This year's line-up was far more experimental than in previous years, which was obviously also the reason for the lower number of spectators than last year. If the usual suspects had been on the bill again, it would have been: "Again like Orange Goblin, Graveyard, etc." So the level of pre-Corona (over)saturation has apparently been reached again. The only difference is that transport and energy costs drove ticket and hotel prices to unprecedented levels. Added to this the German Cup final took place in Berlin with around 80-100,000 fans, so a lot of hotels were not available. The organizers solved this problem with the possibility for the spectators to sleep in the Columbia Theater.

The organizers are even more caught in a dilemma between economic profitability on the one hand and musical variety on the other. In addition to music and merchandise, we fans mainly take away stories and feelings and the organizers deserve a big thank you for that.

Despite all our gratitude for the festival, we asked ourselves during the festival why the stage lights in the Columbia Theater have to be either red or blue and why you can't see the band as a spectator or as a photographer? Did the bands want it that way, or were those in charge unwilling or unable to bring some visual movement into the mostly static music, or was it an educational measure to not use your smartphone so you can concentrate better on the music? But how is that supposed to work if you can see the bands and the audience and the bands can't interact with each other? In contrast, the bombastic light show in the Columbiahalle made more out of mostly trivial music.

It was interesting to see that Doom, which I find extremely depressive music, was so celebrated by the audience. It makes me think, because of the resonance between the audience, the music and the bands. Obviously, like attracts like, so acoustic meets personal auto-aggression. And the fact that the same people left the theater with shining eyes after Zerre, who gave the audience good, friendly violent fun, astonishes me even more.

In addition to the personal stories, quite contradictory facts also remain in the memory. So all in all, it was a remarkable trip and a remarkable festival for us country folk.

A black metal band opens a desert festival with Praise the Plague, perhaps because there are also cold deserts? In any case, a very bad choice for the start, because this kind of music doesn't really get you in the mood to party. Okay, many stoner fans come from all kinds of heavy metal and over the course of the concert around a third of the audience liked it. I can't understand how such joyless, static music could move an audience.

I was particularly looking forward to the band Néander because their promo material made me curious as to how it would work live with 3 guitars. And how well it worked; the different sounds of the guitars were supported by a constant groovy tribal drumming and the whole thing would have been a great rollercoaster if the inappropriate stage announcements hadn't interrupted the flow. A great, very impressive concert. The light was only red and unfortunately didn't match the music at all.

The smallest and heaviest symphony orchestra in the world effortlessly filled the huge stage in the Columbiahalle. The intro "Welcome to the Machine" by Pink Floyd was too long for my taste, especially as it also wasted playing time and GEMA fees. After that, the stage was bathed in predominantly blue light so that the projections could be seen better. Of course, because Monkey3 have had a foot in film since the beginning of their career and a feel for movie soundtracks. And yes, after hearing "Icarus" live for the 10th time, this song still overwhelms me so much that I have to cry at the beauty of this composition.

As a prelude to the storm, the German trio hypnotized the audience, plunging them into a black hole with their captivating kraut rhythms and cosmic psychedelia. A band that continues to grow and that is no longer a surprise to anyone. A surprisingly good concert from a band I never heard before. Yes, there is a lot of moving in ze German underground.

Thronehammer was the next doom metal act to come on stage and hit the audience's nerve. I don't understand why this kind of acoustic auto-aggression appeals to so many people. This band was permanently bathed in blue light, so they couldn't be seen unless the band members stood in front of the monitor speakers and got some limelight.

Lori Joseph has the fattest guitar sound to date, stands at the very edge of the stage, surrounded by 6 monitor speakers and moans to us about the depths of human nature. Considering the battle of materials on stage and after 30 years of stage presence, some of them as headliners, something like this is in my opinion quite strange and inappropriate. It doesn't matter, the band is not visible in the blue light and was celebrated anyway.

Black Pyramid, the sludge and doom monster incarnate, was not allowed to be seen under either red or blue light, which did not stop the audience from standing and nodding along to the music. Somehow it was a déjà vu all over again.

Amenra would be surprising if their initial avant-gardism had not become the norm. It is no longer surprising or earth-shattering to release the acoustic wrecking ball after two minutes of sobbing and whispering and unleash a stage show based on strobe and black and white projection, and to accompany the whole thing with growls and lots of noise. The news was, that this performance touched me due the fantastic acoustic of the Columbiahalle, which provided numerous goosebumps moments between the loud and quiet passages of Amenra.

The multinational Berlin band Go Mahhh stepped in for the originally planned band Cava. According to their press release, the usual empty Berlin hype was supposed to appear; instead, we got to hear 82/83 post-punk, whose drumming and a fat leading bass were reminiscent of Joy Division, keyboard fills were reminiscent of Echo and the Bunnymen, and there were two great voices that complemented each other perfectly. In this consistent style, flute solos and really art metal breaks got lost, which interestingly didn't seem strange, but rather fit. A very interesting and entertaining concert.

The Würzburg trio turned minimal electro à la Kraftwerk and Air into fat electro stoner rock when they used electric guitars instead of synths. The voices, distorted with vocoders, fit perfectly with this electro stoner rock, which was great for dancing and headbanging to. Did I forget to mention that the band was bathed in red light even though it didn't match the music?

Sound collages, sprawling songs and a charismatic frontman cannot disguise the lack of song structures, nor can the gigantic light show, which turns relatively banal 70s music into an apparent spectacle.

The Upper Austrian duo impressed with their white stage outfit and the balancing act between stoner sound and punk rock speed. It was a pity that the PA on the outdoor stage only had a range of 10m and couldn't fill the entire courtyard. Well, Heckspoilers mixed their music with witty humor in their German lyrics and the number of headbangers grew by the minute. Somehow it seemed like it was time for the pent-up energy of the visitors to come out somehow.

Siena Root sounded very authentic to the music that their parents listened to around 1972. Somehow the whole thing reminded me of Blues Pills, who also covered the 60s and 70s in 2014. Nevertheless, the song "Rasayana" from their debut album was the highlight of the performance, and the lighting did the rest to visually enhance the performance.

I admit that I thought the song "Lilly's Eyes" was pretty good when I wrote the review about it in January 2024. Now, there is a difference between performing live in front of 400 expectant spectators and recording an album. The tension was noticeable in all band members. In addition, despite all the mixer's efforts, the vocals were barely audible and somehow everything sounded very similar and the light was blue and you couldn't see the band. And the latest doom orgy didn't really put you in a good mood either.

This concert was the most talked about afterward, even though it was actually "just" a normal thrash metal concert. Zerre was the band that lifted the depressed mood in one fell swoop. As if the speed, the sound, songs with a recognizable song structure were what people were longing for after 1.5 days of blues, doom, doom, doom, prog rock and doom. Zerre actually played flawless 80s thrash metal, but with such incredible precision and conviction that this combination drove the audience completely crazy. And when you think there is no "more", then "Whiplash" came along as the ultimate wrecking ball. An empty merch stand speaks volumes. As Lemmy said: "Rock´n Roll ain´t worth the name, if it don´t make you strut."

It wasn't a concert, it was a performance; there was no singing, there was celebration, there were instruments played, it didn't matter; you didn't know what was going to happen next, time flew by, what happened again? Impressive 60 minutes and we knew that this couldn´t be topped. Fantastic concert.

Nick Oliveri and his mates showed us what stoner rock really is; low-pitched punk rock songs with 70s guitar effects and a leading bass. Mondo Generator also has the anger over the legally enforced demise of Kyuss, which was addressed in the song "Kyuss is dead". That's punk and that's part of stoner rock; being pissed off rather than conforming, and Mondo Generator has been the last torchbearer of this movement since the demise of Kyuss.

I don't know why the enthusiasm for Tamikrest was so limited. Were there too few Tuareg on stage? Was it cultural appropriation because two Frenchmen played Tuareg music on stage instead of Tuareg? Was it too western, was there too little folklore? Even for me, who spent 1.5 years of my life in Arab countries, this music was foreign, because Tamasheq is not Arabic and nobody understands French and Khaled plays different music. I saw many questioning faces during the concert and perhaps it was precisely the foreignness, for which we have no patterns in our pre-formed brains, that made this concert so appealing.

With Ruff Majik from South Africa it was easier to recognize common rock'n'roll patterns and to headbang and mosh to them. The guys really made a noise on stage and they obviously had fun performing here. The band put pretty much everything from proto punk of the 70s to punk of the 80s and grunge of the 90s through the meat grinder to serve us spectators a delicious rocky ceviche.

The band rocked, grooved and banged their way through 50 minutes and you couldn't help but join in. The concert was completely authentic, carefree and yet professional. Fantastic concert

Brant Bjork is a kind of badge engineering of desert rock. His name is the badge that is on his numerous projects and his name is enticing. Only the content gets watered down from year to year. This project also delivers music by the dozen, basically background music for cruising at 90 km/h, accompanied by an incredible light show, almost like the sphere in Las Vegas, which just didn't fit in my opinion.

Sunnata presented themselves as a four-person singing bowl that got the audience on a wave with Indian mantras, only to destroy it again with brutal breaks and volume. Why? The Indian vibes were great, die audience swung with the vibes, and the noise seemed to be unnecessary. Sometimes there was no red light, so we could see the band. The band should learn something from a band from Aschaffenburg that manages to get an audience on a wave with acoustic mandalas over an entire concert and doesn't let it go for the whole concert. 

Blues under a lot of suns. Chris Goss played the blues, the lights were dynamite, the music not. I saw the producer of many of my favorite records and couldn't match the person with the music he produced. Of course, Alan Parsons wasn't a Pink Floyd cover band either.

After 20 minutes, two songs, I was convinced that Norwegian bands suffer massively under the weight of three bands: Motorpsycho, Turbonegro and Mayhem. Not Kvelertak, they pack all three bands into their music. Full Earth really tried to get as close as possible to Motorpsycho and it was really obvious that they weren't. There were also some technical problems on stage, which the band handled professionally. This band would have been better suited to blue light than just blue lights.

The days when you wanted to voyeuristically see Bobby Liebling die on stage are over, because the band has established itself as a serious band over the past 10 years. I don't understand why it should end now, especially since the performance was really good, just like the last four that we've seen since 2022. But why is an amateur working on the lighting system for this band again? Most of the time there is too much light, now it is unbearable due to the ignorance of the songs that the light doesn't match the songs. What a shame about Pentagram's actually great concert. Well, maybe that was only the second to last tour.