rapturedmind photography » 2009

Napalm Death – Death Feast Open Air 2009

Daniel — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:42:52 +0000

Headlining the last evening, Napalm Death were up. As I entered the photopit, the enormous amount of securities was a sure indication, that there would be quite some action to be expected. As one of the guys then come up and told us to watch out and give them space, no doubt was left.
As Napalm Death started their show hell broke loss in the audience. I think no other Band on the festival had that many stagedivers. Napalm Death on the other hand seemed to enjoy the show and really got the people going and screaming for more.

Shooting Notes
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Napalm Death

Napalm Death - Mark „Barney“ Greenway

Misery Index – Death Feast Open Air 2009

Daniel — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:42:51 +0000

Misery Index from the US of America played a great show and seemed to use every inch of the stage. Especially Sparky Voyles couldn’t stand still for a minute and was headbanging the whole time. Next to that the setlist was a blast and the last evening of Death Feast Open Air got better and better.

Shooting Notes
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Misery Index

Asphyx – Death Feast Open Air 2009

Daniel — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:42:50 +0000

Asphyx was another one of those bands that were on my list of things to see and turned out to be so intense that it blew me away. I saw the band a couple of times before and always had fun watching them, but this evening the band was just up on top. The guys had so much fun on stage and had a great tone, that I couldn’t help myself and shoot during the whole show not to miss a moment.

Shooting Notes
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Asphyx

Gadget, Lay Down Rotten, Gut, Devourment, Haemorrhage – Death Feast Open Air 2009

Daniel — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:40:44 +0000

Gadget – I barely got to see Gadget and entered the photopit at the end of their set… but you got to give it up to some great facial hair

Lay Down Rotten – Lay Down Rotten from germany were up next. The band was playing old school death metal, but included a bit of thrash as well and flavoured that with a bit of german energy, hard to describe.

Gut – If a guy with an sm-mask with a lot of dildos attached to it enters the stage and you are not at a Death Metal concert, you better get your ass out there fast. In this case, you could risk it to stay a bit longer. Do to the fact that Annotations of an Autopsy chanceled their show, gut filled in the empty spot on the billing. Nothing special music-wise, but good enough for some interessting photos.

Devourment – And the price for the most layed back stage acting goes to… Mike Majewski of Devourment. I’ve never seen somebody that relaxed on stage. He basicly took a pose and never got out of it for the whole song (which was an enormous contrast to his insane growling). Bass-player Chris Andrews on the other hand, was the complet opposite. He came on stage with a horse mask and went nuts. I don’t know what that guy drank before the show, but it was to much. I had the feeling he was about to fall off the stage the entire time.

Haemorrhage – Oh Yeah, another Band with blood outfits. I had the pleasure shooting this guys a couple of years ago at the With Full Force Festival, so I was really excited about seeing them again. As predicted those guys really had fun on stage and especially singer Luisma pulled all grindcore stereotypes out of the box and made this a truely great show to shoot and watch.

Shooting Notes
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Gadget

Lay Down Rotten

Gut

Devourment

Haermorrhage

The Black Dahlia Murder – Death Feast Open Air 2009

Daniel — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:39:29 +0000

It was time for the second day headliner. The Black Dahlia Murder was up late at night, but the crowd was ready for them. The pulled of an intense set and really got the people moving, even though it was quite a contrast to Vomitory a couple of minutes before. Unfortunatly they ended their set 10-15 minutes earlier as supposted to and never got up on stage again, because the hadn’t prepared more material.

Shooting Notes
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The Black Dahlia Murder

Vomitory – Death Feast Open Air 2009

Daniel — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:38:31 +0000

The Death Metal veterans Vomitory came on stage and destroyed the field from the first minute on. They kept shooting their slaves of insane riffs into the crowd but nowbody seemed to mind. As a special surprise they had their old singer with them, which came on stage during the later part of the set to join the band for a couple of songs.

Shooting Notes
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Vomitory

God Dethroned – Death Feast Open Air 2009

Daniel — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 00:45:17 +0000

This Band was the reason for me to go to the Death Feast Open Air above everything else. God Dethroned are one of my favourite acts and with their new album ‘Passiondale’ in stores, they had awesome new material to play. Next to the new songs, this was the first time I got to see the Band with Susan Gerl on guitar and Roel Sanders on drums. The show itself was great and the band had a great time, smiling and pulling faces the entire time, even though Susan was a bit stiff on her site of the stage concentrating on playing the intense material.

Shooting Notes
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God Dethroned

Hate, Insidious Decrepancy, Evocation, General Surgery – Death Feast Open Air 2009

Daniel — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:35:43 +0000

Hate – The polish death metal band Hate made a good start that day and got the people moving with the sun high in the sky.

Insidious Decrepancy – Another one of those one-man-bands. This time though, it wasn’t doing it for me. The Guy wasn’t bad, but couldn’t stand a chance against Putrid Pile from the first day.

Evocation – Evocation had a more classical approach to Metal, which was a nice break between all those extrem Bands

General Surgery – God, those guys were an absolute blast to shoot. Not only did they got the looks with their bloodoutfits, but they also had the the energy to back it up.

Shooting Notes
As the day before I got some problems during midday with the sun hitting the stage only half way, which got you an enormous f-stop difference between the shadow parts and the bright part. During the evening it got better and when shooting General Surgery the light was pretty much perfect. There was a lot of backlight and it was still early enough in the evening to keep the flash in the bag.

Hate

Insidious Decrepancy

Insidious Decrapacy

Insidious Decrepancy - Death Feast Open Air

Evocation

General Surgery

Macabre – Death Feast Open Air 2009

Daniel — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:33:34 +0000

Headliner! After a long and exhausting day it was time for some murder metal. Up were Macabre. The guys haven’t been around for quite some time and there isn’t a lot of new material (a new album is supposed to come soon), but still there was an enormous fanbase waiting to see the band. For me it was the first time seeing the Band so I was curious and wasn’t disappointed. The creative and sick guitar playing of frontman Corporate Death combined with his vocals made the show headliner worthy.

Shooting Notes

The light hasn’t changed for Macabre and there was still no frontlight at all. This time I tried to incorporate even more long shutter shots and even tried some shutter drags, which turned out really cool.

Macabre

Entombed – Death Feast Open Air 2009

Daniel — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:32:34 +0000

Finally it was time for the first co-headliner. Vital Remains were supposed to play this slot, but after they cancelled the show Entombed from Sweden was booked on short notice. I didn’t mind at all, because those guys are always fun to watch. As expected the played a great show and really got the crowd moving.

Shooting Notes

Shooting in the dark here at Death Feast Open Air turned out to be quite a challenge, because the light was aweful. There were quite a lot of lights in the back and they even had a big upsidedown cross in the background, which made quite an impression, but there was no frontlight at all… nothing… nada… nichts… gar nichts! So the only way to get some decent shots was to use flash. Turning up the ISO to 800, using an aperture of 2.8 and a shutterspeed between 20 (cross off) and 250 (cross fully lit) made it possible to catch enough of the ambience. Do to the slow shutterspeeds there was always a bit of motion blur, which wasn’t that bad do to the usage of flash.

Entombed

Flesh God Apocalypse, Man Must Die, Katalepsy, Purgatory, Putrid Pile – Death Feast Open Air 2009

Daniel — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:25:36 +0000

This was my first year visiting the Death Feast Open Air. I was quite excited about it, because it is just a little festival with about 3000 people. Those small events are always really nice and friendly and a lot of fun to shot. Next to that, they build up a really big stage, which was exceptionally large for the size of the festival. Another thing that was pretty special about this event, is the fact, that there are only the extremst Metalbands of the scene on stage. I felt a bit alienated wearing bandshirts with a logo, that was actually readable on first site. Do to the long time waiting at the entrance with no seperate access point for the press, I was pretty late the first day.

Flesh God Apocalypse – Flesh God Apocalypse started the day of for me. The italian band was really ripping it and both guitarplayers were pretty activ pulling faces while rocking out.

Man Must Die – Can’t really say much about those guys. Show was ok, nothing really special.

Katalepsy – The russian Band Katalepsy seemed a bit strange on first sight, especially their bassplayer, wearing kind of a HipHop outfit, made them stand out. As soon as they entered the stage the impression was gone and the band played one of the most brutal sets that day.

Purgatory – I actually would go so far and say that with Purgatory we got a classic German Metal act, even though most people conact that term with bands like Accept or the Scorpions.

Putrid Pile – One of the highlights this first day was actually Putrid Pile playing. So far i have never seen a One-Man-Metal-Show before and he clearly made an impression.

Shooting Notes
As said before the Stage was really big for an event this size. Do to that there was a lot of room for the Bands to move around alot, that on the other hand also meant for me to keep on my feet and moving to capture the events. The stage wasn’t really high on the other hand, so you got a lot of nice angles and do to the fact, that there was no shooting limited I was able to take my time.

A bit of a challenge was the fact, that during the day the sun moved in a weird angle towards to stage, so that half of it was flooded with light, while the back half of the stage was really dark. So you had to ajust constantly between f o.000 and f 1.000…

I was shooting with my Canon 40D and the 24-70 f2.8 and the 70-200 f2.8 for most of the Festival. The 70-200 turned out to be a bit long for capturing the front of the stage, but made some nice Drummershots possible. Unfortunatly I was missing my Tokina 11-16 f2.8, which was in service that weekend, very badly.

Flesh God Apocalypse

Man Must Die

Katalepsy

Purgatory

Putrid Pile