This might bother some of you.

It was just about two months ago when we posted a blog announcement here in the Musings about the inaugural edition of the Shockwave Festival.  The event was to feature what appeared to be a co-headlining Fear Factory and Voivod (even though it seemed that FF would close all the shows and hence get a longer set) along with Cattle Decapitation, Misery Index, Havok, Last Chance To A Reason, The Browning, Revocation, Forged In Flame, Vildjarta, and Dirge Within.   Sounds pretty cool if you are into most of or all of these bands right?  I felt that it was also cool that another new festival was coming to pass because that showed promise that others would be able to follow suit if the mood struck them.  Then around the tail end of June the word got out how Revocation, Forged In Flame, Vildjarta, and Dirge Within had all dropped off the tour but it was never really made that clear as to what the reason was.  The revised tour poster is below and obviously no longer featured those bands names. I appended these changes into the original blog posting for good measure since we like to speak about tours based on our heavy live coverage on the main site but with this getting weirder it prompted a second post.

Stranger than that was the announcement just the other day (7/3/12) that Voivod had pulled off the tour and they came right out into the open and said “Shockwave tour is no longer as advertised, Voivod really wanted to be touring but the situation was out of the band’s control and the tour producers could not live up to the promises.” Those are some pretty heavy comments. That left the fans who had purchased tickets with five bands less than the originally promised eleven. No one seemed to be added to the mix and to me this was just short of a Summer Slaughter lineup in terms of bands being offered to the general public.

This morning I saw various reports about the whole tour being cancelled which came from bands like Havok and Misery Index who had also dropped off the tour since the previous day. It was not really looking good but when a couple of other websites including The Gauntlet announced how Ticketmaster was sending out notes about refunds for the event I guess it is safe to assume that this will not be happening any longer. So far as I can tell, or at least as of this posting, no comment has come from either Fear Factory or the festival promoters about the reason all the bands dropped off and why it needed to be cancelled. I guess everyone who purchased tickets already best check their credit card statements and those who paid in cash get over to where you bought your tickets to get your refunds. Lucky for you there are plenty of other shows happening this summer that will let you wisely spend your Metal $$$.

While the month had been in place for a couple of days already, tonight was the true beginning for what I was referring to as “March Metal Madness” – Let’s face it, how can any event that is headlined by the mighty German Thrashers Kreator bear any less of a title.  The band would return for their “Hordes Of Chaos” legions and bring with them Voivod, Nachtmystium, Evile and Lazarus A.D. – surely there would be no quarter drawn this evening.  We got inside the confines of the Nokia Theatre Times Square for the show and bring you as much of the action as we were able to.  Just click the bands logo below to be taken to our item on the main PiercingMetal.com site.

Over the last few show coverage pieces we have been snapping images of the marquee if it visually blew us away and this would be the case with the Kreator show this evening.

The Hordes Of Chaos Are Summoned by Kreator

An imposing little visual as the band’s name summoned their legions from the streets of Times Square and into their Metal maw.  We had approached the venue from below Broadway and this sign shined brightly but we wondered why the Nokia Theatre part of the sign was unlit.  Perhaps the power of Kreator’s very name drained it of its energy and perhaps we sometimes have a little too much flair for the dramatic.

Kreator's Support Armies for the tour

Kudos to the graphics design team inside the Nokia Theatre for their solid work on presenting all of the supporting armaments for the Kreator tour.  Clearly “chaos” would be an understatement inside the venue when all of these powerhouses got to work.

A Glimpse Of Some Nachtmystium Tech

A quick shot of some of the Nachtmystium guitarists tech for the show.  Nice gear and it really sounded great during the show.  I expected this of course from this Psychedelic Black Metal outfit.

Holding the record for longest tenured bassist in Metallica, Jason Newsted sure managed to keep busy after departing from the band. He would work with Ozzy, continue doing music with side project Echobrain and even record some music with the Cult Metal phenomenon Voivod. When Newsted and Michael “Away” Langevin from the band came into the city to celebrate the posthumous Voivod album “Katorz” fellow scribe Peter Pardo and myself snared some interview time with him. We enjoyed the album preview, the discussion with “Jasonic” and the other media friends who were taking part in the proceedings. Click the logo below to be taken to the whole discussion on the main PiercingMetal.com site.