NEUROTIC DEATHFEST 2011
- Posted on 27-03-2011
013 TILBURG, NEDERLAND
29. april – 30. april
NEUROTIC DEATHFEST er som vanlig årets første rene death metal festival vi tar tak i her i Eternal Terror. Det er 8. året denne festivalen går av stabelen.
Opprinnelig het festivalen Rotterdam Deathfest og ble arrangert i Rotterdam de 2 første årene. I 2006 skiftet festivalen navn til Neurotic Deathfest og flyttet samtidig til Dynamo i Eindhoven. I 2007 flyttet festivalen nok en gang på seg, denne gangen til Tilburg. Samtidig med disse bybyttene og navneskiftene har antall band økt for hvert år. I debutåret 2004 var det kun 8 band som spilte, året etter var det 13, i 2006 var det 15 band til stede mens i 2007 var det hele 23 band. Året etter var antallet steget til 32 og i 2009 var det 31 band som spilte. I fjor var det hele 42 band som underholdti Tilburg, og foreløpig ser det ut til at det blir det samme antallet i år.
Neurotic Deathfest arrangeres innendørs og det faktum at de har hele 42 band på 2 dager, gjør at festivalen nå er mer enn en utfordrer til tittelen "Nord-Europas største innendørs extreme metal festival", noe Inferno har hatt et ballegrep på i flere år.
Årets festival arrangeres 29. og 30. april. Det benyttes 4 scener og det er til enten 2 eller 3 band som spiller til enhver tid, så det er umulig å få sett alle 42 bandene. Hvis du da ikke velger å se 10 til 15 minutter av hvert band for så å løpe til neste scene og se 10 minutter av neste før du igjen løper videre til den tredje scenen. Sånn må du holde på hele tiden, og det er nok en smule roligere å velge ut et program ut i fra spilleplanen, som du for øvrig finner nedenfor.
Billettene til gildet koster enten 40 Euro per dag eller 75 Euro for begge dagene. For den prisen får du altså 42 av de beste og mest hotte death metal bandene som finnes per dags dato.
Interview with Ruud Lemmen
April sees the most brutal indoor festival in Europe, Neurotic Deathfest, and we felt it was time to round up some questions and go looking for answers where they could be found without too much hustle (red: research ), so we went to the source so to speak. Here is Ruud Lemmen, the master mind behind Neurotic Deathfest.
Neurotic Deathfeast… Could you please provide us with a brief overview of the history of this massive festival?
The Neurotic Deathfest started out in 2004 under the name Rotterdam Deathfest, at that time this festival was held for just a few hundred people in Rotterdam. After two years the festival grew into a multi-stage concept and moved to Eindhoven. At that time the festival was renamed to Neurotic Deathfest. In 2008 the festival moved once more to a bigger venue, the infamous 013 venue in Tilburg, where we are still hosting this. In the past years the festival grew into a project where 42 bands perform over two days and 3 to 4 stages and we even have a campsite this year!
To make all this come together one would probably need more than one body and more than one mind, tell us a bit about the crew behind the festival, how do you make this all happen?
I am the sole promoter of the festival. But with all production aspects (booking flights, hotels, catering, logistics, and so on) I have a very strong partner in 013 as an entity. Their production crew is the best crew around, and they are able to make all ends meet on a festival like this. This gives me more opportunity to focus on booking the bands and handling the marketing of it all. Obviously, being a bit of a control freak, I am always watching everybody from up close to see that everything goes exactly the way I desire it to go.
The moving of the venue and city… any deep underlying reasons for this?
That can be said in one word basically: Ambition! It was just the ambition to become a big established indoor death metal festival, and with that moving to bigger venues, and eventually to Tilburg, the city I reside in, and has the best venue of Europe, was what I always really wanted.
Booking bands could be a problem for any organizer, with a festival like Neurotic Deathfest I suppose this is not a relevant issue, or is it?
Well, competing with the bigger outdoor festivals is hard on the headliners, and keeping the line-up fresh and diverse (within the genre) every year costs a lot of work. Especially with bands having higher financial demands each and every year it takes more time to put the puzzle together.
Atheist
What is the top ten moments of the festival thus far?
Ohh.. naming a full top ten might be hard. But a few highlights I do actually remember vividly. One of them definitely is selling out the festival four weeks prior to the actual festival date past edition! Other than that seeing people come over to Tilburg to experience the festival from allover the world really metals up the street view in the city centre of Tilburg for the whole weekend, which makes me smile each and every year.
Have you suffered, like so many other festivals, from the financial crisis that struck Europe like a brick wall? If so, how?…if not, why not…?
Well, there have been better years and there have been worse years. Like with everything. The one year you lose a lot of money, the other year you make a little money on this. Considering the financial crisis, obviously you see that people can only spend their hard earned money one time. So you see that in stead of going to 6 festivals, people only go to 1 or 2. It makes it harder to get people to go to your festival, in stead of one of the other ones one might have been willing to go to. So you get to spend more on advertising and so on to make peoples choice easier I guess haha.
Any dream acts past or present that has still to be on stage at Neurotic Deathfest?
Bands such as Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse I keep on trying each and every year because they are the embodiment of nineties death metal, which I grew up with. Other, more underground, bands I would like to see on Neurotic Deathfest in the future would include a Pyaemia reunion (not going to happen I guess) and a Disgorge reunion (even though Ben is unreplacable – R.I.P. brother!). I guess there are too many bands to mention.
Brutal music has seemingly exploded in popularity during the past few years, any thoughts on the matter?
Apart from doing this festival, I promote a lot of other shows during the year, from small fifty people underground shows to 2000 people arena shows for established rock and metal acts. In the past years I’ve especially seen the amount of live shows explode. Not sure if the audiences are getting bigger, or the demand is getting higher, but there are more and more shows coming by each year. I wonder where this will head into eventually… but I guess only time will tell.
Hate Eternal
What do you think is the benefit for any given band to play a venue like Neurotic Deathfest?
Well for any death metal band, it would be performing on a festival that is heavily visited with fans of the genre from allover Europe, and beyond! Apart from that this festival is really well covered in the European metal press. So apart from this being a great death metal weekend for everybody, in a performing band or just visiting, it actually might be a good career move for younger death metal bands that can use the massive exposure.
For 2011 what are YOU looking forward to the most?
I like to see Autopsy perform, as I have never got to see them play live back in the days. But I am also looking forward to a 20th anniversary show of Beheaded from Malta, or see Wormed from Spain perform as I haven’t seen them in the last four or five years. Misery Index is one of my favourite death metal bands, so I always enjoy seeing them, same counts for Obituary. Again, too many to mention! I hope I get to see them all, as I might be running back and forth on the festival all the time.
Any last words of encouragement as to why people from Norway should journey to the Netherlands this year for Neurotic Deathfest?
For Nowegian standards the beer is pretty cheap here, hah! Other than that we’re doing this in the best venue ever, we’ve got a wide selection of great acts, including a lot of bands that hardly ever make it to Norway I reckon. Tilburg is a great laid-back city, and we even got a campsite nearby for wellpriced overnight accommodation.
Oh and just to piss some editor off… What is your favorite choice of home entertainment system, and why?
Let’s see. Home Entertainment system. I never really got into that, so just mentioning my own system. I’ve got a 46" LED screen from Philips, connected to a Marantz amp (2-channel), and those are connected to through huge Dahli speakers. That’s what gets me around through watching Dexter, Breaking Bad and other TV series.
Programmet for Neurotic Deathfest 2011 ser slik ut:
At the Gates
Fredag 29. april:
Main Stage:
22:30-23:30 At the Gates
20:40-21:40 Necrophagia
19:20-20:00 Atheist
18:10-18:50 Misery Index
17:00-17:40 Exhumed
16:00-16:30 Incantation
Midi Stage:
21:50-22:30 Hail of Bullets
20:30-21:00 Magrudergrind
19:00-19:45 Master
18:00-18:30 Blood Red Throne
16:45-17:15 Aeon
Middle Stage
23:30-00:10 Beheaded
21:40-22:40 Cerebral Bore
20:00-20:40 Septycal Gorge
18:50-19:20 Kraanium
17:40-18:10 Centurian
16:30-17:00 Beneath
Stage01
19:45-20:30 Southwicked
18:30-19:30 Antropomorphia
16:45-17:15 Flayed Disciple
15:45-16:15 Logic of Denial
Autopsy
Lørdag 30. april:
Main Stage:
22:30-23:30 Autopsy
20:40-21:40 Obituary
19:20-20:00 Hate Eternal
18:10-18:50 Macabre
17:00-17:40 Decapitated
16:00-16:30 Obscura
Midi Stage:
21:50-22:30 Grave
20:30-21:00 Sarcolythic
19:00-19:45 Pathology
18:00-18:30 Defiled
16:45-17:15 Prostitute Disfigurement
Middle Stage
23:30-00:10 Benighted
21:40-22:40 Wormed
20:00-20:40 Birdflesh
18:50-19:20 Cripple Bastards
17:40-18:10 Beneath the Massacre
16:30-17:00 Rompeprop
Stage01
19:45-20:30 Carnivore Diprosopus
18:30-19:30 Viscera Trail
16:45-17:15 Soreption
15:45-16:15 Vulvectomy
