Bang Your Head!!! 2018 (Day Three) – `Vampirologists` Powerwolf Fill the Festival Headliners’ Boots

Arhiv Arhiv Last updated 12 June 2026

Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik

Location: Balingen / Messegelände / Germany
Concert date: 14.07.2018
Attendance: 12,000

The last day! Two bands fewer on the bill than the day before. Kickoff at half past eleven. Yep. The program keeps shrinking. Year after year. More and more, and the organizer isn’t exactly in an enviable financial spot. Fewer impressive names, and the number of performers is shrinking too. Maybe the choice of headliner for the third day is just more proof of that, since it was none other than German power metallers Powerwolf. Three and a half years ago, believe it or not, they played Ljubljana’s Metelkova, in the Gala hall there. Anyway, on to the grounds.

The weather held. The third day was bathed in sun again, too. Up on stage stood Evertale, German power metallers active since 2006. Decent. The quartet came out confident, even if musically, as far as expression goes, they bring nothing special. The band missed the right train by a good ten years to gain wider international recognition, since interest in power metal gradually faded afterward. From the original lineup, the team still has vocalist and rhythm guitarist Matthias Holzapfel, lead guitarist Matthias Graf and bassist Marco Bächle. The band has a new drummer, Simon Hofmeister. In short: the band only just released its second studio album last year, »The Great Brotherwar«, which it presented with zeal and vigor in a more than solid »morning« set.

Second on the bill were old-guard British metallers from the days of the famous N.W.O:B.H.M. movement, Cloven Hoof. Formed in Wolverhampton in 1979, the band released an exceptionally good new studio album last year, »Who Mourns For A Mornig Star?«. Of the original members, the eternal Lee Payne is the one left in the lineup today, on bass. Sharply dressed and neatly combed, the man stepped on stage decked out in the classic »battle gear« of the old-school days (studded leather), when metal was still young and innocent. Nostalgia. Otherwise, the quintet is filled out by a completely rejuvenated, refreshed lineup: Chriss Coss on rhythm guitar, the excellent lead guitarist Luke Hatton, great singer George Call, and Danny White on drums. You’d have liked to see at least Russ North, who »came and went« in the band, but it obviously just didn’t work out with him. In 2009, Cloven Hoof played this very same venue in a totally different lineup, one that by seniority was better connected to the eighties than the current one. Whatever. The band recreated an excellent setlist, mostly of old material, and gathered a bunch of devotees at the front of the stage who spent their teenage days in the early eighties. From the EP »The Openning Ritual« they cut loose with the superb epic mini-suite The Gates OF Gehenna. And that wasn’t all. A rundown of the good old repertoire in just under an hour, headlined by Highlander (from the cult »Sultan’s Ransome«, 1989), plus the tracks Nova Battlestar and closer Reaching for the Sky from the album »Dominator«. Crazy show. Anyone who missed this can quit going to classic heavy metal gigs. The debut »Cloven Hoof« was represented by the title track and by the utterly frenzied Laying Down The Law, played near the end. The repertoire also included Inquisitor (»Eye of the Sun«, 2006), while the new album was represented by Time to Burn and Song of Orpheus. Cloven Hoof are a band with excellent old-school metal jurisdiction. The riffs are masterfully built. They grab you right away, while the band keeps up its dark presence. If you still don’t know what old school is, you absolutely have to check out this deeply obscure, overlooked but excellent outfit. Fully cult and, luckily, indestructible. Thanks to the stubbornness, willpower and perseverance of the remarkable Lee Payne. Just his presence on stage tells you metal runs in his veins.

The N.W.O.B.H.M. theme carried on as the famous Tygers of Pan Tang took the stage. A while back they put out a really successful and unbelievably solid album, though it leans much more toward hard rock roots than you’d expect. They titled it »Tygers of Pan Tang«. They’ve been in an unchanged lineup for a good while, though clearly a substantially refreshed one. The band, co-founded in 1978 by guitarist Robb Weir, today the only original member, plays live quite often. And as a result it’s superbly tight. We checked them out in Vrba in Carinthia some time ago. Weir found an exceptional partner on lead guitar in Micky Crystal, Craig Ellis plays drums, Jacopo Meille handles the vocals superbly, and red-haired Gavin Gray wields the bass. Tygers of Pan Tang are strong and confident in delivery at the same time, and they know how to make good use of a big stage. With a repertoire that ran through a series of cult classics from the first three albums, they could relax and lean on the passion and emotion of the crowd of nostalgics who stood in front of the stage as if buried in the ground. The band also slipped in the newer and excellent Keeping Me Alive (»Ambush«, 2012), while the new album was represented by the incredibly catchy Only The Brave (the opening track of the gig), Devil You Know and Glad Rags, which rolls along on an almost glam rhythm. But most people were of course waiting for the run of unforgettable classics, and they got them, directed as follows: Raised On Rock, Love Don’t Stay (both from »Crazy Nights«), Gangland, Hellbound (both from »Spellbound«) and Slave to Freedom, Euthanasia, Susie Smiled (all three from the debut »Wild Cat«). The integration of the ZZ Top hit Tush surprised quite a few people, and for the tail end the band saved one more cover, Love Potion #9 (orig. The Clovers), which came out on the fourth Tygers Of Pan Tang album »The Cage« . Venomous, uncompromising rattling from a legendary band that is far from saying its last word! New material is surely in the works. No worries. A new studio album, of course.

We stayed in the good old N.W.O.B.H.M. days. Up on stage came »Grannyschool«, okay, I’m kidding. Girlschool for real! The respectable ladies went about it this time just like always. With high expectations, routine, and in line with established practice. But they had quite a bit of trouble with the sound in the first part of the show. The chemistry didn’t really kick in either. For a good chunk of the set Girlschool were chasing the sound, though they got through those problems with experience and routine. Still, you could feel a slight absence from the quartet, in the sense that they hadn’t quite built the right connection with the crowd. In the opening stretch, that is. Then things got sorted and it ran the way it should. Ten days later, with a similar setlist, Girlschool delivered a much better show in Tolmin. Whatever. If you’ve got a crowd under the stage that grew up on your music, there’s nothing to fear. And sure enough. With a run of songs from the cult »Hit And Run« and the debut »Demoliton«, Girlschool pulled off their set just as it should be done. They played the following setlist: Demolition Boys, C’mon Let’s Go, The Hunter, Hit and Run, I Spy, Come the Revolution Play, Take It Like a Band, Never Say Never, Screaming Blue Murder, Future Flash, Kick It Down, Watch Your Step, Yeah Right, Race With the Devil (orig. The Gun) and of course the notorious Emergency. The band works in a lineup that is practically identical to the one from 1978, when the group was formed. Denise Dufort on drums, Enid Williams on bass, singer and rhythm guitarist Kim McAuliffe and Jackie Chambers on lead guitar, who replaced original member Kelly Johnson in 1999.

Next came the set by the excellent and highly esteemed Irish black metal gloom merchants Primordial, who, as is their habit, brought a proper black mass to Balingen and carved out a gate to hell. Primordial have played here before, and yet. They always get slotted into the daytime program, even though a band like this would sound outstanding in some dark forest full of gnarled trees, on the blackest of nights, with wolves howling and merciless winds blowing, just like at this year’s Tolmin show by the band. If they could fire off every round there and deliver a top-notch festival closer, at Bang Your Head!!! they had to hit the brakes and shorten the setlist. They opened their hour-long set in grand style. With the superb Nail Their Tongues, stretched past ten minutes, taken from the current, newly released »Exile Amongst the Ruins«, joined later by To Hell or the Hangman and Upon Our Spiritual Deathbed. Early on the band also played No Grave Deep Enough from the album »Redemption of the Puritan’s Hand« (2011), and from »To The Nameless Dead« came As Rome Burns (mid-show) and Empire Falls, with which Primordial wrapped up their excellent set as ominously as possible. Coffin Ships from the album »The Gathering Wilerness« (2005) rang out as well. All the attention goes to the man of theater. The one and only Alan Nemtheanga, who literally hypnotized the crowd. Not just with his presence, but with his stage drive, his theater, his acting. With his preaching. Death everywhere and a black, howling night. The birth of evil and perdition. Temptations all around. Yawning abysses and pits with no return. A pile of Celtic folk elements and outstanding dark bombast. Even though Alan is the center of it all, you sometimes almost forget what a great band is backing him. How superbly they bite and what a mighty sound Primordial make as a whole. Gibson SG guitars and a Rickenbacker bass. Old school. Yet unique and one of a kind. They don’t make bands like this anymore. At the same time, the compositions are all long and very demanding to listen to. Carried on wings of mighty, chilling atmosphere, full of spells and blasphemous hypnosis. Theater, then, that would have shone even more intensely in a different setting than it did in Balingen.

Japan’s Loudness are always a big attraction when they reach European stages. This time was no different. The sizable crowd greeted them warmly. Long-lived Japanese metallers with the exceptional Akira Takasaki in the lineup, a man who can measure up to the greatest in the business when it comes to guitar playing. His playing is full of hellish speed, and he learned a lot from Blackmore. Neoclassical and baroque tricks, Malmsteen-style, are not in short supply, and the man shines in »exotic« solo passages and dizzying showmanship. Seething salvos of outstanding guitar soloing never, ever run short, and that’s basically the core charm of every Loudness gig. But Akira is far from alone. There’s Minoru Niihara on vocals and bassist Masayoki Yamashita, two more original members next to Akira, while the drums have been played by Masayuki Suzuki since 2008. This afternoon, though, Loudness weren’t the Loudness you’d expect. Something was off. The communication on stage. Bassist Yamashita was pushed way into the background for three quarters of the show. He hung around the monitors, which stood almost in line with the drums. He only came to the front line when he had to join in on backing vocals, which he did rather feebly and with no interest. Only in the last quarter of the set, when he showed a bit more life and finally planted his right foot on the front monitor, did Niihara turn to him theatrically, lift his sunglasses and see him off with bulging eyes, as if to say: »Oh, good morning, welcome back among us«. The band played a series of their best-known numbers and presented the new album »Rise To Glory«, which also opened the show. The band played the following repertoire: Soul on Fire, I’m Still Alive, Crazy Nights, Like Hell, Heavy Chains, Go For Broke, Until I See The Light, Let It Go, This Lonely Heart, Crazy Doctor, In the Mirror, S.D.I. Anyway. Loudness always get watched. Whenever there’s the chance. Simply because the legendary Japanese metallers are still excellent on stage. They probably had some kind of row before the show, because there was quite a bit of reserve and odd looks on stage. We caught them in a far more convincing light ten days later, when they played Slovenia’s Metaldays festival.

At the same time, the neighboring hall woke up. German power metallers Mystic Prophecy were playing there, and because of the overlap we only caught part of them. The band has a new member, a Greek guitar virtuoso. A proper »Gus G.« school type who goes by the name »Evan K«. He proved himself in this set with incredible technical polish. The repertoire was mostly the current album »War Brigade« and »Killhammer«, and the band didn’t forget to remind us that it recently released a covers album, »Monuments Uncovered«, when it performed its own take on Oldfield’s Shadow on the Wall. Compact, tight, in tune and of course confident. The band was backed by a hugely invested crowd, which only proves that Mystic Prophecy are right at home in Germany. They played the following repertoire: Kill the Beast, Savage Souls, Killhammer, Burning Out, The Crucifix, Shadow on the Wall (orig. Mike Oldfield), We Kill! You Die!, To Hell and Back, Metal Brigade, Evil Empires, War Panzer, Ravenlord.

The set by Pretty Maids drew a lot more interest. Mind you, they play Bang Your Head!!! almost every year. For at least the last few years, the sturdy Danish rockers have been extremely frequent guests in Balingen. So why would this show be any more interesting than the earlier ones? Simple. It’s 30 years since the release of the cult »Future World«, and the band decided to play the whole album. From the first track to the last off that cult achievement. There was really no question how it would sound. That’s not even a question. Pretty Maids are simply too good for anything to go wrong. The only question was how Ronnie would handle the vocals, since it’s well known that in recent years he’s lost a bit of range and power. But he held up extremely well and sang at a high level and in good form for the day. The legendary vocalist delivered the best he’s got right now, and the crowd was in ecstasy, probably witnessing a live performance of a cult album for the first time, the last time and never again. Pretty Maids filmed this show for a DVD. And that wasn’t all. The running time was hefty. An hour and a half, and the band backed up the last third with tracks from the new album »Kingmaker«, even one track from »Motherland«, plus the likewise newer Pandemonuim. There was still enough time left to bow to the older »Red, Hot And Heavy« too. The repertoire they played went like this: Future World, We Came to Rock, Love Games, Yellow Rain, Loud ‘n’ Proud, Rodeo, Needles in the Dark, Eye of the Storm, Long Way to Go, Mother of All Lies, Kingmaker, Bull’s Eye, Little Drops of Heaven, Pandemonium, Back to Back and, as an encore, Red, Hot and Heavy. Rock to the heart. Pretty Maids coming to the main stage meant that, even before Powerwolf played, we were really watching the headliner of the festival’s third day.

While Pretty Maids were playing, the legendary American old-school speed metallers Hexx were on in the hall. They reactivated in 2011 after a long hiatus. I spent most of the time enjoying Hexx myself, since this show of theirs was an exclusive. Today Hexx have only two original members, guitarist Dan Watson and drummer John Shafer, while the rest of the crew is Bobbie Wright (guitar), Mike Horn (bass) and vocalist Eddy Vega. Last year the band released an excellent new studio album, »Wrath Of The Reaper«. The big question was how Eddy would pull off the older songs, and how much of that magic known from the old studio tapes the band could still regenerate on stage in 2018? Hexx killed it. Despite the quintet’s relative stillness, Eddy ran around the stage like mad and worked out, and at the same time, with his sharp, furious, high-ranging and slightly harsh vocals, kept the mood dynamic. Too bad there weren’t more people in the hall, because the band delivered an excellent show. Hexx made sure to weigh their set down with tracks from the cult albums: »Under the Spell«, »No Escape« and »Morbid Reality«.

Really, with the Pretty Maids and Hexx sets, the most interesting part of the third-day program was over. Three more acts played before the end of the festival. Metal revivalists Visigoth in the Volksbankmesse hall got a hefty slot and so had the chance to play almost the whole current album »The Conqueror’s Oath«, adding tracks from »The Revenant King«. The band brings nothing new at all, but it bites with zeal and fire. In a set of over an hour, it played the following repertoire: Dungeon Master, Blades in the Night, Blood Sacrifice, Warrior Queen, Outlive Them All, Hammerforged, Salt City, Steel and Silver, Traitor’s Gate, Mammoth Rider, Iron Brotherhood, Final Spell, The Revenant King.

Because of an unfortunate overlap, Visigoth mostly had to be skipped. Their show completely clashed with the evening’s headliners, hot German power metallers Powerwolf. We first saw them in Balingen in the middle of the rain in 2009. They played around noon back then, and there was no sense then that this band, with its »copy-paste« element, would ever get any bigger. Anyway. Outstanding stage sets, a pile of pyro effects and smoke. A serious stage production, in other words. Even though Powerwolf are an incredibly generic band that compensates for that genericness with the glitz and kitsch adorning their stories of werewolves, vampires and other creatures once produced by the lush human imagination of broad Transylvanian heresy, a solid crowd of fans follows them. And by tradition, the German audience is loyal in Balingen to absolutely every headliner. So the turnout was just as it should be. The band put together a setlist mostly made up of tracks from the recently released The Sacrament Of Sin, its predecessor Blessed And Possesed and Blood Of the Saints. The following repertoire was played: Blessed & Possessed, Army of the Night, Resurrection by Erection, Amen & Attack, Demons Are a Girl’s Best Friend, Dead Boys Don’t Cry, Armata Strigoi, Let There Be Night, All We Need Is Blood, Fire and Forgive, Werewolves of Armenia, Incense & Iron, Sanctified With Dynamite, We Drink Your Blood, Lupus Dei. Plenty of painted-up scenery that the performance »hid« behind. A real amusement park to close things out. But for everyone who has already seen lots of gigs in their life and gotten to know many bands, with at least a grain of originality, Powerwolf won’t stay in the memory notebooks for very long.

The last band on this year’s Bang Your Head!!! bill were Swedish sleaze and glam rock and metal revivalists Crashdiet. Finally something again for everyone drawn to Motley Crue, Twisted Sister and so on. The band has once again taken a new singer into its ranks. This time it’s Gabriel Keyes, and otherwise the band is in a lineup identical to the early part of its career. Great turnout, quite a few screaming girls up front, lots of makeup and teased hair (in the crowd too). Excellent energy. Time for party time. Switching off. The band delivered the best it can right now. The Swedes really played superbly, with no slip-ups. A second guitar would perhaps have suited them nicely as a quartet, so they’d sound even angrier and louder, but everything works with total confidence. Martin Sweet covers a huge amount of space alone with his guitar and does it very effectively. The aforementioned guitarist and his buddy, bassist Peter London, have kept the most sleaze and glam makeup about them over the years. Even though Gabriel drove it really well and handled the repertoire with confidence, he lacks charisma. The guy comes across as far too »nice« on stage and looks like a good little boy. You definitely can’t expect him to step easily into the shoes of the irreplaceable founder and late vocalist Dave Lepard, and yet. Despite the vocal correctness, the feeling hung in the air throughout the show that the whole thing was missing the cherry on top. The band played the following repertoire: Tikket, Riot in Everyone, So Alive, Queen Obscene / 69 Shots, We Are the Legion, Down With the Dust, In the Raw, It’s a Miracle, Die Another Day, Blues Jam / Used to Love Her (orig. Guns N’ Roses), Cocaine Cowboys and as an encore: Breakin’ the Chainz, Miss Pain / Rebel, Generation Wild.

So another Bang Your Head!!! is in the books. The twentieth in a row. Perhaps the third day’s program lacked a more attractive, resounding name to put at the very end. In fact, the interesting stuff wrapped up that day with the Pretty Maids set, so the feeling of a closing crescendo was missing. Still, what wasn’t missing this year either was the famous fireworks and of course a hearty »see you later«, until next year, when we head back to Balingen to revel again.