After the folk sounds of dArtagnan it went across towards the Club stage to attend a real contrast to the band before. Das Ich was put on my schedule, a primary rock of the dark alternative scene which was founded originally already in 1989 and since then was formed unchanged by basically Stefan Ackermann and Bruno Kramm. Live these guys are supported by two further keyboarders. Very funny I found the idea of putting the synthesizer onto small rollable tables with which the musicians were hoofing around the stage and dancing again and again around singer Ackermann. This was lively taking part in it himself by his snatchy dances, grimacing and smirking with the audience. Also the announcements in-between had something amusing when he had to admit that he had lied during his song “Engel” as there would be so many nice angels in the audience.
Sunday morning and the sun was shining brightly across the festival area. So, I took it easy as it was already announced that it would be getting very warm again and so the final day started with the folk-rock sounds of the Nuremberg band dArtagnan. They had only short time ago released their latest album “Herzblut” but instead started with “Freiheit & Tod” of the 2022 album “Felsenfest”. By that they were directly getting down to the nitty gritty. Very enthusiastic singer Ben Metzner changed again and again between singing and playing the bagpipe, jumped and swirled around like a dervish across the stage surrounded continuously by columns of fire.
As I admired the terrific show of London After Midnight for longer than initially planned, I was only able to arrive towards “Fürst Der Finsternis” at the Main Stage. So, I missed the first appearance of the Berlin a cappella choir Stimmgewalt. You can’t have everything.
Spontaneously, I remained at the Club Stage, although I also wanted to watch ASP in each case. London After Midnight canceled last year their show on short notice and so it was now that they were able to make up for this. Preparations had finished when directly the video screens at the back of the stage started playing advertisements for the upcoming album which went seamless over into the first song “Hot Stuff”.<
After the day has mainly taken place only on the Main Stage and was characterized by guitar soundsI now went for the first time over to the smaller Club Stage in order to listen to the hard electronic sounds of Suicide Commando. The Belgian is surrounded by his live backstop and barks his songs with his typical Dalek-voice towards the audience.
After Hämatom I took a little break in order to eat something to be invigorated for the second part of the day. This should start with Saltatio Mortis who released this year their new album “Finsterwacht”. Of this there was performed the equally named title track as opener. The heat of the day slowly reclined but in order to not cool down the guys were turning up the heat even more. Directly from the start they were having a handle on the audience and there was a giddily atmosphere on and in front of the stage.
The second band that I was strongly waiting for. Unfortunately, bass player Peter “West” Haag died in 2023 after a short and severe sickness. The band remembered him initially with the West Fest and in 2024 they announced that the name West as well as his instrument bass will not be filled anymore. Instead, a new guitarist Annika “Rose” Jaschke was presented as backstop of the band. But before the gig could be started several things went wrong.
It has been three years meanwhile since Oomph! and Dero Goi went separate ways. After Andreas Crap and Robert Flux initially continued to compose on their own, after some time Der Schulz joined them as new singer. 2023 the first album “Richter Und Henker” with the new constellation was released. From that the opener “Soll Das Liebe Sein?” was played and the band entered the stage dressed in fur coats. Quite brave as the sun was burning and it was oppressively hot.
During the performance of Schwarzer Engel Alexx Wesselsky was standing next to me and watched the show. At that it was good to see, that he had recovered from his surgery after an intestinal perforation that happened beginning of June. Die Herren Wesselsky normally play old or rarely played songs of Megaherz and Eisbrecher paired with cover versions. Today there should be old Megaherz classics on tap.
Friday noon as one of the first artists of the 2024 edition of the M’era Luna festival Dave Jason also known as Schwarzer Engel was allowed to enthuse the not very small audience in front of the Main Stage. I was following this project already for some years now and also some of his albums. So it was the time now to finally convince myself of the live skills of the singer.