by JJ Koczan

You may know JJ Koczan from his writing at The Aquarian, the now dormant Metal Maniacs, Theobelisk.net, or as frontman of his band Maegashira. This weekend, JJ will serve as our man-on-the-scene at Roadburn in Tilburg, Holland! Look for daily reports through the weekend as he prepares for the return of Saint Vitus, as well as performances from a veritable who's who of the underground heavy metal glitterati. We kick things off with his report from Day One, Thursday April 23, 2009...

The bleach blond party boy at the surreal tropical Scottish bar -- who may or may not have been wearing white pants at the time -- warned me against Tilburg. "Why would you want to go there?" Indeed, why would I or anyone else allegedly in their right mind want to expose themselves to four days of nonstop beer, doom, shitty hamburgers and sweltering Eurosweat?

This is my first Roadburn. I booked my hotel room once Saint Vitus was announced, and the Hotel Ibis, the uncomfortable bed of which I'm sitting on now, is a chain like a Comfort Inn with a really nice bar. A big part of me wishes I could have slept down there, and not just because they had candy.

If there could have been a more appropriate beginning for Roadburn 2009 than Italian psyche-droners Ufomammut, I'm at a loss for what it might have been. Their Green-amped, thick-riffed, mostly instrumental jams pushed so much air you could feel it from in front of the stage, and as they sloshed their way through most of last year's Idolum, the main space crowd had no choice but to approve heartily. This is why we're here, dudes. Hold those cups up high.

continued below...

Continue reading "Surviving Roadburn, Day One: To The Center Of The Universe"