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.