At 22:30 it was the time that Saxon entered the stage. The old hands of New Wave Of British Heavy Metal had their new album "Call To Arms" with them of which they played a lot this evening. But the audience really flew into a rage at old classics like "Wheels Of Steel", "Denim & Leather" or "Princess Of The Night".
The atmosphere was already quite well heated up by the opener Crimes Of Passion and started boiling when Anvil after a phenomenal short break for changing the stage setting entered the stage. First busy with the sound check it quite fast got down to the nitty-gritty by "March Of The Crabs".
The evening was opened by the men of Crimes Of Passion. They brought pieces of their two albums "Crimes Of Passion" and the this years released "To Die For" with them. Although it was not yet extremely filled at the Metropool their singer really knew how to push up the audience. With their classical heavy metal quite fast the first rows were made to start with their evening neck gym.
Originally this concert was planned for end of March but as Within Temptation front women Sharon den Adel got pregnant for the third time the whole tour had to be delayed without hesitation. Meanwhile a lot had happened: New drummer in the band with Mike Coolen, Sharon and Roberts third child was born and due to that Robert had decided to the beginning of the tour to retreat from the active tour business to be able to spend more time looking after his kids.
After several years I was able to watch Anneke van Giersbergen again live. As support act of Within Temptation she opened the evening and had many nice rock songs with her. I am always impressed of her voice and energy she is showing on stage.
Meanwhile it is Sunday evening and slowly the festival is coming to its end but not before a reale stunner was shown. At least I did not know the Swedish band Therion beforehand but they can look back onto a long and changeful history.
After so much solemn music there was directly afterwards a stark contrast program. With Visions Of Atlantis there was good mood power/symphonic metal from Austria standing on the schedule. Already last year at the same place Maxi Nil was introduced as new singer and now the new album "Delta" released at the beginning of the year should be presented.
As last but two act of the evening Draconian could play the slot of Midnattsol and it should become something very special. The spheric solemn doom metal sounds of Anders Jacobsson and Lisa Johansson do have something very own but fascinating.
The Dutch band Stream Of Passion around the Mexican front woman Marcela Bovios is also not very unknown on the festival. Already two years ago they had their debut and are now able to show with their new album "Darker Days" that they can rock the venue.
For Midnattsol it was already the third gig on this festival. Of course they had also their new CD "The Metamorphosis Melody" with them of which you could hear the one or the other song.