The Joy of Reunions – Rockharz 2024 Day 1

Zur deutschen Version geht es hier.

Dear friends of slightly harder dance music, it’s that time again and more than 20,000 people gathered at the foot of the Teufelsmauer in the picturesque Harz Mountains to cheer on people with great hair and even better electric guitars.

Surprisingly, we were there this year and you are now welcome to compare my experiences with yours!

But first things first: THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to lightinmirror.de for the superhuman pictures! You are the best!

The Girls are back in Town

I admit it openly, we have absolutely nothing in common with THIN LIZZY apart from a preference for music carried by electric guitars. But we were still back at our home festival. 

Last year I was still under the impression that I would be writing my first state law exam in August and therefore wouldn’t have time for festivals in July. Turns out: there is so much stuff that even 11 months of exam preparation is not enough. But hey, reforms to the exam regulations are for losers and postponed also means festival season… so… I’ve heard…

In no year of Rockharz have I been so glad not to be camping on site as this year. Roadworks and detours had a huge impact here, so many people were stuck in traffic jams for hours. My condolences to those who were affected!

We were also stuck in a traffic jam shortly after leaving Ballenstedt in the direction of Asmusstedt, but we then drove via Badeborn and from there it went very quickly for a Rockharz Wednesday! After about 30 minutes we were at the day parking lot and could check in.

Regardless of the bands, the day was also relatively unspectacular, so we can happily move on to these.

Moving Music

The festival, and our Rockharz day, kicked off with the Icelanders POWER PALADIN. When you think of Icelandic Metal, you don’t necessarily think of a Power Metal band. POWER PALADIN have set out to change that. Their style is based on classic Heavy Metal, which is enriched with mythology and fantasy elements. Their slot as festival openers was a bit unrewarding from my point of view, but the audience gave it their all and it was a pleasure to see this band live for the first time. If they now make their live performance a little more interesting, nothing stands in the way of an (even) bigger career! The outfits are already perfect for that!

I skipped GUTALAX, despite the crowdsurfing garbage can, because it’s not my thing at all, but BROTHERS OF METAL was right up my alley! Costumes? Check! Great singers? Check! Guitars? Check! Cool melodies? CHECK! What more could you want? If there’s one thing Sweden can do, it’s export really cool acts. BROTHERS OF METAL are no exception to this rule!

The surprise of the day for me was MAMMOTH WVH. The Hard and Alternative Rock playing group around Wolfgang van Halen, the son of Eddie van Halen, simply completely delivered on Wednesday! You can certainly write a lot about nepotism and improved starting conditions at this point, but if you don’t make anything of your privileges, nobody can help you. MAMMOTH WVH have shown musically at the highest level that talent is hereditary! You really have to keep this group on your radar and they get a big recommendation from me!

I can’t and don’t really want to write anything about KÄRBHOLZ, CALLEJON and OOMPH!… All three bands don’t really suit my taste and I used their playing times to do interviews and organize something to eat. It’s just a group of bands that I can’t really take anything from, even if the atmosphere during the gigs was really very good. 

The appearance of BRUCE DICKINSON was widely announced and long awaited. The frontman of the legendary IRON MAIDEN had been lured to the foot of the Devil’s Wall, presumably in exchange for a few kidneys from the organizing team. The fans, mostly dressed in IRON MAIDEN shirts, had gathered in large numbers in front of the stage. But what was then performed on stage had absolutely nothing to do with the charm of IRON MAIDEN. BRUCE DICKINSON certainly can’t be accused of a lack of professionalism, but there was a huge gap between expectation and reality. The sometimes strained attempt to distance himself from his own band by hook or by crook and to establish himself as a solo artist was met with my disapproval. It wasn’t bad at all, but for me DICKINSON wasn’t the best artist of the day, nor the second or third best… Service by the book paired with profiting from the fame of days gone by unfortunately doesn’t work for me. Unfortunately, the various solos of his live colleagues couldn’t change that either. 

Speaking of the profit of days gone by: DIRKSCHNEIDER also did the rounds on the first day of the festival. Quite apart from the fact that the photo conditions were abysmal and the band incurred the wrath of the photographers, musically it was nothing that could have left a lasting impression. But hey, they played Balls to the Wall! That was very nice!

My highlight of the day was definitely AMORPHIS. I’m a big Melodic Death Metal fan and if there’s one band that delivers exactly that, it’s the Finns around singer Tomi Joutsen. From the opening of the set with songs from their latest album Halo to classics like The Castaway and Silver Bride to the evergreen Wrong Direction, the set was one of the best I’ve seen from them so far. I am always fascinated by the passion and love for music that this band brings to the stage. It’s just a joy to see them perform and find yourself so much in the music. Anyone who has missed this should really be ashamed of themselves!

After all, I was too tired for KANONENFIEBER… I found what I saw rather creepy and disconcerting. It’s probably exactly the effect the band wants to achieve, but that rather puts me off! But the fire show was nice!

That was Wednesday already! We’ll continue here soon with *drum roll* THURSDAY! It’s crazy how that works, isn’t it?