Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Messegelande / Balingen / Germany
Concert date: June 26, 2009
Attendance: 20,000
Ticket price: €85.00 (two-day ticket)
The second day of the festival didn’t exactly start on a rosy note. Soon after I crawled into my tent around two in the morning, it started dripping from the sky. Innocently at first. It even stopped. But as a new day rose over the grounds, the heavens opened. And the rain just would not quit. By ten in the morning the ground in the campsite was properly soaked and we were already happily wading through the mud. At 10 sharp, to be precise, four surviving Slovenians finally dragged themselves up to the stage and… had something to watch! There weren’t many others down front, either. Maybe 200. Everyone wrapped in a mix of PVC rain gear. It was pouring, and the sky was completely shut on all sides. A real shame, because the first band is…
| Cloven Hoof: 10.00 – 10.40 |
…a former herald of spring from the early eighties, when the new wave of heavy metal went off in Great Britain. Cloven Hoof (the name could be rendered as a term for cloven-hoofed animals) is a band that split up in 1990 and got back together around 2000. Since then, with a bit of luck, you can catch them on stage again. RockLine already saw their show in Brescia two years ago, and Cloven Hoof left an outstanding impression even then. In the meantime the band has bolstered its ranks with an extra guitarist, Christian Horton, and grown into a quintet. They also surprised with a polished, revamped look. They squeezed into tight sleeveless leather jackets and tight black leather pants, plus spandex, and hung their gear with all kinds of oddly shaped metal bits. On stage they unfurled a big banner with the logo and an English (not British!) flag. So the picture was spot on. And the sound? Still doubting?
Interestingly, the band was completely restructured after the album “Eye Of The Sun” (2006). Jon Brown (drums) and the one-of-a-kind singer Russ North came back to the lineup, and Ben Read took over guitar duties. Only bassist Lee Payne has been a constant in the lineup since the band’s founding. “The Definitive Part One” (2008) is the album where Cloven Hoof, in the current lineup (minus Horton), re-recorded some old songs from their classic albums. If you knew at least that record, the material they played live was familiar to you. They opened with Inquisitor (“Eye Of The Sun”, 2006), and in the rest of the (far too short) set they brought back the classics Nova Battlestar, Mutilator, Return Of The Passover, Road Of Eagles, Gates Of Gehenna. During Road To Eagles, Russ introduced the members of the Cloven Hoof crew to the audience.
Today Cloven Hoof remain (in looks and style) more n.w.o.b.h.m. than any Iron Maiden. The songs have all the basic elements of the unique British approach that ruled metal in the first half of the eighties. On top of that they’re incredibly tight, and North has kept his vocal power in the highest registers even today. You can also tell they’re seasoned old cats who know exactly what stagecraft means, the movement, along with phenomenal execution of the material. Plenty of running around fueled the dynamics of the show. Given the weather, Cloven Hoof squeezed the maximum out of their set. Anyone who kept snoring in the campsite, or huddled in some dry corner of a tent to avoid a drop of rain, really has reason to be sorry. They missed out on the creation of a one-of-a-kind n.w.o.b.h.m. magic, which conjured up that untamed drive, faith and rapture (long forgotten) that went with the early eighties. A time when heavy metal was still young. Cloven Hoof were honestly one of the big attractions of this year’s Bang Your Head!!! festival. Watch out for them. Their brand new studio album “Trone Of Damnation” comes out this year, the first in 20 years, since “A Sultan’s Ransom” (1989)!
| Laaz Rockit: 10.50 – 11.35 |
If Great Britain had its new wave, the Americans, with a slight lag of two or three years, started cultivating their own California Bay Area scene. Among the earliest representatives of that movement were, of course, Laaz Rockit. They added even more aggression and speed to metal and stripped out the melodic component. Those were the seeds of thrash metal. Laaz Rockit look completely different on stage from their British predecessors. Plain washed-out black T-shirts, worn black jeans… so, totally unremarkable. But one thing: Laaz Rockit kept the action on stage super attractive. In fact, they lobbed the ball right back at Cloven Hoof. They opened with the first track off their latest album “Left For Dead”, which came out last year, and stuck with it through Delirium Void and Erased. Even though the heaviest rain of the whole festival fell during the Laaz Rockit show, the crowd in front of the stage grew significantly. Thrash metal is hugely popular again today, and thanks to the good number of thrash bands at this year’s BYH festival, the audience was also much more heavily made up of fans of the genre. The band fired off the first treat with Last Breath from the classic album “Know Your Enemy” (1987), which the crowd greeted with a roar and gave itself over to the band’s shredding. Even Michael Coons, with a curly do like a smooth Roger Daltrey (The Who), just waved a hand and didn’t give a damn that he’d be taking a bath in the rain tonight in Balingen.
Laaz Rockit built up their 40-minute show and made the crowd happy especially at the end, when they shredded through Forced To Fight from the debut “City’s Gona Burn” (1984) and poured oil on the fire with Fire in The Hole from “Annihilaton Principle” (1989). Laaz Rockit also served up a fiery mix of relentless old-school thrashing, and everyone in the crowd sang their praises afterward. A shame about the rain, but judging by what they showed, it’s a big promise of a big return to the scene!
| Powerwolf: 11.45 – 12.30 |
A less interesting stretch of the festival followed, though no less quality, when the power metal band Powerwolf took the stage. They’re a German group founded by the brothers Charles and Matthew Greywolf, and on stage they’re commanded by the Romanian singer Atilla Dorn. So it wasn’t a long road to the idea of working Romanian legends and fairy tales about vampires and werewolves into the band’s sermon-like lyrics. In six years the band has put out three albums, the latest, “Bible Of The Beast”, in April this year. They thoroughly showcased it during their set in Balingen. Powerwolf are very popular back home, and a hefty crowd egged them on from in front of the stage, especially younger metalheads who couldn’t care less that it was still pouring mercilessly from the sky.
Powerwolf try to escape the generic design of their songs with elaborate stagecraft and a theatrical show, which Atilla takes care of, toasting the crowd with a chalice of blood, reading satanic verses from dusty tomes, and the like. Add the obligatory black-and-white face paint, meant to conjure the reality of zombie rituals. Powerwolf showed power and confidence too. They’re just less interesting precisely because of the general flood of bands like this, who draw their metal inspiration, among other things, from the virtual world of computer game scenarios. With these principles they subconsciously push listeners away from the essence. From exploring the credibility of their original material. I used part of the Powerwolf show to have lunch in the nearby Volksbankmesse hall. That heap on the plate looked at first glance more like prison food, or something out of an Alan Ford comic strip. It was also worth using the “autograph” hour with Cloven Hoof, where I too added my own little pot to the pile!
| Driver: 12.40 – 13.30 |
Perfect timing! With my Cloven Hoof autographs collected, already thoroughly moldy and rotting in the rain, I bolted back to the front of the stage for the American “super” lineup Driver. Rob Rock’s vocals are still among the most distinctive melodic voices in heavy metal, able to match the greatest singers like Geoff Tate, Rob Halford, Bruce Dickinson. Add the guitarist Roy Z, a man who became known especially for his close collaboration with Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson during the period when Dickinson was devoted to his solo career, plus the excellent Impellitteri keyboardist Ed Roth and the rhythm section of Aaron Samson (bass) and Butch Carlson (drums), and you have a formula that guarantees success. The lineup is really a kind of continuation of the band Driver, which Rob Rock took inspiration from after appearing in 1986 on M.A.R.S. “Project Driver” in excellent company that included Tony MacAlpine (guitar), Rudy Sarzo (bass) and Tommy Aldridge (drums). Driver then emerged as a band at the end of the eighties around the creative core of Rob Rock and Roy Z, released a five-song EP in 1990 and fell apart, because there simply wasn’t time for it. So the band reunited last year, put out the album “Sons Of Thunder” and hit the road to conquer the music masses.
And that’s just what happened. Driver devoted the bulk of the set to their debut record, and on stage Rob Rock reigned supreme with fantastic vocals that unleashed incredible force and power. The melodic punch in every phrase of his singing was backed by excellent, fully committed stagecraft, with passionate gesturing and whipping up the crowd. At moments you could really feel Rob Rock pushing his voice right to the limit of what’s possible. A real mini master class in top-tier singing. Even the sky heard his screaming, and during the show it stopped raining. Finally. Hallelujah! Praise the heavenly phenomena!!!
The sweet spot of the set came when the band tackled the anthemic “Project: Driver” classic Nations On Fire. Quiet anticipation smoldered. We were heard. Another proof of what an excellent singer Rob Rock is: before the end he took on a demanding Abba cover, Eagle. You can find that cover in a studio version on Rock’s album “Rage Of Creation” (2000), and at the festival it kept company with the band’s cataclysmic charge in Judgement Day. Let’s hope Driver stick around and put out many more albums!
| Warrior: 13.40 – 14.30 |
These American speed metallers aren’t stylistically far from Driver either, so following them on stage made perfect sense. It fit also because Roy Z and Rob Rock were both once members of this band. Warrior bring more aggression and less melody in their expression. Even sharper, angrier, but still closer in attitude to classic heavy metal than to some kind of thrash. Warrior kept the core that founded the band in 1982, Joe Floyd (guitar) and Parramore McCarty (vocals), who rejoined the band last year.
This show was something special for Warrior. It was their first on European soil in a full 10 years. McCarty is nowhere near the singer Rob Rock is, but he still proved that real “warrior” blood runs through his veins. Joe Floyd found excellent support in the young guitarist and new member AC Alexander. He’s a guitarist who matches Joe Floyd’s soloing and stands on equal footing with him. He also dressed up a bit, nearly as a Native American (Warrior, after all), which made some sense here. McCarty, too, looked like a Vietnam deserter in his patched and faded army shirt.
With a venomous setlist that, apart from two songs, focused exclusively on the material from the debut “Fighting For The Earth” (1985), Warrior convinced the crowd that the band is brimming with new drive, new energy, a kind of joy at being able to get back on stage. An untamed hunger to play has woken up in them again. For the closing Fighting For The Earth, their former member Roy Z joined the band on stage as a special guest. Warrior continued the tradition of the festival’s second day, when in Balingen we were discovering real metal dinosaurs, who all proved that their teeth still rip and grind with undiminished power in the new millennium. Up to then (with the exception of Powerwolf) we’d been served the best years of eighties metal!
| Pink Cream 69: 14.45 – 15.35 |
These superb German melodic hard rockers appeared at this year’s Bang Your Head!!! festival completely unplanned and at the last minute, after the Americans Tesla canceled their show. A quick explanation of why Tesla canceled: the same day, in the late afternoon, they also had a confirmed slot at this year’s Gods Of Metal festival in Milan (Italy). Apparently flight times didn’t line up with the band’s wish to play two shows in one day, so they sacrificed the Bang Your Head!!! festival.
Pink Cream 69 are of course not as glamorous a band as Tesla, and nowhere near as famous, let alone commercially successful. But that doesn’t matter if your music carries credibility, that is, quality. Even if that quality goes unfairly overlooked. Pink Cream 69 can today boast remarkable stability and a truly excellent catalog of releases. Old friends from Veliko Ubeljsko, where in 2007 they honored Slovenian fans of hard sounds with a visit to the Heavy Metal Night festival there, opened their show with Children Of The Down from their current studio album “In10sity” (2007). The number of decibels let loose was noticeably higher than during Warrior, and the German crowd also came to back the home band. Down front, and all the way back from the stage for about 150 m, it was properly packed. Singer David Readman, an Englishman by birth, was, right behind Rob Rock, a frontman of incredible acrobatics and great vocal skill. Besides charisma, he crowned his performance with incredible explosiveness and effortlessly carried the power his vocal cords generated through articulation from the lowest, through the middle, to the highest registers. Readman is a true master you watch on stage with the greatest pleasure. The band didn’t miss a beat with the material.
The new thing with Pink Cream 69 is that Uwe Reitenauer now takes on most of the soloing duties, since Alfred Koffler suffers from neuropathy. You can’t miss it even with the naked eye, because Koffler mostly holds his chords with his pinky and index finger, while barely using his middle and ring fingers at all. Among other things, the band cut loose with Keep Your Eye On The Twisted, No Way Out, Shame, Do You Like It Like That, Carnaby Road, Livin’ My Life For You and Seas Of Madness, and finally brought a hard rock touch to the festival!
| Hardcore Superstar: 15.50 – 16.40 |
The glam rock revivalists from Gothenburg, Sweden enjoy an outstanding status in their home country. In a good ten years of existence they’ve put a nice pile of hits at number one on the national charts, and they’ve also taken home a few Grammys for their work. Of course, the Swedish ones. Whatever the initial “glam” tag I pinned on them because of the band’s extravagant makeup, Hardcore Superstar’s albums can differ in their material. The new “Beg For It” (2009) is again a harder-hitting product, with many songs carrying the accent of real melodic heavy metal.
Hardcore Superstar showed up in Balingen this year as big debtors. The band should have played here the year before, but got stuck with their plane in Paris. If you were at last year’s festival, you may remember how Lizzy Borden took the stage a second time a little after five in the afternoon to fill in for the canceled Hardcore Superstar show. Back then Lizzy Borden played two completely different sets. Another new thing for Hardcore Superstar, alongside the freshly released studio album, is that a brand new guitarist, Vic Zino, joined them last year, replacing the original founding member Thomas Silver. Not an easy task, but Vic handled it with confidence in Balingen, as if he’d been in Hardcore Superstar for ages.
The driving force of the quartet is of course singer Joakim “Jocke” Berg. A man tattooed down to the last inch of his arms, he gave off the look of a naughty boy, suspenders hanging loose, an offended, vengeful stare, in ripped, skin-tight “carrot” jeans and, most importantly, with explosive stagecraft and singing with a cheekily provocative punk accent. The crowd again went completely wild down front and sang along, especially to the choruses. Jocke imposed his way of playing on the audience, the Hardcore Superstar way, and it became incredibly tame and easy to lead, while the singer proved himself a top-class stage performer who makes great use of his big talent and charisma. Without Jocke on stage, Hardcore Superstar would be half as interesting. Another great show, in a day of nothing but great shows, brought songs like these to the stage: Beg For It, Into Debaucherry, Medicate Me, Bag On Your Head (here Jocke turned the word Bag into Bang, in keeping with the festival’s name), We Don’t Celebrate Sundays (the closer), Dreamin’ In A Casket, Wild Boys, Honey Tongue.
| Exodus: 16.55 – 17.50 |
Enough jokes, pretty melodies and romance! Exodus arrived in Balingen to take us, on the wings of a toxic waltz, one last time into the boundless expanses of hell! The Bay Area thrash metal legends are one of those bands that wrote themselves onto the map of metal giants for good in the eighties, then more or less “wandered through” the nineties and came back again with the album “Tempo Of The Damned” (2004). The band is extremely active in this period. Last year they released the re-recorded debut “Bonded By Blood” (1985), which they renamed “Let There Be Blood” (2008) for the occasion, and this fall they’re planning the sequel to “The Atrocity Exhibition” saga with a new part, “Exhibit B”. With Rob Dukes, who took over vocal duties in 2005, some new facts came into play for Exodus. The guy has a vocal timbre in his scream that would work well in “fake” metal, the kind we like to tack a “-core” onto. That actually gives the live performance of the classic material in this new era, the songs of the debut Bonded By Blood, a whole new dimension, new quality, new characteristics. It’s not bad, but unfortunately it’s not what you’d want to hear from Exodus.
That’s why Exodus are a “different” band today. Honestly, it’s enough to buy “Let There Be Blood” (2008) plus the band’s last three studio albums, if you don’t want to dig any deeper. But the situation in front of the stage was completely different. It was boiling with the huge anticipation of starving thrash metal warriors. The guys strike straight away with Bonded By Blood and then alternate between old and new in the set. Rob Dukes, who’s known for getting so furiously absorbed in the band’s thrash storm, can get annoying, not to say even insulting, in his longer addresses to the crowd on stage. This time he held himself back, but he certainly didn’t leave the stage without making an impression. In swim bermuda shorts with an American flag pattern. In South America the crowd at a similar show would strip him out of them in an instant and eat him alive! Dukes enjoyed the sight of the crowd gone wild. They were throwing murderous mosh pits all on their own, trampling everything alive underfoot, and during The Toxic Waltz Dukes got the crowd to put together a gigantic “wall of death”.
During the Exodus show my eyes were mostly fixed on the work of the two guitarists. The masters Lee Altus and Gary Holt, who showed off a supernatural language of stage communication and tuning. Ultrasonic and superbly precise soloing set off salvos of crossfire from both guitarists, who shot from every possible and impossible stage position. With such a truly excellent performance and execution, the only thing that bothered me was the realization that Exodus haven’t freshened up their setlist in a long time.
| Y&T: 18.05 – 19.15 |
Y&T were the act on the schedule I was waiting for with the greatest impatience. I simply adore the playing style of their guitarist and singer, and Y&T’s driving force, Dave Meniketti. You’re probably wondering what the hell Y&T even is. Shortened from Yesterday And Today, Y&T came to this planet way back in 1974. At this year’s festival in Balingen they represented the classic heavy/hard rock band whose repertoire is often seasoned to a considerable degree with elements of blues. So? Yes! The most erotic music of the festival. From the fingers and heads of, after Journey, the second-oldest band of this year’s festival.
Y&T took off at a gallop with Open Fire (“Black Tiger”, 1982)! Meniketti, in sunglasses, diligently stayed within a radius of at most 3-4 meters left or right of the mic, since he had to concentrate on his singing the whole time. So the stage extension toward the audience was used mainly by bassist Phil Kennemore (besides Meniketti the other original member of today’s Y&T lineup) and the second guitarist John Nymann, a Norwegian by birth. Lipstick And Leather (“In Rock We Trust”, 1984) kept up the high gallop of the opening, then the crew calmed down a bit as they started the intro of the fantastic Dirty Girl (“Earthshaker”, 1981). For the occasion Meniketti swapped his Les Paul for a blue Yamaha guitar from the Pacifica series. In the calmer transitional middle section, Kennemore started moving toward Meniketti’s right side. When he crossed the center line and ended up on Meniketti’s right, Meniketti jerked his head around. That was not in the plan for the Y&T show. Meniketti, not hiding a bit of bewilderment, kept singing, since he had no other choice. Phil had to do it, because the top (thickest) string on his bass had blown apart. If it didn’t happen to the far rougher Exodus, it happened to the hard rock romantics Y&T! A tech jumps on stage and does his job with nearly the speed of a Formula One pit stop. Everything’s okay and back to normal. Y&T “roar” on. After an excellent ride through the classics Rescue Me, Mean Streak and Don’t Stop Runnin’, it was time for a ballad. The instrumental I’ll Cry For You is the moment where Meniketti really shows all his greatness as a master of melody. Superior control of sound and of how the notes are laid out, carefully considered string bends in the “pull-offs,” the colorful rising and falling of tones, tremolo tricks, a soft touch that drew real moaning out of the instrument, conjured up one of the highlights of the show. A one-of-a-kind blues medley packed with eroticism!
The rest flares up through the excellent Eyes Of The Stranger, and the closing stretch echoes with the obligatory Black Tiger, I Believe In You and a sped-up Forever. 70 minutes flew by in the blink of an eye. I must add that Meniketti’s vocals sounded fantastic. Manly, soulful and rough at the edges, with a velvety, mournful bluesy accent, and dominantly strong and authoritative at every moment of the show. Special mention goes to drummer Mike Vanderhule, who played the entire Y&T show with his right hand only. He broke his left hand four days earlier, and it had to rest in a cast during the show. Superior sound and performance. Y&T offered one of the best ear-feasts at this year’s Bang Your Head festival. The legends are holding up! They already have new shows confirmed in Europe for October 2009.
| W.A.S.P.: 19.35 – 20.45 |
How boring and empty would the world be without Blackie Lawless and his naughty gang? Besides Blackie, since 1997 only bassist Mike Duda has been a more or less permanent member of the lineup, while drummers and guitarists come and go. In 2006 Doug Blair, a guitarist from “The Crimson Idol” era, joined the band for the third time, and the same year Mike Dupke, otherwise John Mellencamp’s drummer. In their seventy minutes W.A.S.P. of course saved fuel with finesse. First they stole five minutes from us by cueing up a pre-recorded intro of one of The Doors’ songs at the start. Especially toward the end there was some unnecessary theatrical waiting between songs for the band to start the next one, as well as stretching out the verses of the chorus in, say, I Wanna Be Somebody, where the packed front of the stage, some 15,000 curious souls, had to sing in unison, following Blackie’s instructions.
That said, no complaints! The W.A.S.P. show was excellent. Loud but clear and juicy sound, with the band tuned in on stage. The frontman Blackie’s running and jumping left and right across the stage, which didn’t let up for a good hour, proved that the guy feels great at the festival and that the band thoroughly enjoys the mass of people going nuts together with them. The guys didn’t skip the newer Take Me Up from the latest studio album “Dominator” (2007) either, which they slotted into the middle of their classic repertoire, with which the band almost by rule secures a concert victory in advance! But you could feel pure routine and nothing more. Still, that doesn’t matter, because the show was excellent. I can say for myself personally that I finally saw W.A.S.P. in their true glory. In good spirits, with excellent sound and with mass support in front of the stage. One of the most beautiful ballads in metal altogether, The Idol, was in there too, and the band, as expected, closed their show by tackling Blind In Texas.
| Blind Guardian: 21.10 – 22.50 |
The second day’s lineup was extremely exciting overall, especially for its stylistic variety, not to mention the “exoticism” of some of the bands. It was hard to forgive yourself if you happened to miss any of the acts. The honor of closing this year’s Bang Your Head!!! festival went to the locals from Krefeld, the German band Blind Guardian. In 2009 the band’s driving core is still the unshakable Kürsch, Olbrich, Siepen, joined by the somewhat younger drummer Frederik Ehmke. Live, they’re still backed on bass by the helper Oliver Holzwarth (ex Sieges Even) and on keyboards, in a similar role, by Michael Schüren.
The clock strikes a little past nine in the evening. Intro. The clanging of iron, of spiked or otherwise sharpened tips, the cries of the fallen, hit, wounded, chaos… We’re in the middle of a battlefield storm! The crowd shreds its eardrums and raises an unbearable racket that spreads behind my back as I stand in the photographers’ pit. Just Morgoth’s speech and they’ll be here any moment! As expected they erupt into Time Stands Still, and the first surprise is the sight of singer Hansi Kürsch, who came on stage with a new hairdo. Apparently the burden of the years has “swept away” most of his hair, and preventive measures to keep the hair on his dome with a “tincture” were simply necessary.
Otherwise the band is completely standard on stage. The sound is spot-on from the first note, clear, loud, precisely calibrated. Olbrich on Kürsch’s right, Siepen on the left, Holzwarth hidden somewhere in the background and Ehmke in the center behind a gleaming metal drum fortress. Kürsch, who plays without any special escapades, bursts of higher kinetic effect or “empty chatter” between songs, spent a good while on the stage extension, right at the edge of the packed space in front of the stage, which was filled by a crowd of 20,000 heads, if not more. Up front the Germans, besides making an incredible racket, even let off soap bubbles. A festive atmosphere you won’t experience just anywhere. For that you have to go to Germany. And yes, it’s true. Blind Guardian is a band you must see in Germany.
Blind Guardian turned the setlist thoroughly upside down. In the freshly refreshed setlist, the performances of Traveler In Time, Goodbye My Friend, Blood Tears, The Script For My Requiem, Time What Is Time, Another Holy War brought plenty of joy, as did the return of the excellent Lord Of The Rings to the live repertoire.
During Time What Is Time, it started pouring again. The rain washed us mercilessly until the end of the show. The air cooled drastically in an instant, but nobody cared. The ecstatic crowd kept filling in the choruses, if not whole songs, with unified thunderous singing that nearly drowned out Kürsch. An hour and forty minutes of a one-of-a-kind get-together with the band flowed into a highly atmospheric finish. After the expected end of the regular set with Imaginations From The Other Side, the band comes back on stage and leaves almost all the verses to the crowd during The Bard’s Song. As expected, and it was interesting to compare the feeling in Balingen with my earlier Blind Guardian shows. The magic of the one-of-a-kind feeling of enjoying Blind Guardian on home soil wrapped up with the metal hit Mirror, Mirror, the lights go out, and Blind Guardian leave us crouching, wet, in the puddles.
Then they return in the company of Horst E. Franz, the festival’s main organizer, and together they take in the impressions before the ecstasy of an audience that just would not stop singing the chorus: “Valhalla, deliverance, But you ever forgot me,…” Not even after the organizer closed this year’s festival with a ceremonial fireworks display. The magic didn’t let up. And yet I had to snap out of the enchanted haze. I won’t hide the fact that I literally fell in love with Bang Your Head!!! It’s a type of festival that differs from the mass festivals. It’s aimed at a “slightly older” audience, from about 24 and up, and not at the wet-behind-the-ears wanderers who swallow everything from The Killers to Lady GaGa. Bang Your Head!!! festival offers plenty of intimacy, it offers shows by bands who wrote themselves into the history of rock and metal with their catalogs, or bands that are truly hard to catch today on their own European tours, and we could go on and on. It was 11 p.m., and in half an hour the “after show party” of BYH!!! would take place in the nearby club Subway, with the German Judas Priest tribute band Just Priest, in which former Primal Fear and Sinner guitarist Tom Naumann now strums the strings. I’ll be there shortly…but that’s already a story for a new report. Bang Your Head!!!, see you again next year!
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist
Cloven Hoof Laaz Rockit Powerwolf Driver Warrior Pink Cream 69 Hardcore Superstar Exodus Y&T W.A.S.P. Blind Guardian Setlists: CLOVEN HOOF: 1. Inquisitor 2. Nova Battlestar 3. Mutilator 4. Return Of The Passover 5. Road Of Eagles 6. Gates Of Gehenna LAAZ ROCKIT: 1. Brain Wash 2. Delirium Void 3. Erased 4. Last Breath 5. Chasin’ Charlie 6. Liar 7. Forced To Fight 8. Fire In The Hole POWERWOLF: 1. Lupus Daemonis (intro) 2. We Take It From The Living 3. Prayer In The Dark 4. Raise Your Fist, Evangelist 5. We Came To Take Your Souls 6. Saturday Satan 7. Werewolves Of Armenia 8. Resurrection By Erection 9. Kiss Of The Cobra King 10. Lupus Daemonis DRIVER: 1 .Sons Of Thunder 2. Fly Away 3. Heart’s On Fire 4. Winds Of March 5. Nations On Fire 6. Judgment Day 7. Eagle 8. I’m A Warrior WARRIOR: 1. PTM 1 2. Fight Or Fall 3. Mind Over Matter 4. Ruler 5. Day Of The Evil (Beware) 6. Defenders Of Creation 7. Tonight We Ride 8. Cold Fire 9. Fighting For The Earth EXODUS: 1. Bonded By Blood 2. Iconoclasm 3. A Lesson In Violence 4. Children of a Worthless God 5. Piranha 6. Deathamphetamine 7. Blacklist 8. War Is My Sheppard 9. The Toxic Waltz 10. Strike Of The Beast Y&T: 1. Open Fire 2. Lipstick & Leather 3. Dirty Girl 4. Don’t Stop Runnin’ 5. Mean Streak 6. Rescue Me 7. I’ll Cry For You 8. Eyes Of The Stranger 9. Looks Like Trouble 10. Black Tiger 11. I Believe In You 12. Forever W.A.S.P.: 1. On Your Knees / Inside The Electric Circus 2. Hate To Love Me 3. L.O.V.E. Machine 4. Wild Child 5. Take Me Up 6. Chainsaw Charlie (Murders In The New Morgue) 7. The Idol 8. I Wanna Be Somebody 9. Blind In Texas BLIND GUARDIAN: 1. War Of Wrath (intro) 2. Time Stands Still (At The Iron Hill) 3. Another Holy War 4. Nightfall 5. Traveler In Time 6. Turn The Page 7. The Script For My Requiem 8. Blood Tears 9. Goodbye My Friend 10. This Will Never End 11. Valhalla 12. Sacred 13. Time What Is Time 14. Lord Of The Rings 15. Punishment Divine 16. Imaginations From The Other Side —encore— 17. The Bard’s Song (In The Forest) 18. Mirror Mirror
Photo gallery
