With three bands on the bill this evening, the first band was set to begin already at 8:00 PM (that’s really early for a concert in Aarhus), so my interview date with Raunchy prior to the show was set to be quite early, and in good time before the concert. Unfortunately it didn’t quite work out the way it was supposed to, and I had to do the interview while the first band, Stonegard from Norway, was playing. For this reason I’m not able to review their show, as I heard it through a door at the most remote location from the stage that opened from time to time. Sorry guys!

Rating: none

Downward Candidate

It was obvious that D.C. had come to really kick ass, with their mixture of thrash and hardcore, but one could feel the frustration of the singer, that there wasn’t that many people in the crowd. It sure can be hard to create the right mood, when stage diving is not an option, unless of course you deliberately want to hurt yourself throwing yourself to the floor. Furthermore the sound on the guitar and the bass wasn’t very audible compared to the drums and the vocals, so I missed the drive of some thrashy riffs. Too bad, as it seemed that the musicians didn’t lack the technical skills to make an impression.

(My friend who is more into the death and hardcore stuff than I, actually liked D.C. better than Raunchy.)

Rating: 60

Raunchy

I really had great expectations for this concert, as Raunchy is said to be a very competent and experienced live band, belonging to the more well known part of Danish metal bands, and they stand for a combination of melodic choruses with great hooks and raw and aggressive metal on a high musical level. Also I knew that they were about to embark upon a European tour – they had to be in good shape…

Raunchy is a six piece outfit that consist of Jesper Tilsted (guitar), MortenToft Hansen (drums), Lars Christensen (guitar), Jeppe Christensen (keys/vocal), Jesper Kvist (bass) and Kasper Thomsen (vocal).

And from the beginning they seemed concentrated, extrovert and up to making it a good concert, even though the audience should have been bigger (and more alive!). More had arrived since D.C. left the stage, but Train was not at all full – sad, that the local patriotism can’t drive people to shows like this, to back up Danish metal some more.

The drive in the band was there from the very start, led by lead singer Kasper Thomsen, who jumped around the stage as much as possible, trying to make a connection to the audience, and he was to some extent successful.

Through the approx. one hour concert the audience was treated with tracks mostly from the last two albums “Confusion Bay” and “Death Pop Romance”, including among others the hit and one of my personal favourites “Join the Scene”.

Both vocalists (the lead does the harder growl like parts, and the keyboard player the more melodic parts) are very good, but throughout the concert the level was too low compared to the instruments, especially for the melodic parts. And as the music of Raunchy has a lot of it’s “charm” and strength in this combination of vocal work, I didn’t quite get the musical experience I had hoped for.

I know that most bands like to give it a little extra volume playing live, but for a smaller venue like Train the sound was simply too loud for me (I measured 114 dB in a ca. 10 m distance with my mobile) – I’ve been to a lot of concerts with Motörhead and others who play really loud, and generally I don’t mind, but in this case it almost turned into a noise wall, and it disrupted the finer details and the melodic feel of the music. Who was at the buttons this evening – hopefully not their own soundman?

Generally Raunchy made a good impression on me on stage, but as pointed out before the crowd and the sound could’ve been (a lot) better. If the sound is better next time, the rating will probably be a lot higher.

Rating: 65