I'm generally not a huge fan of either thrash or grindcore -- I do enjoy both, but only under special conditions, for doom, black and death are clearly my choices. Still, thrash and grindcore were precisely what this concert was all about, as Withering are a young thrash band and Genocide have been around the Portuguese scene playing their death/grindcore for quite a while now (they released a self-titled CD a few years ago). Among the special conditions that may cause me to feel like listening to thrash or grindcore, the strongest one, by far, is the chance of listening to it live (well, I do listen to some grindcore more often than that, though). So if you were in a thrash/grindcore concert and considered how suitable grindcore is for moshing, would you rather be in a large, sparsely crowded room or in a tiny, low-roofed packed one? Well, in this particular concert, the room wasn't -too- packed, but it sure was damn small.

After a surprisingly short delay (of 'just' 40 minutes), Withering opened the show. Even though they're still a young band in the demo tape stage, they managed to perform pretty well. I was in the first row at that time (literally with one foot on the stage), and the sound was loud, but not enough to become annoying; overall, the sound quality was very reasonable and better than I expected. Being a local band, Withering benefited from the fact that some of the audience knew their songs, although they rarely managed to get the crowd moving. Several good moments occurred in their concert, and the playing, despite a few errors, was not bad at all. Not being much into thrash these days, I wasn't very fond of the typically thrash metal vocal performance, but Withering did show some quality.

After the break came Genocide, which featured a new guitarist and was preparing to release a new album. The guitar sound was very deep, with lots of bass, strong (and fast) drumming, and a competent combination of thick death growls and typical grindcore screaming. Needless to say that, by now, I was no longer in the front row, since it was rather difficult to stay in the same place for more than a short while, due to the massive moshing that happened throughout Genocide's anger-packed performance. Including some songs from their new album, Genocide did deliver what the people wanted: aggression through both brutal death and ripping blastbeat sections. This was one of those concerts in which you knew what you would get, and you did get it.