Death Angel European Tour Update
- Bleeding Priest
- 8 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Death Angel are back in Europe! After a year and a half absence it feels great to be back out here having fun with the fellas.
I’m writing this on our first day off at a RV camping site with a water park connected to it in Milan. Which would be fun if it weren’t for all the damn teenagers. But there’s definitely worse places to be.
The first three shows were killer. The first one being at the Rock Hard festival in Gelsenkirchen Germany. Death Angel hadn’t played this fest since 2007, a year and a half before I joined. That show is well documented on the Sonic German Beatdown vinyl/cd/dvd releases. It was well run and really a great time with our East Bay brothers in Exodus headlining.
Unfortunately we had to leave shortly after our set to make the long drive to the Mystic Festival in Poland. I did however get to see NY rockers Sanhedrin open the festivities and they were fantastic! My dear old friend Erika Stoltz fronts this band and she and I go way back to days when our old bands Lost Goat and Old Grandad played together quite often in the mid-late 90’s. It’s pretty rad to see us both soldering on and persevering in the unpredictable world of heavy music. Maybe our two “old” bands will play together again someday….you never know.
Next we have the Mystic Fest in Poland. This was a multi stage event with lots of variety in terms of Rock and Metal genres. We played in a brutally hot indoor room that was PACKED to the gills. Our brothers in Municipal Waste (who we’re doing co-headline dates with) played after us and brought their brand of party thrash in full force, as they always do.
The highlight of the evening was seeing Pentagram who played on the big outdoor stage and absolutely dominated. Drummer Henry Vasquez put on a masterclass in Doom Metal drumming. Just punishing.
I’ve actually known Henry for quite some time dating back to his days drumming for Sourvein. On a Death Angel US tour 6 or 7 years ago I visited his record shop, Born Late Records in Fort Worth Texas and walked out with a giant KISS coffee table that he helped bring to our bus and placed in the bay for the remainder of the tour. It sits in my living room to this day. Anyways back to the show. Bobby’s voice was in top form and they played all the hits. In addition to kicking ass they were all the nicest dudes you could possibly meet.
Next we have Metalfest Open Air in Czech. We’ve played this fest twice before over the years and it’s kind of unremarkable but the crowd was great despite the torrential downpour throughout the day.
What made this fest memorable this time around was the headliner, KING FUCKING DIAMOND! He basically put on his bizarrely paced St. Lucifer’s Hospital show that he did in Oakland late last year but it still ruled and the sound was incredible. We had to bail immediately after his set so unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to say hi to everybody outside of Jodi (Grandma) Cachia who is always great to see.
So, so far so good. Everyone’s getting along great and there’s lots of laughs on the bus. I’ll check in on the next day off, cheers!
–Bleeding Priest
