Location: Balingen / Messegelände (Volksbankmesse) / Germany
Date: Saturday, July 13, 2013
Even though after two days in Balingen our heads were already heavy, our legs tired and our faces baked by the sun, the third day’s lineup (counting the warm-up day with Candlemass) offered no compromises! Right at ten in the morning (well, a few minutes later) the main stage action was kicked off by Rebellious Spirit, local hard rock up-and-comers who camped in the VIP tent area just a few meters from the RockLine crew. I’ve known the band since last year, when I caught them on the stage of the sister festival Rock of Ages, and judging by what I heard, they haven’t managed to take a single career step up since. Even though they put a lot of effort into the band’s progress, which shows in their strong promo campaign, on stage they came across as far too shy and unsure of themselves. Rebellious Spirit follow the guidelines of the eighties hard rock school, but riffs that aren’t playful enough and Janikka Fischer’s childlike vocals keep them deep in the waters of mediocrity, so from the sparse crowd they couldn’t squeeze out much more than a few curious glances over a barely-school-hour-long set.
While the sun was only starting its late-morning climb toward the top of the sky, Alpha Tiger were already up on stage, somewhat more experienced German heavy metallers who, just like the band before them, put a lot of attention into their looks. The yellow-and-black shade of their bandanas, guitars and even the mic stand ties them at first glance to American heavy rock veterans Stryper, though the music of these German lads is even harder and more aggressive. They too look for inspiration in the legacy of the eighties for their work, the fruit of which is the current album »Beneath The Surface«, as proven by the W.A.S.P. and Riot covers that found their way into the set. Their stage presence was more confident, and the frontman more convincing both in his vocal delivery and in talking to the crowd, so Alpha Tiger earn a thumbs-up for their show.
It’s a strange feeling when one of the festival’s most anticipated highlights comes before noon! Third on the bill, Hell presented themselves to the by-now somewhat bigger crowd under the main stage of this year’s Bang Your Head!!! festival. They’re British heavy metal old-timers who never managed to release a single album during their classic eighties run, so their name eventually sank into complete oblivion. The band got back together a few years ago and started a new, more fruitful march, finally releasing their debut »Human Remains« in 2011, which has been the backbone of their live set ever since. Hell brought a real show to the stage! The theatricality of new frontman David Bower knows no bounds! The other band members gave the singer a reliable instrumental foundation, but next to his polished stage show they ended up as mere extras. Bower had the microphone fixed to his face, so his hands were free the whole time and ready to suck whatever good was left out of every single soul in the front row! A wide vocal range, a charismatic personality and a well-honed performance that included playing with the crowd put Bower, and the whole band with him, in an excellent light, and I get chills thinking what kind of hellish atmosphere Hell must whip up in a more intimate club setting. Given the strong support the band currently enjoys in the metal world, a strong label (Nuclear Blast) and, finally, the good connections of the famous producer and Hell guitarist Andy Sneap, there’s probably no danger of Hell vanishing from the metal map any time soon.
For the next hour the stage belonged to British heavy metal old-timers Angel Witch. Unlike the band before them, they did manage to release three albums in the eighties and for a short while ruled the roost among the most popular names of the new wave of British heavy metal. Judging by what we saw, though, their golden years are clearly behind them, even though their current album »As Above, So Below«, released last year, is very, very decent. Angel Witch came across as far too static on stage, the songs they played had no fire in them, and on top of that they drew an unlucky slot right after Hell, when the people under the stage were reveling in the primal form of heavy metal, which Angel Witch sadly couldn’t replicate. The only remaining original member, Kevin Heybourne, can’t be blamed for much other than a bored stage demeanor. The man is trying to keep the band alive despite constant lineup changes, and it seems that with the current lineup and the new album he’s once again managed to find, if not a winning formula, then at least a consistent one. The setlist once again consisted almost exclusively of songs from the cult debut »Angel Witch«: White Witch, Sorcerers, Angel of Death…, and they managed to squeeze in just one newer track, Guillotine. Loyal fans of the band, myself included, are surely annoyed that songs from the second and third albums never make it into the set. Sure, those have been overshadowed by the debut for three decades, but they’re every bit as great. The Brits wrapped up the mixed-feelings set with the immortal classic Angel Witch, which finally squeezed some energy out of the crowd, but sadly it only confirmed my thesis from their solo gig in Vienna a few months ago: they’ll have to change something radically in their live formula if they want to serve fans another live triumph.
Sometimes a pleasant surprise comes from the direction you’d least expect it! It was delivered by Morgana Lefay, Swedish power metallers who almost completely froze their activities in the new millennium and so quickly dropped off the radar of the metal world. From the opening track The Source of Pain onward, the band held a solid stance on stage, which blond frontman Charles Rytkönen kept building on throughout with an immersive performance and a good rapport with the crowd. Apart from guitarist Tony Eriksson, he’s the only remaining original member of a band whose history stretches all the way back to 1989. In just under an hour in the blazing sun, the Swedes presented themselves as a tight collective with an interesting presence, since their style combines two things that often clash in the metal world: aggressive twin-guitar riffs and a melodic component, best embodied by mighty choruses. Among mostly older material they included an interesting cover of In The Court of the Crimson King (King Crimson), and they closed their Balingen show with Maleficium, a song that once even got airplay on MTV.
After the breakup of the hugely popular Nevermore in the first decade of the new millennium, most of their fans found partial consolation in the revived Sanctuary, cult American heavy / power metallers featuring two former Nevermore members, vocalist Warrel Dane and bassist Jim Sheppard. At first a spirit of doubt hung over the band, mostly because of Dane’s alcohol problems and the weaker shows that came with them, but Sanctuary are slowly yet steadily pushing it away. In Balingen they put on a show worth sinning for, and on the wings of Dane’s surprisingly good vocal form they gave new hope for the band to those of us who hadn’t seen them before. Besides eighties classics, they introduced a brand new track, Frozen, which judging by what we heard the band can rightfully be proud of, and with it they’re also announcing, live, a new, long-awaited album. Original guitarist Lenny Rutledge was joined on guitar by Brad Hull, who came on board two years ago. The duo worked extremely effectively at laying down sharp riffs and building a dark atmosphere, though the real verdict on their collaboration can only come after the release of that album in the making, working title »The Year The Sun Died«. The scorching sun in Balingen that day hasn’t (yet) died, nor did the psychedelic motifs of the Jefferson Airplane cover White Rabbit manage to chase it away. The cherry on top of a successful showcase was the pair of original classics Soldiers of Steel and Future Tense.
Rage, as one of the pillars of the German power metal school, probably need no introduction. The trio, made up of Peavy Wagner (vocals, bass), Victor Smolski (guitar) and Andre Hilgers (drums), is hugely popular on home German soil, so a healthy number of souls sworn to black gathered under the stage. Last year Rage released the new album »21«, proving that despite their veteran years on the scene they haven’t said their last creative word. With it, Rage moved away from the symphonic sound of its predecessor »String To A Web«, so the Balingen set, in which half the time was filled with songs from the current record, was tailor-made for all fans of their new-millennium sound, which they’ve returned to stylistically. Even though Peavy is the undisputed boss of the band, it’s nice to see that he gives the guitar guru on his left, Smolski, free rein for the occasional bit of guitar maneuvering, like the one he pulled off during the speedster Soundchaser. It’s precisely this fruitful partnership of Peavy and Smolski, with consistently good releases in the new millennium, that put the Rage name back where it belongs. The duo on the front line laid down venomous lines and showed an extraordinary tightness, while the chemistry of the minimalistically conceived heavy metal machine was completed behind the kit by Hilgers, who, six years after Mike Terrana got the boot, has long since been a full-fledged member of the band.
Next up were Thunder, one of the most exclusive names of this year’s edition of the festival! Thunder came back from the dead after splitting up with a show at London’s High Voltage festival in 2011, and ever since they’ve been delighting fans with the occasional appearance, even though their scale has shrunk considerably since the late eighties, when they ruled the British rock charts. Thunder put on a fantastic hard rock show with the emphasis on their finest album »Back Street Symphony« (1989), from which they played Dirty Love, Until My Dying Day and Back Street Symphony, while surprisingly the long-awaited hit Love Walked In didn’t find a place in the set. The central figure of the show was the once seductive brown-haired, now charming gray-haired frontman Danny Bowes, who entertained the crowd between songs with humor from the spicy British school in the style of Monty Python. Thunder looked completely relaxed on stage. After returning to the scene (in the classic lineup!) with no label contracts hanging over their heads, they obviously decided their mission would be limited to carefree fun on European stages, and over an hour-long set that relaxed spirit and rock’n’roll fuckery effortlessly settled over the air above Balingen too.
If the festival’s second day had been tailor-made for fans of traditional heavy metal up to this point, followers of the more aggressive metal school finally got their five minutes of pleasure at half past six in the afternoon, when At The Gates stormed the stage, representatives of the famous Gothenburg melodic death metal scene. Representatives? More like one of its founders, along with In Flames and Dark Tranquillity. At Tha Gates came back from the dead after splitting in the mid-nineties with a one-off reunion tour in 2008. But the feel of a fat wallet (read: the urge to play) was obviously magical enough that it didn’t stay a one-off tour. At The Gates got their wheels turning at full power in 2010 and kept playing, which, in the end, brought them to our parts last year too. In terms of studio output At The Gates remain at the four albums from the nineties, so all fans of their classic sound had a bed of roses laid out for them this time too! The band is in outstanding live form. From the opening track Slaughter of the Soul on, the Swedes barreled through the show like an express train with no reverse gear! Frontman Thomas Lindberg still rasps with a deep vocal that can’t help but fill you with a sense of gloom and claustrophobia, which is of course exactly his intention! In the middle of the set At The Gates paid tribute to the late guitarist Jeff Hanneman with the Slayer cover Captor of Sin, and in their old manner they closed the walk through their most cherished album »Slaughter of the Soul« (1995) with the technical bomb Blinded By Fear. Neck vertebrae were cracking like crazy as the melodic death metal lesson came to an end!
According to Peter “Mungo” Gregorc, a fellow BYH!!! veteran who’s there every year, Iced Earth are one of the bands that, after the unstoppable farewell of heavy metal dinosaurs like Maiden, Priest, Purple and Sabbath, will take up the torch of the genre’s giants and become one of metal’s chief standard-bearers. He’s probably not far off. With every new release Iced Earth grow their fan base, which few bands who’ve been on the scene for a solid twenty years or more can boast. It’s a turbulent time for Jon Schaffer and company. After the first nightingale and signature voice Matt Barlow left the band in search of family life, Iced Earth were forced to find a suitable replacement. They found him in Canadian frontman Stu Block, whom fans took to wonderfully, judging by the great reception of the album »Dystopia«. His performance was the main focus of most people’s eyes. The likable Block had clearly trained his vocals listening to Barlow’s recordings, which was audible in the older classics like Dark Saga and Burning Times, while at the same time he’s already begun building his own vocal identity, based mainly on quick tonal leaps from the lows to the highs and back. Hands raised high in the air during the newest songs Dystopia and Anthem are proof that the band’s ship is sailing in the right direction! The charismatic guitarist Schaffer, on the left side of the stage, commanded it with a grim and determined look. It seems his uncompromising stubbornness in everything that goes on around the band is the workhorse that pulls it forward. All five on stage were dressed in denim, which isn’t exactly common in the metal world, but they’re half forgiven anyway since they’re Americans. Iced Earth built the set mostly from epic compositions with a distinctly atmospheric pedigree. In that respect A Question of Heaven and Watching Over Me fit nicely into the set, while followers of their early, distinctly speed metal period still got their due with Pure Evil and Iced Earth. When the souvenirs had already been tossed into the crowd, the main organizer’s raised thumb hinted that they had a few extra minutes available, so they hit us with The Hunter as a farewell. A fantastic show, after which Stu hammered the famous motto into our brains: “Each and every one of you is heavy fuckin’ metal”!!!
The grand finale of the seventeenth Bang Your Head was taken care of by Accept, the unbreakable representatives of the most traditional heavy metal legacy. The festival cherishes a tradition that one of its headliners is always of German origin, so for the second time in three years that spot went to the legendary metallers from Solingen. If two years ago the show was filmed and (partly) released on DVD, this time the meeting was more relaxed, and the five on stage shook off the shackles without a second thought and literally exploded across the stage in front of their home crowd.
In the last three years Accept have come an incredible way. Their comeback exceeded all expectations, and the Germans in 2013 work like a well-oiled machine made up of the best building blocks in their whole history! Even a band half their age wouldn’t be ashamed of the youthful exuberance on stage from the main protagonists Mark Tornillo (vocals), Wolf Hoffmann (guitar) and Peter Baltes (bass), so with the immortal lumberjack riffs of the marches Restless and Wild and Losers and Winners, it’s no wonder the crowd in the front rows acts like it has lost control of its brain cortex! Besides the classic eighties hits, Accept filled a good chunk of the set with songs from the comeback material. After a series of albums a notch below par in the nineties, the break was obviously long enough for the band’s creative side to refresh and release two highly acclaimed albums, »Blood of the Nations« (2010) and »Stalingrad« (2012), whose songs mood-wise further build on the primal energy roaring from the six-string instruments of the Wolf Hoffmann / Herman Frank tandem over the course of the show. One of the more monumental moments in the middle of the set was the performance of Stalingrad, when after the instrumental part Tornillo came huffing onto the stage and waved an Accept flag over our heads. The old guys on stage are enjoying themselves like it’s their last gig. The smiles of happiness, which start way back behind the drum kit on Stefan Schwarzmann’s face, spread chronically to the rest of the crew, who breathed even more life into the songs with a dynamic performance. Frontman Mark Tornillo is a hoot! With his slight build he recalls his predecessor Udo Dirkscneider, but compared to Udo’s annoying presence he’s the embodiment of positive energy, which in their old age has apparently become a regular companion of Accept. The only comical bit is the situation between songs, since the American-born frontman speaks no German beyond a few words, so the banter of Germany’s biggest metal band (ok, let’s leave Scorpions out of it for a second) in the heart of Germany… is in English. During the longer instrumental excursions Tornillo stepped back and generally left the space to his partner in crime on the right side of the stage, Hoffmann, who on Bulletproof, teamed up with Baltes, put on a slightly naive, goofy show for the people. By now night had fallen over the grounds, and Accept used the backdrop to serve up their iron-clad repertoire, which of course included Fast as a Shark, Metal Heart and Balls to the Wall. Experiencing the Accept march in front of a twelve-thousand-strong German crowd – simply priceless!
Before and after Accept, cult German thrash metallers Exumer and their gothic death metal colleagues Crematory were raising hell in the neighboring hall, but the indescribable crush and the toll of three days of festival action simply took their share. We’ll of course make it up to both bands at the first opportunity!
words: Urban Bolta
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
HELL:
1. Overture (Themes From ‘Deathsquad’)
2. Let Battle Commence
3. On Earth as It Is in Hell
4. The Oppressors
5. Blasphemy and the Master
6. Plague and Fyre
7. No Martyr’s Cage
—encore—
8. The Quest
MORGANA LEFAY:
1. The Source of Pain
2. Rooms of Sleep
3. Master of the Masquerade
4. Another Dawn
5. Hollow
6. Angel’s Deceit
7. I Roam
8. In The Court of the Crimson King
9. Maleficium
SANCTUARY:
1. Taste Revenge
2. Seasons of Destruction
3. Die for My Sins
4. Battle Angels
5. Frozen
6. World is Wired
7. The Mirror Black
8. White Rabbit
9. Soldiers of Steel
10. Future Tense
RAGE:
1. House Wins
2. Twenty One
3. Forever Dead
4. Straight to Hell
5. Feel My Pain
6. Soundchaser
7. Refuge
8. Higher Than the Sky
ICED EARTH:
1. Dystopia
2. Dark Saga
3. Pure Evil
4. Burning Times
5. I Died for You
6. V
7. A Question of Heaven
8. Anthem
9. Boiling Point
10. Watching Over Me
11. Iced Earth
————
12. The Hunter
ACCEPT:
1. Hung, Drawn and Quartered
2. Hellfire
3. Restless and Wild
4. Losers and Winners
5. Stalingrad
6. Breaker
7. Shadow Soldiers
8. Bucket Full of Hate
9. Bulletproof
(incl. Wolf + Peter Duel)
10. Pandemic
11. Princess of the Dawn
12. Up to the Limit
13. Fast as a Shark
————-
14. Metal Heart
15. Teutonic Terror
16. Balls to the Wall
