DARKLAB RADIO
The Extreme festival itself began around 15:00, but there was no desire to look at the unknown Israeli punk bands, so we decided to go there by 8-9 pm, which, however, did not save us from the punk music and punks themselves, but first things first. About 50 bands were supposed to perform at the fest (you'll understand why "should" be), of which only two were not from Israel: Das Ich and some punks Peter and the Test Tube Babies. Having previously visited the website of the fest, I wrote down the time of the performances that were interesting to us (the first one was around 22:05, so there was no particular hurry, but, as it turned out, it was needed). After meeting friends in Tel Aviv we took a minibus straight to the place. Having twirled in one place for some time (as it turned out later, not only we were spinning there), we finally saw the lights, the parking lot and a bunch of punks, so we realized that we had arrived. In a nutshell about the place: a hole in the middle of nowhere. Fires in the middle of some kind of desert, pavilions, tents with food, things and CDs (except for food, there was nothing worth attention) and a lot of people. At the entrance we were met by thug security guys, which I don’t really want to remember. In the end after seven hells in the entrance we were inside. Some kind of death metal with a terrible performance was sounding from the big stage. We looked at each other and went on to search for others and searching for a place to settle. In half an hour, according to the schedule the project called IWR were supposed to perform. It was written on the website, that this is an EBM project, which, of course, attracted our attention. It should have been on the outside stage. But nothing started at the right time on the right stage, so we went to look for where they would perform. There were some punks as usual the main stage, on the lower stage there was a hardcore band playing and on the big stage there were those same death metalheads with a terrible sound. Leaving the idea of finding the right place, we went in search of the other members of our company.
Meanwhile, the punk revolution continued at full speed. Coming out to the big stage, we noticed a performing band in obvious non-punk genre in non-punk clothes. It turned out to be either darkwave or synth goth (heard only one and a half songs, so it's hard to judge) PVC Prime. The music is good, but the vocals didn't fit. As it turned out, in front of them on the lower stage were that band IWR that we were looking before and missed a bit “thanks” to the organizers for such an “accurate” execution of the program. But the mess did not end there. Now we had to wait for the industrial project Vultures, which were about an hour away from now, so I decided to walk around to catch up other friends. We waited for our DJs and went back to the stages, where the abundance of punks was already beginning to annoy. On the way, they said that the darkwave project Legder the Main had canceled the performance. I didn’t know the band, so this information was not the important one. We were waiting for Das Ich listening on the big stage to the darkwave act Pulsa Denura, which seemed nice in some sounds, but overall, too boring. It was already around 2 AM and Das Ich, scheduled for 1 AM, was still not there. Some friends didn’t handle the waiting and went home because of different reasons, but we continued to wait for Germans. Instead of one in the morning they came out at 2:30 (if not later), but everything was compensated by the concert. That was great!! One of the coolest concerts I've ever attended (in Israel for sure the coolest). I was very impressed by the concert itself and the band members Bruno, Stefan and Cain, who walked around the stages before the performance, took pictures, gave autographs and just kept up the conversation/ Looking ahead, Probably Das Ich was the only decent performance at the fest (any way punks enjoyed listening to a foreign punk band, but that's not for me). Synthpop act Distention canceled the show, which was somewhat disappointing, because I would have watched / listened to them and the industrialists Vultures performed after Das Ich (another inconvenience from the organizers, which no longer surprised). Vultures play some kind of electronic rock with industrial inserts and heavy guitar, but all compositions seem monotonous and the same, except of one-two tracks. They can actually add drive and everything would be much better, but it turned out weak show by Israelis. Das ich member Bruno stood near and looked at this for about 5 minutes and left after. After the Vultures a local futurepop project called Observe & Control followed, but after singing one and a half songs their equipment began to short from the water dripping from the air conditioner (again " thanks" to the organizers). Having sung these one and a half songs, Observe & Control ended their performance, thus completing the entire fest. There were no promised DJs and I'm sure half of the bands didn't perform at all not only from gothic ones. In general, the organization of the festival was awful: the complete inconsistency of the program (it’s very hard to plan 57 bands on 3 stages even for all the night), the choice of venue and the non-announcement of changes. Before we left, we watched how guards dragged drunken punks from different corners into the street. That was fun. The road home was long and sleepy. In conclusion, I would like to say thanks to everyone who was there and did not let me fall asleep in the moments of boredom (not punks !!), especially cursed, DarkRhapsody and Moira. Well, special thanks to trojanhorse. First massive festival on my life – done.