What an amazing festival, I've never seen so many of my favorite bands in one weekend.
The line-up was just amazing
Friday I was really looking forward to seeing Sólstafir and they were intense. They had even slighly more crowd interaction than I expected, ( I touched the singers hand
) They were looking kinda grave or something troughout the whole show tho. Alcest was amazing as well, the singer is kind of akward
. After that we went to Europe, who where not that good, the singer especially is just plain annoying. Then we waited for Rammstein while seeing/hearing Emperor in the distance. Well I like Isahn's solo work more, a lot more.
Rammstein was really great, I'm not that into them but their show was quite spectacular. There was one really weird moment, just after I got out of a moshpit someone grabbed me by the throat really firmly and started yelling at me (in dutch): "If you ever bump against my chest again I'm going to hit you in the face and you're going to end up in the medical care, understood!" I probably accidently bumped against him when the mosh-pit started or something but wtf, he scared the shit out of me. I luckily didn't see him again.
Saturday the highlights for me were Baroness and Alter Bridge. I was so happy Alter Bridge played Cry of Achilles. I didn't think they would due to the acoustic intro, which they just played on electric. Deep Purple was pretty great too, their replacement keyboardist had some serious chops. I did miss most of Devin Townsend unfortunately due to my friends convincing me to join them at Danko Jones. Not a big fan of his music but his show was good. I also missed Gojira, which I'm regretting a little.
Sunday was probably my favourite day with both Mastodon and Opeth playing. Opeth was just flawless, easily one of the best shows of the festival. Mastodon was really great too, they were struggling with vocals on a few moments but otherwise they played amazingly. I reaaly enjoyed their songs live and am looking forward to their full show in Utrecht next week so much. Scorpions and Sabaton were great too but not as good as I expected. Steel Panter is just not for me. Alestorm was just so much fun live, great crowd participation. There was someone crowd surfing in a rubber boat
All in all an amazing weekend
Fuck, I regret not seeing The Dillinger Escape Plan when they came here last year sooo much. It's probably not as amazing in a festival setting, but surely it'll still be among the craziest live show experience, definitely go see them if you have the time.
I wasn't able to catch them unfortunately, they played just before Rammstein and my friends really wanted to get good spots for their show. I don't think I would have been able to reach them anymore if I went
Troy said we were the best crowd on this tour but that's what he says to everyone, right? I kinda believed him when they pulled the real encore in form of Blood and Thunder, the song they didn't play on this tour
They didn't say that at Graspop
I'm hoping they're going to play Blood and Thunder in Utrecht too, that would be amazing.