Friday, 8th August – Party, Cannons and History
As usual, the second day started a bit earlier than the first one and a bit weirder as well. On the walk to infield you could see people in strange clothes (meaning very colourful) bringing strange items along. After arriving at the main stage at 12 o’ clock you knew what was coming as the Scottish PARTY CANNON (Well, could there be a better band name for PartySan with the two cannons flanking the stage?) had the honour of opening the second day with an endless circle pit of people in funny costumes while more and more inflatables were thrown from the stage including a rubber boat for the crowd to play with. The Brutal Death band had a lot of fun with the crowd “lowering their IQ”.
But this short colourful exception didn’t last very long because with HYPERDONTIA came technical old school Death Metal with evil growls who introduced their new drummer. And then it went more calm again, as THE VISION BLEAK invited the audience to their Gothic Horror Metal, rather telling than singing horror stories about ancient beasts and lurking evil, underlined by an actual violin. Celebrating the release of their new EP CRYPT SERMON kept it (compared to what was yet to come) slow with Epic Doom, while the preparations for a HERETIC WARFARE in the tent were being finished. If CRYPT SERMON were too slow for your taste, you definitely had some change now. On the main stage WAYFARER took the crowd on a Wild West trip, combining Western elements with atmospheric Black Metal.
Meanwhile, NAXEN had another Black Metal destination for the audience in mind, the dark abyss. Then it was time for some Thrash Metal again. Swedish HELLBUTCHER presented their version of Blackened Thrash or Scandinavian Black Speed Metal (as they would call it) on the main stage, and fast it was. The tent offered the angry and dark (maybe Blackened) Death Metal of Swedish MASS WORSHIP. DEFLESHED completed the Swedish round in their very own way with a combination of Thrash and Death Metal. Then we left Sweden for the moment and returned back to Germany with FRIISK playing Nordic Black Metal, partly in their Frisian language, who filled the tent. How low can you hold your bass guitar? Derek Boyer of SUFFOCATION would just answer: Yes. With their Technical Death Metal and sick growls they caught the crowd.
In the tent stage then performed the first Indian act on P.S.O.A. GUTSLIT’s brutal Death Metal filled the tent and the crowd gave them a very warm welcome, while a long-time German supporter of the band used the occasion to propose to his girlfriend. From India it went to another rather exotic location on the main stage. Despite the death of the two singers Pinche Peach and Juan Brujo in 2024 Mexican BRUJERIA managed to fill the slot and slammed the audience with their mix of Death Metal and Grindcore and with a “Fuck ICE” the Mexican-American combo referred to the situation of immigrants and especially Latinos in the US at the moment. Leaving sunny Mexico we went to the darkest places of the Bavarian Forest with DRUDENSANG performing their dark Black Metal in the tent, definitely nothing for the faint-hearted (Recommendation, especially for my wife and Gernot: Sometimes it is useful to check out PartySan’s programme beforehand 😀).
Now it was time for PartySan’s favourite Greek band ROTTING CHRIST and their 3rd appearance. With their timeless Black/Death Metal they immediately had the crowd on their side, banging their heads frantically. A very extraordinary show could be seen in the tent stage, where IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT performed a unique experimental Black Metal which can hardly be put in any category. In the meantime the main stage got ready for the two headliners of the evening. Now it was time to go back far in Metal history. First came David Vincent, who had been to PartySan last year as well withVLTIMAS, with his formation I AM MORBID, performing an awesome set of the first Morbid Angel albums. It was truly going back to the origins of Death Metal. And then the audience was led back in time again by TRYPTIKON playing CELTIC FROST. Tom G. Warrior and the band took us back to the beginnings of Celtic Frost and offered a variety of songs which today, as a set, could not be placed in one genre. Rather you could recognize many elements of different metal genres from today and find out where they, at least in part, had their origins. Somehow this evening was a lesson in Metal history.
