Location: Balingen / Messegelände / Germany
Date: June 28, 2008
Performers:
JUDAS PRIEST, SAXON, YNGWIE J. MALMSTEEN’S RISING FORCE, GRAVE DIGGER, LIZZY BORDEN (second set), TANKARD, OBITUARY, LIZZY BORDEN (first set), ONSLAUGHT, BREAKER, SECRECY, AGE OF EVIL
AGE OF EVIL: 09.30-10.10
On day two my head was seriously heavy thanks to a generous dose of alcoholic derivatives. I staggered onto the festival grounds a good while late and arrived just as Age Of Evil, the band that opened the second day of Bang Your Head!!!, were wrapping up. What my ears managed to catch was a great mix of standard rock n’ roll foundations played in the extreme garb of old-school thrash, with Maiden-style harmonies. The guys, who hail from Arizona, have barely turned 18. They weren’t even born when the thrash beast was already terrorizing the planet, and their arrival gives hope that the mission of thrash metal will be passed from the older generation to the younger one in a healthy way. I was, of course, sorry I’d missed more.
SECRECY: 10.20-11.00
Balingen is obviously a lucky town for reunions. This time the organizer managed to bring back the German band Secrecy, dormant for 15 years, whose career reaches back into the deep eighties of the last millennium. The band reunited in its original lineup, adding just one extra guitarist, Dennis Krüger. In the eighties they released two albums, “Art Of Motion” and “Raging Romance”, which enjoy cult status in the German metal underground.
On stage the band revived their classics. Secrecy have a distinctive Rush-style vocal, I’d almost say “neotenic,” which brings the required obscure edge to the atmosphere. These guys are a real eighties band. The riffs and melodies pulled hard toward American old-school speed metal and the second half of the eighties. That they’d only just dragged their asses back into action showed in their rather sorry look. They could have invested a cent or two more in their appearance. The band’s total stiffness on stage was also a bit of a snooze. We’ll see whether Secrecy sail out again, or whether this reunion was just a one-day thing.
BREAKER: 11.10-11.50
A very similar story with Breaker, from Cleveland (USA). Like Secrecy, they got back together after the organizer invited them to play Bang Your Head!!!. The reunion was originally planned with original singer Jim Hammar, but illness and surgery forced him to bow out at the last minute. The band called in Greg Wagner and hit the stage as a sextet a little after eleven in the morning. Breaker were the festival’s first real wake-up call.
These guys are cut from a totally different cloth than the limp Secrecy. They looked like they couldn’t wait to explode on stage. They’d already played two days earlier at the BYH!!! 2008 warm-up show in Hechingen, near Balingen. They have no fewer than three guitars, all three Flying V’s, and all three guitarists take solos. They came across as a tightly rehearsed unit, and what impressed the crowd most was Greg Wagner with his excellent stage presence, general craziness and firing up of the people. Greg’s voice can still be filed under melodic, but with a sharp, slightly raw undertone that reminds you a bit of Blackie Lawless (W.A.S.P.), and it’s superbly preserved and explosive in every register. Breaker hit with everything they had. Hugely encouraged by individuals in the crowd who knew the lyrics to their classics, like Ten Seconds Day, they delivered a unique, polished and energetic set. It rang in the ears for a long time, and singer Greg shocked and woke up the crowd by stage diving, leaping from the two-and-a-half-meter-high stage into the crowd. The band also tossed a bunch of their Breaker shirts into the audience.
ONSLAUGHT: 12.00-12.40
Legendary bands were practically raining onto the stage that day. Another reactivated thrash band, this time from Great Britain, which isn’t all that common, the excellent Onslaught attacked the stage at exactly noon. With Killing Peace they immediately confirmed they were hungry for music, hungry for thrash, having packed their ranks into such a tight and compact unit that you’d never think it had ever stopped playing or taken a break. The guys are phenomenally well trained, but despite all the virtues of the band’s classic old-school thrash style, the most important factor is the vocals of Sy Keeler. They worked brilliantly. He uses a huge variety of approaches: from aggressive, brutal singing to a melodic, obscure delivery with a sharp undertone, which is especially demanded in the middle to upper registers. But what really stuffed us were the extremely high, polished screams, without which a perfect live rendition of Onslaught material is unimaginable. The machine ground on, and the crowd below the stage gave the energy right back to the band with banging and singing. The band got through its 40 minutes in the blink of an eye. A hellishly good gig, sharpened to a maximum point. They simply charmed with the essence of directness and authenticity, through which shines the ominous rage of a wounded lion’s defiance. Conformists, yuppie mass manipulators and the rest of the empty grey! Watch out!
After the show Onslaught gave heartfelt thanks to both the audience and the organizer. They drove a full 16 hours to Balingen and were nowhere near sorry or put off by it. Their great mood was also confirmed by the fact that after the gig they wandered freely through the crowd below the stage, enjoying the other bands’ sets, and they were happy to show up in the press tent too, where a mug (or two, or more) of Fürstenberg beer was certainly no stranger to them.
Onslaught setlist:
1. Killing Peace
2. Let There Be Death
3. Angels Of Death
4. Destroyer Of Worlds
5. Metal Forces
6. Planting Seeds Of Hate
7. Demoniac
8. Burn
LIZZY BORDEN: 12.55-13.45
After nine years, Lizzy Borden returned to the scene of the crime. The band took its name from the woman who killed her father and stepmother with an axe, still considered one of the cruelest and most mysterious crimes in American history. Lizzy Borden play classic American metal that hasn’t changed all that much over their career.
The band took the stage and launched into the title track of their brand new album “Appointment With Devil”, due out at the end of October this year. A Lizzy Borden show is always something special. Lipstick and powder, please! All the members were slathered in a thick layer of white cream, and Lizzy himself ran out in a black cape, with a baseball bat in his hands. He’d dyed his hair black and tied up a tuft in the middle. For a moment you could have thought you were watching Marilyn Manson himself.
Ira Black, who once shredded in Vicious Rumors and Heathen, has taken a guitar spot in the band. Lizzy’s vocals remain superior and at moments recall Bruce Dickinson in his better days, or Kiske (ex-Helloween). The band worked songs from all their released albums into the set, and Lizzy entertained the crowd by swinging an axe and pouring and drinking “blood.” At the end, scantily clad bunnies from the nearby party tent marched onto the stage, climbing and writhing all over the singer, who by then had wrapped himself in the German and American flags.
All this would have been silly, a need to divert attention, if the musicians had been poorly versed. But they’re not, so the stage theater and the excellent execution of the material only reinforce and fertilize each other, which means Lizzy Borden delivered a highly bombastic show, with a hypnotic spark that sucked you in and didn’t let you out of its claws for a moment. After twenty years, Lizzy Borden and his band have kept an exceptional feel for rock n’ roll craziness, which they channel within the tracks of authentic old-school heavy metal, loaded with melody and shock-value catchiness.
Lizzy Borden setlist (first set):
1. Appointment With Death
2. Abnormal
3. Notorious
4. Rod of Iron
5. Tomorrow Never Comes
6. Red Rum
7. We Only Come Out At Night (intro)
8. There Will Be Blood Tonight
9. Me Against the World
10. We Got the Power
TANKARD: 14.00-14.50
A real storm, and a thunderstorm to follow, was whipped up below the stage by the German beer-soaked thrashers Tankard. They shook out their rage for over forty minutes, and people came rushing in despite the worst of the heat and packed in tight below the stage. Singer Andi, visually the ideal Tankard type, wildly tore around and flung his rolls of belly fat across the stage while the other three companions burned like they were in a trance. Rectifier and similarly titled songs, a constant of Tankard’s beer humor, sent the crowd into ecstasy. Chopped off and kicked in the face, yet wrapped in lyrics you can laugh yourself senseless at. Andi is a terrifying frontman. With this approach, their Tankard will hardly ever be completely empty!
OBITUARY: 15.05-15.55
The only death metal representatives at the festival, Florida’s Obituary, are definitely among the legends of their craft. And that’s not all. With their arrival at BYH!!! 2008 they delivered metal in its most extreme form, the most the festival saw in two days. As one of the founders of the genre, the band set new milestones of extreme music back in 1989 with their debut “Slowly We Rot”. This time too the band, who also presented their new album “Xecutioner’s Return” (2007), were received with enthusiasm by the crowd below the stage, who started a wild deadly dance with the band despite the worst heat, which was raging around three in the afternoon. Once again John Tardy’s excellent vocals stood out. They’re the deciding factor in the band, the thing that makes you either embrace Obituary’s music or reject it completely. He’s one of those special growlers with a slightly higher-pitched voice, but a voice from another galaxy that cut through every concrete wall at the festival, that’s how piercing and powerful it is.
Midway through the show the band had some trouble with the sound system, which they tried to fix, so we got two somewhat lengthy interruptions during the set. Otherwise the guys played like they were in a trance. The work of the two guitars interlocked and built on each other superbly. The black ambience of a completely dark, apocalyptic day of blackness of all blackness from which there’s no return glowed bloody out of Obituary’s torture, the noisy lashing and maltreating of the monitors, and brought the crowd below the stage to its knees. Obituary are currently in top form and don’t show their two decades in the least.
LIZZY BORDEN: 16.10-17.05
Back in the morning hours it was announced that Hardcore Superstar and Obituary had swapped their running order. Obituary played their set, but Hardcore Superstar never showed up on stage. Instead, we could spot members of Lizzy Borden from the crowd, sneaking around behind amps and walls of Marshalls. Am I seeing this right? Lizzy Borden were setting up their own sound for another show. Hardcore Superstar had obviously been forced to cancel, and Lizzy Borden offered the organizer Horst, entirely on their own, that the band would play the Bang Your Head stage once more.
For the second show, Lizzy Borden gave the crowd a completely different setlist than in the first one! Fair to the fans and to the organizer, who will write this event in bold letters in his Bang Your Head diary! The second show turned out to be even more energetic and relaxed than the first. The crowd took the new Lizzy Borden show with total ease and went wild with the band. The band had to put together a new setlist, and they had two hours to do it. Material they had never played live in this lineup was rehearsed in a hurry backstage. And so well that on stage you couldn’t tell at all they hadn’t played it before.
In a somewhat shortened program they also played their probably biggest classics, Give ’em the Axe and American Metal, which shot an extra dose of adrenaline into the listeners’ blood. The stage also had its scandalous girls, who once again wildly shook their behinds and twisted into every possible pose. Lizzy staged a proper Dracula attack on one of the girls and once again liberally soaked himself, her and the stage in fake blood.
The band hit the nail on the head with excellent covers of classic bands Rainbow (Long Live Rock N’ Roll) and Steppenwolf (Born To Be Wild) and left the ring as the absolute winner. With a self-sacrificing move, Lizzy Borden proved they have major character, the kind you don’t run into every day in the music show business. The golden eighties of heavy metal dressed in shock tradition showed up for a moment in that classic light that wouldn’t leave even true music laypeople entirely unmoved. Hats off, guys!
Lizzy Borden setlist (second set):
1. Perfect World
2. Be One of Us
3. Give ’em the Axe
4. Psychopath
5. American Metal
6. Long Live Rock And Roll
7. Born To Be Wild
GRAVE DIGGER: 17.25-18.25
Grave Digger, today you could call them the legendary German Teutonic lumberjacks of heavy metal, have become a very predictable band. Every other year an album, followed by a winter tour and sporadic appearances at summer festivals. Catching Grave Digger live was a real little feat this year, since the Balingen show was the band’s only summer gig in Europe. Grave Digger are a valued and respected name among Germans these days, and so a considerable crowd of headbangers packed in below the stage. The show started interestingly, with the taped intro from the album “Tunes Of War” (The Brave), and then, to everyone’s surprise, spilled into the prehistorically toxic march of The Reaper. Right from the start it was clear this would be one of the most intense band-and-crowd interactions of the day. Chris Boltendahl, the well-known and seasoned growler in “Uncle Reaper” pants, once again ran from one side of the stage to the other like a bandit, enjoying the attention he got from the whole mass below the stage. Grave Digger did still spice up their show, though. They brought in a sixth member, the crew-cut guitarist Thilo Herrmann (ex-Running Wild), who is completely on par with Manni Schmidt in the solos.
The setlist was standard. Grave Digger touched on practically every record, except “Heart Of Darkness” (1995), and played the best-known assault tracks from them. A pleasant surprise on the setlist was the excellent, highly atmospheric mid-tempo track The Silence (“The Grave Digger”, 2001), but otherwise the show ran completely by routine, formulaic and predictable. At the end the guys stepped on the gas with the red-hot trio from The Grave Digger, especially Rebellion (The Clans Are Marching), which practically the whole audience sang with gusto, and the closing Heavy Metal Breakdown, where Chris and the gang squeezed out extra quanta of energy from the crowd. They left an excellent impression, confirming that Grave Digger can hardly fake it on stage and that, of the eighties German metal guard, they’re one of the most experienced bands, able to fully satisfy listeners with compactly built shows of the most elementary heavy metal shush.
Grave Digger setlist:
1. The Brave (intro)
2. The Reaper
3. Excalibur
4. Valhalla
5. The Dark Of The Sun
6. Knights Of The Cross
7. The Silence
8. Silent Revolution
9. Last Supper
10. The Grave Digger
11. Rebellion (The Clans Are Marching)
12. Heavy Metal Breakdown
YNGWIE J. MALMSTEEN: 18.45-19.55
The show by the “baroque hair” rocker was undoubtedly a voluptuous treat of a special kind. Things didn’t go entirely the way the fans wanted, though. The wait for the maestro dragged on because the techs just couldn’t get Yngwie’s guitar tuned. Impatience grew by the minute, especially for those of us curious how Yngwie’s new singer Tim “Ripper” Owens (ex-Iced Earth, ex-Judas Priest) would fare on stage. We waited a good 15 minutes before the two-meter mountain of a man finally charged onto the stage with his cream-colored Fender Stratocaster. Baroquely decked out and hooked on Ritchie Blackmore in his veins, Yngwie opened the show with a standard classic from his repertoire, Rising Force. Right at the start, after first strutting over to Ripper on his right, he opened a shower of picks and tossed a few completely spontaneously in front of him and below the stage among the photographers, who started beating each other up over the precious plastic (read: poor dear photo gear).
Well, “Dr. Ripper” is the kind of singer you can say is a typical “metal screamer” and by no means belongs in hard rock. Yngwie is basically a hard rocker, and when he isn’t firing off a plethora of classical note runs, his songs can be very charmingly punchy and rock-possessive. Ripper is therefore a very brave choice, because Yngwie has so far only invited typical hard rock singers into his ranks, which Tim Owens is nowhere near, and can’t be. Ripper sang everything there was to sing without trouble. The songs got a more emotionally cold reflection, but on another layer they grew out of an explosive attitude and picked up a touch more darkness. Ripper sang absolutely everything Yngwie dreamed up. The interplay between singer and guitarist in reaching the ultimate extreme of height that an instrument and Ripper’s voice can manage was especially witty. Ripper really is a metal terminator. The man doesn’t care anymore where he sings. He’ll earn a nice bit of cash with Malmsteen, and it would be interesting if the guitar virtuoso invited him into the studio to record a new record. That would surely be something special in Malmsteen’s repertoire.
Yngwie, who had sound trouble on stage the whole time, kept twiddling his knobs throughout the set, and the show was cut short because of these hiccups. Even so, Yngwie was a special treat on stage, reviving that special musical magic you only believe once you’ve experienced it live. Besides great singing, Ripper also devoted a lot of attention throughout to the egomaniac Yngwie, who demands it. Maybe in this role Ripper is even Yngwie’s first singer who’s up to the task, and who actually enjoys Ripper’s teasing in the style of “Yngwie fuckin’ Mouseteen.” We’ll see what time brings.
Yngwie J. Malmsteen setlist:
1. Rising Force
2. Never Die
3. Far Beyond the Sun
4. I Am a Viking
5. Guitar Solo
6. You Don’t Remember, I’ll Never Forget
7. I’ll see the Light Tonight
SAXON: 20.20-21.35
The old farts from the birth of the “New Wave of British Heavy Metal” are always a special attraction when you go see them live. Like with Grave Digger, you can say today of Saxon that they’ve been sailing along fully predictable tracks for quite a while. Autumn tours are followed by festival shows, and on top of that the guys don’t forget to release studio albums fairly regularly. Saxon approach things quite rationally these days. They don’t waste excess energy. For festivals they put together a setlist of the biggest hits, slip in a track or two from the current record, and the job is done.
This time they did exactly the same, and for the opener they chose, a bit unluckily, not to say rather unwisely, or maybe bravely, Attila the Hun (“The Inner Sanctum”, 2007). A song with a non-fluid riff completely kept the band from exploding across the stage, which would undoubtedly suit Saxon given their catalog. If you asked the band why, they’d diplomatically answer that they love the song and never pay attention to which song they open with. Well, let’s leave the philosophy aside, because the very next track, with Byford’s whistling, meant Motorfuckin’cycle Man had come riding down the track. Old farts without a whiff of fart. They play flawlessly, they play sharp, they play full-on, and of course with plenty of confidence, brought by a long, long concert mileage. Biff looked much fresher and more rested, and had even shed a few kilos compared to the experience at Salzburg’s RockHouse (Dec. 11, 2007). Of course he didn’t forget to wag his characteristically long tongue, and since the man loves to ramble, it took a good chunk of healthy taste out of the show itself, especially because it was cut short by 15 minutes.
Saxon did still offer one interesting moment. For Denim & Leather they invited Yngwie Malmsteen on stage. As soon as Biff announced his arrival, a classic arpeggio poured in from behind the stage, and then Yngwie bounded onto the stage like the happiest puppy. Do you think his classically cut style in the solos suited the rock n’ roll foundation of the song? Certainly not. But Yngwie did spice up the legends’ otherwise laid-back stage routine. For the finale the band came back and fired off the three-minute And The Bands Played On, which brought additional quality to the show. But as I said, Biff’s yammering about how Germany saved Saxon in the nineties and similar appeals to the crowd’s emotions, despite the general mass support from the audience, which proved how big a name Saxon are in Germany and how happy people were with the show, didn’t wash away the stain on the gig that the band gave itself by cutting the set short by 15 minutes.
Saxon setlist:
1. Atilla the Hun
2. Motorcycle Man
3. Let Me Feel Your Power
4. To Hell And Back Again
5. Heavy Metal Thunder
6. Strong Arm Of The Law
7. 20.000 Feet
8. Crusader
9. Wheels Of Steel
10. Princess Of The Night
11. Denim And Leather
—encore—
12. And The Bands Played On
JUDAS PRIEST: 22.05-23.50
And so we fought our way through to the grand finale of the 2008 Bang Your Head festival! A performance by a band that, without meaning to or even knowing it, wrote a good chunk of the metal bible in their seventies and rose to the ranks of immortal legends in the eighties. Even Biff Byford himself admitted that Saxon played their first tour as the opening act for Judas Priest, and said it was a special honor that Saxon could play before Judas Priest again tonight.
Judas Priest had just released their new album “Nostradamus” (2008), which came out 14 days earlier (counting from the Priest show in Balingen), so it was logical that the set design followed the spirit of the new album. Even more so. After the intro, Rob Halford appears on the top step of the stage dressed as Nostradamus. A bearded Rob Halford in a silver priest’s robe, with a staff topped by the signature Judas Priest cross. The song stirs interest in the new album, but we’d all come to the front for something else. Judas Priest knew that perfectly well, so they got people on their feet right after with the obligatory Metal Gods. The next one, Eat Me Alive, promised an excellent setlist, and only Between The Hammer and the Anvil showed the biggest flaw in the band’s current essence. Rob Halford’s voice is splitting at the seams. To help a colleague in trouble, Priest tuned their guitars down half a step, and during the show taped high screams helped Halford in places, successfully masking the sad state of his singing today. By singing I mean the kind demanded by Judas Priest’s standards, of course. Halford did seem in somewhat better shape than a good two weeks earlier at the Nova Rock festival in Austria, and yet he’s nowhere near the Rob Halford we were used to even three or four years ago. Only the devil knows what happened to the man overnight to make him fade like this. People jokingly poked fun after the show that he sang Breaking The Law best (he turns the mic to the crowd in it anyway so they sing most of the song).
Neither the fantastic gems of the setlist, Devil’s Child, Rock Hard, Ride Free, Dissident Aggressor or Hell Patrol, nor the excellent work of the unbreakable guitar duo Tipton/Downing and the cannon-like Travis/Hill rhythm line, nor the horde of different leather outfits and even the motorcycle ride during Hell Bent For Leather managed to chase away the stain and the bitter realization that this is practically a show that’s sorely missing something.
The contact with the audience is lacking too. Halford avoids eye contact, so he wears sunglasses for a good part of the show, or compensates through stage acting, planting himself against the mic and, while singing, tensely turning his head to stare at the stage floor. You could see and feel that Halford is trying his hardest regardless, but the fact that his high registers have failed him remains and is reality. In songs like Angel, Hellion/Electric Eye, Hell Bent For Leather or Eat Me Alive, the man still somehow managed to defy the obstacles, because they don’t require the highest-lying vocal lines, and likewise in songs where the screams are added as mere decoration, like You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’, Between The Hammer And The Anvil, Devil’s Child, it wasn’t a problem, while Painkiller, Rock Hard, Ride Free, Sinner or Hell Patrol sounded devastating. Once, this awkwardness of Halford’s in making contact with the audience wasn’t felt at all, or was totally unobtrusive, because the man smashed through every wall with his one-of-a-kind, unique singing in the highest ranges, which, along with him, makes Judas Priest unique too.
Compared to the Nova Rock festival in Austria, Judas Priest played the full set this time. In the second encore before You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’, Halford even took 5 minutes to rile up the audience, getting the crowd to join in singing the signature Halford “Oh! Yeah!” (a standard routine of Judas Priest shows).
Otherwise, the scene, performance and sound were pure perfection and standard, which of course is guaranteed by the band’s exceptional backing from the experienced crew that sets up their stage, as well as the band’s great power and know-how.
The show would have been a true mega spectacle if Halford could have sung the high, higher and highest registers, but that didn’t happen. What next for Judas Priest? Is it possible Halford can fix his voice? Let’s hope so, and the sooner the better. If that’s not possible, Judas Priest must replace their singer as soon as they can. There are plenty of young hopefuls out there, but ideally the guys would call the legionnaire Tim “Ripper” Owens back into their ranks. Where are you, Ripper?!?! We miss you!
Just two days after the Balingen show, Glenn Tipton had to urgently seek medical help for appendicitis. He had felt pain for about a week already, and thank God he gritted his teeth so we got to witness a show by legends. Because of this, Judas Priest had to cancel already announced shows in Zagreb and Belgrade. It was the first time in their career that Judas Priest had been forced to do something like that.
Judas Priest setlist:
1. Intro: Dawn Of Creation
2. Prophecy
3. Metal Gods
4. Eat Me Alive
5. Between The Hammer And The Anvil
6. Devil’s Child
7. Breaking The Law
8. Hell Patrol
9. Messenger of Death
10. Dissident Aggressor
11. Angel
12. The Hellion/Electric Eye
13. Rock Hard, Ride Free
14. Sinner
15. Painkiller
—– encore —–
16. Hell Bent For Leather
17. Green Manalishi (with the Two Pronged Crown)
18. You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’
What is there to add after the 10th consecutive Bang Your Head!!! festival in Balingen, Germany? Mission accomplished. The festival ran smoothly, with no delays. Apart from Hardcore Superstar canceling and Rob Halford’s worn-out vocals, there were no disappointments. Metal heaven on Earth really gave visitors its maximum. From the sale of all sorts of plastic junk, which can be useful or really just junk in the narrow sense, to tons of shirts and fetish items, all the way to the Metal Market with CDs that cost practically as much as a large beer. Endless stacks of CDs you don’t see in stores every day, or never see at all. After the Judas Priest show, the main organizer strolled across the stage with his companion Doro, the German metal diva, to address the crowd. He sincerely thanked all the visitors, lit a well-earned cigar, sat down on the edge of the stage with Doro, and then we all watched the closing fireworks above the festival grounds together. To top it off, with the crowd egging her on, Doro started singing the Warlock song All We Are a cappella, and the area below the stage came to life again as the audience joined in. A magical ending to a magical festival. After everything we experienced, it’s not hard to conclude that Bang Your Head!!! is a place you always love coming back to. Always!
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
text: Aleš Podbrežnik
Lizzy Borden text: Aleš Podbrežnik and Jani Mihevc
Yngwie J. Malmsteen and Lizzy Borden setlists: Jani Mihevc
