11TH – 14TH July 2024
Vizovice, Czech Republic
Smudge and Adrian Hextall reporting.
Day One – 11th July
Tuesday 11th July.
Man, it was hot overnight but we both awoke fairly chipper considering the beer we had consumed whilst watching the football last night. Breakfast then sorting out what kit we would be taking the festival site. A bit of a chill before the bus arrives at 10.30. Today brings Bruce Dickinson, Stratovarius, Sodom, Melechesh and a host of others I’ve neither seen or heard before.
The weather hadn’t broken so we woke up to blue sky, sunshine and something fast approaching thirty degrees. Not good for two pale, pasty faced Brits who avoid the sun like the plague, we got to the festival site just in time to catch the opening act of the weekend. Fleret are a Czech legend who were celebrating their 30th anniversary (I think) and they drew a sizeable crowd for their brand of Folk-Rock which was all sung in Czech. The crowd knew the songs and sang along heartily. Next up were another local mob – Metalinda – who pushed out their heavy rock very much in the vein of early Y&T and Dokken.
One band I had been looking forward to seeing were Dragonhammer from Italy. You can’t beat a bit of Italian Power Metal especially when it’s this good, although the massive boom in feedback scared the shit out of everybody but the band being professionals carried on as if nothing happened. I hadn’t realised that the band has been going for over 25 years and after the awesome ‘Blood In The Sky’ they aired a song from their debut from 1999 the equally awesome ‘Silver Feathers’ which had a slight touch of Iron Maiden’s ‘Wasted Years’ about it.



Melechesh then took the stage and obliterated us with their eastern flavoured death metal. Singer/guitarist MC was the spitting image of Iranian/British comedian Omid Djalili if he had a long goatee and slung a Flying V. They brought aggression and energy with the likes of the crushing ‘Deluge Of Dreams’ and ‘Multiple Truths’ then things got proper raw on ‘Defeating The Giants’. Final number ‘Rebirth Of The Nemesis’ started awkwardly but as the band settled into the right time signature together it became another monster. For me, this was when the festival actually started.


Turmion Katilot from Finland brought their impressive mix of death metal and bouncy dance beats which got the crowd moving.
Sodom, however, gave us an aural kicking like nothing before. The thrash legends treated us to some older and deeper cuts like ‘Jabba The Hut’ and ‘The Crippler’. Guitarists Frank Blackfire and Yorck Segatz were literally on fire, and I refused to stand anywhere near drummer Toni Merkel because he hit anything within arm’s reach, and he hit it hard! As for the mainstay Tom Angelripper, he just controlled the crowd like the expert he is.


We were given ‘Blasphemer’, ‘Agent Orange’, ‘Conflagration’, the utterly brutal ‘Outbreak Of Evil’ and ‘The Saw Is The Law’ minus the ‘Surfin’ Bird’ intro sadly. ‘Remember The Fallen’ went straight into ‘Bombenhagel’ where Frank Blackfire played the freakiest slide guitar ever. Shortly after their set I chanced upon Mr Blackfire, and he told me that he considers himself a blues guitarist! Could’ve fooled me.



I was conflicted about the evening’s headliner Bruce Dickinson. He has just released probably the best solo record of his career and he’s selected a cracking backing band. But, for some reason, I just couldn’t get excited about seeing him. I sat in some seats at the far end of the site and watched as he went through his repertoire. A lot of the songs had a very Iron Maiden feel which I suppose was to be expected but he also played some very proggy stuff too and what the fuck was he playing at the end? I was probably the only dissenting voice on the day because the place was rammed with Bruce fans.
I honestly thought the crowd would depart after Bruce Dickinson. Boy was I wrong, they stayed to watch the superb Stratovarius who ripped through ‘Speed Of Light’ and ‘World On Fire’ and gave us a
neo-classical instrumental where I could’ve sworn the guitarist had seven fingers. I checked later backstage – he only has the four – the keys man switched his toys, and we got a harpsichord before they tore into another world class power metal banger. Singer Timo Kotipelto introduced ‘Forever’ as an old ballad which was stunning before the final two bangers ‘Unbreakable’ and ‘Hunting High And Low’.
After too much sun it was time to leave and get some rest for Friday, so we gave Moonspell a miss. Well, something had to give.
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