TWO BIG STAGES
After 6 editions on which we focused to improve the conditions and experience offered to participants from year to year but also on developing this festival to become a reference point at European level we believe we have succeeded, the feedback on these being more than positive. Thus, it is time to make another upgrade for the quality of artistic act.
Starting from 2019, Rockstadt Extreme Fest will have the TWO BIG STAGES !
Also, the food-court will be relocated to another area inside the festival, with easy access and which will provide even greater diversity in terms of food and more generous dining space.
CLAWFINGER
Reunited and returned vigorously after more than four years of silence. Founded in the early 1990s, the band describes their musical style as “a non-metal rap-rock hardcore crossover with vague industrial influences,” style brought to light by a group of musicians with very different personalities but who have remained together because they love music and because they have found their own style despite the differences of taste. In addition, band members were colleagues working together at the same hospital – Zak Tell, Jocke Skog, Bard Torstensen and Erlend Ottem were colleagues at Rosenlund Hospital in Stockholm.
Their aggressive sound, the energy in songs and on stage, reinforced by verses dominated by current and anti-racist political themes, made them remarked from the beginning. The original demo (“Waste of Time”, “Nigger” and “Profit Preacher”) quickly drew attention, providing them with a place in the Stockholm radio playlist and the curiosity of the MVG Records label . “Nigger” is a controversial anti-racy piece that has aroused a great deal at that time and has brought unexpected visibility. The debut album came in 1990, “Deaf Dumb Blind,” and was greeted by profile criticism and fans – a fact translated into selling over 600,000 copies worldwide. As a result, the band went on tour, climbed the stages of many European festivals and performed with well-known names such as Anthrax or Alice in Chains.
Shortly afterwards, Clawfinger also received several important awards, including two Swedish Grammy Awards received for “Best Hard Rock Band” and “Best Video”.
Their second album, “Use Your Brain” (1995), helped them to consolidate their position, and the group went to sing alongside bands such as Megadeth, Faith No More or Alice Cooper. The number three, “Clawfinger” (1997) marks an enrichment of the musical direction with which the band has accustomed their fans, and this album also features influences from the Middle East or female vocal choirs. The exploration continued on the fourth “A Whole Lot of Nothing,” where besides aggressive voices and riffs, with distortions and effects, new musical elements appear to help enrich and diversify the sound mark.
If “A Whole Lot of Nothing” is remembered for the complexity of the songs, the following one, “Zeros & Heroes” (2003) became widely known due to the controversy of the fact that the album is essentially dominated by a strong criticism of the former US President George W. Bush and military policy following the September 11, 2001 attacks (particularly critical in Step Aside). In addition, the electronic sound and synthesizers present on the former album disappear from “Zeros & Heroes”, being replaced by more complex and melodic riffs. The strong political approach was continued on Hate Yourself With Style, the sixth album that appeared in 2005 and on “Life Will Kill You” (2007).
After short musical silence, Clawfinger returned with a new single, “Save Our Souls” (released in August this year), a song that speaks bluntly about “how Trumpism has overwhelmed the world and turned it into a heartless mud, “according to the band’s description.
BLOODBATH
The famous Swedish death metal band was born out of the passionate search for a new sound, resulting from the blending of “old fashion” direction of death metal from the beginnings of “Entombed” with the new and refined approaches. The band was founded in 1998 (Sweden) and is named after the song “Blood Bath” belonging to the British metal band “Cancer”, a song included on the album “To the Gory End”.
The underlying Dream Team which provides the group’s current formula, has guaranteed international success and excellent reviews by specialist critics – we are talking about artists such as: Nick Holmes (Paradise Lost), Anders Nyström (Katatonia), Martin Axenrot (Opeth), Joakim Karlsson (Craft), and Jonas Renkse (Katatonia), Bloodbath being musicians like Peter Tagtgren (Hypocrisy), Dan Swano (Edge Of Sanity, Therion) or Mikael Akerfeldt (Opeth).
Despite the tumultuous history, marked by frequent changes in lineup, the group managed to bring up remarkable works. Bloodbath has five full-length albums, two EPs and two DVDs including Wacken Open Air (2005) and Bloodstock Open Air (2010). Bloodbath began with “Breeding Death” EP (2000), followed by two years of their debut album “Resurrection Through Carnage” (2002) and the second material full lenght – “Nightmares Made Flesh” ( 2004). In March 2008 the second EP was released, “Unblessing the Purity”, and then the third album “The Fathomless Mastery” in the same year. After a pause of several years, the group returned to the shadow with the album “Grand Morbid Funeral” (2014), continuing on the international music scene with “Autopsy vs Bloodbath” (a split material, 2017) and the album released this year, “The Arrow of Satan Is Drawn”.
