Bang Your Head!!! 2017 (Day Three) – A Spectacular Ruckus with the Mighty HammerFall Hammer!
Location: Balingen / Messegelände / Germany
Date: Saturday, July 15, 2017
The third day also brought a heap of metal subgenre deviations to Balingen, though the emphasis was clearly on traditional old-school craft and power metal, which the closing stretch of the program confirmed with a set from Sweden’s HammerFall. It hardly needs saying anymore: Bang Your Head!!! is the festival for everyone with a more traditional taste in music and old-school preferences when it comes to rock and metal.
And that’s how the third day kicked off, with Teutonic thrash metal veterans from Düsseldorf, Germany, Assassin, stepping onto the stage. The quintet, which has been active again since 2002, actually jumped into the lineup at the last minute. Paradox were supposed to play in their slot, promising a special show after 28 years where they’d reunite in the original lineup, but the renewed health problems of the band’s boss and guitarist Charlie made it impossible for them to perform. Well, Assassin literally proved they’d jumped in at Balingen at five to twelve. They were seriously out of tune and unpolished. Of the original members, only guitarist Jürgen Scholz is left in the band today. Clearly they don’t play much, or there are months-long breaks between gigs. Either way, vocalist Ingo Bajonczak tried to patch over all these little mishaps with long speeches and humor, but at times you could really see that the band doesn’t have a handle on big stages, which they used rather clumsily. The band played tracks from the current studio album “Combat Cahtedral”, and opened and closed the show with songs from the debut “Upcoming Terror”, namely Fighjt (To Stop the Tyrant) and Assassin.
A lot more seriousness was brought to the stage by Vain, who, after the fiasco of Vince Neil’s set and the not exactly most convincing Slaughter, phenomena of glam rock and glam metal, along with Sunstrip, basically saved the festival’s honor. Vain delivered an excellent show, just like three years ago, when they played Balingen for the first time in their career. Obviously Davy was “loaded” again, and consequently the whole stage was full of him again. He also kept up a stage-show theater the whole time, eyeing the ladies in the crowd in detail, handing out compliments, and there was no shortage of other “juicy” spice from his lush imagination either. Besides the excellent vocal delivery that Davy still has in his mischievous way today, it has to be said that he’s backed by a top-notch crew of musicians. Even though the band released a very good new studio album this year, “Rolling With the Punches”, they knew well that people expected the older stuff. They followed up a hugely energetic, razor-sharp and superbly executed set with Who’s Watching You, the closing Bite the Bullet, 1000 Degrees, Icy, Greener, Secrets,, Quick Step To Love and No Respect. Vain over Vince Neil as a BYH headliner any day. Definitely.
Raven are three eternal sonic usurpers, let’s just call them sonic terrorists, basically a trio of venomous old-school speed metal velocity led by the indestructible Gallagher brothers. A band from the NWOBHM revival days, true veterans of the scene. And it’s unbelievable what just three people can do on a stage. Three hellraisers. Pretty much everything. A good hour of Raven explosiveness and the wild rituals of brothers Mark and John. The latest studio album, the more than excellent “Extermination”, is still ringing loud even though it’s two years old, yet the band played just one song from it, and otherwise devoted the set list to the albums “All for One” and “Rock Until You Drop”, which made up half of the whole set. The place came nostalgically alive, and Raven confirmed all their excellence and uncompromising spirit. Just like in 2013, when they played here in the hall. The band played the following songs: the opening Destroy (the only one from the current “Extermination”), All Monsters, Hell Patrol, All For One, Hung, Drawn & Quartered, Rock Until You Drop, Tank Treads (The Blood Runs Red), Faster Than the Speed of Light, On And On, Break the Chain and, considering their extensive discography, a rather unnecessary closing cover of Mars Bonfire’s Born to Be Wild. That choice is also the one (minor) minus of this show.
We stuck with the NWOBHM days. Next on stage was Diamond Head, led today by the only original member left, guitarist Brian Tatler. The band found stability especially after the arrival of excellent Danish screamer Rasmus Bom Andersen, and last year they recorded a new studio album, “Diamond Head”. That newfound stability flung the doors wide open to concert stages again. When Diamond Head hit the stage, it’s clear what’s demanded of them. Eighties material. As much of it as possible. The band knew that perfectly well and played their show accordingly. With the exception of two new ones (Bones, Diamonds), they chopped out classic after classic, starting with the old Wild on the Streets, which only found a place on an album in the nineties, on “Progress And Death”, then right away a swerve to the album “Borrowed Time” and its title track. Next came Lightning to the Nations, The Prince, In the Heat of the Night, Shot Out the Lights, the obligatory It’s Electric and Helpless (both toward the end of the show) and of course the closing Am I Evil?, without which a proper Diamond Head show simply can’t exist. The band surprised quite a few people by working in the song Starcrossed. It’s an older track that they only started playing live for the first time last year. So Diamond Head are a compact, solid unit, and the real drive comes from the superbly in-form vocalist Rasmus Bom Andersen, who was constantly going nuts on stage and even pulled off some incredible stage acrobatics. Not to mention his vocal output. Outstanding. The band is coming to Metaldays in Tolmin next year! Definitely legends worth your attention if you get the chance. And Metallica knew that well once upon a time, a long time ago.
It was time somebody remembered the old-school take on eighties American speed/thrash metal too. On stage stood Vicious Rumors. Last year the band released a new album, “Concusion Protocol”, and proved with it that they’re nowhere near saying their last word. They presented the excellent new record on an autumn European tour together with Dirkschneider. Now it’s summer festival season, and it’s also well known that Horst Franz is a big fan of this band, so Vicious Rumors are consequently very frequent guests at the Bang Your Head!!! festival. Before this summer, band leader Geoff Thorpe shuffled the lineup yet again. Brian Allen returned to the lead vocalist spot, an excellent singer with contagious charisma. That charisma, which a frontman is supposed to bring to every band, was exactly what you missed in Vicious Rumors after Allen temporarily left. Now he’s back. And Brian more than justified his theatricality. Thorpe also brought in young and ambitious Gunnar Dügrey as second guitarist, who really shone with a few solos. Not just anybody can step into Tae Rasmussen’s boots. So the kid is proving he’s made of the right stuff. The band put together a proper old-school set list. The opening alone started out dreamily, with material from their cult and best-known studio release “Digital Dictator”, with Vicious Rumors tearing everything down in front of them and firing off classics in a row: Worlds And Machines, Digital Dictator and Out of the Shadows. An exceptionally upbeat crew, looking like old friends who’d found each other again after a long time. Of course we Slovenes were also keeping our fingers crossed, since our own Tilen Hudrap was running wild on stage, swinging his Spector bass. On drums, of course, Thorpe’s inseparable comrade Larry Howe stays on board, and he once again delivered an excellent drumming performance. Interestingly, Vicious Rumors skipped the new album’s material completely, and brought back two excellent “Razorblade Killers” tracks, Let the Garden Burn and Murderball, which suit Allen down to the ground. The band also surprised with the “Welcome to the Ball” classic Dust to Dust, which they’ve played very rarely on stage in their career, and filled the rest of the set with songs from the album “Vicious Rumors”: Hellraiser, Down to the Temple and the closing Don’t Wait For Me. The mandatory Soldiers of the Night (from the self-titled debut) was in the set list too. Great show, great crew. Vicious Rumors remain an impenetrable stage fortress. The show was noticeably more intense, both in energy and in emotions and passion, compared to their gig in Brno in December, when they had to play as a quartet, without one guitarist. Let’s hope the band returns to Europe soon. For a new club tour, of course. By the way, VR did some nice promo for our web portal too when drummer Larry Howe tossed a few Rockline swag items into the crowd at the end of the set. Vicious Rumors recorded this incredibly intense performance at Bang Your Head!!! in order to release the first official DVD in the band’s history. It will come out in a special package in 2019, when the band will celebrate 40 years of activity, and it was shot by the same camera crew that filmed Accept here in 2015. Accept released that footage earlier this year as the DVD “Restless And Live”. So it’s no wonder Vicious Rumors had the stage fitted with no fewer than twenty guitar cabinets specially for this event. The set list also had one peculiarity for the occasion. The band opened a show with Worlds and Machines for the first time in their career, and also for the last time. So for Vicious Rumors this is a historic event, and the gathered crowd will remember it for years, as the show hit them like a bolt from the blue. They got more than they’d quietly hoped for. The band left not just sweat on stage but blood too, and that “salto mortale” by our Tilen is the stuff of tales that will become, if not a myth, then at least a legend over the years.
The first real disappointment at the festival came from Dokken. Well, it wasn’t even really a disappointment, as long as you know that Don Dokken is not the Don Dokken of the band’s golden days. The vocalist has packed on quite a few pounds over the years, but that isn’t even important. The problem is that his voice has lost its recognizability, its stamp, its charisma, and has gone completely watery. Without such a top-notch backing crew, Don Dokken probably wouldn’t be performing anymore. These guys give him incredible support. Especially when it comes to the extraordinary guitarist John Levin, who was the main attraction and figure of the band’s show. His brilliant, technically flawless solos were breathtaking, as was the incredible nimbleness and agility of this guitarist, who on top of all that also handled the backing vocals very skillfully. Those are absolutely essential, especially given the boss’s worn-out vocal form these days. Staying on board with Don are original drummer Mick Brown and the “dreamy beauty” Chris McArvill, whose narcissistic self-infatuation, more than anything, completely turns you off. That works with some parody act like Steel Panther, and even there it has to be theatrically staged, but not with Dokken. Anyway, Don’s voice has dried up so much that right at the start of the show with Kiss Of Death the crowd thunderously drowned out the singer in the chorus. That song later turned out to be the only one from the album “Back For the Attack”. The band put together a good repertoire, devoting the set list to the imposing eighties classics “Tooth And Nail” (the songs Don’t Close your Eyes, Alone Again, Into the Fire and the closing Tooth And Nail) and “Unchain the Night” (In my Dreams, the Hunter, Dream Warriors). The band added some extra salt to the set with the title track of the album “Breaking the Chains”. In short. Everything was in place as it should be, except for Don Dokken’s vocal decline. So it wouldn’t be a great loss if the man retired the band for good.
Next up were Canadian melodic death metallers Kataklysm. In genre terms they were a radical departure within the third day of the festival. So big, in fact, that the band couldn’t squeeze any real feedback out of the crowd during the whole show. The festival’s clientele is older and listens to different music, not so much bands that belong to death metal, and Kataklysm are even among the softer, meaning more accessible, representatives of their genre. It was a mirror image of what you can experience at this band’s show at Tolmin’s Metaldays festival, which Kataklysm have visited countless times. At the BYH show there wasn’t a single crowd surfer in sight, while at their Tolmin gigs you’ll rarely meet anyone who’d tell you after the show that they didn’t crowd surf during Kataklysm. So no special energy coming back from the crowd, apart from polite applause. True, the crowd in front of the stage also got somewhat thinned out and shuffled around, but the band’s most devoted fans were only a handful. Still, Kataklysm looked completely relaxed, committed and, of course, their usual good selves on stage. The band focused more on the current studio album “Of Ghosts and Gods”, and filled the rest of the set with songs from older studio albums. Maurizio Iacono and the crew remain an extremely tight and well-calibrated stage unit. Kataklysm play a ton of shows, with loads of experience and mileage behind them. Sadly, this time they didn’t have their real crowd with them.
Finally things started cracking in the hall too. The Unity opened the program there, a new band featuring two Gamma Ray members, namely Henjo Richter and drummer Michael Ehre. The Unity are a sextet playing textbook power metal inspired by symphonic-operetta musicality. The rest of the lineup is Stef E. (guitar), Jogi Sweers (bass), Sascha Onnen (keyboards) and Italian-born singer Gianba Manenti, who was really all over the stage. The vocalist has an exceptional vocal range. He doesn’t lose power anywhere, not even in the extreme high registers, and he really comes across like an opera singer. Some Rhapsody Of Fire or Vision Divine would adopt him on the spot and make him their own. The Unity presented their self-titled studio debut and had more than enough time, a whole hour, to promote it flawlessly. Sure, it’s a repackaging of clichés and these guys aren’t reinventing the wheel, but it’s obvious that Gamma Ray took a longer break. Hansen recorded a solo album, and The Unity was born. If you’re a hardened devotee of everything that smells like power metal, The Unity will be yours in no time. In September you can pop over to Munich and catch them as Edguy’s opening act. Toward the end, The Unity did play something from Gamma Ray after all. It was the song Send Me A Sign, but otherwise they stocked the show with their own material, namely: Rise and Fall, Firesign, No More Lies, God of Temptation, Close to Crazy, Calm before the Storm, Killer Instinct and Never Forget.
Just before the all-too-radiant guitar deity Michael Schenker fired up the main stage, German death metal heavyweights and dark lords Disbelief started smashing through their material in the hall. The lineup of Karsten “Jagger” Jäger (vocals), Jochen “Joe” Trunk (bass), Alex Hagenauer (guitar), David “Dave” Renner (guitar) and Fabian “Fab” Regmann (drums) basically delivered at the festival what similar German death metallers Warpath, also comeback acts on the scene, did in the same slot a year ago, except that Disbelief are a completely stable crew and so haven’t taken any breaks in their career. You have to be used to their kind of death metal. In Germany they’re an extremely respected band in terms of their output. So there were quite a few people in the hall for the show, even though the band overlapped with MSG, which was actually a big shame. But somebody has to be the sacrifice. This time it had to be Disbelief, who were supported mostly by younger fans of heavy sounds who listen to the extreme branches of metal like they breathe air. The band released a new studio album this year titled The Symbol of Death, and opened their set with the album’s title track too. The band doesn’t joke around and is toxic to the bone when they thunder on stage. They’re superbly tight. From head to toe. Karsten sweated himself through in an instant and looked like a wet rag as he gnawed through the band’s poetry with his growls. Between the guitarists, Renner took the initiative, and everything of course revolved around the exceptionally compact and destructive rhythmic kinetics that work excellently in this band. I had to cut the watching short, since it was time to squeeze my way to the photo pit in front of the main stage, where the organizer was promising a very special show by one of the most striking guitarists of the rock ‘n’ roll era.
Michael Schenker with three different singers and finally without the corrupting Francis Buchholz. The famous guitar ace, one of the most important rock ‘n’ roll guitarists ever to walk the planet and an eternal inspiration to many guitarists of the generations that followed this great player! After a few years he returned to Bang Your Head!!! as a supporting act to the headliner. Schenker walked on stage with his famous black-and-white Flying V guitar, with vocalist Gary Barden keeping him company in the opening part. Schenker gathered an exceptional crew around him: bassist Chris Glen and drummer Ted McKenna, while Steve Mann took care of rhythm guitar. In the first part Schenker and the crew, with a cheerful Barden, strung together classics from the first two albums (Let Sleeping Dogs Lie, Victim of Illusion, Attack of the Mad Axeman, Armed and Ready). Then came the inclusion of Coast to Coast (Scorpions), where Barden was joined by Robin McAuley and Graham Bonnet, who stayed on stage for three “Assault Attack” songs, namely Dancer, Desert Song and Assault Attack. Captain Nemo followed, with Barden on vocals, and then finally Robin McAuley took the stage again, leaving a special impression with his exceptional voice of velvety finesse. It keeps its extraordinary freshness and expressive power even in his later years. The singer seasoned the show with total confidence alongside Schenker’s crew when he tackled three McAuley Schenker Group classics: Love Is Not A Game, Bad Boys and Save Yourself. And of course Schenker didn’t skip the UFO moments either, as the show tipped into its closing stretch with Rock Bottom and the final Doctor, Doctor. Michael is Michael. Only he has that touch and only his guitar sounds like that. Unique. It wails so uniquely that the wail instantly gives you goosebumps. There have been few guitarists like that in the history of rock ‘n’ roll. Richie Blackmore, for instance, is one of them. Throughout the show Michael smiled politely at the crowd, and he seemed in great spirits, cheerful and committed. He visibly enjoyed the extremely loud and powerful support he got from the audience. Michael showed off all his mastery, his exceptional sense of control over the notes, which he colored with incredible filigree subtlety. On top of all that, we also witnessed his famous stage poses, which have always thrilled the young guard of guitarists. An outstanding performance by an outstanding crew that I could have kept listening to and listening to if the running time weren’t limited and the day didn’t have just 24 hours. Michael Schenker and his musicians played one of the best shows of the entire festival, and if anyone were to call it the best show, I’ll tell you that’s putting it immodestly, but that they wouldn’t be far off.
HammerFall played exactly twenty years ago at, believe it or not, the second edition of the Bang Your Head festival, which back then was still held in a smaller hall in the middle of Tübingen. Also on that bill with HammerFall were Gamma Ray, Demon, Virgin Steele, Sinner, Flotsam And Jetsam and Sacred Steel. It’s also been twenty years since the release of the band’s debut studio album “Glory to the Brave”. HammerFall were in the right place at the right time, and after almost 25 years of activity they enjoy a big reputation with younger generations as well as with those who grew up on eighties metal. Last year the band released their latest studio album, “Built To Last”, which was also fairly well represented in the set list, but HammerFall promised a special show this time at Bang Your Head. Okay, it was once again loaded with a pile of smoke screens and fire-breathing, like in 2010, when they last played Balingen. So there was no shortage of pyro during the show. In the first half the band lined up song after song in their well-oiled manner, where every minute and second of the show is carefully studied. You know exactly who in the crew takes which position and where they’re standing on stage at that moment. Slip-ups are rare, the band is incredibly routined and experienced. Okay, it’s true that Dronjak still can’t play guitar well, but that remains a minor remark. Oscar is just like that and will stay like that, and that’s exactly why Oscar is so “kvlt” and must never be any different. Oscar does have one of the finest guitarists of his generation at his side. He gets incredible support from him. That’s Pontus Norgren, Malmsteen’s former guitar tech, who’s considered an exceptional virtuoso and recently joined Panzer as well. In the first part the guys fired off Hector’s Hymn, Riders of the Storm, Blood Bound, Any Means Necessary, Renegade, Dethrone and Defy, Last Man Standing, Let the Hammer Fall and Built to Last in a row. Compared to the February set list, they dropped only Bring It!
Then the three musicians who make up Draupner came on stage. They are Henning Andersson on a five-string violin, Görgen Antonsson on a regular violin and Tomas “Limpan” Lindberg, who plays bouzouki, mandola and acoustic guitar. Also Swedes, which wasn’t hard to guess, was it? Well, they first performed the instrumental Between Two Worlds, after which Joacim Cans joined them on stage and together they played the ballad I Believe. When the rest of the HammerFall squadron came on stage, the eight musicians played a medley of songs from the album “Glory to the Brave”, just the main guitar phrases of the songs: Stone Cold, Unchained, The Metal Age, HammerFall, Steel Meets Steel, and finally they dropped into The Dragon Lies Bleeding, which they played in full. On the club tour they only played part of this song. One of the peaks was the anthem Glory to the Brave, which practically all of Balingen sang. Incredible energy at those moments at the festival. Emotional. Moving. The encore with Hammer High, then Bushido and the long-awaited Hearts On Fire, where the whole festival went wild again with the band in a real atmospheric crescendo. A truly special show from the band. In every respect. The guys really made an effort and prepared for this show, even though we quietly hoped they’d play the whole “Glroy To The Brave” album.
Anyone who found HammerFall too slow and too melodic headed to the hall instead to catch Belgian speed metallers and revivalists Evil Invaders. The show by these four hellraisers once again delivered a breakneck experience, with the speed of everything happening hard to describe. We photographers had trouble with them again, and on top of that they “entertained” us with a heap of stage fog. A truly attractive show packed with exceptional potency, a hunger to prove themselves, excellent tightness and firm focus. The bulk of the material, with the songs Pulses of Pleasure, Fast, Loud ‘n’ Rude, Shot to Paradise, Master of Illusion and Starway to Insanity, was geared toward the still-current latest studio album “Pulses of Pleasure” (2015), but the band also presented two brand-new songs, Mental Penitenciary and the opening As Life Slowly Fades. A crazy show! And the very same Evil Invaders showed up ten days later at Tolmin’s Metaldays festival too!
After the closing fireworks that we witness every year at the end of the third day’s main act, the festival’s grand finale moved to the hall, where this year’s edition was wrapped up by the legendary Axxis. Today the only original members of Axxis are singer Bernhard Weiss and keyboardist Harry Oellers, joined by Stefan Weber (guitar), Rob Schomaker (bass) and Dirk Brand (drums). Since the current “Retrolution” is a turn back to hard rock roots (the band played Somebody died at the party, Heavy Metal Brother and Queen of the Wind from it), they went on to work through the repertoire with an old-school set list, where the crew wasn’t ashamed to play songs from the cult “Kingdom of the Night” (Living In A World, Kingodm of the Night), “II” (Touch the Rainbow, Little Look Back) and even “Big Thrill” (Little War). Axxis didn’t ignore their power metal era either, and seasoned the repertoire with tracks from the albums “Paradise In Flames” (Tales Of Glory Island), “Utopia” (Heavy Rain) and “Doom of Destiny” (Blood Angel). The band seems to run on half the energy but full of drive, and in Balingen they delivered a really nice, relaxed and engaged show, where all the players (except Weiss, of course) also did their own solo spot, which wasn’t even necessary.
Three days of jumping from stage to stage took their toll, so we cut our Axxis viewing a bit short and headed for the tent and the campsite for some well-deserved rest. And so the 21st edition of the festival was slowly over. Once again it brought an exceptionally diverse collection of acts, many of them ones you can catch on stage only very rarely. I’m speaking on behalf of someone living in a geographic part of Europe not far from, yet still south of, the Alps. Since facts are just facts, we’ll be heading to Balingen every year. We’ll make the pilgrimage there again and again, because it simply can’t be any other way, and the soul has to be fed somehow. The countdown has already begun!
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
