Clad in black, some sporting boots and jackets the crowd gathered elatedly at Idea Hell in Alwis Place, Colombo 03. They were all there for one objective- to watch the titans collide, the titans did and one reigned.
Saturday (December 15) could easily be dubbed as a pivotal turning point in Sri Lanka’s metal scene.
Five major bands battled head-on with each other at Wacken Metal Battle Sri Lanka, to secure the one spot to represent the island at Bangalore Open Air where the winner will compete in Wacken Metal Battle - Indian Subcontinent with three other winners from India, Bangladesh and Nepal. One of them will go on to perform at the world’s biggest metal gig- Wacken Open Air 2019.
The bells tolled when ABYSS took the stage first, immediately owning the crowd. Without much of a warm-up the crowd started to head bang to the extreme music amidst the death growls of ABYSS’s lead vocalist. Their act immediately raised the bar of the competition.
When the legendary Paranoid Earthling claimed the stage next the already charged crowd went haywire. This could be because the audience knew what the Earthlings had to offer. And they didn’t disappoint.
Their adrenalin provoking performance was meant more to entertain than as a competing act. Unlike the other bands the Earthlings didn’t urge the crowd to rock harder. The four piece group came, entertained and went.
NEUROCRACY was not intimidated; however, they managed to keep the momentum going with their performance. Their dedication to terror affected communities was what stood out, at least for Youth Observer, clearly from the rest of their act. Also as expected, Stigmata conquered the arena once again a week after their performance at RockFest. The crowd knew them and their music too well. And the crowd absolutely loved them.
Mass Damnation’s act was of another level. The heavy metal scene did not skip a beat in getting the crowd to dive right into a mosh pit. Their powerful performance was characterized with strong music that stood out well and resonated in the arena.
The band will also go down in history as the first ever Wacken Metal Battle winners that will go on to represent the island nation at Bangalore Open Air in February next year- and possibly the Indian Subcontinent at Wacken Open Air in mid-2019. Fingers crossed.
Celebrating the win Mass Damnation posted a very personal statement on its official Facebook account.
Excerpts of the statement;
“We do not have the right words to express what we feel right now as a band. The years of work put into this and how it boiled down to this moment is nothing short of surreal. As much as we would like to take all the credit for our performance last night, the crowd that went absolutely wild in the pit made the night for us much more on a deeper level than winning this competition.
“For the record let it state, there were no losers last night. Every band came out and absolutely destroyed the place, it was the probably the best line up in the history of Sri Lankan metal and it was an absolute thrill to play alongside brutal sets from ABYSS and NEUROCRACY who have been slaying it from the recent years. And nothing short of a dream to play with two more very important bands to us personally who made us get into this scene and we grew up listening to Paranoid Earthling &Stigmata without you guys paving the way and creating chaos through these years our scene would not exist.”