Having been a fan already for quite some time of Ankor, and them having impressed me properly with the first show ever I saw of theirs a bit over a month earlier at Tuska, I just had to get to Alcatraz early today to catch them live again. And in now way did it take anything away from that first experience, on the contrary, it only solidified with me that this band is going to become something big. They bounced on stage with ‘Darkbeat‘ and within seconds they had convinced the whole crowd in front of the Helldorado Stage, including the majority of press people I saw around me. I quite literally heard people talk about or mention Ankor for the rest of the weekend, for a lot of people this was probably the discovery of the weekend. And rightly so!

With our strong Finnish connection, there was simply no way that we were going to skip on one of the very few iconic Finnish bands on this year’s line-up. So off we went to get baking in the full afternoon sun together with the trolls of Finntroll. While it’s not a perfect setting for these kind of creatures, every show of theirs is just so much fun. The combo of black metal tinged music and humpa vibes simply works so well, and ever since Mathias Lillmåns took over the vocal duties, they’ve been pretty much on a roll. And their newish looks on stage they addopted with the release of their latest album ‘Vredesvävd‘ a handful years ago, brought back that more grimey and dark vibe we all know and love Finntroll for. For some reason they decided to leave out their classic hit ‘Trollhammaren‘, but that didn’t take away all that much of the fun we had on both classics and new songs!

On the Swamp Stage we were honored to receive the Italians of symphonic death metal outfit Fleshgod Apocalypse to blast us away with their epic and bombastic songs. Despite recently having gone through a line-up change with original member Paolo Rossi leaving the band, you wouldn’t have guessed they were a member short if you didn’t know. The perfect balance between the harsh vocals, clean vocals and operatic vocals with this tapestry of bombastic death metal is quite the sight to behold live with the added theatrics and incredibly energetic and engaging performances by all members. An absolute delight that got me to dive back into checking their music out more afterwards.

Back to the main stage, one of the biggest rising stars of the modern metal scene were taking over. Myself, I was very excited about finally seeing Spiritbox live, because they are really going places and their music is simply exciting and refreshing. Courtney LaPlante really commands the stage with her struts, little dances, poses and impressive vocals, in the good company of some of the most talented musicians around. Tracks like ‘Rotoscope‘ or their breakthrough track ‘Holy Roller‘ dropped by and made the crowd explode despite the melting heat. Definitely one of the future greats of our little heavy music community.

If you wanted an early party in the middle of the day, there was only one place to go at this point: Helldorado Stage to join a massive crowd that packed the tent to bop and bounce to the living nu metal jukebox that is the Belgian collective Bizkit Park. They may be playing only cover songs, but they do it oh so well. The nu metal classics are banging around our heads one after the other, and with the current ressurgence of the genre, getting to hear these great songs live without having to wait around to see the actual bands behind them is such a blessing. The energy really went through the roof, in what probably was one of the craziest shows of the whole weekend. These guys radiate all of the heydays of nu metal and it’s so damnright infectious and fun!

A bit of a strange duck on the mostly really extreme line-up of the Swamp Stage, the Germans of Lord Of The Lost took over and somehow managed to really impress despite being rather out there squeezed in between Marduk and Watain shows. They clearly put together a setlist that was on the heavier side of their catalogue to appease the (extreme) metal crowd a bit more and they do pack a punch with tracks like ‘Destruction Manual’, ‘Fists Up in the Air’ and ‘Drag Me To Hell’. And by the time they hit us with their Eurovision entry ‘Blood & Glitter’ to warp up their set, they had won over most people in front of the Swamp Stage, and I saw quite a few real rough and tough metalheads nodding along to their music. Quite the successful passage, I’d say!

Back on the Helldorado stage, one of the nicest band around took over the stage. Red Fang can unleash some nasty riffage, but they always seem like the friendliest bunch around, somehow I every time got this notion of them being a “dad band” in the nicest sense possible. As is tradiational, they start their show by giving each other handshakes and some friendly nods as their sort of opening ritual. And then they unleash some of the best stoner rock and sludge metal around upon us. These guys rule every single time I’ve seen them and you can’t help but put a big smile on your face and simply nod ahead to the banging riffs. And if just them playing isn’t enough to make you feel good and smile from ear to ear, just wait until they drop some of their typical dad jokes on you, you won’t be able to hold yourself from laughing out loud with their ridiculous humor. A band that we love to see time after time and the Alcatraz crowd clearly ate it up like sweetcakes!

On the Prison Stage we went to see a whole other beast. Epica is one of the biggest Dutch exports in the realm of symphonic metal, and one of the few that has consistently delivered absolutely epic music and high quality compositions. And their shows match that to the tee. The whole band radiates how much the love being on stage and in front of their fans, and the stage was perfect set to channel the grandiose music they bring with spacey and almost psychedelic visuals on screens in the background and 2 huge metal snakes on both sides shooting fire from time to time. An absolute pleasure to see these symphonic metal legends at work in front of the huge crowd that turned up for them!

Time for something real dark, dank and evil now! Back to the Swamp Stage it is! Watain took over, and turned the stage into their evil lair for their show, filled with inverted crosses, occult symbols and grave looking structures. Erik Danielsson and his companions strode on stage, carrying the traditional torch to light up some of the fixtures on stage, after which he threw the burning torch to a purposefully selected and blessed fan on the front row. Who, after catching the torch, waved it around like a madman throughout the whole first song. As soon as Erik got through his starting rituals, they unleashed unbriddled chaos and hellfire upon the tent, giving a schooling on what a proper black metal show should be like. We’ve seen Watain quite a few times by now, and while they didn’t unleashed a portal to hell as they did at Hellsinki Metal last year, we got pretty close and were swept away by yet another amazing show!

This is one band I had really been looking forward seeing, once they were announced for this year’s line-up. Absolute nostalgia for me, having grown up as a teenager with several of their albums that I can still sing every word to from start to finish, getting to see the Dutch punk outfit Heideroosjes live again after all these years was almost a dream for me. And just as I remembered, it was everything you’d want from a proper punk show: high energy, catchy tunes filled with criticism on society, shouted along to by the packed tent. Classics like ‘Fistful of Ideals’, ‘Time Is Ticking Away‘, ‘Damclub Hooligan‘, ‘We’re All Fucked Up‘, ‘Ik wil niks!‘, ‘I’m Not Deaf (I’m Just Ignoring You!)‘ and so on all came by of course, among many others. At this point, Heideroosjes is almost like jukebox of hits and classics, but no one is complaining. One of the highlights of my weekend for sure!

We definitely didn’t get as much hardcore and punk as we did on the first day, but we got to close this day with one of the best hardcore acts around! As one of the last bands of the day, Hatebreed set up shop on the Helldorado Stage and nearly blew the roof off literally. Jamey Jasta and his buddies are by now seasoned performers and as I remembered from an epic show at Graspop probably over a decade ago, their show is pure hardcore fun. I caught myself shouting along to ‘This Is Now’, ‘Destroy Everything’ and ‘Live For This’ pretty soon and was close to starting to pump my fist in the air if I wasn’t holding my camera taking pictures of this epic showcase from these hardcore icons!