste indeed did fuck us up, and afterwards the guys did stick around for an after show party which I think is an ace move. I did not stick around for an after show party, instead got my sweaty ass into my new Victims shirt, threw their disc into the car stereo and made it home. “Born to party”, as they say.
There is no rating for this kind of shit, is there? Jester’s license!
9 “GLADIAT°°°°°RRR!!!“s out of 10.
