BÄÄÄÄÄMMMM in your face!!! - Korean Heavy Metal

This weekend was again heavy..Heavy music ;) I  went to a litlle festival @ Didim Hall which is one of the most important concert venues for Rock Music in Hongdae. After a long week full of conferences, interviews and a whole bunch of work it was necessary to get a relief. I’m a bit stressed out.  And that’s why I love to see this kind of music live: When I entered  the concert hall I just  got blown away by loudness, heavy drums, bass and guitars and the screaming singers and it just made me forget about all the stress and all the non-sense that kept my mind busy during the last days... BAAAAMMMM  into your face..so many emotions expressed throughout the music and I just discovered my inner self again..Tok Tok here I’m again..That’s where I belong. That’s what is really moving me..Of course the job is interesting. But I don’t necessarily identify myself with it…It keeps me thinking a lot when I then get back to music and see how much more I can feel life and get connected to myself and how much it feels more like my real identity...

The  bands that were playing were Silent Eye, Downhell and Hammerring. Actually all of them really great Heavy Metal Bands but internationally not well known. Especially Silent Eye is quiet famous here in Koera.

After being here a while I can see that the Heavy Scene is quiet small but full with really good musicians. But it seems that most of them don’t have a chance to get out of Korea to play gigs outside the country. The government is promoting K-Pop  as a cultural export a lot but for Rockmusic if it’s not commercial “K-Indie”  there’s nearly no support from the government. But that is what happens in most of the countries worldwide except the Scandinavian countries.

A funny new thing that I saw here is that when the guitarist is playing a solo the people would just go as close as possible to the stage and try reaching out their hands to the guitarplayer and play air guitar with him. And also it’s curious that most of the shows already start around 5pm and finish by 9 or 10pm.  Like this at least the younger crowd is also able to go to the concerts. All of the people I get to know here, they love German metal and I find myself sometimes embarrassed because they tell me from bands that I never heard about.

After the show we went with some people to Heavy Metal Bar, which turns out to be my new home here in Seoul. It’s a bar where you can put songs on request and the owner just has an amazing collection of music. Also there’s working Aki a very beautiful Korean Metal Girl and I get along with her very well. Yesterday when I went in the owner promptly put some songs from Pantera and Slayer as he already know I like those bands so much. It’s a great venue and I feel very comfortable there.

We had a good party.. As all the people are really mad about this music everyone was just like headbanging and singing together. Really great vibe!

When I requested a song from NATY one of the most famous Korean Heavy Metal Bands the owner just pointed his finger out to the two men sitting next to me at the bar and said: “They are NATY”…That was great! I had a really nice chat with those guys. They already play since 30 years but they still look so young. These Koreans are amazing – they all look much younger than they are. I’ll try to get those guys connected to the Metal Battle @ Wacken.  At least write an email to the organizers. So far there was no band from Korea at the Metal Battle as far as I know.

We finished the night at Three Thumbs another Rock Club and we were already quiet drunk but as everyone knows each other in this small scene we were still welcome….for more information on Korean Metal visit: http://asiametalhead.com 

Still feeling a little bit in Trance this morning I went with Jiyu for our traditional Sunday meeting and discover Seoul. Well, actually we didn’t see each other for some time now and it was nice hanging out together again. After having good food we went to one of the biggest Buddhist Temple and it was really amazing to see it..I just wonder how those monks can have a peaceful life because it seems that it is always crowded with people.