Bang Your Head!!! Festival (Day Two): The Thrash Metal Gods Close Out With Thunder (2011)

Author: Urban Bolta
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik

Location: Messegelande / Balingen / Germany
Concert date: 15.07.2011
Attendance: 14
Ticket price: 80€ (two-day ticket)

And so the second day of BYH!!! 2011 rolled around. Let me just hint that we froze our asses off in the tents overnight, with the temperature hitting a measly 6° C above zero.

IVANHOE:
This year’s Bang Your Head!!! finally got a taste of prog metal on its second day! That was down to the Germans Ivanhoe, from the town of Bietigheim. The name might not ring many bells, but Ivanhoe have been around since 1986. It was a long road to a debut, which only saw the light of day in 1992. They’re a band that, much like Vanden Plas in those years, was sort of Europe’s answer to the Dream Theater boom across the Atlantic. Their latest studio album, the fifth, is called Lifeline and came out three years ago. The sun greeted the guys, and as a result there were far more people in front of the stage than the day before, when the hometown boys Human Zoo from Balingen opened the festival under cloudy skies. Ivanhoe are seasoned musicians, and there’s no doubt that a band fronted by a thoroughly reshuffled lineup in this new era can deliver a tight, polished show. The problem is just that the guys aren’t used to big stages. That’s partly down to the unlucky fact that they’re stuck in an obscure position from which they can’t break out onto a wider European tour and bring their music to a bigger crowd. On stage they came across as very stiff, static, and downright timid. But since Ivanhoe rack up their winning points mainly with complex, highly synchronized instrumentation, steered by melodic, clean, powerful vocals, we’ll definitely give that side of things absolute priority. And on that front Ivanhoe tore through their repertoire with real polish and confidence, starting with the opener Lifeline, the excellent multi-layered, dynamic ballad Angels Holocaust, and the arabesque-laden Cheops, all three from the latest studio album. The band surprised with Deeper Ground, taken from the debut “Visions And Reality”. In short, for connoisseurs and for anyone who hasn’t forgotten the glory days of prog metal’s rise in the nineties, Ivanhoe’s set was an extremely rewarding moment of this year’s BYH!!!

METAL INQUISITOR
Next up to battle the early hour were Metal Inquisitor, a heavy metal outfit from central Germany. Since they started out in 1998 they’ve put out three albums that differ slightly in style, the latest, “Unconditional Absolution”, at the end of last year. The early epic heavy metal with touches of speed and power metal has given way, on their latest record, to purer power metal phrasing. Metal Inqusitor attacked the stage without a shred of shyness and quickly showed they’re devoted to the heavy metal faith. The fast tempo and guitar shredding at times recalled speed metal forefathers like Exciter or the slightly more sophisticated Manilla Road, while other, more clichéd lines pointed to power metal veterans Grave Digger. On stage Metal Inquisitor seemed a bit confused and lost, which can probably be blamed on stage fright. Scorching interlocking guitar lines, riff-twitching and a whiff of dark atmosphere are the main hallmarks of the German band, who drew fans of the traditional heavy metal heritage in front of the stage. A solid morning party, but one that, buried in clichés as it is, has a hard time impressing with superlatives.

ASTRAL DOORS:
Those of you who caught the Blind Guardian show in Ljubljana in October 2006 might remember this band. Back then Astral Doors were the support act, presenting their third studio album “Astralism”. Since we last saw each other, the enterprising Swedes have lined up two more studio albums, the latest, “Requiem Of Time”, last year.  The Swedish metallers definitely carry the stamp of high quality. They have just one beauty flaw: they sound a tad too much like Black Sabbath in their late romantic era, which, besides the two albums with Dio on vocals, is further deepened by the character of the albums from the period with Tony Martin in the lineup. Alongside massive, heavy-rolling riffs set into mostly cannon-fire pounding of mid-cut booming rhythms, the lion’s share of that impression comes from singer Nils Patrik Johansson. An excellent singer, only he’s at times almost grotesquely similar in his gesturing, in the order of the verses he picks in the songs, and of course in the way he sings, sometimes to Martin, other times to Dio. With a bit of mental disconnect, you could easily mistake Astral Doors this time for a tribute band to the Dio-era Black Sabbath. And where Dio is close, so is Jorn Lande, if I may be a little wicked. Still, Nils was the first at the festival so far to use the “catwalk”. The band has grown into a confident, compact, chiselled stage machine that gigs superbly. There’s the catchy Cold War Survivor, then, from the album “New Revelation”, the equally excellent title track with its power metal-flavored chorus, the gloomy Slay The Dragon, the rousing anthemic march Testament of Rock from the new album, and of course, for all the lovers of dwarves, immortal heroes and dragon-beheading, Power And Glory.

TYGERS OF PAN TANG:
Want something old? Something of pioneering proportions? A steel beast that came creeping out of the days when making music wasn’t yet so heavily commercialized as it is today? True-blue, purebred representatives of the N.W.O.B.H.M. movement, revived after 2000 in a more or less stable lineup, with Robb Weir as the only original member left. Without a doubt one of the attractions of the second day of this year’s Bang Your Head!!! festival. They’re not Iron Maiden, they’re not Diamond Head, but they are Tygers Of Pan Tang! The band “burst” onto the stage just as they should, with the first track of their 1980 studio debut “Wild Cat”, called Euthanasia. The crowd in front of the stage was nicely filled, and the Germans clearly haven’t forgotten the elemental sounds that shaped the face of the first wave of metal on the planet and, with their appearance, made it fatefully popular. Right after Euthanasia come two “Spellbound” crushers in a row, Take It and Tyger Bay, and then the guys also played the newer Hot Blooded, which carried over and held on to all the typical traits of classic Tygers Of Pan Tang. Then comes a tantalizing intro that sent the audience high and straight up in the air, and then Weir stands shoulder to shoulder with Dean Robertson and the two gentlemen crisply nail the lead guitar phrase of the catchy “Spellbound” classic Gangland. The vibe builds superbly from song to song. It’s not hard when you’ve got albums in your pocket that wear the classic label and an audience in front of the stage that’s loyal to tradition and elementary originality. The guys also surprised by including the superb Rock And Roll Man, a track left off the debut “Wild Cat” that found its place on the 1981 live album “Live In Notthingam”. Just as I started wondering where the hell the “Crazy Nights” songs were, the Tygers hit us with Raised On Rock. Jacopo Meille is a vocalist who meets the standard of John Deverill, and Robertson is a guitarist who successfully fills in for John Sykes. Jacopo announces the last song of the day, the crowd closes ranks in front of the stage one last time, and Ballingen “goes crazy” in people’s heads as the Hellbound riff flashes. Tygers Of Pan Tang plan to release a new studio album next year. When they hit the road, we’ll meet them again. At the first slightest opportunity. The band took their Bang Your Head!!! appearance deadly seriously: at the official merch table you could even buy a commemorative Tygers Of Pan Tang shirt that marks only their show at this festival.

D-A-D:
Another legendary band, this time of Danish origin, who were for many years provocatively yet attractively named Dysneyland After Dark, and had to change that name after a serious lawsuit threat from the film company. Hence D-A-D. On this day’s festival stage the guys were pure musical candy as well. A special blend of hard rock with melodic catchiness and punk arrogance, which they like to call “cowpunk”, doesn’t hide a dash of glam frills. The musical content strings together a colorful mix of moods, spanning melancholy, cheeky self-mockery, and the character of true desperados of the Wild West.  The lucid shtick embodied by the quartet, led by the Binzer brothers and the stripped-down bassist Stig Pedersen, whose bass has only an E and an A string and is made of plexiglass,  is the stuff of amusement-park masters, which is just what the vast Bang Your Head festival stage is. By far the most energy unleashed by a band up to that point! Just a quartet, but they rule the stage. No doubt about that. The nimble, nonstop movement of the band members, who practically competed over who could hold the front position on the catwalk longest, fired up the crowd for every minute of the set. The naughty Evil Twin, where Jesper puts down the guitar and warns the audience in German: “Mein bruder spielt gitare!”, right after it Bad Craziness, in which Jesper provocatively feels the vein on his right arm, and then the newer, strictly wound-up pulse-raiser Beautiful Together.

It’s incredible how a mere modest quartet covers a huge amount of sonic space and uses the sheer vastness of the stage. That comes down to exceptional experience and miles on the clock. The band, in excellent spirits, truly stirred up the crowd from start to finish, and singer Jesper’s use of German helped a lot, too. Broken German, sure, but when it comes to usefulness, better that than brilliant English.  There’s also Monster Philosophy, then Scare Yourself and Girl Nation, then the obligatory and expected Sleeping My Day Away, where Jesper couldn’t get over how well the crowd had the song down. To close, Everything Glows, then the last one, It’s After Dark, and just like that the explosive show was over. Fifty minutes? Felt like none at all. And the sun was already a bit past its zenith.

HARDCORE SUPERSTAR
After the Danes, the Swedes Hardcore Superstar stormed the stage, the Scandinavian revivers of the sleaze rock creed. This variety of hard rock, hugely present in northern Europe these days, had a real boom thanks to the success of bands like H.E.A.T., Crashdiet or Fatal Smile, but it has to be stressed that it was Hardcore Superstar, with roots in the nineties, who paved the way for the Scandinavian sleaze rock boom a few years back. So it’s no wonder they were handed the honor of headlining the warm-up day of Sweden Rock Festival a month ago (report here), but it was clear that, with a foreign crowd and an early-afternoon slot, we wouldn’t get another show that intense. Regardless, the Swedes confidently pulled off their allotted 50 minutes and satisfied a nice number of people in front of the stage. With just one guitar, and songs built simply as a result, the Superstars play it with instantly catchy anthemic choruses, punch, and of course explosive showmanship, which together add up to a solid dose of fun. The main figure on stage was, as always, the recognizably glam-styled frontman Joakim Berg, the engine of the band and the cog that reliably pulled the Swedish machinery toward the end of the set. The Superstars walked through their discography, with a clear focus on the still-current album “Split Your Lip”, represented by the songs Moonshine, Sadistic Girl and Last Call For Alcohol, while, because of the short running time, the acoustic version of Run To Your Mama was cut from the set. A decent show from regular guests of Bang Your Head!!! – as expected, without anything out-of-this-world.

PSYCHOTIC WALTZ
After wrapping up the European “Power of Metal” club tour with Nevermore and Symphony X, the revived American cult progressive band Psychotic Waltz returned to the stage right at Balingen. After splitting the audience into two camps with their Ljubljana show in March and remaining the target of debate for a while, they could draw some parallels with this festival set, too. The long absence from the musical map took its toll, as there wasn’t much of a crowd in front of the stage, so pretty much like in March at Cvetličarna. The quintet’s philosophy is all about devoting themselves one hundred percent to the music and its stage interpretation, so they can be forgiven for a totally unpolished image, though it didn’t go quite as far as in March, when guitarist Dan Rock and vocalist Buddy Lackey showed up dressed in what were practically potato sacks. They opened the hour-long show with the song Mosquito and kicked off a one-of-a-kind journey through little-known musical dimensions and their trademark psychedelia. Locust, Northern Lights and Haze One flowed into one another, and only the in-between banter kept us hypnotized listeners from drifting off, unawares, into melancholic dreams. The slow psychedelic songs were the building blocks of a mysterious mood over Balingen, and only Lackey’s vocal flights to the heavens were proof that Psychotic Waltz, and the crowd with them, are still down to earth. Gentle touches of acoustics mixed with the menacing sound of the bass, shifting tempos, the occasional attack of both guitars, and even a “Jethro Tull-style” moment in the song I Remember, which Lackey opened with a flute bit. The fluid delivery, the distinctive interpretation of the playing and the relaxed vibe were proof that the original five are bound by chemistry, and that maybe… who knows, they could surprise us with a studio album in the future. The Americans closed the show, with a radically changed setlist (very commendable move!), with the song Halo of Thorns, and from every angle fully satisfied the appetites of the few fervent devotees in front of the stage.

JEFF SCOTT SOTO:
At five in the afternoon Jeff Scott Soto took the stage with his band. In line with an agreement with Pretty Maids, the two bands swapped their slots, so Pretty Maids played in the hall at quarter to nine. Jeff Scott Soto didn’t exactly have the best day at the festival. During the opening 21st Century his microphone died on him at first, so he “chased” the right-hand guitarist over to keep the left-hand guitarist company on backing vocals, while he himself stepped up to the vacated mic stand on the left side, and the song finally got its lead vocal. A good few minutes passed before they brought Jeff a “spare” wireless mic, so the rest of the first Talisman song, Blissful Garden, ran in the standard manner. That very song was the first to show the musical character and the “school” Jeff Scott Soto comes from, who was once inspired by masters of vocal acrobatics from Freddy Mercury (Queen) to Steve Perry (Journey). Melodic rock. The harmonies of the backing vocals of both guitarists and the bassist were nicely nailed. However, the unlucky mishap at the start of the show led to a bit less relaxation, which you could feel in Jeff’s communication with the crowd during the set. The crowd, too, didn’t show a whole lot of interest, and it seemed like most of the congregation was watching Soto’s set purely out of respect and to show support for the musician. Jeff put a few broad smiles of joy on the audience’s faces when he took on a very inventive “ladder” in which he walked through the famous guitar phrases of Gottthard, Dio, Y&T, Michael Jackson and Gary Moore. A bunch of fans who know Talisman inside out also got their money’s worth when Jeff cut loose with a second “ladder of the home team”, made up of Break Your Chains, Day By Day, Give Me A Sign, Dangerous, Just Between Us and Mysterious (This Time It’s Serious), and he topped it off with one more Talisman standard, performed in full, the song I’II Be Waiting. Jeff didn’t forget his time with the “German Blackmore”, Axel Rudi Pell, either! So the songs Fool Fool In Warrior rang out one after the other in shortened versions.

SONATA ARCTICA:
The audience had by now thoroughly mingled and filled up quite a bit more. Next came the set by the flinty Finnish symphonic pop metal dwarves Sonata Arctica. Sonata Arctica, who enjoy an insanely good level of support today, especially among the younger generation who bristle the moment they hear the word metal, have become a very spoiled band as a result. Then again, in their new position Sonata Arctica don’t go to extremes toward their surroundings the way you can see with those princesses-and-the-pea types – yes, I’m pointing a finger at you, burnt-out Helloween! Still, you can sense more and more hollowness and routine from the stage with Sonata Arctica today, too. What’s more, the quintet doesn’t even bother to use the vast stage. Everyone except singer Tony stands practically rooted to the spot during the show. Elias Viljanen puts his foot up on the monitor in front of the mic the most, and that’s it. Luckily, Tony’s vocal form of the day was better this time, going by a few past experiences with Sonata Arctica shows in 2009, 2010 and February 2011 in Ljubljana, but still. Without the loud and devoted support of the girls in front of the stage, who were probably watching their first metal (?) show ever, the huge stage would have totally gobbled up little Sonata.  A predictable set, without even any songs from the debut, but the guys made up for it entirely by including the “Silence” songs Black Sheep, Sing In Silence and Last Drop Falls. To finish, the band covered up their apparent exhaustion with the folk-anthem Don’t Say A Word, which squeezed a serious number of decibels out of the crowd’s throats. But never mind. The crowd got its money’s worth in every way. You have to bear in mind that Sonata Arctica have been touring practically nonstop since the fall of 2009, so the guys urgently need a break as soon as possible. Even if it lasts five or six years. The band truly looks worn out and exhausted on stage.

HELLOWEEN
As the afternoon slowly turned to evening, it was time for the Helloweens. The German heavy/power metal legends played as part of the current “7 Sinners” tour, which we could catch at its start in Ljubljana’s Kino Šiška as well (report here). Interestingly, despite their popularity on home soil, Helloween have never headlined a day in Balingen – this time too they played “only” as the warm-up act for the evening’s main act.

With their hour-plus comedy show and a heaping dose of onstage clowning, the Pumpkins managed to wrap the assembled crowd around their finger and, with a mix of “Keeper Of The Seven Keys” hits and newer material, successfully kept it in front of the stage. An integral part of their show is the stumbling around on stage, the healthy bickering among themselves, and just the constant tuning-in to a positive frequency. In all of that, the old-timers Michael Weikath and Markus Grosskopf dominate the right side of the stage, while the job of the “greenhorn” (even though he’s been in the band for a solid decade) Sasche Gerstner is still first and foremost strictly musical, and for every possible slip-up he’s rewarded with dirty looks from the band’s bosses. The relaxed vibe on stage instantly spilled over to the listeners, who primarily wanted as much music and as little of Andy Deris’s chatter as possible. The frontman once again overdid the rambling all over the place and the repetition of already-told jokes about whiskey and drummer Dani Löble. The unspontaneous flow of the show cast a big black stain on the Pumpkins this time, and as a result the crowd’s response was limited too, never quite embracing the greatness of the band on home turf. The bitter aftertaste was tipped toward a friendlier shade by the songs March Of Time, I’m Alive and Dr. Stein, but still, the predictable setlist, the lack of real feeling and the aforementioned long-windedness were too hard a nut for a positive verdict on this latest encounter with the Pumpkins.

PRETTY MAIDS:
The unlucky ones partly overlapped with the Helloween set. Unlucky? Not really. Anyone who knows how Helloween have been behaving on stage lately could skip their set this time with a clear conscience and treat themselves instead to an hour of potent, classically conceived hard rock with a generous helping of catchy, melodically compact anthemic tunes. On top of that, from a band you don’t get the chance to see on stage every day. The legendary Danes Pretty Maids. The German crowd was well aware of this Helloween overkill, so the MesseHalle hall was totally packed during the Pretty Maids set, with 1500 heads. I barely fought my way to the photo pit in time, as security was only letting small groups of waiting people into the hall, after keeping watch for feedback from colleagues in the hall and at its exit that enough room had opened up inside for new visitors to enter.

Pretty Maids brought down Messehalle. Hal Patina has been replaced in the band by the new bassist Rene Shades, known for his work in singer Mike Tramp’s backing band White Lion. The band trimmed the repertoire from their headline tour in November 2010 and shuffled it up a bit. An exceptionally nice treat in the set was Sin-Decade, alongside the obligatory Back To Back, Rodeo, Love Games and, in the encore, Future World and Red Hot And Heavy.

The band is in great spirits. Ronnie Atkins didn’t hide a slight vocal fraying toward the end, but for a guy of his rock-solid EMŠO, you’ve got to cut him some slack here. Pretty Maids give off that feeling of extreme ease and general approachability toward the crowd the whole time, with a practiced sense for a fun dose of healthy humor, and of course it wouldn’t work without the fantastic Ken Jackson, a master at effectively filling space with just one guitar. Pretty Maids delivered one of the tightest shows of the day and the hall was literally boiling with the crowd’s relaxed adrenaline rush. Pretty Maids announced a DVD recording on 01.10.2011, when they’ll play the club Z7 in the middle of Swiss Pratteln.

SLAYER
Once the most extreme band on the planet, now living legends of the genre. Thrash metal veterans Slayer played as the night’s headliners as the festival wound down, which was good news for all the diehard fans, me included, though their presence still didn’t blend with the overall image of Bang Your Head!!! festival, where past headliners include bands like Twisted Sister, Heaven & Hell, Journey, Blind Guardian, Judas Priest… Let’s hope the organizers manage to get back on the track of traditional heavy metal, the event’s long-time trademark, in the coming years.

A taped World Painted Blood intro served as the overture as Slayer marched onto the stage, and the intro was logically pulled into the title track of their latest studio album. Songs from “World Painted Blood” (2009) still dig deep into the set list, as they followed up with Hate Worldwide and Snuff, while, interestingly, there was no room in the set for Beauty Through Order, which they played on last year’s “Big 4” tour. The crush and shoving in the front rows were relentless, just as relentless as the hellish tempo of the four on stage. Tom Araya in the middle, Kerry King to his right, Dave Lombardo behind the kit, and on the left side none other than Gary Holt. The Exodus man is still filling in for Jeff Hanneman, who, despite the initial optimistic forecasts, hadn’t recovered by the festival summer to the point of being able to play a whole show.

It’s hard to imagine a more credible replacement than Gary Holt. A man with a serious face and a sharp sense for guitar wizardry fit into the band superbly, decently filled the hole on the left, and even brought some of his own charisma to the band. That showed above all in the reliable delivery of the solos (Spirit in Black, Angel of Death..), where he casually outshone the proverbially average King. The stage performance was spontaneous and, given the band’s EMŠO, satisfying, though it’s clear that today’s Slayer show can’t be compared with the brutal gigs of the eighties. You have to factor in, first of all, Araya’s static presence, dictated by his spinal health problems in recent years. Vocally the frontman did well and made up for his form from a year or two ago, when the screams in War Ensemble and Angel of Death were already at the limit of his abilities. The most consistent and reliable cog in Slayer is therefore drummer Lombardo, a master of his craft, who flawlessly drove through a technically demanding set – Lombardo’s legend is simply not highly esteemed in metal circles for nothing.

In their hour-and-a-half set Slayer served us evergreen eighties classics one after another, though for rotating the songs they play so little from tour to tour they deserve a solid slap on the wrist. They played Postmortem, the phenomenal Dead Skin Mask, the ever-present Mandatory Suicide, and in the encore the most recognizable triumphs, South of Heaven, Raining Blood fused together with Black Magic, and, for a perfect finish before the traditional fireworks, Angel of Death. A satisfying show from the gods of thrash metal, though, hand on heart, because of how constantly they tour, it’s hard for a regular follower of their shows to get anything new out of it.

LORDI:
The MesseHalle hall had been packed long before Slayer finished their set outside on the main stage. During the fireworks, which mark the end of the festival in Balingen every year, the view of the scene inside the hall looked like a heap of corpses. The two-day party did leave its mark on the people. Still, there was a critical shortage of air in the hall. When the flashing and crashing stop outside, it just carries over into the inside of the hall. On stage Lordi, and the first four songs of the famous horror show of slimy zombie-puppet folklore are literally wrapped in a bulletproof curtain of smoke through which the detonations of pyrotechnic effects flash. A Lordi show is really theater. There’s no room for much authenticity here. Lordi use a whole bag of backing tracks and a backbone of taped lines throughout the show. From backing vocals to a host of symphonic arrangements and extra “underbeats”, at times it’s hard to tell where the line between façade and authenticity lies.

Unburdened by this fact, the crowd enjoyed themselves without limits, and that was confirmed by the scene itself and the high spirits that never let up during the Lordi set. The songs lined up: Babez for Breakfast, Dynamite Tonite, My Heaven Is Your Hell, Bite It Like A Bulldog, Rock Police, Call Off the Wedding, Who’s Your Daddy?, Last Kiss Goodbye, Blood Red Sandman, Hate at First Sight, Bringing Back The Balls To Rock, This Is Heavy Metal, Devil Is A Loser, They Only Come Out At Night, Get Heavy and, in the encore, Hard Rock Hallelujah and Would You Love A Monsterman?.

Practically every song is accompanied by a matching scene, where Mr. Lordi transforms into quite a few different villains over the course of the show and where a gorgeous heap of human heads and limbs gets cut, chopped, even eaten. In short, endless fun, perfect for everyone who might have been suffering from insomnia that night.

At half past midnight the last note rang out at this year’s BYH!!! festival! Even though the festival wasn’t as strong this year as in past years in terms of the names on the bill, it offered an exceptionally colorful palette of genres. Even after this year’s visit, Bang your Head!!! remains one of Europe’s best-organized festivals. As it wraps up, our thoughts are already on the next edition, announced for 13.07.2012 and 14.07.2011!

text: Aleš Podbrežnik (Ivanhoe, Astral Doors, Tygers of Pan Tang, D-A-D, Jeff Scott Soto, Sonata Arctica, Pretty Maids, Lordi)
text: Urban Bolta (Metal Inquisitor, Hardcore Superstar, Psychotic Waltz, Helloween, Slayer)
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik

You can read the RockLine concert report from the first day of BYH!!! 2011 HERE.

You can read the RockLine concert report from the “warm up” show at this year’s BYH!!! 2011 HERE.

Setlist

10:00 – 10:40 IVANHOE 10:50 – 11:35 METAL INQUISITOR 11:45 – 12:30 ASTRAL DOORS 12:40 – 13:30 TYGERS OF PAN TANG 13:40 – 14:30 D-A-D 14:45 – 15:35 HARDCORE SUPERSTAR 15:50 – 16:45 PSYCHOTIC WALTZ 17:00 – 18:00 JEFF SCOTT SOTO 18:15 – 19:20 SONATA ARCTICA 19:15 – 20:15 DESASTER (indoor) 19:40 – 20:50 HELLOWEEN 20:45 – 21:55 PRETTY MAIDS (indoor) 21:15 – 22:50 SLAYER 23:00 — 00:30 LORDI (indoor) TYGERS OF PAN TANG setlist: 1. Euthanasia 2. Take It 3. Tyger Bay 4. Hot Blooded 5. Gangland 6. Suzie Smiled 7. Don’t Stop By 8. Rock and Roll Man 9. Raised on Rock 10. Hellbound PSYCHOTIC WALTZ setlist: 1.Mosquito 2. Locust 3. Northern Lights 4. Haze One 5. Freakshow 6. Into the Everflow 7. I Remember 8. Morbid 9. Halo of Thorns JEFF SCOTT SOTO setlist: 1. 21st Century 2. Blissful Garden 3. Drowning 4. Colour My XTC 5. Soul Divine 6. Fool Fool / Warrior 7. Livin’ The Life 8. Instrumental Memorial Medley (Gary Moore, Y&T, Dio, Gotthard, Michael Jackson) 9. Talisman Medley 10. Break Your Chains 11. Day By Day 12. Give Me A Sign 13. Dangerous 14. Just Between Us 15. Mysterious (This Time It’s Serious) 16. I’II Be Waiting SONATA ARCTICA setlist: 1. Flag In The Ground 2. Blinded No More 3. Paid in Full 4. Last Drop Falls 5. Victoria’s Secret 6. Black Sheep 7. Sing in Silence 8. The Last Amazing Grays 9. Don’t Say A Word HELLOWEEN setlist: 1. Are You Metal? 2. Eagle Fly Free 3. March of Time 4. Where the Sinners Go 5. Drum Solo 6. I’m Alive 7. Keeper of the Seven Keys / The King for a 1000 Years / Halloween 8. Future World 9. Dr. Stein 10. I Want Out PRETTY MAIDS setlist: 1. Pandemonium 2. I.N.V.U. 3. Rodeo 4. It Comes At Night 5. Walk Away 6. Back To Back 7. Sin-Decade 8. Please Don’t Leave Me 9. Love Games ——————– 10. Future World 11. Little Drops Of Heaven 12. Red, Hot And Heavy SLAYER setlist: 1. World Painted Blood 2. Hate Worldwide 3. War Ensemble 4. Postmortem 5. Dittohead 6. Dead Skin Mask 7. Hallowed Point 8. Spirit in Black 9. Mandatory Suicide 10. Chemical Warfare 11. Silent Scream 12. Seasons in the Abyss 13. Snuff ——————– 14. South of Heaven 15. Raining Blood 16. Black Magic 17. Angel of Death

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