The contrast could hardly have been greater: just moments before, the fun-loving pirates of Alestorm were rocking the North Stage, and right afterward, next door on the South Stage, came the finest progressive metal from the veterans of Dream Theater. Forty years of band history squeezed into a 75‑minute set. Those were the conditions for this performance.
After the rather gentle sounds of Charlotte Wessels in the Metal Dome, it was time to head back out into the sunshine at the South Stage to catch the much heavier tones of the American band Motionless In White. It wasn’t their first appearance at Graspop, but it was their debut on the Main Stage.
I was very curious to see Charlotte Wessels. After her split from Delain, I had somewhat lost track of her, but in the Metal Dome - in front of a rather sparse crowd - she took the stage with her live musicians to present her current work "The Obsession".
After the humid, heavy power metal on the North Stage, I quickly headed back over to the South Stage, where the guys from Landmvrks were getting ready. The band from Marseille, France brought along an outstanding mix of varied metalcore bangers, mainly drawn from their last two albums: "Lost In The Waves" from 2021 and "The Darkest Places I’ve Ever Been", released this year.
I had only known the band Warkings from a few music videos so far, but on this day I finally got to experience them live. The musicians from Austria, who always perform anonymously under masks representing different Warkings from various eras, brought along some enjoyable power metal.
Thursday at midday, with perfect weather, it all kicked off again: Graspop 2025 opened its gates, and I headed straight to the first band on the South Stage. With Municipal Waste from Richmond, things got serious right away. No slow warm‑up, no gradual build — no, straight to full throttle from the very first second.
It is 20:45 and the M‘era Luna 2024 is slowly heading towards its end but not before regular VNV Nation has not played. That was besides Schwarzer Engel and ASP the band that I absolutely wanted to see live. Since meanwhile 34 years the project of Ronan Harris already exists and has produced 11 albums. He was supported on this evening by three musicians: one drummer and two keyboarder.
I was somehow surprised. After Lord Of The Lost the field in front of the stage emptied at first but even when the first sounds of Epicas intro “Alpha Anteludium” could be heard it was still really manageable what had gathered to watch one of the biggest bands in symphonic metal. Who already had seen at least once the Dutchman live knows that there from show point of view very much is offered. This time the stage was dominated by big wheels at the sides that were turning from again and again and two gigantic snakes that even spit fog and fire from time to time. Apropos fire: Of that there is always plenty of present at Epica, so today although the temperatures were not asking for that explicitly.
Lord Of The Lost and my ways only crossed once: 2015 on the Gelsenkirchen Blackfield Festival. To that time with only very limited resources taking place at the afternoon the concert nowadays is totally standing in contrast to it. The band is much more known today, especially due to their appearance at the European Song Contest one year ago. But back to the M’era Luna at Hildesheim.
Back on the Main Stage where it was only me but also many others waiting for the performance of Schandmaul. And there you could see: singer Thomas Lindner was standing on stage again. Additionally, there was also Georgij Alexandrowitsch Makazaria, former singer of the band Russkaja. And why he was joining the band got obvious after the first song “Krieger”. It was then when Lindner directed some words to the audience, telling them from his cancerous disease which he, at least momentarily, got better of. Unfortunately, a wretched side effect of the therapy was, and that could not be overheard, that his voice was not yet back to old strength whereas he handed over the singing part currently to Makazaria. On keyboards and guitar he was already getting in on the act as if there had never happened something to him.