I was at this epic festival last weekend and by just taking one glance at the line-up across the 3 days you can see that this may be the best line-up for a Metal festival ever, really hard to top. The biggest names were there.
A bit closer look at the smaller names and you discover tons of gems as well.
Graspop is an annual 3-day metal festival held in Dessel, Belgium. We stayed at the camping, arriving 1 day earlier on thursday, to set everything up. After all the hassle of pitching our tent (lulz) we went to get some food coupons and a festival wristband; the way to get in the festival and camping area. Food coupons were priced ok I guess, with it's 1 euro a piece price. Now drinking coupons were fucking expensive. It was 9 euro for 4 coupons, 18 for 8 etc. You exchange 1 drinking coupon for 1 cup of beverage of your choice; coke, water, beer, fanta etc. This was different with the food ones. There were several types of food stands and each had their own pricing. (some of them cost 4 or 7 coupons) But who cares. Even though it was really expensive it didn't bother me.
Next day, shit was about to begin...
FridayTeslaFirst band to perform was Tesla. I only know them through GTA Vice City with the song
Cumin' Atcha Live, which I really like... and they started off with that song. It was a good kick-off and the rest of the songs were ok as well, even if I didn't knew any of them.
*click on all images to see full size!*
up next was my motherfucking hero..
Yngwie Malmsteen
Ok so I got completely up front for this show, I had to see this guy from as close as possible
He came on stage and pretty much stayed at the same spot for the entire show, occassionally coming forward to do a solo.
I couldn't catch a pick, seeing as he didn't even came close to where I stood
Not to mention that the fucker couldn't throw a pick for shit
, he just threw them on stage even, he didn't care. It does needs to be said that the stage was a bit too far from the crowd.
Most of his setlist consisted of songs from his most recent album Unleash The Fury. I didn't know any of them yet. Tom 'Ripper' Owens was the guy who did the vocals. The same guy that replaced Rob Halford in Judas Priest for a couple of years.
Here's how close I was to this guitar god:
I REALLY thought he would perform Black Star for his closure, but I waited and waited and..... he didn't play Black Star :'(
I have taken a LOT more pics from him, completely zoomed in and stuff but I'll post them later
up next..
Symphony XI've started to like this band more and more lately after I listened to their Paradise Lost album. Michael Romeo's riffs kick ass. The majority of their setlist was from this album, fortunately.
Definitely one of the highlights for me. Really enjoyed the show.
But then!......you'll never guess!!!!!!!
Symphony X were holding a signing session an hour or two after the show was done.... so we decided to go there
The wait was really short and after I shook hands with all the band members and got their autographs
I took a picture with me and Michael Romeo himself 
Awesomeness.
last act of the day and immediately the biggest one was..
Judas PriestThe Gods of Metal, who doesn't know them. Even though I disagree with that title and I'm sure you know why
They played a couple of songs from their new concept album Nostradamus (check it out, it's great) and did a shitload of older stuff too. Painkiller is a mandatory for Priest so of course they played that too. On top of that we got Between the Hammer and the Anvil and Hell Patrol. A few more songs of the setlist: Eat Me Alive, Breaking the Law (
), The Green Manalishi, Electric Eye, You've Got Another Thing Coming, Hell Bent For Leather, Metal Gods, Devil's Child and Angel (what a beautiful song
)
A couple of things need to be said about some bands, and Judas Priest is one of them... They simply aren't loud and powerful enough. When I go to concerts I want to be blown away, with sound and bass piercing through my body and shit. Because Priest was so low in volume I couldn't get really euphoric. Especially Painkiller was a major let-down. Otherwise one of the best Metal songs ever, but simply not powerful enough in concert.
Same story for Iron Maiden. First time I saw them was in 2006 and this show was in a big hall. So it was indoor. The sound quality and volume were excellent. I would say a bit too loud even. After that I saw them at a festival a couple of months later and this was outside. The volume dropped severly. Maybe they're only this way when they are doing festivals, I hope.
Anyway, on to the pictures:
That was Friday.
I intended to write everything down at once but only realize now how long this takes when you also consider I'm resizing and uploading all these pictures. So tomorrow I will continue with day 2, Saturday.
