Metal Blast was held this past Saturday at Metro Al Madina, a place we’ve been referring to as “the place to prog”, as most Prog Rock/Metal events were held there in recent years. This time however, Metro hosted a heavier event, with 4 local bands playing the entire musical spectrum – Heavy to Thrash, Death and Black Metal. It was my first “extreme” event at Metro, and I was curious to see if the sound and venue would be suitable for such loud distorted music.
I will only mention two facts that night: attendance was relatively low and the sound could have been way better. All bands complained of sound issues on stage, and I personally could not get through the first 2 hours without partially closing my ears (manual earplug) so I could actually hear what the bands were playing. Metal is supposed to be loud but not noisy to the point of hiding the actual music behind a thick distorted wall of sound.


Metal Blast – 2015
All the bands were pretty good on stage, some had more stage experience than others, but the crowd enjoyed what each band had to offer. It was a fun show with Rebellion and their 80’s a la Motley Crue flashback – both of their guitarists were quite good, but I enjoyed the White Mage’s performance (that’s a nickname I just made for their oldest member / guitar player). Vocalist Nigol Ozz (ex-Oblivion) gave the band the energy boost it needed on stage with his experience and good crowd communication.


Rebellion
Here’s the band’s setlist:
– Anility
– Sorry
– Looks That Kill (Motley Crue cover)
– Back
– Perfect Strangers (Deep Purple cover)
– Silence Call
Phenomy were the perfect example of the continuity of the scene, a young band with good musicians and a healthy music catalog (a couple of Metallica covers were nice!). Their main vocalist had a mask on and it was kinda cool to see that, although when we spotted the band backstage after their performance, the guy needed to take a breath, it’s quite hot under that mask. Their setlist had so many originals, turns out they finished an album to be recorded soon.


Phenomy