Knock Out Festival 2009 @ Hala TS Wisła, Kraków – 11/12 VII 2009

It was a second time I’ve attended a metal festival this big (first was Metal Hammer Festival in 2007 – but it was much, much bigger and it was one of the first festivals I’ve attended as a photographer). Quite a line-up, ranging from progressive metal, sludge, death metal and trash to post-rock and metalcore bands.

Great performances by the foreing gigants such as The Dillinger Escape Plan (I couldn’t make it the first two times they played in Poland so was very happy to see them now – if you haven’t seen them, do it and you won’t regret it!), Cynic and Meshuggah. Apart from DEP, I caught two other bands everyone has been talking about – Blindead and Tides From Nebula. The first one presented a heavy mixture of sludge and progressive sounds – if I could compare it to any other band it would probably be somwhere between Neurosis, Rosetta and Cult Of Luna. Highly recommended and it really makes me proud that we are from the same town. But the TriCity wasv(and still is) lucky when it comes to bands and artists: Apteka, Behemoth, Kury, Illusion, Pink Freud, Kobiety, Leszek Możdzer… As for Tides From Nebula, the crowd was served with lost of instrumental post-rock and post-metal noises. Convinced me to buy their album as soon as the new paycheck arrives. And I finally admit that I’m not really a trash-girl. There are small exceptions for this genre of music but both, Testament and Voivod, just don’t belong there but the crowd was more than happy.

It was the first edition of the festival, and I hope not the last one. Pretty strange that there were around 2,500 of people there. The ticket price was medicore, the fest takes place during holidays and the line-up was great – I really thought that I will see crowds around 4,000-5, or even a little more…

Photos were done for Wp.pl to illustrate a review of the fest written by Zbigniew Zegler. You can read the feature from both days of the fest here and here. However, the photos I’ve chosen for this blog entry are sometimes different from the ones that got to the review – wanted to show something a little different.