IF I COULD TURN BACK TIME

By johanne James

MARTYR TOUR REPORT

The Dutch Metal Legends heading back to the Far East

A little more than one year ago Dutch Metal Legends MARTYR embarked on a plane to Japan for the first time in their career to play a handful of shows in Tokyo and Sapporo. A dream came true, as gigging in the Far East has always been one of the primary objectives to start the band back in 1982 as MARTYR is strongly influenced by 80’s Japanese metal.During that first Japan tour Rick Bouwman (guitars) visited his old time Facebook friend and owner of “Rock Stakk Records”, Mikitoshi (Miki) Matsuo in Osaka. Miki also happens to be the main guy behind the prestigious international True Thrash Fest, which is held every year (this year with bands from The Netherlands, Germany, China, Australia, Japan, India). Due to mutual respect, which is a very important matter in Japanese culture, MARTYR was invited to perform on day 1 of the festival on February 8th and the Cross Breed Device Heat vol. 24 festivals on February 10th 2019. Japanese thrashers RIVERGE organized the last festival.

THE RAVEN AGE

,,Sex, drugs and rock and roll is a load of bollocks at the end of the day, it is all about the music now.”

On March 8th The Raven Age released their second album called ‘Conspiracy’ and that follow up album got excellent reviews. The band, with new singer Matt James, went on a UK/European Tour and they are playing their last gig of that tour in Den Bosch in The Netherlands. Before the show I had the chance to talk to the “new’ vocalist and drummer Jai Patel. Due to major traffic jams I was late but the guys were still very willing to talk to me, so here we go…