FESTIVAL REVIEW: ROCKHARZ OPEN AIR 2022 Live at Ballenstedt, Germany – Day 3 (Friday)

So the last day at the Rockharz festival starts for me. After some extensive wake-up rituals after the big party yesterday I went to my first task of the day, which I have planned the day before: I would go on the “Devil’s Wall”. With some other eager hikers, I went up the hill. The way is not too far and you are in a good hour in total back down, but one wants to enjoy the view at the top of course. The hike is actually worth the view over the whole festival. At the moment, I either forgot or became newly aware that the festival has grown in terms of the size of the whole area. I do not remember, but I enjoyed the view. After I came back down, I went almost directly to the festival ground to see my first band of the day. The weather turned that day and became very windy that day, which was a bit uncomfortable sometimes, but it did not matter.

Lucifer is a rather simple name for a not-so-boring band. The doomy rock band with hard old-school influence is just the right thing for a nice average summer day. So, I could enjoy your first beer of the day properly. If it were up to me, they could have played much longer. Directly after that Moonsorrow came on stage next to it. They played only a handful of songs, because of their long songs, of course, but they played some of the most famous ones. Which ones exactly is a bit hard to say due to the Finnish language, but at least everyone in the audience agreed that the band does a good job with a very nice setlist.

Directly and without a break the next act started to play: The guys from the melodic death metal band Deserted Fear. The unique style of the guys picks up a wide audience. The style is melodic and therefore somehow melodic death metal, but still not as playful as their Scandinavian melodic death metal colleagues. Too bad, the sound was relatively quiet at the festival ground and so it was not as powerful at the festival as I usually know it from the guys. Nevertheless, it grooved, and many heads nodded as well as headbanged.  In the end, the son of one of the musicians came on stage with a small plastic guitar and pretended to play along with the “big guys” on the stage. That was quite amusing and probably collected some bonus points in sympathy I guess. After a short break for me, I still saw the ending of Finntroll. The guys made as usual a good party with groovy beats and crazy arrangements. I haven’t seen them for a long time but remembered them just as this crazy. Again the sound was quiet and somehow bad… maybe it was due to the increasingly windy weather that day, too bad. Then came something special. At The Gates came on stage and started with the smash hit “Blinded By Fear”! Yeah, extremely good! After the first song singer Tomas Lindberg gave a unique speech. He told that his mother passed away the night before and in memory of her and her support during that time the band will perform (almost) the whole album ‘Slaughter Of The Soul’ album at that time. Tomas, my sincere condolences. I was there with full energy and many others in the audience with me. Only “The Dying” was missing, then the album would have been complete. The sound was really good again and it was a lot of fun to see and headbang with the guys. Definitely one of my absolute highlights of the festival!

My last act for this festival and also one of my highlights: Steel Panther. Yes, you can argue about the lyrics and the image of the band, but the guys wrap it up with so much humor and even irony on stage that you should quickly forget the arguing about this. It was almost more of a comedy show than a concert, although the musical finesse was not missing. Either way, especially guitarist Russell John Parrish aka Satchel showed what he can do with little interludes. That was very awesome to watch and hear and had a high entertainment factor. Who hasn’t seen them live yet… give this comedy show with excellent musicians a chance. It’s worth it, even if you might find something of the band a bit strange: Be it the hot pants, be it the wild hairstyles, or their lyrics. It’s worth a try.

Well and unfortunately that was it for me because I had to leave the next morning and miss the last day of the festival. I would have liked to visit the gigs of Obscurity, Ektomorf, Tankard, Unleashed, Insomnium, Exodus, Testament, Knorkator, and Accept. It would probably be the day with the most concerts that I wanted to see. But well, the next festival and the next Rockharz come again. Overall it was a great pleasure after the pandemic break to be allowed to be at a festival again and I’m already looking forward to the next one. The only constructive criticism I have to write every year is that the sound is sometimes much too quiet and sometimes not good. Maybe it’s the weather that plays into it, but maybe something can be done. In any case, I had a lot of fun and will gladly come back!