on saturday, i visited the rock 2008, a one-day festival held on königstein fortress, located in the beautiful landscape of the saxon switzerland, together with a friend. here are some pictures from the fortress:

after strolling around the fortress interior a bit, we walked near to the stage to watch the first band, krieger, a german hard rock band. usually, the first band(s) playing on a festival have the ungrateful job of killing some time, while most of the crowd hopes they’ll stop soon. often, they aren’t exactly experienced or aren’t too good. but not krieger; they played a pretty solid kind of hard rock, maybe not exactly my style, but it was good and we enjoyed it. some photos:

after krieger, a short break took place when the stage was prepared for lacrimas profundere, a german gothic metal band. the break went on pretty fast, and the band entered the stage. i haven’t heard them before, just their name. i think i have to listen to some of their albums before i can give a better judgement, but they sounded pretty good. a photo:

a very noticeable thing about this festival was that all stage reconstructions were done very fast, and the sound quality was really good all the time. i haven’t seen this combination ever before; often, it seems that the reconstruction times were eternal and the sound quality still really bad.
another admireable thing was the strict adheration of the time table. the first two bands had like 30 minutes, and the whole festival was planned to be over by around 23 o’clock, and so they managed to do. even though the doors opened a few minutes later than planned. (well, please admit it, have you ever experienced some festival or concert without any delay?)
anyway, the third band was schandmaul, a german medieval metal band. i know a bunch of people who like them a lot, but this doesn’t change the fact that i managed to not know a lot of them except a few songs, maybe. schandmaul did a very nice show. they managed to get the last bits of the party rocking and rolling. definitely a very good live band. some photos:

then, finally, it was time for the big stars of the evening, the finnish cello rockers apocalyptica. i’ve already seen them last november in zürich, and they were one of the main reasons why i travelled so far for this festival. the stage design was as usual: four large metal chairs, formed like skulls, with a huge drumkit in the middle:

their performance was, as usual, excellent. it’s always amazing how eicca and perttu manage to combine heavy head banging with playing their cellos perfectly. unfortunately, antero wasn’t playing with a burning cello this time, though. besides that, they managed to let the crowd freak out, and played lots of great songs, including some of my very favorites like prologue (apprehension) from reflections and the norwegian black metal classichall of the mountain king from cult, featuring paavo stomping around the stage while playing the mountain king. simply great. here are some photos:

after maybe one and a half hour, everything was over. we took a peek at the merchandizing booth, where the guys from lacrimas profundere were waiting for their fans to talk, being photographed, autographing and talking. then, we took the bus down to the city of königstein and walked back to our hostel, where its owner, lutz, was waiting for the concert attendees at a nice bonfire.
well, i think this concert/festival qualifies for being one of the best i’ll attend this year. the technical stuff was marvellous, the timing good (except that at least lacrimas profundere should have played a bit longer and, well, apocalyptica could have played the whole day anyway :-) ). all four bands were ranging from good to excellent, and in particular the last two made the crowd go crazy. (even though i still don’t get it why on earth one wants to have a mosh pit while a gothic metal band is playing. but then, hell, kiddies aren’t exactly predictable…)

today i visited the rock sound festival in huttwil, switzerland. just for one day though, with one specific aim: to see the second band, opeth. before opeth, black tide played, which was ok. after opeth, the headliner for this evening played, namely avantasia was playing, from which we basically just saw the beginning of the first song they played, when we decided to leave (so guess how much we liked it).
ok. having seen opeth just recently, i was in particular curious on what they would play this time. unfortunately, the set list was pretty similar to the last one: they started with demon of the fall, continued with master’s apprentice, then with baying of the hounds, then to rid the disease, wreath, heir apparent and the drappery falls. and again, the sound quality and in particular the mixing was pretty suboptimal. but, an important difference was the denseness of people. the hall in which the concerts took place was filled, but with enough gaps to be able to breathe without problems (and not even being touched most of the time). and, there was no mosh pit. so one could stand in peace, enjoy the music, and throw some hair around without having to fear to be stomped to death or getting injured otherwise.
though there was another bad thing. namely, the infantile behaviour of some people in the audience, most notably by whistling loudly (which is really nice if people do that next to your ear, big fuck you‘s to them) or start clapping rythmically to certain parts of the music (hey, is this musikantenstadl?!)… well, shame on you, guys.
anyway. this trip was definitely worth it. opeth rocked the house again, and even though i already heard that set list, i still enjoyed it a lot. probably in particular also because of the way nicer atmosphere. and, mikael promised that opeth will come back in the end of this year! :-) and, last not but least, i had really nice companions. not being alone at concerts rocks!