In the early hours of Saturday November 14th, many of us left the Hard Rock Hell arenas after watching the last bands and were greeted with the buzzing and beeping of social media notifications informing us of the Paris attacks. The atmosphere was chilling, as everyone around me was staring in shock at their phones and finding their friends to tell. Any unnecessary loss of life is an absolute tragedy, but this one hit us all hard. One of the attacks had targeted and hit our very own Rock and Metal community.
Throughout Saturday the bands, staff and festival patrons united together to show their support and share the grief for the victims and their families whilst anxiously checking social media to check on their own loved ones in Paris at the time.
Many of the bands vowed to rock as hard as they could during their sets to show their defiance to the attackers and show the Rock community won’t back down and will stand strong together for our brothers and sisters.
Slowly reports have come in of ISIS taking responsibility for the attacks describing the concert as a “Profligate prostitution party” and now bands such as the Foo Fighters, U2, Motorhead and Marilyn Manson are cancelling their shows. These attacks have shaken the Rock and Metal community to its very core and the ripples seem to be spreading across the whole music industry.
From all of us here at RAMzine, we express our deepest sympathy to all those affected by these horrid and cowardly attacks. Stay strong, stay safe and stay united!
RAMzine contributor Neale McGeever had reviewed Eagles of Death Metal just 4 days before the incident. We held the review back out of good taste. Neale wrote “I hope you enjoy the review and continue to love live music. As EODM named their debut album – Peace, Love, Death Metal.”. Read the full review here.
