Bang Your Head Festival, July 2010

Posted by Linda Stalker-Millar 27 July 2010

Live Concert Reviews

The 15th Anniversary of Bang Your Head Festival, in Balingen, Germany came & went in a whirl of activity. For those arriving in Balingen early, there was a warm-up show

the night before, in the hall, which featured Roxxcalibur, Blitzkrieg, Demon & Saxon. The actual festival began on a sweltering hot day on Friday the 16th July, with the first band, The New Black, kicking off at 10am. Each day had a line-up of 14 bands playing on the large ourtood stage up until 8pm, where the last 5 bands alternated between the outdoor stage & the smaller stage in the hall.

Friday saw many sunburnt people having a load of fun and the hat sales sure went off well. There was a great mix of bands – the running order for Friday featured The New Black, Enforcer, Grand Magus, Forbidden, Sabaton, Loudness, Anvil, Jon Olivias Pain, Doro, Darkane, Krokus, Artillery, Hammerfall & Dark Tranquility. Sabaton, a great bunch of guys, went down very well. It brought goosebumps to hear Jon Olivias Pain, ex of Savatage, doing the Savatage song “Gutter Ballet”. After over 25 years, the publicly acclaimed ‘Queen of Metal’, Doro Pesch, had the crowd going crazy. She had an excellent repall with her fans and spoke in both German & English. Another band that’s been around for a good while, Krokus, also had a great fan response. Hammerfall was the main band of the night & drew an avid crowd of passionate fans. They ended up playing an extended set of 2 hours, much to everyone’s appreciation. We were even treated to some pleasant rain to cool things down by late Friday night.

  

Saturday’s running order began with Toxin, then Savage Grace, Bullet, Sacred Steel, Hades, Treat, Fates Warning, Quireboys, Nevermore, Dew Scented, Queensryche, The Haunted, Twisted Sister & Destruction. The cooler weather had set in and there were frequent relatively heavy downpours from around 1pm. Fortunately, the main festival area was tar & concrete, so there was no chance of slushy mud. The main camping area was some kilometres away, but thankfully, the rain wasn’t intense enough to warrant it turning into a mud pool and it stopped raining later in the evening.

     

The entire festival was in fact, extremely well organised. Constant double length shuttle busses ran to & from the main festival area and the camp site until the wee hours. There were huge amount of very varied merchandise and food stalls and many bars all around. Portable toilets were abound and in the hall were real toilets to be used…luxury! In the camping area there were male and female showers – a row of showers side by side above a wooden platform enclosed by thick black plastic and open to the sky….cold water, but since the days started off very warm, the cold shower was refreshing. Most people chose to bare all to the others in the shower area, but some were shy and wore underwear or swimming costumes. Adjacent to the showers were rows of large communal sinks for the brushing of teeth, a quick wash, water collection and there were even people washing dishes in them. Nearby, just after the campsite entrance, was a large tented supermarket, where one section was dedicated to booze and the other one to almost anything you may need whilst camping.

  

On Saturday, many people took the band Treat to be just that. The Quireboys came on stage with much energy and had the crowd fixated during a heavy downpour and those preferring to stay dry packed together tightly under all the tents around. Nevermore also had a great response, unlike Queensryche, who had quite a few fans disappointed with their performance. The Haunted kicked ass in the hall. Everyone was waiting in anticipation for Twisted Sister…they all ‘wanted to rock’ and most certainly did. There was an almost feverish excitement for Twisted Sister and the guys proved that they could still give it all they had. Needless to say “I Wanna Rock” was THE song of the night and Rock was what everyone sure did!!

  

The night was ended off with a Metal DJ in the hall, full of people headbanging ‘til goodness only knows what time…

Bang Your Head is definitely what it was all about!

Linda Stalker-Millar