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Wednesday, 17 August, was the first performing day on the Summer Breeze Open Air festival, which marks already its 25th anniversary this year. Four stages hosting around 130 bands - one definitely can't catch every band - unless - is a multiple-personality also on the outside. ;)
Before we get to the "happening", let's spend some words on the organisation part. First of all, it's not easy to find the place, since the navigation leads you in its own "perfectionized" way, but the roads tend to be closed, and there were no directions (well, we encountered only one). So we wandered around (by the way, we made over 25 additional km), looking for the way to get there. Poor directions are definitely a minus, and another is insufficient or no understanding and speaking of the English language. True, the visitors are German in a large majority, but, considering the festival's popularity, which, if nothing less, attracts international press, there should be some more attention given to this question. Eventually, you get to find someone speaking English, but it takes time, or you get the information you want by some arms waving around. It's not a big problem though, since the people who work for the festival are very kind and do their best to help you. The biggest plus is definitively the sense of freedom you get. There are only the usual security measures without any unnecessary pressure, and no special cards for buying stuff (therefore no additional lines to wait in) - you get everything with Euros. Summa summarum, the sense of freedom you get prevails over the minuses.
The first performing band on the T-stage was the USA-based doom metal outfit Pallbearer, formed in 2008, with four full-lengths in its discography; the last one is 2020's Forgotten Days. However, the band is on its 'Sorrow And Extinction tour' since its debut full-length marks its 10th anniversary this year, so we got to hear the whole album as track-listed. The finishing guitar solo was breathtaking; it came out just perfectly.
By cycling around, we caught some of Feuerschwanz and Eisbrecher's performances on the main stage - both in front of a large audience, of course. It was a lot of costumes, fire and smoke involved. We also gave an ear to Testament - good performance, and the audience seemed to enjoy it, but not our kind of music.
Our main focus for the day was Paradise Lost, starting at 21.50 on T-stage with "Enchantment". An hour-long performance offered a mixture of old and new tracks. Nick's performance could be better, but it's no news, though it got a little better after he received a beer he - in his humouristic style - requested. He served some more jokes, as usual. The last part of Paradise Lost's performance - "One Second", "As I Die", "The Last Time", "Say Just Words", and the finishing "Ghosts" - seemed to touch the crowds deeper - though no bra was thrown on the stage.
Another no-direction cost us some time to find the Ficken party stage, where the Ukrainian blackened death/doom metal band 1914 performed. Therefore we only caught the last half of its 40-minute performance. The first war was in a full spread, well depicted by Ditmar's "dying" growls and shrieks. Then we, too, felt like dying, out of tiredness suiting elderly people, and we went to sleep, fortunately, in a much less crowded VIP area. Stay tuned for the following reports!
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