No Bullshit – Just Metal!
August is one of those busy months in the year with one festival after the other, often on the same date. Our bunch of friends still didn’t find out how to clone ourselves, so we decided for Party.San Metal Open Air. We didn’t regret it although not all the bands were up to all our tastes and I myself must confess: I didn’t even know some of the names…
Arrival at Party.san 2024
Wednesday was an easy day. I picked up a friend from Frankfurt airport to meet with the rest of our group at a supermarket in Schlotheim. We got on the campsite without any real long waiting lines. The area, where Party.San is located, is an airfield with two huge, tarred runways. The campsites are placed along and between the two runways. Party.San usually hosts between 9.000 and 10.000 metal heads but the available space on this airfield is much bigger so there is no squeezing at all.
Relaxed Wednesday
We got lucky and had a place really close to one of the two water closet and shower places. The people further up had Porta-Potties nearby. Thanks to “Grünbart” of the crew I could take a shortcut over the closed infield after I had picked up my photo accreditation at the box office on the other edge of the area. About 95% of the work there was already done, which I took as a good sign. We made ourselves comfortable, had a barbeque and a few “Goassmass”. At 20.00 the gates to the tent stage opened where we had a couple of Cuba Libre and then some of us entered the infamous Metal Disco, which would serve as an after-show party the following days. Two local radio stations The New Noise and Hellborn Metal Radio provided music for every taste. Everyone was cheerful and looking forward to the festival start the next day and so it got very late.
Stages
Each festival day at Party.San begins and ends with gun shots from the two guns flanking the main stage, one of them actually being called Esmiralda. The area is very spacious, surrounded by merch, drink, and food stalls. Behind the tower of the sound and light crew were two tents where you could sit and have some shade, while being able to watch and listen to the bands on the main stage. And there were even more benches to rest on or to have some food, all in good sight of the stage. The main stage was placed near the runway, so the area between the tower and the stage was tarred without any crowd barriers except the last one right in front of the stage. The second stage, tent stage, was just some 100m away, so you could have jumped stages within three to five minutes easily.
Food and Drink(s)
Depending on what you desired you had a good selection of different tastes. There was a wide selection of vegetarian and vegan food. There I must mention the stall which stood out again offering Afghan food. Otherwise there was a wide range of food for meat lovers, Asian food, traditional German sausages and Haxn, etc. Well, that’s a matter of taste, but I really loved having Guinness for a change beside black beer and pilsener. And there was also an Irish pub, where you could have whiskys at fair prices in a real jar. Another highlight was the Cuba Libre bar, but it was dangerous to overestimate your drinking skills there as I realized on Thursday morning.
Merchandise
The band and festival merchandise was sold in a stall near the main stage. From time to time, it got a bit cramped in front of the stall. Other stalls were placed at the infield’s entrance and opposite of the stage which made a good walk around.
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Thursday
After Esmiralda, Bastard Grave from Sweden opened the festival with their very ambitious Death Metal.
They were followed by Sinister, who stepped in for Broken Hope who had to cancel their gig. They presented their Old School Dutch interpretation of Death Metal which is still not so far away from the Swedish version.
After two Death Metal bands in a row, it was time for some more traditional Heavy Metal with Eternal Champion from Texas. And they simply delivered.
Vltimas were my first highlight of the day. They are a multinational combo with a unique Nordic Death Metal sound, added to by David Vincent’s (former Morbid Angel) iconic voice and some theatrical show elements, well done.
North American Thrashers of Sadus speeded up next and fulfilled their technically very ambitious mission with ease. Unbelievable that there was a break of 17 years between the last two albums.
The Black Dahlia Murder from Detroit Rock City completed the afternoon with Melodic Death Metal. It was lovely to see them performing on such a high level after the loss of vocalist and mastermind Trevor Strnad in 2022.
We were Left To Die. The American all-star band performed classic Death material from Leprosy and Scream Bloody Gore in memory of Chuck Schuldiner. I am sure, he would have loved the show.
And from that point on it became more extreme with very Black Metal of Darkened Nocturn Slaughtercult from Germany. A lot of blood and a white skirt ruled the show. It reminded me a bit of the Red Wedding of Game of Thrones and the skirt ended up being bloodred. It certainly was nothing for the faint hearted, but they wouldn’t visit Party.San Festival anyway.
American Grind Corers Terrorizer even topped the brutality of this show. I felt a bit at home on the grounds of Mordor and Isengard of Lord Of The Rings, the home of Orcs and Uruk-Hais.
The closing headliner Abbath from Norway didn’t disappoint. I still missed Mia Winter Wallace on bass though, but that’s another story. Armour and corpse paint ruled, not overruling the music though. It was the only festival show in Germany this year, tough luck if you missed it.
I sadly missed out all bands in the tent stage, it simply was too hot inside for me and between the bands on the main stage I preferred to enjoy sitting down with my friends under clear blue sky.