Bang Your Head!!! 2019 (Day Two) – Steel Panther Come Crashing In Through the Back Door
Location: Balingen / Messegelände (Volksbankmesse) / Germany
Date: Friday, 12.07.2019
The second day of this year’s Bang Your Head festival ignored our quiet little prayers to spare us the rain that had tailed us mercilessly for most of day one. Worse, actually. It started pouring even before the day’s program kicked off, so we walked straight into the wettest day of this year’s edition of this phantom festival.
At half past eleven, the main stage went off with local boys Traitor from Balingen. The quartet, whose drummer Andreas Mozer takes on the lead vocal duties, which is anything but an easy job in thrash metal (revival or not), put out their fifth studio album “Knee-Deep in the Dead” last year and gave it a generous airing in front of the crowd. On home turf, no less. You don’t need to guess twice that this is a band continuing the story of the German Teutonic thrash tradition, with echoes tugging now toward Sodom, now toward Kreator. In short, good old thrash played by the rules of a young and potent crew. Bassist Lorenz Kandolf also grabbed attention up front, handing out a few “flying” beers to the crowd and generally having the most work, constantly strolling across the huge stage during the show. All the way. Confident and committed. Interestingly, the action in the hall later on, in the late afternoon, was also opened by their genre buddies and fellow Germans Dust Bolt, but more on that a bit later. A nice opening detonation from the main stage into the second day of the festival.
Second up on the day, real veterans took the stage. Picture, a band who got saddled with the nickname “the Dutch Saxon”. Picture have been going, believe it or not, since 1979, with two longer breaks in between, and today they play in a lineup fairly close to the original: the quartet of Ronald van Prooijen (vocals), Jan Bechtum (guitar), Rinus Vreugdenhil (bass) and Laurens Bakker (drums), helped live by an extra guitarist, Appie de Gelder. The band is celebrating a solid 40 years of existence, which they crowned last year with a special live document, and their set at Bang Your Head offered a kind of condensed version of that live album. These guys are practically the great-grandfathers of metal, no doubt about it. A dinosaur brought back to life. Most of the attention went to the charismatic singer Ronald van Prooijen, in “poisonous” old-school stage gear with plenty of baroque frills. Picture’s show has to be counted among this year’s festival exclusives, of which, given the festival’s standing and reputation, there were fewer than you’d expect or hope for. Picture lived up to their legend status and scattered a lovely harvest of classics from their long-lived career, with the expected emphasis on the first three albums: “Diamond Dreamer” (the title track, Lady Lightning, You Are All Alone, Night Hunter), then the second album “Heavy Metal Ears”, which gave us Unemployed, the title track, Nighttiger, while the debut “Picture 1” delivered Bombers, Get Back Or You’ll Fall and the closing, tacked-on-the-tail, aptly titled You Can Go. A lovely show. Ronald’s voice is a bit worn around the edges, but the seasoned old fox handled the vocal duties perfectly decently. Above all with routine. Even the tougher lines. A band that has played a lot, which you can feel right away, and a band with nothing to prove. When you see them they radiate magnetism, and you simply conclude: “Legends!” A tip of the hat, then, to one of the longest-running heavy metal bands from the Netherlands.
Enforcer, third on the day’s bill, are the so-called Swedish standard-bearers of the NWOTHM (the “T” is for traditional), and the last time we saw them at BYH they were a five-piece. That was in 2010. Almost a decade later, the band played as a quartet, with vocalist Olof Wikstrand also switching to rhythm guitar. The band has its new, fifth studio album “Zenith” in the bag, and works with a brand-new lead guitarist, the mustachioed Jonathan Nordwall. Although Olof is tied to the mic, he comes across as constantly agile, running to every corner of the stage, cheering on his bandmates and firing up the crowd. He also uses the catwalk skillfully, never forgetting to get back in time to the mic stand, since he has to catch the lead vocals. The guy stays incredibly engaged and full of energy. He’s bursting with it, and really, his energy and charisma are what hold this band upright, a band leaning on the levers of old-school metal that arose on British soil 40 years ago, though you can also feel the influence of the old, ossified school of American speed metal in Enforcer’s music. A band that can’t disappoint and always delivers one hell of a party. You have to keep in mind that the organizer’s budget has thinned out quite a bit in recent years, and Enforcer are exactly the handy kind of band who don’t ask for much but always play a gorgeous show. This year that “saving” showed up on the bill in a big way. Enforcer delivered material from all five albums with an emphasis on “Zenith” (2018) and its predecessor “From Beyond” (2015), and they played the following tracks: Die For The Devil, Searching for You, Undying Evil, From Beyond, Zenith of the Black Sun, Live for the Night, Mesmerized By Fire, Scream of the Savage, Take Me Out Of This Nightmare, Destroyer, Midnight Vice.
Fifteen minutes before three, Hungary’s Ektomorf climbed on stage. For a few moments during their show, the sun even came out. Ektomorf delivered a sort of recap of what Soulfly had presented the day before at the festival. The quartet, active for over 25 years and with a full 14 studio albums in the bag (the latest, “Fury”, came out last year), is a tight and experienced crew. Vocalist and guitarist Zoltan Farkas is the central figure. He handles the furious vocals and the main solos, and generally takes up the most room on stage. In his stage banter he uses similar tricks to his obvious role model Cavalera, which is to say he’s not especially sharp, though the band’s genre mix of thrash metal, groove metal and nu metal doesn’t exactly demand great intellectual depth either. The show was played at a high level of energy, but the action was spoiled by a cameraman who kept wandering around the stage, with a smartphone stuck on a stick-like (antenna-like) “extension”, constantly gliding from member to member and giving the impression of an utterly unsatisfied Thai tourist who had just bought a new Sony tech “toy” and had to test it out right this second. This really cost the show some of its appeal. Otherwise, as I said, the band plays on a truly high level, makes no mistakes, there are no unknowns among the crew, and the band works like a very well-oiled machine that knows exactly how to serve up a situation even on a huge stage. Ektomorf are frequent visitors to Bang Your Head, and among the bands that play here they can instantly get their own inventory number.
A little before four in the afternoon, Beast In Black jumped on stage, a band recently founded by guitarist Anton Kabanen after he left Battle Beast. In four years of existence, the band has two albums out, “Berskerker” (2017) and this year’s “From Hell With Love”. Finns. What Kabanen learned at Battle Beast he cleverly carried over into the philosophy and workings of his new band. So, slyly, he crossed power metal with pop music, basically lifting melodies from 80s pop tunes and deftly dressing them up in a Finnish heavy metal recipe. The band is made up of excellent musicians. Technically razor-sharp to the core, fronted by an incredible Greek screamer, Yannis Papadopoulos, who hits the fifth octave with featherlight ease. Explosive, piercing vocals. Clearly, Beast In Black are an emerging new success story. The melodies stuck well with the audience and the crowd was visibly fired up, handling the chorus chants well too. The band also has a hellish lead guitarist, Kasperi Heikkinen, whom we watched here three years ago when he was still playing for Dirkschneider. A well-rehearsed show. Yannis is missing a bit more charisma, which he makes up for with excellent vocal poise, but fans of metal from the younger generation will certainly fall for the band in an instant, since Beast In Black are a cleverly planted cuckoo’s egg that brings nothing new, just a very cunningly repackaged musical substance. Reheated in new packaging with contents that are all too familiar. The band on stage with a well-rehearsed performance, clever use of space, lining up shoulder to shoulder the whole time, and during End of The World even in a line of four. In short, experienced men stand behind this crew, and they’ll surely break through even higher. With that kind of musical catchiness, very surely.
At five, we got another exclusive event. A show by great legends of American metal! The cult band Cirith Ungol. The high mountain pass of western Mordor, guarded by the giant spider Shelob? If you like. Epic doom and heavy metal? Something that’s still stomping around the planet after Manilla Road went out. Really a band that started its career in the early seventies and between 1981 and 1991 released four unforgettable albums, of which the most cherished is surely “King Of The Dead”. As if they’d heard my prayers, Cirith Ungol opened the show with the venomous Atomic Smasher. Epic and raw as hell, with a touch of the crushing hand of black fate that leaves no survivors behind. Tim Baker still screeches superbly. He’s mostly a stationary stage statue who does move during the show, even out to the catwalk, but often leaves the initiative to guitarist Jim Barraza, followed by the hot-blooded young newcomer on bass, Jarvis Leatherby (Night Demon). The original members are here too, drummer Robert Garven and guitarist Greg Lindstrom! Almost the classic lineup, or the lineup you simply want on stage. The band could easily have played the whole of “King Of the Dead”, since it’s been 35 years since it came out, but they chose to deliver a mixed setlist that lacks nothing either. Classic after classic, the hairs stood up, and it was a fantastic sight, a quintet that had come just to play and enjoy it, without a speck of stage clutter or pomp. No crowd-baiting. Tim Baker (the stamina of his voice in 2019 was the biggest unknown going into the show) simply screeched his way through. Like a tank, the legendary Cirith Ungol unstoppably rolled through their 55-minute performance and conjured up real, honest-to-goodness magic. Truly a show for the old-school nostalgic. A sharp, ominous, fat and relentlessly thundering sound, excellent soloing where Barraza took the lead, Tim Baker’s extremely dignified vocal mission, and Robert Garven staying fast and precise on drums too. A band that, with the sorcery of four cult albums, served up one of the best moments of this year’s Bang Your Head!!! festival and, as mentioned a few times, revived the memory of the buried Manilla Road. Ciriht Ungol played the following setlist: Atom Smasher, I’m Alive, Join the Legion, Blood & Iron, Black Machine, Frost & Fire, Master of the Pit, King of the Dead, Cirith Ungol, Paradise Lost.
During Cirith Ungol’s set, things started clanging in the Volksbankmesse hall too, where Bavaria’s Dust Bolt opened the indoor action. Dust Bolt are marking 12 years this year and have a full five studio albums in the bag. The current one, “Trapped In Chaos”, came out at the start of this year. Logically, the band put more energy into presenting it. Dust Bolt already won people over with last year’s Metaldays show. Flying Teutonic thrash metal revivalists. Well, sort of. Compared to the whole German thrash metal horde of their countrymen, Dust Bolt lean more distinctly on Bay Area thrash influences, though of course the kinship with the Teutonic stance doesn’t escape them, and you hear again and again some good old Kreator trick. The band is seriously jagged and spiked. The hall setting suited them, and the stage was packed with them. They exploded. Really a band that delivers a boundless high-octane bash, the youngsters never run out of dynamite, and anyone who wanted to truly bang their head to bits definitely got their money’s worth during Dust Bolt.
Finally it was time for an hour of death metal. Of the Gothenburg school. That is, the melodic kind. Here are our good old friends Dark Tranquillity. Old acquaintances of Slovenian stages, as well as the stages of Balingen. Founders of the Gothenburg school of melodic death metal. Really a band you bow to today, if only for their persistence and genre uncompromisingness. Vocalist Michael Stanne and drummer Anders Jivarp, two old Septic Broiler buddies, are today the only original members of the lineup. The band has a lot of mileage on it, and is made up of extremely experienced musicians. Keyboardist Martin Brändström, then Avatarium and ex-Tiamat bassist Anders Iwers, while since 2017 the band has been playing with two guitarists whose status regarding full membership is still unknown. The first is Johan Reinholdz, who plays most of the solos, and the second is Christopher Amott, co-founder of Arch Enemy and Armageddon. In short, no joking with this sextet. As a rule, whenever we’ve met Dark Tranquillity at shows, they’ve always shone with excellent performances, except when they weren’t given a good enough sound. This time too it thundered as it should. Heaven turned into hell and hell descended on Earth. Stanne enchanted with his charisma and excellent growling, and the band was flawless and tight. In fact, Dark Tranquillity once again managed to make the dark, heavy clouds thicken up properly toward the end of the show, and it started to pour. This wretched rain didn’t let up from here on, all the way until the next day. The emphasis in the repertoire on presenting the current album “Atoma” (2016) was accompanied by classics from the cherished albums “Damage Done” and “Fiction”: The Treason Wall, Monochromatic Stains, Terminus, Misery’s Crown. In the closing part the atmosphere was stoked by the “Character” classic Lost To Apathy, as well as the only nineties track, Therein (from the album “Projector”, 1999). So Dark Tranquillity were the “genre misfit” for Bang Your Head, but it’s precisely this shaking-up with extreme bands that feels so welcome, since it breaks the monotony, draws a mixed crowd to the festival and boosts variety. The second day downright needed this hour of hefty aggression, gloom and doom! A flawless performance by the legends from Gothenburg!
The second day’s program also had quite a few unpleasant and thankless overlaps between acts. In this respect, the dark progressive metal champions from Sweden, Evergrey, drew the short straw, since we spent most of the overlap watching Dark Tranquillity. Evergrey started their show with an awakening of the album “The Atlantis” wrapped in thick fog, from which they played two songs up front, A Silent Arc and the incredibly catchy Weightless. The show was commanded by Tom Englund. A charismatic vocalist and guitarist. Luckily the band’s gloomy style is tailor-made to carry the quintet’s stage stasis during the show. Sadly, they weren’t the only band we couldn’t watch in full, but what they delivered was, of course, perfection. Englund also has no real trouble playing lead vocalist and guitarist at the same time. He sings like a nightingale. A truly outstanding vocalist. The band played the following setlist: A Silent Arc, Weightless, Distance, Passing Through, Leave It Behind Us, My Allied Ocean, A Touch of Blessing, King of Errors.
An hour and ten minutes of playing time went to the Swiss hard rock legends Krokus. They played this festival last year too, and have been to Balingen a number of times before that. The crowd values them enormously, and the front-of-stage area was packed with gray-haired uncles dressed in denim and decorated with patches of their favorite bands. The mandatory beer in hand and action. Krokus promised an old-school setlist. Well, from that promise of a long-awaited show, the band still fell a bit short. The Big Rocks covers Mighty Quinn and Rockin’ In A Free World were absolute time thieves, since the band already heavily showcased the covers compilation album “Big Rocks” at last year’s Bang Your Head show.. Also, instead of the “newer” Hoodoo Woman, a listener would rather have wanted some 80s classic. Anyway, the band redeemed itself with classics from “Metal Rendez-vous” (Heatstrokes, Fire, Bedside Radio ), “Hardware” (Easy Rocker, Winning Man), Headhunter (the title track, Eat The Rich), “Heart Attack” (Rock ‘N’ Roll Tonight), “One Vice At A Time” (Long Stick Goes Boom, where Storace, as expected and as usual, fiercely twirled his “extended stick”). The lineup features guitarists Fernando Von Arb, Mark Kohler and Manfred “Mandy” Meyer, who soloed like crazy, which the other two guitarists diligently exploited as they “hitched a ride” on him. Besides the spinning, all-over-the-stage Marc Storace, who sang very commendably, even though his worn vocal cords occasionally block him from going for the highest lines, Krokus are held up by a highly pulsating, solid and upright rhythm line, strong and explosive even at a mature age on stage, of rock-solid impenetrability, flirty and seductive rhythms, looked after by drummer Flavio Mezzodi and of course legendary Krokus bassist Chris Von Rohr. On the left, Von Arb and Kohler filled the space shoulder to shoulder, on the right Meyer and Von Rohr, while the mischievous Storace ran around defiantly all over, and the catwalk was especially full of him. Great sound, great performance! Not a hair out of place! The legends keep tearing it up. The band has announced its retirement and this tour is supposedly one of the last or even the last. We’ll see. In short. Another excellent show by the good old foxes of Krokus, which, hand on heart, we’d quietly been hoping for. And they didn’t disappoint us.
While Krokus were playing on the main stage, Attic were performing in the hall. Sadly, their whole time slot overlapped completely with Krokus, so we only caught Attic in passing. These are German “imitators” of the great King Diamond, with two albums in the bag, who already proved at last year’s show at Tolmin’s Metaldays festival that they are an incredibly homogeneous and focused crew. The stage is decorated with a ceremonial backdrop reminiscent of the inside of a church. There are candles, upside-down crucified little Jesuses, in short, even in stage clutter the setting is very similar to what the great King Diamond serves up at his shows. If the latter has his black horsemen, Attic have a headless one and the like. Attic delivered material from both albums, namely Funeral in the Woods, Join the Coven, Satan’s Bride, The Headless Horseman, The Invocation (album The Invocvcation) and from the album “Sanctimonius”: Dark Hosanna, Sanctimonious, The Hound of Heaven, There Is No God. The band closed the show with the Judas Priest cover Between The Hammer And The Anvil. Rearranged and cut in their typical manner. If you’re a King Diamond fan and not bothered by Attic’s resemblance, then you’re surely onto a good thing with Attic. If that bugs you, then of course you’re better off sticking with King Diamond alone in the future too.
After Krokus, when a half-hour lull fell over the main stage and the sound techs were eagerly preparing everything needed for the day’s headliner, Steel Panther, a little after nine in the evening another of the day’s odd ones out started raging in the hall. This is the legendary American thrash metal band who, alongside the shows by Picture and Cirith Ungol on the second day’s program, we can immediately count among BYH 2019’s exclusives. These are Exhorder! The band is so old in terms of tenure that even Pantera learned from them, and of the original members, the bearded “grandpa of the woods” and guitarist Vinnie LaBella and singer Kyle Thomas remain today. To date the band has released just two studio albums and announced the release of a third, “Mourn the Southern Skies”, this September. In 2017 Thomas and LaBella welcomed three new members: Heathen bassist Jason Viebrooks, another guitarist by the name of Marzi Montazeri, while behind the drum fortress sat Sasha Horn (who played, for instance, in Forbidden between 2011 and 2012). In short, with this lineup Exhorder came to Balingen and played an outstanding show. Really. Brilliant. The band built its repertoire from two cult studio albums, “Slaughter In The Vatican” (1990) and “The Law” (1992). Just kidding. Right at the tail end of the show Exhorder delivered the brand-new My Time, which will find its place on the new album, but otherwise, from the treasury of thrash metal fury, unforgettable slaps followed one after another, starting with the especially “dangerous” by title Anal Lust, followed by Death in Vain, Homicide, Unforgiven, Legions of Death, The Law, (Cadence of) The Dirge, Exhorder, Slaughter in the Vatican, Desecrator and the already mentioned, brand-new My Time. A show that flashed by in an instant and a show that, just like the day before when Venom Inc. played in the hall, overlapped far too damn awkwardly with the festival headliner. Kyle sang excellently.
Since Steel Panther are a much, much younger band compared to Exhorder, and we’ll therefore get to see them at shows more easily and more often than Exhorder, we skipped the middle part of their show and devoted ourselves to Exhorder (plus it was pissing down outside the whole time). Still, in the opening three songs the guys delivered exactly what you come to every show of this foppish glam metal Sunset Strip parody for! Their innate sense of boundless humor, just provocative and stinging enough to keep it tasteful (Steel Panther turn all their jokes deep toward sex), is an important element that guarantees a first-rate party throughout and big appeal. One of those magnets that keeps you glued to the band all show long. There’s no shortage of clowning around and craziness among these sharp-tongued doctors, and above all Satchel has a razor-sharp tongue, who with his babbling sparkle repeatedly overshadowed singer Michael Starr in the banter (the one about Michael being such a perfect “fucker” that he has a kid with David Coverdale was among Satchel’s winning gems). This is a true, honest-to-goodness stage comedy of the kind only rock’n’roll can deliver, and you can easily laugh yourself to tears, if not outright to pain. The guys are foppish brats, but excellent musicians. Starr has a solid voice with which he confidently reigns at the front of the songs, Satchel is a real professor of soloing who takes your breath away, and the rhythm section is thundering and pulsating. Steel Panther make no mistakes. Bassist Lexxi Foxx took first prize once again in his tight blue outfit full of glitter, and of course the stage didn’t lack the table setting, or rather mini cosmetic salon, with which the man theatrically primps himself during the show and checks himself out in a little purple mirror. Spandex everywhere, scarves tied wherever you look, mascara, makeup, bleached hair, high-tops, you get the idea… And on top of that they play superbly, excellent striking riffs, songs with character that grab you and take hold in an instant. Steel Panther have it all. If you’re a true fan of 80s glam metal, the kind that grew up around the Sunset Strip, then you know nothing but pure bliss at a Steel Panther show. Starr didn’t forget to step right up to the edge of the catwalk with a drumstick in his hand. He theatrically signaled that he’d throw it into the crowd. Everyone’s already holding their breath, but no. He threw it back behind him instead. It flew across the whole stage toward the drums, where Stix Zadinia sat. The first time Starr missed by a hair, but not by much. The second stick fell straight into the drummer’s hands. Unbelievable. What rehearsed gags that keep the cheer at its peak. This time the cheer was extremely important, since it was pouring and pelting down. I was soaked to the bone, luckily I was squeezed in among the people crowded in anoraks in front of the stage, which kept me (at least temporarily) warm. During 17 Girls In A Row, the band didn’t treat us to the spectacle of inviting the girls from the crowd onto the stage, which they love to do and which we experienced, for example, years ago at their show in Graz. It’s unbelievable what all this Steel Panther energy gets out of women during shows. That makes watching the show interesting from this angle too. You can’t believe it. In Graz, at Starr’s “request”, they actually took their bras off during the aforementioned song. In a packed Orpheum Theater. Without a speck of shame. This time the logistics would have allowed it, but the band probably decided against inviting girls on stage because of the rainy conditions. This time the band stuck a comic version of Ozzy’s Crazy Train among its stage customs and habits, and otherwise played the following setlist: Eyes of a Panther, Goin’ in the Backdoor, Party Like Tomorrow Is the End of the World, Just Like Tiger Woods, then the brand-new All I Wanna Do Is Fuck (Myself Tonight), Poontang Boomerang, the mentioned Ozzy’s Crazy Train, Asian Hooker, Girl From Oklahoma, 17 Girls in a Row, Community Property, Gold Digging Whore, Death to All But Metal and the closing Gloryhole. A Steel Panther show is truly the first address for crazy fun, the way rock’n’roll can deliver it in its original mission.
For the finale the action moved into the hall once more. There, the German duo Mantar performed, whom I personally didn’t watch because I was knackered and went off to my sheets in the camp instead, but I got very positive reports, full of enthusiasm, that the show was phenomenal. It’s a duo made up of the older, reportedly already mildly gray-haired guy and drummer Erinç Sakarya and the younger guitarist Hanno Klänhard. They share the vocals too. Facing each other. And they unleash toxic, high-voltage, high-octane energy and a thoroughly hellish atmosphere. A destructive, raw and primordial sound. Hanno is reportedly seriously bestial, and in their smithing the two knead in a fair helping of doom-fueled riffs, there’s Motörhead-style energy, meaning they lean on rock’n’roll and punk rock bite, with the whole thing also gravitating toward sludge. Reportedly a really great show and a band you absolutely have to check out live. The band also played last year’s edition of Metaldays and earned a very nice review for their show there as well.
So the second day came to a close. It was damn wet. Two days of the rainy edition of the festival are behind us. We hope the third will be at least two-thirds dry, when the following have announced their performances: Screamer, RAM, Flotsam and Jetsam, Armored Saint, Metal Church, Kickin Valentina, Omnium Gatherum, Tribulation, Candlemass, Einherjer, Ross the Boss, Skid Row and, as the headliner of the festival’s third day, Avantasia. But more on that in the third festival review of our dispatches from Balingen this year.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
