Merseburg rocks! Merseburger Rocknacht Day 1

Zur deutschen Version gehts hier. 

Today’s story begins in my flat a couple of months ago. Spectacular, I know! My phone chimed with a melodious sound and lit up with a message. I was sent an event poster accompanied by the words „Have you heard about that?“ (Real Talk: I hadn’t…)

It was the poster for the Merseburger Rocknacht, that took place last weekend. Take a guess who attended! Right! Me! That’s that on „manifesting“!

I was once again, like always, by lightinmirror.de, who took amazing photos!

But enough amazing introduction, you’re here for content. Let’s get to the report on Day 1!

The Merseburger Rocknacht took place on a free area right next to the Rischmühlenhalle in Merseburg. In preparation for this event, I wasn’t quite sure if it would be indoor or outdoor because I couldn’t find anything about that area… Sure, you find the event hall, but I was completely unaware that there was this huge free area next to it.

It was amazing though that it was outdoor, because the weather was just amazing! It was almost as if the Metal gods themselves smiled down on us!

According to the Running Order, general admission was at 15:30 and the event was supposed to start at 16:00. Due to circumstances unknown to me, it started at 17:00 instead. It wasn’t the best thing for the people who were on time. I would be very disappointed if I had made the way and had then been left high and dry for an hour.

For me personally, it wasn’t that big of a deal, because it gave me time to get an overview of everything and to have a more relaxed approach towards this event. I do however think that the organizers should make sure that the Running Order doesn’t become a non-binding time recommendation with band suggestion.

Speaking of Bands: What was screwed up by the lacking time management, was compensated by the amazing Line-Up! It was an (almost) pure Core day, that held a couple of new discoveries for me. Especially cool: Almost all bands were local, except for STESY and PRO-PAIN

The Austrian band STESY had the hardest job that day. There weren’t that many people there yet and even less had made their way to the stage. Apparently, this hardly mattered to the band, because they had a lot of fun! Their musical style can be described as ELECTRIC CALLBOY meets random Trance Music Compilation… I enjoyed it more than I anticipated and it really got to me! That can also be due to the bad joke they incorporated into their set, I’m quite the sucker for those!

The next band was more local, but not any worse: LETTERS SENT from Leipzig. They used their 40min to the max and there was no moment without energy. Their music was clearly influenced by 2000s Nu-Metal and less humorous than STESY’s. I really liked their combination of  raw shouts and calmer clean vocals. Normally, I don’t listen to music like that, but I had a lot of fun that day!

KILMINISTER, who followed, were the odd ones out. The band from Halle totally dedicated their being to the legacy of MOTÖRHEAD and they do it with proficiency that I really admire! Especially their singer looks exceptionally like Lemmy!

Musically speaking, it wasn’t my cup of tea, because I’m not a fan of MOTÖRHEAD, but I really admire what they did on stage. The audience enjoyed it and it’s amazing to be able to cover songs in a way that they sound almost identical to the originals!

In contrast, I was totally blown away by DAYS OF GRACE, a local band from Halle whose performance stood out not by any grand production, but rather by letting the music speak for itself. The rough vocals mixed with aggressive-complimenting guitars really spoke to me. When they added in some fire in front of the stage, I was totally sold! After the gig I was told that the band didn’t know about the fire beforehand. Keeping that in mind, it’s nice the band made it back to the backstage area unscathed!

In general, you cannot talk about local band (here: bands from Halle) without at least mentioning ANNISOKAY, who also played a show that day. I think that I had the highest expectations for this band’s performance after being told by several different people that this band was a very good live band. Taking my expectations in account, they really exceeded them. I don’t like every single one of their songs, but they managed to play all those I do like, especially their latest song Time. In hindsight, their unique way of combining instruments, performing demeanor and their high quality backing tracks really made them the best band of the evening.

As a visual aide, they had two LED-screens on stage. I thought that was a bit too much because I caught myself repeatedly fixated on the screens. These screens are probably better for bigger stages, but here they didn’t really serve their purposes. I do however like the idea of projecting some lyrics onto those screens.

Afterwards I also noticed that not a single one of the performing bands used a backdrop. I find it hard to believe that ANNISOKAY would arrive without one, which means that it was due to the stage that there were no backdrops of any kind. If that was the case, I think that this is something to be looked at more closely next year. 

Even though ANNISOKAY ended their set with the song STFU, but it was hardly time to be quite in Merseburg! The last band of the evening was PRO-PAIN. At that point I had lost all sense of time and was just exhausted! But damn… I was not prepared for that brute force of power that calls itself PRO-PAIN. This American band has wholeheartedly earned their standing and their gig was just fire! It was a musical IN YOUR FACE. From start to finish they gave 200%, which I really admire!

And that was that! Thanks to my interviews, which await you here shortly, I only got home at 3 in the morning…

Overall I was flashed by how much you can accomplish with just pure force of will and a group of volunteers!

Stay tuned for what happened on Day 2 in Merseburg! Minor spoiler: „Transformer“!