A nice evening in November 2019 and lots of people in front of the Turock at Essen. A sold out venue to the tour of their first album of John Diva And The Rockets Of Love “Mama Said Rock Is Dead” with Rosy Vista as support act.
It was 2014 when I first got to know the lively company on the Wacken Open Air. To that time without much expectations, they exceeded them significantly. And so I insisted on going to watch them another time. After the mood was already excellent after Rosy Vista, John Diva really managed to gather speed even more.
The evening was opened by Rosy Vista. To me, the four ladies that entered the stage were really strangers whereas they can already look back onto a long and changeful history. Beginning of the 80s it was founded as Germanys first pure female hard rock band and were playing very successfully as support act for big ones like Mötley Crüe, Jon Bon Jovi, Joe Cocker and others. But as fast as they appeared, they disappeared again from the stage and already 1990 they dissipated.
The sun was slowly going down and it was getting darker in front of the stage. Originally Metallica should start at 20:30 but they took their time until it was dark enough to best bring off the huge LED wall. At 20:40 the redeeming sounds of Ennio Morricones “The Ecstacy Of Gold” could be heard accompanied by the associated pictures of the film until it went over into the intro of “Hardwired”.
After Bokassa it was up to the Swedish metal project Ghost to enthuse the crowd even more. Singer Tobias Forge who is on stage currently as cardinal Coppia brought his nameless ghouls with him to celebrate his Mass within the scope of their “A Pale Tour Named Death” tour.
Temperatures were above 30°C and the sun was burning from the sky when I went towards the stage in the afternoon right after the opening of the Mannheim Maimarktgelände. Everybody tried to stay as long as possible at the rare places of shadow until everything started at 17:45 with Bokassa.
It was meanwhile ten years ago that the last album of Rammstein had been release. Already to that time the hubbub was immense but then after the release when the album was threatened by censorship. After the first concentration camp teaser video the outcry was immense even beforehand and the interest into the new album was a hard act to follow.
For the first time at the EmslandArena at Lingen and everything started quite relaxed. Just directly before the Stahlzeit concert began the arena started to get filled but nevertheless there was enough space for everyone although the venue was quite well filled with 1800 optimistic visitors.
Originally the concert of Saltatio Mortis should take place at the Turbinenhalle 2. But the popularity was that big, that without further ado the gig was moved to the large Turbinenhalle 1 which was immediately sold out. Due to that there was a long queue at the entrance that went all the way across the whole parking lot and which I have never experienced like that before. At a certain point in time they seemed to have told the security to speed up controls as otherwise the last ones would have entered the venue not before 23:00.
It was incredibly crowded and that already on the parking lot. That was why it took so long at the entrance and the concert of the support act Firkin began kindly 15 minutes later than scheduled. I first absolutely did not know that there should be a support act because in the internet as well as on my ticket there was nothing mentioned about that. But what was presented then was really fascinating.
Also this year it was again a band established in medieval metal that was putting the light out on Wacken Open Air. In Extremo was due to lack of new material still with their 2016 released album “Quid Pro Quo” on tour and ensured one more time really good mood.