Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Balingen / Messegelände / Germany
Concert date: 10.07.2014
Attendance: 2000
Ticket price: €40.00
Another year has flown by, and a new edition of Bang Your Head!!! is right around the corner. It’s the nineteenth one already. As tradition demands, no festival year can kick off without a warm-up day, held the day before the official opening, on the same grounds as the festival itself, only inside the hall.
For this year’s »warm up« show, the organizers once again invited five bands: two Swedish and three German. While the two Swedes are devoted to hard rock and rock ‘n’ roll, the three German outfits are pure power metal, carved from the same block. The lineup reads Dynamite, Bullet, Stormwarrior, Victory and, in the grand finale of the warm-up day, headliners Grave Digger, who premiered their new studio album »Return of the Reaper« live.
Dynamite are rough-around-the-edges rock ‘n’ roll revivalists who love to lace up the riff boots of AC/DC and Rose Tattooo, with a desperado twang, but with a heart and soul that is thoroughly, purely rock ‘n’ roll. There’s a whole heap of this kind of revivalism on the planet today, and Dynamite aren’t bringing any musical revolution. But their show simply delivered that classic feeling of discovering a new Swedish band hungry to prove itself. The set was played with plenty of heart, dynamic and potent stage presence, a high level of tightness and bold use of the huge stage, which the band had for 40 minutes to show off its musical arsenal. Even though the hall was only just filling up, those who watched the band from the floor gave the guys a roaring ovation at the end.
Bullet are a band that first exploded at Bang Your Head in 2010 – RockLine report HERE. This February the band toured the old continent, opening for German power metallers Primal Fear, and even then they impressed with a meticulously crafted live show. Two years ago the band took a new guitarist into the fold, Alexander Lyrbo, and they’ve already got a new studio album in the can, called »Storm of the Blades«, due out at the beginning of this September. Considering that Bullet are on the rise, and that a bunch of eager fans literally crammed up against the barrier and pushed into the front rows before the show, loudly chanting the band’s name, it’s honestly a surprise that Bullet played before Stormwarrior on the running order. Their assault of classically tuned guitar riffs inherited from AC/DC, drenched in a hefty shot of adrenaline-fueled speed, came across as not just rapacious but remarkably driven and self-assured. The band has racked up a lot of touring mileage in recent years, and it shows in the excellent stage form the quintet delivers. From singer Hell Hofer’s venomously furious, sky-aimed screaming, to the finely tuned guitar duels of the two guitarists and the rock-solid rhythm section, Bullet are a band that simply can’t and won’t hide what they are on stage.
Stomwarrior are typical heirs to the Teutonic school of heavy metal that flourished on German soil, especially with bands like Helloween and Running Wild, and which provided the basic cues for the genre we know today as European power metal. »Thunder And Steel« is the sixth studio album by Stormwarrior, released this year, and the band presented it to the Balingen crowd with real vehemence. Frontman Lars Ramcke has added a fourth member to the trio in guitarist Alex Guth, while the rhythm section is held down by seasoned Danish bassist Yenz Leonhardt and drummer Jörg Uken, who also handled backing vocals alongside Leonhardt. Stormwarrior once played at the Metal Mania Open Air festival in Komno at the end of August 2008 (RockLine report HERE), so they’re old acquaintances of ours. In just under an hour the band ran through a string of songs from all six albums and served up the typical, cliché power metal experience, where some fearless fairy-tale swordsman keeps getting surrounded by assorted crosses and troubles, but in the end all the dragons are tamed or beheaded, and souls are cleansed of devilry. In short: a Nordic pagan mission crossed with the elementary melodic charge of European power power metal. That’s the band’s musical dossier, and the Hamburg outfit, formed in 1998, doesn’t budge from it by an inch. The hall thinned out a bit during their set, and getting to the second row at any point wasn’t hard. The band is somewhat handicapped by the fact that Lars has to play guitar, solo and handle the lead vocals all at once. Still, you can’t fault the solid focus of their performance, which was all about giving the crowd the best they could.
Most of the crowd that night was feverishly waiting for the big veterans of Teutonic metal, Victory. Today the band consists of guitarists Herman Frank and Christos Mamalitsidis, bassist Peter Pichl, drummer Michael Wolpers and singer Jioti Parcharidis. Of all of them, everything really rests on one name: Herman Frank. The Accept guitarist decided last year to rebuild the lineup once more. The first attempt at a revival came back in 2008, when the band recorded the album »Don’t Talk Science«, which should have come out in 2009 but finally saw the light of day in 2011. However you look at it, thanks to Frank’s perseverance the band went through yet another complete overhaul of its lineup last year, with the result that it can play live again. There are no original members in the band today, Frank included. Frank joined for the second album, »Don’t Get Mad.. Get Even«, in 1986. Of the rest, the most famous name is Peter Pichl, who once played bass for Running Wild and for the British prog rock veterans Nektar. The band is in full swing and promises a new studio album. Victory built their setlist, of course, from the material of their classic days. The band burst onto the scene with the banger Take the Pace from the album »Temples of Gold« (1990), which they also closed the show with, when the hedonistic Rock the Neighbours thundered at the end and lifted the whole hall to its feet. They kept up that lightning-fast energy throughout the show with the classic Are You Ready from the album »Don’t Get Mad… Get Even« (1986), joined shortly before the end by the excellent Checks in the Mail. Then came songs from the album »Culture Killed the Nature« (1989) – Don’t Tell No Lies, On the Loose, Power Strikes the Earth – while the still-current album »Don’t talk Science« (2011) was represented by Burn Down the City and Restless. Midway through the set, Herman Frank snapped his third string, so he went to his guitar tech for help, who temporarily shoved a black Gibson Les Paul into his hands, and the veteran got through a good chunk of the show with it. It’s great to know that I can still enjoy these songs live in 2014. And it’s in these songs with Victory that Herman Frank shows what a fantastic guitarist and masterful soloist he is, since in Accept it’s Wolf Hoffmann who takes the central figure role again and again, both in the studio and on stage, while Frank is often pushed into the shadow of bare riff accompaniment. The band plays superbly. A good chunk of the elemental stage movement inherited from Accept could be experienced during Victory’s set, even though Victory are a band that bets a bit more on the bombast and pomp of catchy melody, something Accept rarely developed in their career. Victory were definitely the most anticipated act on the bill. They threw a great party, and it showed in the many wildly headbanging heads in the crowd.
Grave Digger interestingly released their new studio album, called »Return of the Ripper«, right around the time of their Balingen appearance – RockLine review HERE. The band premiered the setlist that will also grace the stages of their November tour across Europe. It’s an album that tops its excellent predecessor »Clash of the Gods«, never mind the less interesting and creatively weak »Clans Will Rise Again«. That means Axel Ritt has finally integrated fully into the lineup. The band came with a full stage production, including maximum lighting, pyrotechnics and stage sets, in the form of upright human coffins with the famous gravedigger skulls, behind which stood the band’s keyboardist H.P. Katzenburg, dressed up as Death as always. The band struck with two brand-new songs, then poured oil on the fire with a classic from »Tunes of War«, the ruthless assault of Killing Time. Grave Digger radiated great spirits on stage. Chris Boltendahl, the band’s leader, was of course the only one doing the talking, and at one point during a break he scolded himself when he wanted to continue the show with a song that wasn’t the next one on the setlist, saying it was obviously high time he got himself some glasses. The gray-haired, maned warhorse roared the way only he can roar. It’s clear that this isn’t his natural voice, so as usual a slight off-note »fuss« crept into his delivery, where the vocal line strayed from the ideal pitch, while Boltendahl leaves the most demanding parts of songs, like the choruses of Knight of the Cross and The Rondtable, to the crowd to sing.
Axel Ritt filled the space superbly with his skill and just one guitar. Covering an entire stage with one guitar is no easy job, and he did a thoroughly decent job replacing his excellent predecessor Manni Schmidt. Axel plays his solos his own way, which gave some parts of the older songs especially a whole new quality. The band is so well-oiled that you’d have a hard time spotting a single mistake; once again it was the exceptional precision of the rhythm section, seasoned Jens Becker and drum wizard Stefan Arnold, famous for his masterpieces of jerky double bass pedal rolling, that cast the spell. The setlist was heavily weighted toward new songs from the album »Return of the Reaper«, and Grave Digger occasionally spiced it up with classics like the march Wedding Day from »The Ripper« (1993), and the ultimate anthem The Dark of the Sun from »Tunes Of War« (1996), which works brilliantly live and was one of the atmospheric peaks of the show, since the entire hall of 2000 red-hot heads roared along in unison with Boltendahl..
Given that the band delivered, as an encore and a curiosity on the setlist, only the ancient eighties ballad Yesterday, and then »cheated« those who were demanding another surprise by playing the newer Highland Forever, followed by the predictable closer Heavy Metal Breakdown, the overall feeling was still the right one. That means Grave Digger showed up in proper form, and the tour promises a lot, especially thanks to the spectacular sets, seasoned with pyro and a bucketload of smoke. Still, the band will have to add at least three more old classics to the repertoire to satisfy every fan of their life and work.
So the warm-up day is behind us. The heavy metal and hard rock neighing of Swedish-German origin gave the hard metal skulls craving a switch-off a proper dose of distorted shrapnel intoxication, and primed them for the first day of the festival. More on that very soon, in the next Balingen concert tale.
Setlist
BULLET:
1. Midnight Oil
2. Rush Hour
3. Turn It Up Loud
4. Dusk Til Dawn
5. Rolling Home
6. Pay the Price
7. Stay Wild
8. Bang Your Head
9. Bite the Bullet
STORMWARRIOR:
1. Iron Gods
2. Thunder & Steele
3. Metal Legacy
4. Sacred Blade
5. Ragnarök
6. Steelcrusader
7. Heavy Metal Fire
8. Heading Northe
9. Odinn’s Warriors
VICTORY:
1. Take the Pace
2. Are You Ready
3. Burn Down the City
4. Power Strikes the Earth
5. Temples of Gold
6. On the Loose
7. Don’t Tell No Lies
8. Backseat Rider
9. Restless
10. Check’s in the Mail
11. Rock the Neighbours
GRAVE DIGGER:
1. Return of the Reaper
2. Hell Funeral
3. Knights of the Cross
4. Grave Desecrator
5. Ballad of a Hangman
6. Wedding Day
7. Tattooed Rider
8. Hammer of the Scots
9. The Dark of the Sun
10. Seasons of the Witch
11. Excalibur
12. The Round Table
13. Rebellion (The Clans Are Marching)
—encore—
14. Yesterday
15. Highland Farewell
16. Heavy Metal Breakdown
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