Rock Hard Festival 2005
The trilogy is complete! But no reason to stop about a Festival that has turned to one of the most important Open Airs in the Hard ‘n’ Heavy-scene. For the third time the Rock Hard organizers were able to serve the visitor the familiar relaxed atmosphere by the wonderful place of the Amphitheater in Gelsenkirchen combined with a very interesting billing. After last year the metalheads had again the opportunity to camp close to the festivalsite. In Gelsenkirchen played 22 bands (each band 45 minutes minimum) on one stage (on Friday on a different stage) in three days for about 4500 visitors.
Friday
Side Stage
Regicide The festival opener played Gothic Rock/Metal without any typical genre limits. Rather the sevenpiece combined different influences to their own style on their debut-longplayer “Viorus”. Supported by a violin, a male and a female voice they managed to entertain the crowd with this combination. Well done!
Sunride From a Stoner Rock-band I expect a show which really rocks! But what we got was a boring gig. Especially singer Jani Peippo didn’t seem to only stuck on my nerves with his diva-performance. Hopefully they work a lot about improving their live performance. That the Finnish formation can do much better they had showed on their third release “The End Justifies The Means”.
Abandoned This German fourpack qualified for the co-headliner-slot of Friday by the SIMeVIL Band-contest. In the internet the fans had voted for a very Bay Area Thrash-orientated group. By Thrash-compositions like “Private Little Hell” or “Forcefed” they won the crowd pretty fast.
Girlschool The NWOBHM – all-girl-band celebrated Hardrock classics-program from the debut “Demolition” until the last year’s released “Believe” which found the crowd’s support. The right place to celebrate singer and guitarrist Kim McAuliffe’s birthday. To me it was the first time to watch the ladies and they rocked! That seemed to be the opinion of the clear fan majority. So the band even caused many stagdivers.
Saturday
Main Stage
Communic The Norwegians are the nowadays shooting stars of the Prog/Power scene. So it wasn’t really astonishing a pretty awaited the first band of the day in the noon. The band around mainman Oddleif Stensland and the rhythm section consisting of bassist Erik Mortensen and drummer Tor Atle Andersen (who looked behind his drumkit like an 11-year-old boy) performed the whole material of their praised debut album “Conspiracy Of Mind” except for the track “The Distance” and earned the jubilation of their fans by “History Reversed”, Silence Surrounds” and “Communication Sublime”. But one complaint: What was tour-keyboarder Peter Jensen good for who headbanged most of the gig while leaning on his keyboard instead of playing ?
Heaven Shall Burn The German icon of new German Metalcore besides Caliban are Heaven Shall Burn. While the intro “Echoes” was running the musicians entered the stage. At last the vocalist. But surprise! It wasn’t the regular fronter Marcus Bischoff. He had become sick short time before, so André Moraweck usually known from Maroon replaced him for this show which they started with the single “The Weapon They Fear”. This new material from the new “Antigone”-album caused much motion on the spectatorside as older tracks like “The Martyr’s Blood” (from “Whatever It May Take”). And the statements of the always spitting André wasn’t less entertaining: “This guys behind me are the ugliest band I’ve ever played with. Thanks for choosing me for this show although I’m so small and don’t talk your ridiculous accent.” Cool!
Ensiferum I can not really call myself a fan of this new little Viking Metal-wave, and so the next 45 minutes should become a real martyrium to me. Musically the Finnish fivepiece didn’t have more to offer as on their “Iron”-longplayer or on their self-titled debut. And their outfit (cow pants, instead of a shirt a white belly except for the female keyboarder and cowboy hats) was a mean attack on any working eye. Nevertheless they reached many fans especially with their hymn “Lai Lai Hei” (What?!) including some crowdsurfing.
The Haunted The Gothenburg Thrashers didn’t even present a new albun They also introduced the new old fronter Peter Dolving who acted on their first album. With a classic from this one (“Hate Song”) the band began the show. Peter showed by his voice appearance, his agillity and his humour in his comments (While his anouncement to the following song he explainted in a grunting way to finish it with its title “Undead” in a Rob Halford-style) he can replace ex-singer Marco Aro. Backed up by the excellent riff-triumvirat consisting of Jensen and the Björler-brothers they celebrated songs from the ´Aro-era` (“Shadow World”, “Dark Intensions”/”Bury Your Dead”, “D.O.A.”, “Hollow Ground”, “Godpuppet”) as the other debut-tracks (“In Vein”, “Forensick”, ”Undead”) and the compositions from the new album “Revolver” (“Nothing Right”, “99”, “Abysmal”, “All Against All”, “No Compromise”) and reached the enthusiastic crowd.
Samael To no darkness at all Vorph, Xy, Makro and the always jumping bassist Mas entered the stage, but the daylight didn’t really matter at all. Their very own and original sound fits to every part of the day in the meantime. Ignoring the first two outputs the four Swiss played an interesting combination between old and new. They began with the two hammers “Rain” and “Shining Kingdom” and immediately bound the crowd. After this they let follow by “Inch’Allah” one of seven tracks they played from the new release “Reign Of Light” (“On Earth”, the title track, “Telepath”, “Oriental Dawn”, “High Above”, “Moongate”). With the classics (“Baphomet’s Throne”, The Ones Who Came Before”, the two encores “Jupiterian Vibe” and “My Own Savior”) they of course earned the best fans’ reactions.
Sonata Arctica Although the five Finish twens got their fan support I need to worry a little bit about I had seen them in a much better mood the times before, especially Tony Kakko’s voice. But the problems of the actor in a strange outfit (A Finnish virus?) as of the sound became less during the show. So the band fed the hungry crowd with the singalong-hooks of “Broken”, “Victoria’s Secret”, “Full Moon”, “My Land” and “Don’t Say A Word”. But instead of the “We Need Some Vodka” in the end they should have played their debut-hit “Replica”. Nice gig, no more no less!
Amon Amarth Then the time had come for the real vikings to invade the amphitheatre. The Death/Viking Metal-band is definitely on a rise to higher levels. The opener “An Acient Sign Of Coming Storm”) of their show was supposed to be the opener of their new album “Fate Of Norns” and the crowd didn’t hesitate to celebrate their music. Besides the other played new songs like the new hit “The Pursuit Of Vikings” (Dap dap dap dap dap) and the title track front-viking Johann Hegg and his fellowship inspired the fans by their best of-setlist including “Bloodshed”, “Bleed For Ancient Gods”, “Masters Of War”, “Victorious March” and the final “Death In Fire”.
Children Of Bodom Suomi Part III: In the following 75 minutes Alexi Laiho and Co showed this band deserved this day’s headliner position. So after the intro they fired the musically tripple weapon consisting of “Sixpounder”, “Silent Night Bodom Night” and “Hate Me!” into the wild bunch of supporters and gave them more by “Everytime I Die”, “Needled 24/7” and the debut-classic “Deadnight Warrior”. After a wild celebrated show the five Finnish returned with the encore part starting with a new track (“In Your Face”) from the forthcoming album and two other jubilated hits (“Angels Don’t Kill”, “Downfall”) before the outro “Fight For Your Right (To Party)” described what just before had happened.
Jon Oliva The headliner show should become a very special one. Jon Oliva, backed up by the four musicians who had played with Zakk Stevens’ Circle II Circle two years before, introduced two tracks (“All The Time”, “The Dark”) from his current Jon Oliva’s Pain-album “Tage Mahal” and spent the rest of the show concentrating on Savatage classics from his era. Right decision! Although Mr. Oliva seemed while his strange statements a little drunk this evening nevertheless he sang like a young god through evergreens like the fantastic opener “Gutter Ballet”, “Hounds”, Tonight He Grins Again”, “Believe” and to the end of the regular set the early days-classics “The Dungeons Are Calling” and “Sirens”. What show which became another highlights added by the two encores “Power Of The Night” and “The Hall Of The Mountain King” (Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah) followed by hundreds of crying voices. Phenomenal!
Saturday
Main Stage
Hellfueled With a singer sounding very Ozzy-like and a Black Sabbath-orientated style the Swedes didn’t sound really original, but with its party-attitude this was the right ´accoustic shower` to get in motion after a long night. And so they rocked the stage mainly with material from last year’s debut longplayer “Volume One” and added the new title “Born To Rock” from their forthcoming second album. In the middle of the show the combo got honoured for being voted by the Rock Hard readers as the newcomer of 2004.
Wolf Power Metal of its worse kind got presented by Wolf. As first comment singer and guitarist Nick Olsson apologized for his sick voice caused by a cold. Honesty counts! But it wasn’t only the vocalist as rather the whole band performing a boring show. So at its end Nick left the spectatorship with the words: “This was our words gig and our best audience we’ve ever had!” Probably he was right with his comment!
Threshold The second attempt: The UK-Proggies appeared on the first Rock Hard-Festival, but were forced by a thunderstorm followed by many lightnings to cancel their performance after three songs because it became much to dangerous to play. The ironic was: It was the one and only hour having rain besides the sunny and hot weather on RHF 2003. Two years later the conditions were much better and especially dry! Starting with the opener of the new album “Subsurface” (“Mission Profile”) they directly inspired their numerous of fans. Besides their other new tracks (“Ground Control”, “Pressure”) the sixpack played a best-of (“Light And Space”, “Freaks”, “Fragmentation”, “Long Way Home”) and earned a lot of celebration from the spectatorside. Between the songs fronter Andrew Mc Dermott entertained them with his little jokes held in German (he lives in Hamburg) about his bandmates who weren’t able to understand this detailly. Great!
Unleashed A big bunch of fans seemed to have been waiting for the only harder band of Saturday besides Overkill. Right from the opener “Legal Rapes” the crowd raged in a positive way and mainman Johnny Hedlund knew how to animate them rising the atmosphere from song to song. Not to difficult with Death Metal-hits like “Shadows In The Deep”, “Into Glory Ride”, “Victims Of War”, “Before The Creation Of Time” or the title track of their latest release “Hell’s Unleashed”. So the Swedes closed the ´Death Metal Victory` with the last encore “Never Ending Hate”.
Pretty Maids A friend of mine and me use to call the sound of bands like Pink Cream 69 or Pretty Maids ´stadium rock` because of playing a Melodic Metal combination which consequently rocks and owns lots of melody hooks quite as well. So they entertained the small stadium of the amphitheatre which had became a little emptier after Unleashed. Due to some sound problems the danish dynamite around voice wonder Ronnie Atkins and Ken Hammer had a difficult start into their show while their strong opener “Sin-Decade”. But no matter to such an experienced band like the fourpeace. They convinced every present visitor by newer as older singalong invitations like “Destination Paradise”, “Yellow Rain”, “Back To Back” as the two classic encores “Future World” and “Red, Hot And Heavy”.
Masterplan Although the band around the ex-Helloween-musicians Roland Grapow (guitar) and Uli Kusch (drums) and their great Norwegian singer Jorn Lande had released two interesting Melodic Metal-records their position in the billing seemed a little bit too high. In contrast to the Pretty Maids which play in the same sub-genre somehow the fivepiece wasn’t able to give their vibe to the crowd. They performed a combination a little bit more balanced on their debut (“Kind Hearted Light”, the first single “Enlighten Me”, “Heroes”, the finishing “Crawling From Hell”) than on the new release “Aeronautics” (the opener “Crimson Rider”, “Wounds” “I’m Not Afraid”, their new single “Back For My Life”), but with no special effect on the audience. Hopefully next time they can do better.
Overkill As I don’t need to announce I’ m not calling myself a big Overkill-fan I need mention how asonishing the show of the New York Thrashers was. After beginning the gig with “Within Your Eyes” from the new output “ReliXIV” the group around fronter Bobby “Blitz” Ellsworth and bassist D.D. Verni played the Thrash-faves of their loyal fans with “Rotten To The Core” and “Wrecking Crew”. The moshpit raged and was kept alive by titles like “Hello From The Gutter”, “Thanx For Nothin’” and the two last tracks “Old School” and “Fuck You” which was yelled by hundreds of voices.
Sentenced After 15 years it was time to say good-bye to a truely legend of dark melodic Metal. And a very exclusive one in deed: The Rock Hard Festival was one of only two farewell concerts being held in Germany (the other one in Wacken). Generally their ´tour` was just consisting of a few festival shows. The Finnish Metal-institution opened with “Where Waters Fall Frozen” from the new “The Funeral Album”, to play after “Excuse Me While I Kill Myself” another new one by its opener “May Today Become The Day”. Now it was on to their first and maybe biggest hit “Nepenthe” from the “Amok”-masterpiece to be played to let follow my fave “Drown Together”, “Bleed” and the second “Frozen “-track “The Rain Comes Falling Down”. But it didn’t really fall. The weather was staying dark and warm to create a perfect atmosphere for the numerous of fans partying to this great appearance. Suomi’s finest performed with “Despair-Ridden Hearts” another new one, and fascinated with the double from “The Cold White Light” consisting of “Cross My Heart And Hope To Die” and the calm “No One There”. The end of the set was close and after “The Sun Won’t Shine” and the new release’s hit “Ever-Frost” they finished this concert with the classic hit from the “Down”-opus, of course I’m talking about “Noose”. The five Finnish left the stage to return with the encores “Vengeance Is Mine” (the fifth new composition) and the only tonight played “Crimson”-song “Fragile”. After this singer Ville Laihialla who had entertained the crowd with cool statements sayed good-bye with the words: “Have a good life and see you never!” A legendary appearance of a legendary band we will definitely miss!!!
Accept And the Rock Hard Festival-organization was able to offer another very exclusive event on the headliner-position. Fronter Udo Dirkschneider (also known from U.D.O.), guitarist Wolf Hoffmann and bassist Peter Baltes reunited the German Heavy Metal-legend from Solingen. They started the timetrip through their legacy with “Starlight”, “Living For Tonight” and “London Leatherboys”. Right after this the classic “Metal Heart” followed. They motivated the full amphitheatre which turned out to one big partyground. In the middle of their appearance the musicians played a bass as a guitar solo just interrupted by “Neon Nights”. After the second solo the only little disappointment followed. They played “Restless And Wild” and “Son Of A Bitch in a medley. Blasphemy! Accept closed the regular set by “Fast As A Shark” and came back with “Princess Of The Dawn” and “Winter Dreams”. The band left the stage, but the curfew apologized one other track and the fans demanded it loudly. Udo and Co returned to play the final “Balls To The Wall” which of course was planned. A fascinating lesson in Heavy Metal History was done and an amazing party was celebrated to it, too!
Conclusion:
The Rock Hard Festival rocks hard!!!!! This is for sure! And the Amphitheater is the right place to celebrate this Open Air which hadn’t lost anything of its atmosphere. The only thing had changed were the beverage prices. Rock Hard chief-editor explained about being forced by the owner of the Amphitheater on Saturday morning before the first Main Stage-band. That was the right way to inform the visitors, staying transparent and close to them! So this year the prices for drinks mostly cost 30 Cent more than the year before (e.g. 2,30 Euro for a 0,33l beer or softdrink). The toilets were for free and as constantly clean as the years before. Big big applause to an aspect which is not a matter of course on open air festivals!!!
Special Thanks go out to Manni Glamowski (The saviour of my lost passes, thanks a lot again!!!), Götz Kühnemund, Martina Sinovzik and Conny Schiffbauer!!!!!
On the Rock Hard Festival 2005 rocked, drank and partied Tobi Wan Kenobi, Lotte, Yvonne, Dumbo and Primal Dirk!!!!!