What a great black metal setup! This was probably one of the most anticipated black metal concerts of the year. Starting with the Austrian maniacs Theotoxin who just released their killer album "Fragment : Totenruhe" this was a very promising start into the unholy evening. Playing some harsh Scandinavian-like black metal stuff they did a very convincing performance which was clearly focused on the new album – only two tracks were from the predecessor "Fragment : Erhabenheit". Vocalist Ragnar nagged and yelled as if he would like to curse the whole world and their guitarist Fabian posed like hell. Though the sound might have been a little bit clearer they did a fantastic job that evening and got hopefully some more fans with that.

Setlist: Golden Tomb / Demise Of The Gilded Age / Sanatory Silence / Perennial Lunacy / World, Burn For Us / Towards The Chasm / Philosopher Of Light / Frontschwein

After Theotoxin the Norwegians of Whoredom Rife entered the stage and with them came a mystic aura into the hall. They looked pretty spooky with their corpse painted faces and I felt some gloomy vibes I haven't felt for at least 25 years at a black metal show. The show was an absolute banger and they played songs froml their three albums. Vocalist KR interacted heavily with the audience and was the most impressive guy on the stage. I think that this band really catches the spirit of the 90s black metal – on their albums and on stage as well.

Setlist: Curse Of The Moon / Gospel Of Hate / Cursing The Storm To Come / In Nameless Pagan Graves / Summoning The Ravens / Beyond The Skies Of God / Gitt Til Odin (Thanks you guys for sending me the list!!)

And now the band that most of the people in the audience came for - the legendary Archgoat. Their music is quite polarizing (in my family there are only two opinions about it but mine is the right one of course) but their appearance was pretty impressive. You can clearly hear those blunt death metal influences in their music (which remind me so much of very old Incantation) but their appearance and the style is much more sinister than that. They played songs from all their albums and created a very dark atmosphere, especially when they did the slower parts. Their drummer made me smile at times when he suddenly started to thrash like a maniac on his drums just after those slower parts. I think there is a thin red line between exaggeration and real black metal attitude but he didn't seem to care… They were pretty impressive in what they did and I hope that it was´t the last time I've seen them live. Thanks to everybody involved for such a fantastic concert!

Setlist: Heavens Ablaze / Lord Of The Void / Jesus Christ, Father Of Lies / The Apocalytic Triumphator / Goat And The Moon / Messiah Of Pigs / Darkness Has Returned / Rise Of The Black Moon / Nuns, Cunts And Darkness / Hammer Of Satan / Burial Of Creation (Thanks to the band for sending me the list!!!)

"Do you want to come with me to see Blind Guardian?" an old friend of mine asked me and of course I agreed to that. I have to confess that I had no idea that the concert was part of the anniversary tour of Somewhere Far Beyond, I thought it would be a promotion for the stunning new album The God Machine. Damn, already 20 years Somewhere Far Beyond. Hey, what do you say? It was released 30 years ago? Oh, shit, 1992 is REALLY 30 years ago. Damn, time what is time!

Well, this evening the very crowded Turbinenhalle was a perfect location for the concert. Although it wasn't completely sold out, I would estimate that about 2500 metalheads came to celebrate Somewhere Far Beyond.

Before the band started they showed a short movie about the history of the band which was quite interesting. The fact that they didn't have an opening act to play after this was slightly irritating for me, however the good thing about this was that you could come home a little bit earlier….

After the 15 minutes movie the band entered the stage and was celebrated frantically by the fans. It was really cool to see the band live again and as usual they didn't take any prisoners from the start. The stage was kept quite minimalistic; only a huge Blind Guardian flag with the Somewhere Far Beyond cover flaunted over the stage and that was all. No unnecessary paraphernalia was to be found and so the audience could focus on the musicians. The show was absolutely perfect and everything was surely planned from the start to the end. The sound was absolutely flawless, even with earplugs you could hear everything in the right tunes and Hansi is after all these years still a very good entertainer on stage with all his humorous introductions to the songs. He involved the audience pretty much into his acting and so you could get the feeling that it was a pretty much familiar event even if it was a very huge hall where this all happened.

About the songs, of course the band played the whole Somewhere Far Beyond album (except their fantastic Queen cover of 'Spread Your Wings' unfortunately) but also some other classics from the whole back catalog and so the event lasted about two hours. My guess is that nobody was disappointed that evening and everyone including my friend and I went back home pretty happy.

Setlist: Time What Is Time / Journey Through The Dark / Black Chamber / Theatre Of Pain / The Quest For Tanelorn / Ashes To Ashes / The Bard's Song - In The Forest / The Bard's Song - The Hobbit / The Piper's Calling / Somewhere Far Beyond / Lord Of The Rings / Nightfall / Banish From Sanctuary / Violent Shadows / Lost In The Twilight Hall / And The Story Ends / Sacred Worlds / Valhalla / Mirror Mirror

A big thanks goes to Justin Herschfeld from "Festivalstalker" for the first two pics and the one from the audience! I guess I will get a better camera than my mobile in the future!!