Location: Schwarzl-Freizeitzentrum / Unterpremstätten (Graz) / Austria
Date: July 30, 2015
This year’s See Rock festival, a stone’s throw from Graz in Austria, served up just a one-day program. Even so, the organizer scraped together a lineup interesting enough that you couldn’t resist going. Especially with the name of the main headliner: Judas Priest, the eternal British gods of metal.
July is a month that’s almost always overloaded with festivals. If this year’s Metaldays will go down as one of the hottest festivals ever, with the mercury hitting 38°C in Tolmin during the week, the weather took a sharp turn on Sunday, July 26, 2015. Rain fell. And kept falling. It was falling on that all-important day too, July 30, 2015, when See Rock was scheduled. Mercilessly. At least in central Slovenia. But on the drive east into Styria, somewhere around Šentilj, the rain started letting up around noon. The sky stayed shut, stuffed with dark clouds. Even when Jernej and I got to the venue. It stayed threateningly overcast, but dry. Honestly, ideal weather for outdoor gigs. No scorching sun, no rain. If it holds, of course.
Until Kissin’ Dynamite hit the stage, not much interesting was actually happening. Local Graz bands got the modest slots: Rest in Fear (who play Metaldays every year too), Mad Soul Empire and Ebony Archways. Two more Austrian acts followed: Visions of Atlantis, symphonic power metal with female vocals, a band that leans toward, say, Lacuna Coil, and the hardcore guys Cannonball Ride also showed up to play.
The festival really jumped up a level a bit after three in the afternoon, when Germany’s Kissin’ Dynamite took the stage. The band from Swabia played Metaldays last year too. Formed in 2006, when the guys were barely 15, they’ve released five studio albums to date. They presented the current “Megalomania” (2014) in a set that ran a good half hour and included DNA, Running Free, Love Me, Hate Me, I Will Be King and Operation Supernova. The quintet is superbly tight, and their mix of classic heavy metal with glam metal mischief and teasing adds up to a convincing dose of live fun. One more thing. On drums the band got help from the excellent German drummer Andre Hilgers, who previously drummed for, among others, Rage, Lingua Mortis Orchestra, Sinner, Axxis and Silent Force.
Next up were Hamburg’s Beyond the Black. A young band that’s only in its second year, with the studio debut “Songs of Love And Death” (2015) in its pocket. These hyper-melodic symphonic power metallers aren’t bringing any musical revolution. In their half-hour set the sextet came across professional and confident, presenting their first studio album starting with the opening single In the Shadows. Though they’re at the start of their career, on stage they showed a really good feel for each other and a nice sense of stage dynamics, and of course the crowd’s biggest sympathies went to singer Jennifer Haben.
Third to jump on stage were Americans Ill Nino. The band is from New Jersey, but its members actually have Mexican, or let’s say Latin American, roots, and they’ve been holding their own on the scene for fifteen years. In 40 minutes the band presented a colorful selection of tracks from across its discography. The guys are basically metalcore, but they often weave Latin melodies and even tribal Latin rhythms into their sound, which sets them a bit apart from the average. Though there’s some naivety to it, the set had a nice load of eruptive energy, along with some lucid imagery, and really swung its tail at the festival. It also took a handful of attendees on a nostalgic reunion with them in mid-August 2007 in Koprivnica, Croatia. Back then Ill Nino played before The Cult and Scorpions.
The sparse crowd still proved that it’s mostly made up of hard rockers and classic metal lovers. So the Doro set drew a nice pile of patch-wearers armed with beer, who came to enjoy the antics of the small, dynamic, devilish Doro Pesch and her backing band. That lineup stays unchanged: her longtime members Johnny Dee on drums and Nick Douglas on bass, while Luca Pinciotta and Bas Maas handle guitar duties. It was one of Doro’s few festival appearances this summer. The setlist, as expected, was full of Warlock classics. Actually everything except two songs (Revenge and Raise Your Fist in the Air), which come from the band’s latest studio album “Raise Your Fist” (2012). The quintet delivered a great show, played with everything they had. Doro ruled the spotlight, thanks not only to her dynamic, heartfelt stage performance but also to her trademark gestures and banter with the crowd. With Doro’s set the festival climbed another atmospheric step. Higher, that is.
Just right. Because next came the great legends of German metal! Actually, alongside Scorpions, one of the oldest working bands in the heavier genres. Accept. Not even a week ago they thoroughly torched Tolmin’s Metaldays, where as one of the main headliners of day three they delivered a fantastic set. This time Accept had only an hour. Around the middle of this year the band took a new drummer and a new guitarist. Christopher Williams is actually a lesser-known name among drummers, while the other name sounds very familiar, at least to fans of German power metal. Hermann Frank’s spot is now taken by ex-Grave Digger and Rebellion guitarist Uwe Lulis, who has apparently come through a serious broken leg from a motorcycle crash three years ago. Accept keep enjoying a new spring. You can’t overlook that, and you haven’t been able to since 2009. The third album since the reactivation with new singer Marc Tornillo, “Blind Rage”, keeps proving that the crew, led by seasoned old cats, bassist Peter Baltes and guitarist Wolf Hoffmann, is hardly short on fire and inspiration. Because of time limits the band had to trim the setlist, dropping older classics like Midnight Mover, No Shelter, Bulletproof and Losers And Winners, and newer songs like the excellent Shadow Soldiers, or Darkside of My Heart and Dying Breed, but that didn’t dampen the superior detonation the veterans set off. Exceptional tightness, every little move and gesture polished. In the spotlight Hoffmann with his Flyin’ V guitar and solos, next to him a wild Peter Baltes and an ever good-humored Marc Tornillo, who again delivered an excellent vocal performance. Hoffmann let Lulis step to the front several times, where the two tossed their manes (well, “baldie” Hoffmann can’t do that anymore) shoulder to shoulder. Judging by what we saw at their Metaldays set, they only stood shoulder to shoulder twice during the show in Tolmin. The fact is that Lulis and Williams bring remarkable freshness to the crew, and it’s downright astonishing to realize that the incredibly committed newcomer Williams even outdoes the work of his predecessor Stefan Schwarzmann. The legends’ set, closed as expected by the bomb that is Balls To The Wall, delivered one of See Rock’s highlights. Quietly expected. The band plays a ton and has found remarkable new drive, both in its hunger to perform and creatively. Accept is a band whose shows are professionally rehearsed, yet while they play the material on stage you feel an extraordinary fire and heart!
KoЯn, a band from a whole different dough, drew a completely different crowd to the front of the stage with their stature and voice. Mostly the younger generation. Korn got 70 minutes of playing time, so because of time limits Here to Stay and Freak On the Leash were cut from the setlist. The stage was dressed up and full of candles. The opening minutes of the show belonged to drummer Ray Luzier. The others slowly take their positions: Brian “Head” Welch (stage left), James “Munky” Shaffer (stage right) and Reginald “Fieldy” Arvizu between the drums and Welch (left again). The band was also joined on stage by touring keyboardist Zac Baird. Through a nice load of produced stage junk, vocalist Jonathan Davis finally took the center spot. Interesting, though: Davis didn’t have his stylized cobra-shaped mic stand, but a perfectly ordinary one. Davis, dressed in a dark purple “swishy” tracksuit with orange Addidas stripes, slipped quickly into the role of a “badass” hooligan, and also a victim of carnal desire. At the stand he literally shook at times, with all the immersion evoked by his itchy haste in delivering verses. The alternative metal outfit remains a stage sensation. They play phenomenally. Tight, with the massive wall of sound backed by occasionally more complex rhythmic loops, yet there’s also plenty of room for a seductive groove that pulls you in. The band spiced up the numbers. Ball Tongue, for instance, contained bits of It Takes Two (orig. Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock), while Korn wove the chorus of Alive into the second chorus of Need To. A penetrating, devilishly tense show full of groove junk and hooligan stumbling. Korn hold a highly attractive position among modern, alternative and flexibly experimental metal acts. An outstanding show.
The festival’s grand finale went to one of the most important bands when it comes to pioneering and laying the groundwork for modern metal. The one and only Judas Priest. They released their current studio album “Redeemer of Souls” last year and until this summer hadn’t done any concert tour of Europe promoting it. Belgrade was initially an option for catching the band, but confirmation of the show at See Rock, much closer to Slovenia, naturally tipped the decision on where to go see and hear Judas Priest this time. The venue was swallowed by blackness as the sound of the Sabbath classic War Pigs rang out.
The stage instantly found itself in giant beams of red light and haze as the band launched into a concert assault with the new opener Dragonaut. The sparse crowd finally closed ranks and the front of the so-called “wavebreaker” (fan pit) became impassable. Plenty of heads were of course boiled and soured from alcohol overload, but overall the energy ran high, and the crowd bleated along with particular gusto when the band moved on to the classic Metal Gods , with Halford in his trademark robotic walk, and right after it one of the evening’s nicest surprises, Devil’s Child (“Screaming For Vengenace”, 1982).
This set too confirmed that new guitarist Richie Faulkner is getting ever more support and trust from the band’s elders, led by Glenn Tipton and Ian Hill. Over the years Faulkner has grown into an exceptional guitarist, which his excellent solo spot confirmed, among other things, with not one second of his playing getting boring. Faulkner plays most of the main solos on the new songs, and he’s also almost more in the foreground during the stage action than the great Glenn Tipton. The latter evidently is also slacking in his concert preparation, since a few times he allowed himself mild sloppiness in laying down notes within solos.
Of course, what interests us most is Rob Halford’s form. As expected, he again got plenty of support from the mixing desk. Despite that, his screams weren’t taped; live they remain organic, i.e. a product of his own throat. And on top of it all, they worked really well. Of course Halford has adapted the melody lines of the originals to his mature years to get through the show more easily, but in a few spots he showed that his big trademark as a vocal freak remains, after all these years of defiance, unshaken. The first time Halford pointedly drove that home was in the closing screams of Victim of Changes, which he nailed with total confidence. Veteran energy-saving, which Halford masterfully carried over into the final part of the show, when he completely “lost it” in the indispensable classic of every Judas Priest show, the phenomenal Painkiller. Halford’s arrival on a motorcycle didn’t go missing this evening either. We got that before Hell Bent For Leather.
The setlist felt a bit predictable. Once again it briefly pulled out the forever-overlooked “Ram it Down” (1988), as well as “Point of Entry” (1981). In general the show should have run at least ten minutes longer and added another classic, if not a concert surprise, instead of taped intros and outros. Even so, the show confirmed that the veterans are still in decent live shape and in confident command of their craft. The show was excellent. Given that the band is in the middle of writing material for a new album, it will most likely come out next year, and let’s hope a proper new European tour follows.
The question is whether See Rock will survive. Attendance was catastrophically bad. Just 4,500 people. The organizer had already cut the festival from two days to one early on, precisely because the two-day format was putting his bank account in the red. Well, even that didn’t help. Why on earth there weren’t more people at the festival will remain a big mystery. It might simply be that people are a bit fed up. Real Judas Priest fans are too old and can’t be bothered with gigs anymore, while the young are too young to identify with the band’s character and work, so Judas Priest shows don’t interest them enough to make the trip. That’s one possible explanation. Let’s hope the festival sticks around in the years ahead.
words: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
ILL NINO:
1. Intro
2. If You Still Hate Me
3. Te Amo…I Hate You
4. This Is War
5. La Epidemia
6. I Am Loco
7. Corazón of Mine
8. Live Like There’s No Tomorrow
9. How Can I Live
10. God Save Us
11. Liar
DORO:
1. Earthshaker Rock
2. I Rule the Ruins
3. Burning the Witches
4. Raise Your Fist in the Air
5. Metal Racer
6. True as Steel
7. Revenge
8. Für Immer
9. All We Are
10. Hellbound
11. East Meets West
ACCEPT:
1. Stampede
2. Stalingrad
3. London Leatherboys
4. Restless and Wild
5. Final Journey
6. Princess of the Dawn
7. Pandemic
8. Fast as a Shark
9. Metal Heart
10. Teutonic Terror
11. Balls to the Wall
KORN:
1. Blind
2. Ball Tongue
3. Need To
4. Clown
5. Divine
6. Faget
7. Shoots and Ladders
8. Predictable
9. Fake
10. Lies
11. Helmet in the Bush
12. Daddy
—encore—
13. Falling Away From Me
JUDAS PRIEST:
War Pigs (taped intro)
Battle Cry (taped intro)
1. Dragonaut
2. Metal Gods
3. Devil’s Child
4. Victim of Changes
5. Halls of Valhalla
6. Turbo Lover
7. Redeemer of Souls
8. Beyond the Realms of Death
9. Jawbreaker
10. Breaking the Law
11. Hell Bent for Leather
—encore I—
12. The Hellion
13. Electric Eye
14. You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’
—encore II—
15. Painkiller
16. Living After Midnight
Beginning of the End (taped outro)
