Slowly but surely this year’s FortaRock is coming to its end but not before the big headliner Nightwish had played. This band got meanwhile multinational and is currently on their Decades festival tour on which they play a best-of just like on the belonging album with remastered songs of their numerous albums. Front woman Floor Jansen had a home match and due to that of course a special bonus of sympathy.
After Alestorm emptied my physical batteries quite a lot I first had to recharge them. So, let’s head for the chip stand (the best ones I have ever had). To the relaxed sounds of Opeth I got a drink (as they only have a very minimalistic stage show it is enough to only listen to them) and then it was time for the finish. That started with the Swedes of Meshuggah.
It was already very crowded in front of the Main Stage because the first highlight of the day should take place. But when one takes a look at the stage there is unavoidable the question: Am I really at a metal festival or at a children’s birthday party? In the middle of the stage there was a huge inflatable rubber duck, the banner was showing ducks with banana bodies and everything was kept in candy like colors.
Right after the tornado called Avatar raged across the Main Stage I went again over to the tent. Here it should be a little bit calmer with the American progressive metal band baroness. Singer and guitarist John Baizley was giving it everything just like his allies Gina Gleason on guitar as well as Nick Jost on bass and Sebastian Thomson on drums.
It was extremely crowded in front of the Main Stage when a female voice could be heard out of the loudspeaker asking the people in Dutch to do the honour to the king. What was following was definitively the surprise and one of the highlights of this year’s FortaRock.
After the disappointing performance of DragonForce I went over to the open-air theatre where a stage was setup. The tribune was already extremely well filled just like the corridors (later that day due to overfilling the entrance to the Theatre Stage was even closed) when the guys of Death Alley entered the stage at about 15:00.
After the epic folk metal of Týr there was now fast power metal on the main stage being played by the British band DragonForce. Furious fast guitar solos, a slightly video game touch sound and high voice singing parts of singer Marc Hudson could be expected. Already from far you could see the playful banner at the background when the first notes of “Reaching Into Infinity” of the equally named album were waving towards one.
The only thing that I could hold against the FortaRock is the fact that there is no break between two bands on the Main and the Tent Stage. So you are hurrying from the Main towards the tent (OK it only takes 2-3 minutes) but it is disappointing that in-between they already start playing. Inside the tent the Faroese folk metal force of Týr was waiting for the excited audience.
Surprisingly I received a mail from the organization team of the FortaRock one week before the festival telling me that I won two tickets for the whole weekend at their contest where I took part two weeks ago. As I unfortunately was not able to go on Friday the festival started for me on Saturday.