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Artista Album Entrevista Concierto
Headbangers Open Air 2009, 23 - 25 July 2009, Brande-Hörnerkirchen (Germany)
-> Overview | -> Warm-Up-Show - Wednesday, 22 July | -> Thursday, 23 July | -> Saturday, 25 July
Friday, 24 July
(Text and pictures: bk) On the 25 in the morning, the sun was shining
again... that made people hope for less rain, but again all hope was
futile. Anyway, you had to get up early if you wanted to see the first
shows, which started at noon. The French epic-heavy metallers Lonewolf
opened today, and with the clear and powerful sound they had you could
truly appreciate their song material. I really liked them this time,
the played a tight show and the songs went straight to the point,
without the epic elements taking over too much and making the songs
erratic. They played "Pagan Glory" and "Hellenic Warriors" for the many
Greek fans present, among others.
The Swedes from Memory Garden were next. Their songs remind a lot of
the power-doom their countrymen Memento Mori play - gloomy, doomy, but
melodic and tight at the same time. This was maybe the band which had
the biggest disadvantage playing so early, as the light didn't allow
for any dark atmosphere on stage and thus the songs, like in this case
"Revelation" and "Genesis", remained a little expressionless. A pity,
as the material is quite good, really. Fans of Memento Mori and the
like should check them out all the same.
Piledriver - nowadays known as The Exalted Piledriver are the second
version of a Canadian 80s band which was something like "The Canadian
Venom" back in their time, as they went for a similar sound at a time
when Venom was big news. The singer is the only one who also performed
with Piledriver years ago. Their trademark nowadays is a totally crazy
show, which mainly consists in the musicians wearing fancy costumes -
with vocalist Gord "PileDriver" Kirchin clad in black leather and tons
of spikes, black leather hood included. The music was quite cool raw
80s thrash with raw vocals, much more serious than one could have
thought seeing them on stage. OK, the song titles were a fun element as
well, like "Sex With Satan" (an old title) and the like. Of course
Piledriver started to attract the masses to the garden.
Now we were to watch another Swedish band - Enforcer. These guys
play Exciter-style 80s speed and are indeed very young (at least that's
what they look like), but seemed surprisingly experienced and at ease
on stage. They didn't stand still for even a single moment and played
songs like "Black Angel", "City Lights", "Speed Queen" and "Scream Of
The Savage", all taken from their debut "Into the Night" with fury and
determination alike, a great show for the ears and the eyes, much to
the delight of the crowd.
During Enforcer it had started to rain again, and this time it
looked like there would be no end to it. There even was a power failure
on the stage, which didn't last long, though, and the show could go on.
Jacobs Dream were totally the opposite of the two previous bands we'd
seen. They have got some excellent technical power metal songs up their
sleeves, and their guitar work was quite outstanding at times. But
their performance was a bit static, and singer Chaz Bond, while
displaying an expressive voice, didn't always always hit the note.
Nevertheless songs like "At The Gates" or "Scapegoat" were surely fun.
Exxplorer are another US band with a long, albeit unstable band
history. Their newly reformed line-up with various original members
presented mainly songs from their debut album "Symphonies Of Steel"
(from which they played almost all songs), like "City Streets", "Metal
Detectors" and the wonderful "Objection Overruled". They did an
energetic, tight performance, which emphasized their great song
material perfectly. They made the crowd move again and ended their set
with "Beg Borrow and Steel" from their second album.
Now to some stronger stuff - Deathriders, the band of the first
Anthrax vocalist Neil Turbin, was going to blow us away with some old
Anthrax songs. They've committed themselves to true, traditional 80s
speed/ thrash, as Neil Turbin never forgot to mention between songs.
Musically they were really convincing, with versions of "Armed And
Dangerous", "Metal Thrashing Mad", "Death From Above", "Panic" and
"Deathrider" delivered with the speed and aggression they deserve.
Really cool, really fun, but Neil Turbin talked way too much.
Nevertheless, good ol' speed metal for old and new headbangers, for
many one of the highlights of the festival.
That was the case with Helstar, as well, performing with James
Rivera, one of the best-known singers in American metal. He's a great
vocalist for sure, but where he fits in really perfectly, more so than
with any other of the numerous bands he's performed with, that's
Helstar. These Texan guys did a massive, energetic show, where the
technical perfection of the songs stuck out due to the great sound,
without lessening the raw energy. James Rivera came on stage with a
devil's mask, and songs like "King of Hell", "Baptized in Blood",
"Winds of War" or "Run With the Pack" made this a memorable event.
Their usual drummer, Russel DeLeon, could not play with the band this
time, they had had to ask Ex-Drummer Michael Lewis to replace him, and
he'd had just a week to rehearse. He did a great job, and was sure
partly responsible for the great Helstar show.
After the Helstar gig, James Rivera started to make a speech,
talking about his musical career, the criticism he'd received, and so
on and so forth, but nobody knew what he was really getting at... then
he told the crowd about the Vicious Rumors "Warball" album where he did
the vocals being considered a highlight in the band's career, and
instants later, Vicious Rumors where on the stage and announced a
surprise gig with James Rivera! That was really a surprise for
everybody, and they played "Sonic Rebellion" and "A Ghost Within" from
the "Warball" album. That's how we came to see Vicious Rumors three
days in a row, and in four different versions (remember that at the
warm-up show Geoff Thorpe did the vocals for some tracks). Great for
the fans of this band!
Now it was time for some more melodic rock stuff. Many left the
festival ground, others were coming in to see Pretty Maids. This Danish
band has been around for quite some time and usually plays on lots of
festivals throughout Europe, so most people had already seen them on
some occasion or other. That also meant that there weren't going to be
any big surprises... except that for once I had the opportunity, after
seeing them at various festivals, to fully appreciate their songs
because of the great sound. The best ones came last, though - "Future
World" and "Red, Hot and Heavy" where the highlights of the gig, loved
by the fans.
Finally we came to the end of the second festival day, whose
headliner was cult band Manilla Road. They were one of the bands which
attracted most visitors, for sure. Especially the Greek fans, who're a
lot into epic metal, seem to adore them. There were Greek flags in the
front rows.
Manilla Road are probably one of those bands who're total cult, but at
the same time one of those you either truly love or - I wouldn't say
hate - but simply don't care about at all. With all this said, it's not
the same listening to their old records, which have mostly a really bad
production, than seeing them live, which is where the songs sound much
more like what they were supposed to. Surely people were expecting a
lot from this band, and they kept true to these expectations. Many fell
into some kind of trance - the music gets you floating in a very
strange, dream-like way. It's mostly traditional heavy-doom, not too
slow though, 70s influenced, psychedelic, very epic, sometimes dark and
somber, but not depressive, powerful at times, very sophisticated - and
somehow truly special. After a while I got somehow lost in the
space-time-continuum as well and lost track of the songs and everyting
surrounding me - think of "Voyager"... all I can say is they played
"Haunted Palace", "Astronomica" and "Road of Kings" as well as the
famous "Crystal Logic" among others. Some might miss the aggression and
power after Deathriders and Helstar, and consider it too late for a
band like that, but I found them very relaxing and perfect at that time
of night. The gig was somehow special, with Mark "The Shark" Shelton on
his extremely heavy-sounding guitar doing a great performance, and also
Bryan "Hellroadie" Patrick on vocals sounded perfect in this setting.
One of my personal highlights, and one of the most peculiar metal bands
I've ever had the opportunity to see live.
