The cult festival

Rock am Ring

Hi and welcome to Behind The Noise!

 

90,000 tickets sold, three days of Nürburgring and more than 60 different bands from different areas: That is Rock am Ringwhich we were allowed to accompany this year, to take a look at the spectacle for you. Rock am Ring exists since 1985, so it's older than I am, and is certainly one of the biggest rock festivals in this country. Quite sure however is Rock am Ring the cult festival par excellence and known beyond national borders (not for nothing Rolling Stone counts the debut in 1985 among the best 60 concerts ever). It is a known quantity, which gives a home to many different genres since its foundation. Rock am Ring offers since then bands of different musical genres a stage and thus ensures that fans of different genres celebrate together for three days.

This is something that has always made Rock am Ring so special and therefore attracts a crowd of visitors every year. Also this year, or maybe especially this year (after two years of abstinence) thousands of visitors flocked to the site at the beginning and in the middle of it, how could it be otherwise, of course we, to tell you about this year's Rock am Ring Festival to report. With the words "Welcome back, Ringrockers" the new promoter welcomed us DreamHouse welcome at the entrance to the festival area. Shortly after the entrance we noticed one of many banners on the grounds, with memories of past Rock am Ring moments (in this case Oliver Sykes from Bring Me The Horizonwho performed a song together with the audience in the photo). This was just one of many small innovations that DreamHaus has brought to the festival (more about this in the course of the article). Many of you, who have already been to Rock am Ring, probably remembered the rather mixed weather in the green hell.

But this year Rock am Ring opened in a pleasantly summery atmosphere, so that the view of the ferris wheel standing in the middle of the festival area gave rise to a little fairground atmosphere, which, however, gave way to the festival atmosphere quite quickly by the first sounds of the opener (Donots). Who the Donots knows and these already times live could experience knows the boys always for a surprise are to be had, so also this time, when they times likewise during their appearance the Dead pants invited as guests to join them on stage to "Here comes Alex"which brought the crowd to the boil right at the beginning of the festival. Such a moment and that right at the beginning is the reason why we are always drawn to such festivals. The Donots as opener was exactly the right choice and after such a great start our throats were dry, which is why we were drawn to the center of the festival grounds to remedy the situation with a cool blonde.

In addition to numerous beverage stands on the entire festival site, the operators have again this year set up free water taps to fill the drinking bottles. For many a gladly accepted offer, since the prices on the festival area were nevertheless quite high. On the whole festival area you could only pay cashless with the cashless system introduced this year, which reduced the waiting times at the stands by a lot. No advantage without disadvantage, since this procedure tempts to spend the credit fast. Besides the numerous beverage stands, there was also a mixed offer of culinary food (including vegan food) as well as numerous merch stands, where you could stock up with products of Rock am Ring as well as the bands performing on site.

Also EMP was there and welcomed the visitors in an exclusive lounge with drinks, band interviews and much more. Throat wetted, hunger satisfied we headed to an act we were particularly looking forward to.

 

Måneskin

 

During the performance of the Italians we were reminded, especially by the outfit of singer Damiano, of earlier performances of Queen, where Freddie Mercury also entered the stage quite extravagantly. But not only in the choice of clothes were Måneskin especially, they also delivered an insane show that surpassed everything we had expected. During the whole festival it felt like one highlight followed the next and one of these highlights we were especially looking forward to was...

The Offspring

 

Performances of the cult band here in this country are unfortunately sparse, so we were looking forward to seeing the guys live for the first time. A few years have passed since the beginnings of The Offspring, but the band has in no way lost its energy, which was especially evident in songs like "Pretty Fly (For A White Guy" and, of course, "Self Esteem", where the "Ringrockers" truly celebrated The Offspring.

 

Broilers

 

After The Offspring had brought the crowd to a boil, there was hardly time to take a breath (just enough for a cold beer), because with the Broilers already the next highlight was about to take place. Despite sickness-related absences within the band, the German rockers delivered an unforgettable performance, especially when the sun slowly set and felt 90,000 throats "Will you dance with me again?"together with the Broilers (actually indescribable - pure goosebumps).

Let's move on to the main act of the first evening, a band that has shaped American punk rock like few others and, with The Offspring, were one of the reasons for us to cover the festival for you. At Green Day needs no introduction, since the guys have produced so many hits that there is hardly anyone who has not heard a song by them. As the headliners of this evening, the punks certainly set themselves the goal to live up to this reputation and so they celebrated together with the fans a true fireworks display (with lots of pyrotechnics) and played one world hit after the other, so that the crowd hardly came to rest. At "Know Your Enemy"They spontaneously got loud support on stage with an audience member and Billy performed this classic together with him. Especially with songs like "American Idiot" (at the very beginning) and "When I Come Around"The whole ring went wild and you could literally feel how much everyone missed that festival feeling. A fitting end for a first-class start to a great weekend!

Day two

And daily greets the groundhog, the again expecting greeted us day two as well as day one with brightest sunshine and summery warm temperatures. In a good mood, we took the opportunity to stroll across the site to capture one or two fan voices. We will report on this later, but let's get to our highlights of the day.

Boston Manor

 

If you didn't know the guys yet, we can only recommend to catch up as soon as possible. Live a real experience and for the security guards a real challenge: HenryThe lead singer kept calling out to the crowd that he wanted to see more crowd surfers... a call that the fans were only too happy to respond to, so that in time more crowd surfers arrived at the stage than we had fingers on our hands. Such an intense concert, where we couldn't get around the mosh pit, made sure that we would be able to sing along to the sounds of The Linda Lindas we headed for the first Warsteiner stand of the day, where we got directly involved in a conversation with one of the employees. The crew really wanted a photo of their Rock am Ring have weekend, where we can follow the saying "I kiss your heart" of course directly followed and recorded this moment, see gallery.

Fortunately, the Warsteiner stand was located directly at the Mandora Stagefrom which the first sounds of our next highlight could already be heard.

 

Ice Nine Kills

 

A band that probably needs little introduction and which always stands for a good, if somewhat bizarre, show. "Welcome to Horrorwood" - more apt than with the opening words of Spencer is the best way to put it - Michael Myers meets Freddy Kruger versus Pennywise versus Pennywise. We, as fans of horror movies, hope that Spencer and his boys will bring out a movie. The first-class performance was only topped by the perfectly coordinated musical vocal performance of the band, which gave you the impression that you were in the middle of a horror musical. Chapeau!

Briefly durchgeschnauft, the electrolyte household for the next household again fast refilled, stood also already our next highlight on the Mandora Stage ready. A band we were especially looking forward to and for whom every stage is definitely too small (which should prove true again today).

 

Fever 333

 

If the guys play in your area, we can only recommend you to go there. Hardly any other band brings so much energy to the stage, like Fever 333 and we have rarely seen a band that stands up against injustices like discrimination against migrants or women. The guys channel all their anger about this into their songs and their performance. A great show, during which singer Jason dared to do a stage dive from the roof of the 3m high media stage into the middle of the audience.

As already said, one highlight chased the next and that rock does not only have to be energetic, but can also transport more soulful emotions, showed us...

 

Placebo.

 

An act we were already very much looking forward to, as we had not yet been able to see them live. With songs like "Running Up That Hill", "Special Key" as well as "Too Many Friends" transformed the Britten, the Ringrockers at the Utopia Stage into one of the greatest choirs we have ever experienced. Pure goosebumps! We can only recommend you to see these legends live, should they play near you.

Muse

 

Besides a groundbreaking stage show, where Muse entered the stage dressed in black and masked, the band put the crowd at the Utopia Stage in ecstasy from the first to the last note. Thus, the guys from the 15,000 inhabitants town of Teignmouth, brought the evening to a fitting end for what felt like 90,000 ring rockers. A surely unforgettable moment of the 2022 Rock am Ring history.

Day three

Now the green hell showed itself in its true nature: Cool, cloudy and rainy (what more could a ring rocker's heart want. Rock am Ring how we love it!). Cool weather equals hot food, which is why we first tried the culinary offerings of the organizer. Definitely stuck to us here is the pizza man on the Rocksquarewho always knew, before you could pronounce it, what kind of pizza you wanted. Magical! On the subject of food, we would like to draw attention to the first time this year brought by the organizer, dishes and cups system. A really great thing that, in our opinion, has avoided tons of garbage. Approaches this as well as others in the course of sustainability should definitely be adopted by other organizers. The guys from the dish return points, which were spread all over the place, had a lot to do and still kept their good mood, which led to the following photo (see gallery). Thanks to the guys! But now we come to our first highlight of the third day.

Shinedown

 

Attention, Attention! With melancholy in the luggage (because the festival comes to an end with this day) we went to the Utopia-Stage to see the performance of Shinedown a band that is on our To-See List (a list of about 50 bands that we absolutely want to see). When bands are on this list, the expectations for their performance are quite high and Shinedown surpassed them by far. The post-grunge band convinced all along the line with an energetic performance, which was only topped by the soulful, smoky voice of singer Brent was topped. Due to the overlap of the timetable on the most different stages (this could perhaps be optimized), it was unfortunately not possible for us to see the gig until the end, which we regret very much, but we will certainly still talk about one or the other Shinedown Concert report.

Grandson

 

Definitely the gig at this year's Rock am Ring Festival that left the biggest impression on us and therefore our absolute Ring highlight 2022 is. Despite wind and pouring rain made it Grandson to animate the crowd in such a way that the weather became a mere secondary matter. An act that certainly deserved to play on the Utopia Stage, but that just by the fact that Grandson who has always sought closeness to the audience, was spot on on the Orbit Stage. In solidarity with his fans, he exchanged shoes for the rubber boots thrown to him on stage and was not afraid to take a bath in the crowd while crowd surfing in the pouring rain. Otherwise, the stage itself was much too small for him, which is why he unceremoniously climbed the side crossbar to a height of a good five meters (a moment at which, for one or the other of the security certainly started gasping). The fans celebrated Grandson and were literally under its spell. When the first notes of "Blood//Water"there was no holding back in the ranks. We are sure that if Grandson played longer, the Orbit would have become the main stage. An artist that we will definitely see again and that you should not miss.

Still a little bit flashed by this moment we went to the Mandora stage to see our next highlight (A Day To Remember) to see. Arrived there was the appearance of Royal Republic was still in full swing and singer Adam told the crowd about his first Rock am Ring moment, which he experienced live in front of the TV as a teenager. His absolute highlight was the performance of Metallicawhich impressed him so much that from now on it was his dream to play at this festival. A dream that has now come true for the second time and which they honored with a small tribute to Metallica (in thanks for this moment). Should Lars once no longer be with Metallica sing, then Adam can certainly step in. After this memorable performance and a small rebuilding phase on the Mandora stage, also already announced themselves A Day To Remember and the place in front of the stage became full. With a huge bang and a shower of confetti, which came over the cauldron in front of the stage, opened A Day To Remember their show.

With classics like "The Downfall of Us All" or "Paranoia"they literally made the soaked crowd quake. Crowdsurfers, where the eye only looked, ensured that the stewards had their hands full. Here too, unfortunately, due to the rather tight timetable, we were not even able to see the guys' performance to the end, because on the Utopia stage was already our next highlight, shortly before their performance.

 

Grain

 

Nu Metal and Korn, is like vodka and potatoes. If you remove one of the things, the other is no longer the same, certainly one of the reasons why Korn definitely belongs as one of the main acts on the main stage. Another reason is the guys' show, which was full of highlights (especially when singer Jonathan started the song "Shoots and Ladders" with the bagpipes) and thus prepared the ring rockers for tonight's headliner.

Volbeat

 

With Volbeat there was a fitting end to the festival on Sunday, when the band, without much ado, presented a good and intense rock concert. Mixed with classics, new songs and many jokes, the last concert on the Utopia Stage was a successful conclusion of the festival.

 

Besides the more than 60 bands, it was mainly you, my Immortals, the Ringrockers, who made Rock am Ring an unforgettable moment and our absolute highlight. Almost 90,000 music maniacs in one bunch, who celebrated together without major incidents, celebrated music and showed that it doesn't matter where you come from, what language you speak or if you are attracted to, but that, it's

There is something that we all have in common and that unites us all: The enthusiasm for good music. We look forward to seeing you all again next year to celebrate Rock am Ring 2023 together with you.

Concerts, festivals and more

In our BEHIND THE NOISE column we write about everything around the metal & rock scene and take a look behind the spotlights to give you a better insight into the concert. At this concert, too, we were able to collect exciting and new memories, which we will of course not withhold from you. Intense, unconventional and intoxicating. Welcome to the concert!

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