Pain was the first artist of the day. The guys stepped on stage while “Rebel Yell” of Billy Idol was playing which led into their opener song “End Of the Line”. The crowd created a party atmosphere with dancers and headbangers. Really nice mood while the sun was shining. Mastermind and front man Peter Tägtgren walked between the two stages once. He posed and made the audience cheer to Pain. In general, the band had fun on stage and interacted with the crowd in an adorable way. Of course, they ended with the most known song “Shut Your Mouth” and the people in front of the stage loved it. Overall, it was a nice show and fun to party with the guys, but the sound mix was horrible. The guitars were not powerful, the synthesizers were much too loud and the bass drum could not be heard. What a pity…
A snack from the really well-resourced grill stand and a beer later Iced Earth arrived to play the show. The infield was fuller than ever and the crowd celebrated the powerful opener song “Great Heaven Army”, the opener track of their newest album ‘Incorruptible’. The show was awesome and a fine mix of their greatest songs of their discography with a focus of their old and brilliant records ‘The Dark Saga’ and ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’. The stage looked good, the light show was fine, but the sound was quiet and not well-mixed, again. It seemed that the stages had some problems with their mix that day, too bad. But it was nice to see the show of Iced Earth at the Rockharz Festival.
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Directly after them, Heaven Shall Burn began to play. Again, same point from the beginning: A quiet and muddy sound. What the heck… although they did a really good show the known mosh- or circle-pit while they play did not appeared. The choice of the set list invited to bang our heads and go crazy – “Endzeit”, “Black Tears”, “Combat” or “Voice of the Voiceless” are awesome songs for an awesome party in front of the stage. But it was not powerful enough. Enough talk about that. Heaven Shall Burn spread a heavy spirit and it was fun to see them. I hope I will see them with a good sound next time.
Last but not least, it became dark: Belphegor performed their show. The show was announced as a “special ritual show”. I was curious about that. The stage was well decorated and full of occult stuff like inverted crosses, candle stands and skulls. It seemed like an occult mass will be done, why not. The show itself was not “special” in my opinion, but the decoration made it special, so it was quite nice somehow. The opener song “Sanctus Diaboli Confidimus” blasted my mind. It was the first “really hard” band of the festival and a big throng seemed to enjoy that, too. But here again: The sound was awful and quiet, again. The guitars could not be heard while the blast beats and the bass guitar drowned everything. The fine set list and atmosphere were curbed by that, very sad. But I enjoyed the “special ritual show” either way. I am not sure, but I think I heard their newest single “Baphomet” of their upcoming new album ‘Totenritual’. This could be one part of the special thing about the show maybe, nice! Overall, still a nice show for the end of the day!
The third day of the festival was nice in respect to the shows itself. The musicians did a good job and it was fun to see them all. The stage arrangements and light shows were always appropriate and supported the atmosphere of the shows. But the sound of the shows was always not good. Sad, but true. I hoped it would be improved for the next, last day of the festival. I was curious about that, but I still had fun that day.
