We started our trip to Wacken at six o’clock in the morning, to make sure that we didn’t have to drive through the burning heat for a long time. Things went wrong pretty quickly though. Right after Bremen, we were just about halfway through, we ended up into a traffic jam and we literally stood still for almost two hours. We arrived at our hotel in Itzehoe about one o’clock in the afternoon. We checked in, stored our lugage and went to the one and only interesting record store in the whole city: Hellion Records. It wasn't very crowded inside, but I still didn’t have eyes enough to check out all the interesting stuff, they have in stock there. After a short chat with the owner of the shop, Jurgen Hegewald, and my good friend Sascha (a.k.a. Sir Lord Doom), we went back to the hotel with two plastic bags full of DVDs, CDs and magazines. The party had just begun....
After a long wait obtaining the necessary backstage passes, and a parking space, there’s still only one thing you want to do and that’s listening to ‘loud music’! Under the name “A Night To Remember”, four bands opened this festival on Thursday evening. CIRCLE II CIRCLE being one of them. Led by former SAVATAGE singer Zachary Stevens, they have the honour to open the festival. I have to say, that I’d expected more from this band. Not that the music was bad. After all, it sounds very similar to SAVATAGE. But their set could have been chosen a little better. They have a very good debut album out, but still they chose to play a lot of covers as well. Okay, they played some obligatory SAVATAGE tunes, which would be almost impossible to leave out, but ending your show with "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" (METALLICA)? I don't know. "The Circle" and "Watching In Silence" are good, self-written songs, that would not sound bad on either SAVATAGE album. But the crowd responded best during the real SAVATAGE songs like "Taunting Cobras" (one of my favorites!) and "Edge Of Thorns", in which the audience even got a singing spot. Not a bad opening act, but they can do very well without the covers, I think.
After a short break, we got to see one of my favorite bands from this years edition, the Canadian thrash metallers ANNIHILATOR. Last year, frontman Jeff Waters was also at Wacken, playing in service of SAVATAGE. Now he came back with his own band, that is slowly growing into one of the most exciting live bands of the world. Completed with their new singer Dave Padden (formerly THEORY-OF-A-DEADMAN), Jeff was jumping around on stage, joking and playing the fastest riffs possible. They opened with "Ultra Motion", which couldn’t have been chosen any better, in my opinion. What a great piece of ultraloud METAL! After this, the fast train continued with a lot of ANNIHILATOR classics like "King Of The Kill", "Set The World On Fire", "Welcome To Your Dead", "Never Neverland", "Imperiled Eyes" (surprisingly choice!), "Alice In Hell" en "Shadow Pain” (with a riff, that sounded very much like "Enter Sandman" of METALLICA). ANNIHILATOR stands for hundred procent quality and one hundred percent devotion. And that’s what the audience wants to get. Value for their money is what they want here. Loud music and lots of sweat, otherwise you don’t deserve to play here. Another positive surprise was the live reunion show of VICTORY. Which of course isn’t a real surprise, when you look at the amount of well-experienced musicians in this German metal band. Just look at names like Charlie Huhn (GARY MOORE, TED NUGENT), Herman Frank (ACCEPT) and Fritz Randow (SINNER, SAXON). Singer Charlie Huhn had put on his most colourful shirt from his collection, and created a sunny atmosphere on the stage, which immediately reflects to the audience. "Caught In A Crossfire" and "The Bigger They Are, The Harder They Fall" are good openers. Melodic hard rock, that stood the test of time pretty well, judging the reaction of the audience. It was even refreshing to see a plain, hard rock band between all the ultra heavy black and death metal bands, that were on the bill of this years festival. Songs like "Temples Of Gold", "Feel The Fire" and "One Track Mind", got a raving applause, followed by the first drumsolo of Fritz Randow for this weekend. He would do a second one with SINNER, on the last day of the festival. He’s a real animal, who can only be stopped, if you pull out his batteries. The man goes on and on and when the band wanted to start another song, he directed his collegues back to the side of the stage, because he still wasn’t ready with torturing his drumkit. After "Don't Tell No Lies", they ended their set with their first single from 1986, "The Check's In The Mail", dedicated to the Wacken crowd.
As a pre-taster of the new SAXON DVD “Chronicles”, which will be released pretty soon after the festival, we could see some SAXON footage on a giant video screen, which was placed between the two main stages. But after a few seconds, a big surprise was revealed on stage. Not many people expected SAXON to enter the stage for a short gig of three songs and only a handful of people present. They played loud and raw, and it was amazing to hear the band open with "Motorcycle Man". A very pleasant surprise! In a few seconds however, the crowd was building up and changed into one boiling mass of people, banging their heads on "Denim And Leather". After that, Biff said goodbye to his fans with a steaming version of "Princess Of The Night". Next, the band was interviewed on stage and they told the audience, they already confirmed to play at the anniversary of the fifteenth edition of Wacken Open Air 2004. After this small party, we were expecting one more act: RUNNING WILD. The pirate show of Rock ‘N’ Rolf. In Germany, the band belongs to the premier league of the heavy metal scene for many years now. However, outside Germany, they never reached this status. I can’t even remember the last time, they played Holland or Belgium. It’s a shame, because the band presents a good live show with lots of smoke bombs and fireworks. Reason enough to go and see them in their homecountry this year. RUNNING WILD got a lot of vocal response from the audience by playing classics such as "Genghis Kahn", "Running Wild", "Riding The Storm", "Burning With The Action", "Welcome To Hell" and of course "Under Jolly Roger". The party was completed with pyros and smokebombs, but it was the musical firework of RUNNING WILD, that brought us to the end of this first introduction evening. Tomorrow the real festival would start, and this was only the beginning. A great way to start, if you want to hear my opinion.
DIAMOND HEAD was perhaps not the most suitable name to give to the band, that played next. Actually, it was a combination of DIAMOND HEAD and TYGERS OF PAN TANG actually, with Jess Cox on vocals and Brian Tatler (of course) on lead guitar. They could have better called them THE DIAMONDS OF PAN TANG or TYGERS HEAD, if you know what I mean. This is a good example of what I meant, that they're changing of the focus of this festival. There were only a few people standing in front of the stage, when DIAMOND HEAD started their show. The atmosphere was great however, and the band really enjoyed playing for the handful of die-hard fans. Especially, for NWOBHM freaks like me, it was awesome to hear old TYGERS OF PAN TANG songs like "Euthanasia", "Money", "Insanity" and "Fireclown" in a great version. During the ‘sing-along’ part in this last song however, the painful truth was presented, there were only a very few people, who actually knew the exact lyrics of this old TYGERS gem. However, the DIAMOND HEAD songs have a more difficult structure and sing along ability, I think. But for the connoisseurs among us, it was great to see Brian Tatler play old songs like "The Prince", "Helpless", "Electric" and "Am I Evil?". And I can answer this last question with ‘yes’. These guys are ‘evil’, but unfortunately there was almost nobody there to admit this. Brian Tatler is still a true evil guitar excorsist. Jess Cox may have never been a great singer perhaps, but the old TYGERS songs got that old trusty sound back again with him behind the mike. And I am glad that nobody can erase this performance from my memory! Although I have to admit, that I liked the show of DIAMOND HEAD at Reading (UK) 1982 much better than this performance of THE DIAMONDS OF PAN TANG. For all the youngsters among us, it was a great opportunity to hear the original version of METALLICA’s “Am I Evil?”.... 
Another band that always knows to please their fans are TESTAMENT. Who would have thought, that Chuck Billy would make such a terrific come back after he was treated for cancer earlier on this year? But the man came back, and now he’s screaming his lungs out again, armed with his mike standard, which was used as a 'third guitar' at times. The band couldn’t have chosen a better song to start their show with, other than "Practice What You Preach". A song, which was really made for them. They know exactly what their fans like and started their ‘best of’ set, consisting of songs like "Alone In The Dark", "Do Or Die", "Into The Pit", "Over The Wall" and of course "Disciples Of The Watch". I may not read the bible that much, but I surely love the old and the new TESTAMENT!! 
The band had already started their European invasion a few weeks earlier with live shows at Sweden Rock and Bang Your Head in Ballingen. When ICED EARTH cancelled their show at Wacken, they hired TWISTED SISTER to continue their European tour, and I am glad they did. TWISTED SISTER were introduced with a tape of AC/DC’s "It's A Long Way To The Top". The band played an awesome show this evening, the atmosphere was great and the sound was very good. Dee Snider is definitely one of the better frontmen in this scene. He’s a very photogenic person, too. He’s here, there and everywhere and he always has a nice story to tell. What else do you need? Oh, a good voice maybe. Well, in his enthusiasm he might have missed a note or two, but the crowd sang along so loud to all these well-known songs, that nobody would notice. Every TWISTED SISTER song was a hit and they played a lot of hits, I can tell you that much. Think about ultimate live classics, like opener "What You Don't Know", "Stay Hungry", "The Kids Are Back", "You Can Stop Rock 'N' Roll", "Shoot 'Em Down", "The Price", "Like A Knife In The Back", "Ride To Live, Live To Ride", "Under The Blade", "Destroyer", "I Am I'm Me", "SMF", "We're Not Gonna Take It", "Burn In Hell" (featuring a great drumsolo of AJ Pero!), "Come Out And Play" and "I Wanna Rock". On our way to the hotel, I thought about the fact that TWISTED SISTER ended their career, because nobody would listen to these ‘simple’ rock songs anymore. Now they were welcomed back as some kind of cult act. And everybody told each other, that they were fan of this band since the early beginning. But where were all these people, when they finished their career after the “Love Is For Suckers” album? I guess, they were all here this evening banging their heads. And I must say, that it felt really good to see Dee ‘F*cking’ Snider, A.J. Pero, the shy Eddie ‘Fingers’ Ojeda, Jay Jay French and Mark ‘The Animal’ Mendoza back on stage again. They really deserved the standing ovation. On the party stage, the after-party had started with a stunning performance of the Finnish shock rock band LORDI. That’s the reason why we had to skip SUBWAY TO SALLY. Both band have female member in their line up, but it’s impossible to be at two stages at the same time. As we have seen SUBWAY TO SALLY a couple of time before on this festival, we decided to focus ourselves on the Finnish shock rock band on the party stage. 
Opener at the most cosy stage of this festival, the party stage, are THE QUILL. Here the bands like to organise a metal party of their own. Too small for a big crowd, and only interesting for those, who see further than the end of their nose. THE QUILL is a good opener and you can easily hear the influences from bands like BLACK SABBATH, LED ZEPPELIN and THE FREE in their music. Mixed with the stoner rock sound of today, they got some great response from the audience during songs like "Voodoo Caravan", "Down On The Freedom Mountain", "Hole In My Head" and "Spinning Around", which contained a short well-hidden part of "Electric Eye" of JUDAS PRIEST slowed down so heavily, but still recognisable though. The band said goodbye to the crowd with "Hammerhead", who threw a Swedish flag to them. They seemed to be pretty pleased with that and took the liberty to pose in front of the many cameras of their fans, who actually threw the flag to them. Kicking off at this stage, they gave green light to the fourteenth edition of Wacken Open Air. SEVENTH ONE had to deal with the biggest sound troubles of these two days. They were forced to cut down their forty-five minutes set to just thirty minutes. The band are influenced by STRATOVARIUS, and didn’t sound bad at all. I liked the sound of "Sacrifice", "Crimson Sky" and "Shadow On Your Throne", and hopefully, they will have better luck next time. OBSCENITY organized a private party on the WET stage. The people were even outside to see the show of this German death metal band, who surprised a lot of their fans with songs like “Human Barbecue”, “Perversion Mankind” and “Cold Blooded Murder”. We had to skip the performances of DARK AGE (who ended their set with “For Whom The Bells Tolls” of METALLICA), PSYCHOPUNCH and LOTTO KING KARL (who plays old (German) evergreens by putting a mild metal sauce over them). 
But we decided to pick up the gigs on these stages again with the Portuguese melodic power metal band ORATORY. Frontlady Ana Lara of this band, is a very small, but she has a quite powerful voice. And I believe the rest of the audience will agree with me, when I say that the band put on a great show here. She was the first lady to come on stage during these days. ORATORY played a good mix of their two albums “Illusions Dimensions” and their more recent album “Beyond Earth”, from which they played the most songs. Ana had good contact with the crowd, who threw some Portuguese flags on stage, which were put over the drumkit of Joáo Rodrigues. Most of the songs were good, melodic power metal, but the odd one out here was THE BANGLES cover “Eternal Flame”, which (to my big surprise) received a great response. Well, everybody makes mistakes! A good start for the ladies at Wacken this year. After that, we had to skip a few bands again, like RAISE HELL, SYMPHORCE and APOKALYPTISCHEN REITER. I took a short peek at ROTTING CHRIST, who played a very varied set. Their albums range from death metal to melodic black metal. And their set consisted of older songs, like “Non Serviam”, to the more recent work, like “Daemons”. 
LORDI took care of the after-party on the party stage this evening. Many people were anxious to see the show of these Finnish monsters, including me. They look very scary on their debut album “Get Heavy”, and I really wanted to check them out tonight. And not only because they have a female member in their line up, but also because I love bands that give the people more than just a good live sound. I really love the special effects in shows of bands like RIPPER, HALLOWEEN, DEATH SS, ALICE COOPER, VENOM, GWAR and KISS. They are my favorite show bands, and after seeing this show, I can definitely add LORDI to this list. It’s great to see a band, that has decorated their stage and who use more fire and smokebombs, than America has dropped on Iraq during the last war. Musically, the band might not be that special. Most songs from their debut album “Get Heavy” were played tonight and they also added two covers like "Midnight Mover" (ACCEPT) and "Man Behind The Mask" (ALICE COOPER). Frontman Lordi is (besides being the main scarecrow in this own band) also the main man behind the Finnish 'KISS ARMY'. The female member of the band is Enary. She plays the keyboards and piano and takes care of the background choirs at the back of the stage. It was very hard to shoot a picture of this lady, who may not be present in front of the stage, but who's still unbearable to the sound of this great Finnish shock rockers. LORDI was a fine band to close this first day. We could do with some sleep now, but we first had to wait for some stupid Portuguese nitwit (sorry guys), who had parked his car right in front of ours, so we couldn’t get out. Luckily, I was able to find the man in question pretty quickly, because after only five hours of sleep, our alarm bell would go off for the second day of this festival. And we didn’t want to sleep in the car.
On Friday, we heard that SINISTER with Rachel Heyzer on vocals, wouldn’t play. Their guitarist had just left the band. What a bad timing! And above all, a very unprofessional attitude, if I may say so. A professional band would have waited until after such a big show, now the band was making a fool of themselves. It’s good to know though, that Germany has a lot of good bands that can easily take over this empty space. Even when it comes to the last minute, there are still a few bands ready to plug in and play live. The replacement for SINISTER, HOLY MOSES climbed upon stage, plugged in and played like it was meant to be from the very start. That’s a professional attitude in my opinion. Also, they had something special set up for today. Last time the band played at Wacken, they invited DORO on stage to perform a duet together with frontwoman Sabina Classen. Today they were going to do this again, but this time with the frontlady of SINISTER, Rachel. HOLY MOSES played a good show, which consisted of a good mix between old and new material like “Disorder Of The Order”, “Devil’s Dancer”, “Lost In The Maze” and “Hate Is Just A Four Letter Word”. During the last song “Too Drunk To Fuck”, a cover of THE DEAD KENNEDYS, Sabina invited Rachel on the stage. Everybody came, except Rachel. She simply left her sympathetic collegue in the cold. What a great way to make friends! I think, that SINISTER can kiss their career goodbye, if they keep on acting this way. And this was certainly not good publicity for Rachel and the handful of ladies, that are to be found on big festivals like this. I suggest, that SINISTER start looking for a new record company as well, ‘cause an unprofessional attitude like that, will not be tolerated in hard times like today. Thumbs up for HOLY MOSES however, because they were there and they played a great set. Sabina showed everybody how to be professional at this time of the day. I hope, that Rachel was in the audience to see how the game should be played. Can you imagine, that I fell ashamed to be a Dutchie at that particular moment?? It was also good to see that the organisation switched one female fronted band with another. We couldn’t have asked for more. 
We missed THYRFING and MALEVOLENT CREATION, but we were back when another interesting cooperation would take place. METALIUM is a very popular band at Wacken. The first time I saw them, they still had Chris Cafferey (SAVATAGE) in their band, and Mike Terrana on drums. But I thought this show was one of the most disappointing in their whole career, and I think they will have to admit that, when you ask them about it. Today, things are much different. The band is able to create a great show with stage props, that make the whole thing complete. Add to this some good songs like "Break The Spell", "Steel Avenger" and "Free Forever", which received great response from the audience. We also got a pre-taster of a new song, called "Pain Crawls In The Night", a song that fits very well to the rest of their material. But the band had more in mind for us. Lars Ratz used to be a member of ZED YAGO and VELVET VIPER, before he joined METALIUM. Jutta Weinhold was the frontlady of these two bands, as we all know of course. Today they invited this great German female metal singer on stage for one old ZED YAGO song and one duet. When Jutta walked on stage, the audience literally went mad. Needless to say, that every word of the popular “Black Bone Song” was sung by the crowd, who loved every single second of this surprise performance. The “Black Bone Song” can be seen as the most successful track of ZED YAGO in the mid-eighties. After that, Jutta invited Henning Basse back on stage to do “Rock And Roll” (LED ZEPPELIN) with her. The party was complete at this point. And when the bass player and guitarplayer closed the show with some fire spitting, we knew that METALIUM has changed a lot in the last couple of years. They have transformed from a band with big names and a terrible performance, to a good band with less egos and a much better stage performance. When we heard the outtro tape with their version of the old KANSAS classic "Dust In The Wind", we knew it was all over and time to say goodbye. It was a great surprise to see Jutta back in such good shape. This lady is a real killer, and I hope that she will come back next year with a full reunion show of ZED YAGO, who knows?! I’m sure the people would love that, because this lady still proves to be a real rock and roll animal after all these years! 
Well, it was time for MASTERPLAN. Quite a change, from the brutal black metal sound of CARPATHIAN FORREST to the melodic rocksongs of MASTERPLAN. This relatively new band around singer Jorn Lande and former HELLOWEEN members Uli Kusch and Roland Grapow were ready to kick some ass today and present themselves to a big audience. They released a very strong debut album and they also know to play these songs live. We enjoyed songs like "Never Give Up", "Enlighten Me" (the first single), "Crystal Night", "Feel Sober" and "Kind Hearted Light". Jorn Lande will release a solo album at the end of this year, which will be released by the German AFM label. However, the question remains how long this man will dedicate himself to this band, because I predict this great singer a golden future with a major act. SOILWORK did what it had to do, nothing more and nothing less. I was more interested in RAGE. They are another German band, who prove there are so many, great talented bands coming from Germany. While Peavey Wagner is the frontman of this band for many years, I’d also like to ask some special attention for the other band members, because RAGE would be nothing without the input of guitarplayer Viktor Smolski and drummer Mike Terrana, who got a solo spot during "Wrecking Mind". After this, the band went "Straight To Hell" and we also got "War Of Worlds" and "From The Cradle To The Grave". 
DARK FUNERAL performing at an open air festival in bright sunshine??!? Are you kiddin’? Their ultrafast black metal blasts sounded even faster than usually, with the input of their new drummer, who comes from DEFLESHED. Songs like “My Dark Desire” and “ Secrets Of The Black Arts” were performed very well, but after half an hour all the songs started to sound alike, and I think that was not their intention. I think, they would sound much better at a small dark club. STRATOVARIUS always had the same status for me as GAMMA RAY. They are quite huge in the whole world, but that’s it. Theis sound is a bit too modest and nothing special. Although the band consists of some great musicians, I must admit that I only have their album “Fright Night”, on which they sound like a good RAINBOW copycat. Like I mentioned already, the band has got some great musicians like Timo Kotipelto, Timo Tolkki and Jens Johansson (DIO/MALMSTEEN), it’s the musical fights between Timo Tolkki and Jens Johansson that I that I liked so much in their set today. It’s what I missed on Friday during the show of GAMMA RAY. They opened with one of their biggest classics, "Kiss Of Judas", meaning they’d already won half the battle by then. But also a great song like "Twilight Symphony" sounded really great indeed. This time, the show ends much better for Timo Kotipelto, because last time at Wacken he burnt his hand severely on one of the firebombs. STRATOVARIUS has gained some credits with this show in my book. NILE plays a completely different music syle. Although I am not really into death metal, the sound of these Canadian death metal guys isn’t bad at all. They put a lot of creativity in their songs, and I think their compositions are more than just a mass of sound. They create some interesting speed and mood changes and also know to perform them on stage, which is great. I’d almost compare them to a great death metal band like DEATH, which also have this little bit of extra in their songs. NILE convinced me with their brutal attack and songs like “Sacrofagus” and “Black Seeds Of Vengeance”. 
SLAYER are so f*cking successful, but they also have a very bad reputation…..like today. They didn’t make much friends either during their meet & greet session, which was organised the very last moment. They let their fans wait for more than half an hour, before they finally showed up for about thirty minutes, creating a huge ‘traffic jam’ before the backstage entrance. And the same thing happened with their show. They kept the people waiting for about fifteen minutes, before finally entering the stage. They were the only band to interfere with the tight schedule of this years Wacken Open Air festival. Their sound was really crappy, especially during the first three songs. I really don’t understand, that a band like SLAYER could come up with such a bad sound. I think, nobody in the back of the festival grounds has even heard the voice of Tom Araya the first fifteen minutes, let alone the ‘pulp’ sound the people in front of the stage received. After a while, their sound was improving a bit, but I’ve heard better gigs. The song choice was really excellent though: lots of old classics, and their light show was simply amazing. Slowly, the atmosphere started to get a bit more friendly, although nobody really knew what was going to happen next. But be prepared, my friends. Their set consisted of songs like "War Ensemble", "The Anti-Christ", "State Of Mind", "Mandatory Suicide", "Angel Of Death", "Dead Skin Mask", "Post Mortem", "South Of Heaven", "Raining Blood" and "Seasons In The Abyss". So, what exactly went wrong? About ten minutes before the official closing time, the band stopped their show abruptly. Tom Araya did come back a few seconds to thank the fans, saying “Guten Nacht” (which means ‘goodnight’) in his best German, and then left the stage again. The big lights went on and the roadies started to clear the stage. Not one single encore and a set, that only lasted approx. one hour. Unbelievable! This can only happen with a band like SLAYER. A bad day for the ‘SLAYTANIC WEHRMACHT’, but I think it won’t harm their reputation and I think they’re proud of it too. VADER from Poland started the after-party. They told the audience, that it was difficult to play after SLAYER, but with the right attitude it wasn’t too difficult to overrule this one hour thrash attack of these SLAYER guys. VADER knew to catch the crowd’s attention pretty easily and songs like “Wings”, “The Nomad” and “Silent Empire” surprised the audience in a very positive way. The definate end of the show was for ONKEL TOM, like almost every year. But we skipped this, because we wanted to say goodbye to some of our friends, who were leaving already. 
GRAVEWORM from Italy opened the show on the part stage. Many people were still asleep, or enjoying the show of HOLY MOSES on the black metal stage. Two female-fronted bands playing at the same time, but I decided to watch GRAVEWORM with keyboardplayer Sabine Mair first for a couple of songs. The band sounded very fresh, giving all they‘ve got. I’ve always had the idea, they’re balancing between becoming a gothic metal band and a more brutal melodic black metal band. The show of today, and the last few albums however made clear that GRAVEWORM has chosen for the last option and they do it in a very convincing way. The early birds loved the show, and I did too, although it wasn’t very easy to keep my eyes open after such a short amount of sleep. I think the years are taking its toll. Sabine was constantly banging her head and waving her long hair. Besides that, she also adds the keyboards to the heavy sound of GRAVEWORM A good performance, focussing on their most recent album “Engraved In Black”. 
I missed HUMAN FORTRESS and RAUNCHY on the wet stage, when TWISTED TOWER DIRE started at the party stage. Unfortunately, band leader/guitarist Scott Waldrop couldn’t make it to Wacken, because his wife had a baby just before the band would leave for Germany. Matt from DIVISION filled in for him. They were introduced to us by one of the daughters of singer Tony Taylor. The children got the choice of either going Disneyland or Wacken Open Air with their daddy. They chose for the last option! That’s what I call the real ‘ heavy metal’ attitude. And the attitude of a band like TWISTED TOWER DIRE is allright. The power metal of this band from Washington DC brought a lot of metal fans to the party stage, creating a great metal party with songs like "The Dagger's Blade", "Axes & Honor", "Fire For My Brain", "Fight To Be Free", "The Witch's Eyes" and the IRON MAIDEN cover "The Trooper". IRON MAIDEN can be mentioned as the biggest influence of this band. The audience loved it and kept screaming for encores. And even when METALIUM was preparing to start their set at the true metal stage, TWISTED TOWER DIRE came back one more time to thank their fans and have a short chat with them. I remember, they were standing here a couple of years ago, in the middle of the night for a handful of fans. Today it was payback time for the effort, they put into their live shows and albums. The way to the premier league of the heavy metal lies wide open for TWISTED TOWER DIRE and they deserve it more than every other band. 
CRYPTIC WINTERMOON with female keyboard player Andrea was on next in the tent. Although they had some sound problems in the beginning, they did their thing in the best way possible. Their set was a good mix of old and new material with songs such as “Abyssal”, “Fallen Kingdoms”, “Dark Crusade”, “Darkness Forever”, “Susperia”, “Hate Revealed”, and “Night Crawler” (JUDAS PRIEST cover), which was sung by a choir of a hundred people. Andrea shows that playing keyboards has become unbearable for almost every metal band of today. We already saw female keyboard female players in LORDI, GRAVEWORM and now again in CRYPTIC WINTERMOON. It doesn’t really matter where female members find their spot, as long as they have the chance to show their talents, it’s okay.