Rockavaria - Day 3

Hatebreed – Kreator – Testament – Faith No More – Metallica

Got out to the festival area extra early to catch the set of the guys in Hatebreed [6]. Having seen them multiple times before, the set didn't swoop me off my feet. They're always fun to watch though, even if you don't know all of their songs or are generally not massively into their music, Jamey Jasta [vocalist] will animate you to jump along as he spins around the stage like a ballerina. As always, they closed with an all-time favorite of … well, of basically everybody: 'Destroy Everything'.

I'm gonna be honest right here and say that I only watched Kreator and Testament due to not wanting to give up my place in the second row for Faith No More later on. The first section of the crowd always got closed during the last two sets of the day due to reaching the limit of people to be allowed in it … I simply didn't want to risk it. The fangirl in me needed to see the brilliance, that are FNM, up close.

Kreator [1] are really not my kind of thing and there was not a second that I enjoyed. Thrash metal has never been a passion of mine and it seemingly never will. Some parts of the performance were also rather unnecessary, e.g. Mille carrying a smoke gun, which was probably as big as a nerf gun for kids, that didn't really do much at all, especially while the sun was still high up in the sky. The sound was obnoxiously loud, too, which didn't improve their performance in the slightest.

Same thing with Testament [2], though I have to give them props for the drummer's [Gene Hogland] skills and to their vocalist's [Chuck Billy] for sounding immense during their gig. Other than that, they had a few catchy parts here and there, but it didn't get better from that on. Also, Chuck's rather cocky attitude on stage didn't fit in with the rest of the band at all, which was kind of off-putting.

To say that the audience was rather taken aback when they saw people setting up the stage for Faith No More [10] would be an understatement. As the crew carried flowers and all kinds of white instruments onto the stage, everybody simply stared in shock. Personally, I was beyond excited to see this madness up close … the rest of the crowd, well, not so much. They didn't only look weirded out, they also experessed their huge dislike about what was to come. To be honest, I have never experienced as much of an ignorant crowd as I did at that point. Probably everybody in the first section was mainly there for Metallica, absolutely no doubt about that. Also, everybody in the first section didn't show a single spark of interest into anything that wasn't thrash metal, or at least close to it. Some of them even started to boo and yell at FNM to get off the stage during their set, which was beyond rude. FNM didn't care too much though, they knew how far they fell out of the frame that day. Or at any other festival they were a part of. They embraced it with joy.

The performance they put on was mezmerizing and absolutely incredibly. My personal highlight of the whole weekend, by far. Mike Patton [vocalist] proved once more as to how much of an unbelievable voice range he has and went absolutely bonkers with any kind of device he had nearby. No matter if he was yelling into a megaphone, his mic or some voice changing device, he nailed it all. I will say this much now to round up this fangirl-ramble: Mike Patton proved that he is indeed a god and FNM are as madly brilliant as ever.

Metallica [8] didn't disappoint either. While it remains a mystery to me as to why they would have about 150 people behind them up on stage, it was probably an amazing experience for the fans who got to do that. They played some rarities they had buried for a long time and stunned the audience whenever one of those treasures came to life. Especially for hardcore fans, it must've been one hell of an experience to see such a change in their setlist. It was refreshing to see them have fun with their set, but, for some reason, they didn't seem to be in their best form that night. Metallica are always worth watching, so there's really no downside to it.

To end this all up, a few things about the festival itself:

• The Hellyeah announcement was unprofessional and uncalled for
• Not having port-a-potties at all on the whole festival area was a big burden to a lot of people. The only way to reach the toilets was to walk up about 100 stairs (from the mainstage) to the regularly installed restrooms
• Due to not having port-a-potties, most guys simply let loose in the middle of the audience, being too lazy to take those said stairs and made the whole place stink up with the sweet smell of urine
• Closing venues and stages when the capacity isn't even half filled is unnecessary and upsetting to people who paid lots of money to see exactly those bands
• Not offering the possibility to camp at the area probably made the festival a lot more unattractive to the main festival audience and made the event lose quite a percentage of the wanted crowd
• Bad sound quality made a lot of gigs impossible to enjoy
• Having too much security at said closed venues and having too less at the backstage area is not a too great representation of your priorities. Makes having backstage/working/AAA passes absolutely useless and could've endangered the artists if more people had known about the lack of security check at those important areas
• Booking all hardcore bands to a club stage where it is not allowed to stand up is an absolutely waste of bands with amazing energy
• Having a mass of festival merch but not offering any merch of any band who wasn't on the main stage doesn't throw the best light onto the festival either. The smaller bands are the ones who need those merch sales the most!
• Organizing a festival in as much of a 'reserved and snobby' area as Munich already predicted the bad ticket sales

I'd give the festival an all around 6, but only due to having a bunch of rad bands in the line up.

Cheerio x

Rockavaria - Day 2

Accept – Five Finger Death Punch – Judas Priest – KISS

Didn't manage to catch too many bands that day, but at least I saw what I wanted to see.

While I wasn't too thrilled on seeing Accept [4], they weren't as bad as I had expected. Their music never really was too great to me, but you gotta give'em the fact that they did sound quite massive live. Despite that though, the performance seemed rather monotone and redundant. Their fans in the audience seemed to be immensely into it, so as far as that goes, they apparently delivered to their expectations.

Next up were Hellyeah, who did not get to play their set though. After what seemed like an eternity and already half an hour into their scheduled time, one of the local production managers got on stage to tell the crowd that the gig was indeed canceled.

This would've been enough, leaving the explanation and reasoning of that to the band to announce through their social media, whatsoever, but the local team apparently didn't think so. Another one of the bosses of the day (I'm supposing so as to him making that announcement) got out on stage, shortly before another changeover took place, to state that:

„We are just as disappointed as you, trust me. We're not happy as to how this went down but we simply wanted to make sure you understand that it was not in our hands. We want to clarifiy that we had nothing to do with this and it was entirely the band's fault!“ [not quoted but basically what he said memorized as best as I could]

While this is not only false, but also incredibly unprofessional. Blaming somebody else, who didn't even get the chance to explain themselves, plus, who didn't even understand what they were announcing at that point is simply, and straight up, rude. Another big minus to the local promoter for that faux-pas.

When Five Finger Death Punch [9] were about to start, a lot of negativity rose amongst the crowd. Fans of the likes of Accept and Judas Priest weren't all too happy to have 5FDP play in between those two bands and having to 'live through' that. Luckily, those folks did the better thing for everybody and left, instead of being c***s about it.

Despite all that, the bigger part of the audience was absolutely into it once the guys stepped on stage with their usual opener 'Under And Over It'. 

I might be a little influenced when it comes to them considering that this performance was my 14^th time seeing them, but you simply can't deny the fact that they really know how to get a crowd going. Five Finger always deliver and always manage to impress more people who might not have heard of them before.

One minus to all of this though is that they really need to change up that setlist. For as long as I can remember, it has been the exact same for over a year now. Let's hope that was only the case due to them being on the last run of supporting their releases of 'The Wrong Side Of Heaven […]' and it will all get a little more mixed up once 'Got Your Six' gets released into the world on August 28^th.

Judas Priest [8] had to follow up to that banger of a show but they did that with ease. Not being too much into Priest myself, I was still absolutely stoked to see the 'Metal God' live. Rob Halford might seem as if he lost some of his power, but his voice is still as strong as ever. He reached all kinds of notes in every direction, all while changing into a different robe after every song. An especially loud round of cheering started when he drove out on a motorbike in a full on leather outfit, a whip between his teeth. Also, guitarist Richie Faulkner was an amazing addition to the whole scene. I really hope they regularly clean their outfits though … their full-on leather style certainly looks rad, but I can imagine that it already smelled quite a bit if they wore the same thing at every show.

Altogether, absolutely amazing performance. The Priest still got it.

Just as excited, the crowd anticipated KISS [3] now more than ever. The changeover took ages, but deservedly so seeing as the stage set up was ridiculously mental for this legendary band.

Only having heard about their mindblowing sets and performances in Las Vegas, I admit that I had quite high expectations for this bunch. Sadly, they did not deliver.

It's certainly out of discussion to say that KISS have one hell of a stage show ready for their audience. Fireworks, pyro, huge LED screens, the make-up and costumes, stages to lift themselves over the crowd … it's all there. Take that away though and you're left with four guys who used to be one of the biggest bands in the world. Whenever you were actually able to hear their vocals clearly, you really didn't want to. Ace Frehley [guitarist] sounded like he was going through a second puberty in his life, his voice constantly breaking and out of tune. Nothing better to say about the rest of the bunch.

Quite a disappointment.   

Rockavaria - Day 1

Bonaparte – The Hives – Babymetal – Kvelertak – Muse

Luckily, thanks to my work place shutting its doors early cause we all went to the festival, I was able to leave just in time to catch Bonaparte [7]. Despite having seen that band twice already, they never disappoint to entertain. Though, organizationally speaking, they were rather misplaced on stage at such an early hour. Personally think that they simply are more of a past-midnight band. A festival closer, if you want to. Due to the early schedule, the arena was hardly filled so the party-factor wasn't too high either which drained the atmosphere a little. Too bad, really, cause the band and their ridiculously messed up performance was as great as always.

Next up were The Hives [7] and while the area had gotten a bit more crowded meanwhile, the people somehow didn't feel like partying all too much still. Rather fitting for all crowds in Munich, to be honest. If you're not big enough to constantly get played on the radio, you just might not be good enough for those folks.

The Hives didn't let themselves get irritated by that though and put on an ace gig. Adding to their good mood, it was Per's [vocalist] birthday who didn't let himself get brought down by the lack of response. Though the people did get awoken from their comatose state by some of The Hives' bigger hits such as 'Tick Tick Boom', during the encore.

Up next, on the stage inside the Olympiahalle, Babymetal [5] were about to start with their rather odd show. Due to the awful sound inside the hall, it was rather hard to depict any musical specialities apart from the odd mixture of little girls singing along innocently to heavy metal riffs. Most of the crowd wasn't sure what to do with what they were confronted with and ended up simply staring at the three girls on stage. The rest, me included, celebrated the hyped band with cheers and fittingly odd dance moves. Sadly, thanks to the terrible sound quality, as mentioned, you weren't really able to enjoy their performance to the fullest cause of having to leave the hall again after a few songs to not leave the first day of the festival already with an ear infection.

Back outside, it was already time for Muse [9] to hit the mainstage. The reviews and videos of that band bringing absolute madness to their crowd did not exaggerate. Not only did they have a rad light show, paired with brilliant sound management, the band itself also delivered exactly what they promise. Even though the fact that they headlined a festival called 'Rockavaria' got a lot of critic due to them not fitting said name, they definitely shut down those who doubted them with their performance. Matt Bellamy's voice did not differ from the record at all, if anything, it sounded more impressive live. Definitely a personal highlight to finally have experienced their show first hand. Their set had a great mixture of old songs, hits and newly released, and even unreleased, songs off of their latest record 'Drones'.

To end the day, I had actually planned to watch Limp Bizkit tear the Olympiahalle a new one, sadly though, the organizators had decided to close that venue down, saying it was already full inside. There is picture proof though that the GA arena and the seats were far from being 'too filled'. There had been several organizational mistakes throughout the day, but this one certainly was the most disappointing one. To close out people from watching a band who paid to see them, together with many others, when there clearly was enough space for everybody. Especially considering that 70% of the crowd were busy watching Muse end their set on the mainstage, it was a letdown to have to turn on experiencing that show.

As a little aid, I ended up at the Kvelertak [8] gig on the club stage. The crowd there gave off about the same energy as the one standing at the mainstage watching Muse. Having seen that band multiple times already, I knew what to expect (especially with no new releases ever since the last live set) and got nothing less than that. While I still got absolutely no idea what these guys are screaming and singing about, it's always a fun time with that Norwegian bunch of metal heads and their catchy music.