It was great. (As expected.) There were awesome bands that i’d never heard about before. On the first day I was drenched in sweat (and very grateful that i had about 2000 calories for breakfast) by the fourth artist on stage, and by the end of the day i could hardly turn my head.

Starting the day with Knock Out Monkey? Quite a way to do it. Continue it with Artema? No surprise i could hardly turn my head the next day. Then add Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Man With A Mission to the mix for extra power. And MomoClo for the awesome “i don’t even factor” and that they made a better party at a metal festival than Deftones did (and that they did the Pirates song). Not to mention the guitarist of the legendary Japanese metal band Ningen-Isu played the guitars for them. Yes, I’m serious.

Of course there were less… outstanding artists as well, but I didn’t mind, because i needed some rest too. Thus was it refreshing to leave the hilariously underwhelming Deftones show and go sleep in the back. I scheduled my breaktime for Dir En Grey on the second day from the first moment, because I knew they’re not playing for me. They lived up to my “expectations”.

On the other hand, i was surprised that Mucc threw and awesome gig – i really didn’t expect them to do anything enjoyable, and yet! (How hilarious it is when 150cm tall girls are moshing around me!)

There were the Steel Panther, the west coast shockers who actually managed to get girls show tits during their hilarious and awesome show. (I still have some problems understanding how can people be so awesomely vulgar, but it’s a fact just like the weight of objects, so I’ll have to figure it out just like scientists had to find the Higgs boson.)

Then of course there were the legends. Legends like Maximum the Hormone or Slash. Legends like Anthem (why the heck were they so early?!) and Ningen-Isu. Tool. Stone Sour and Slipknot (i only wish the crowd actually set in motion like during the most famous Slipknot songs). Black Sabbath.

Tool was great, and funny. Funny because the front rows were full of Americans, who thought it’d be funny to mosh to Tool. Well, some people agreed with them. It was funny to look at people trying to mosh to the more progressive songs (with all the weird rhythm signatures). But at least some random guy gave me a healthy gulp of his whiskey (from a liter glass bottle – in the crowd – when not even pet bottles were allowed).

Black Sabbath was… Black Sabbath. And Ozzy was really cute. His voice is still the same, but he could hardly move. I’m amazed how he can sing like that still even though my 90-year-old grandmother is more agile than he is.

It was an awesome metal fest. 10/10, would go again.