It's that time of the year again! From 8th of May to 11th of May I was at the Rock Hard Festival in Gelsenkirchen, Germany (Hometown of the Football Club "Schalke 04").

Thursday:

Like last year we decided to arrive on Thursday at the Festival. My girlfriend and me first went to my girlfriend's sister to have a quick breakfast and to wait for another person, who would drive with us (you know, less cars = less pollution + less costs ;) ).

Not much happend during our 4 hour ride from Hamburg to Gelsenkirchen (except for a little traffic jam right at the start of our journey).

Unloading the cars was easier than last year, because now we had parking tickets! Last year we had to unload everything and then go park somewhere else. Now we could unload as much as we could carry and then leave the rest in the car and come back some time later to get the other things.
So unloading was quite smooth even though it was fucking hot and we were only three people.

The installation of our new tent was very easy (it's a tent where even I can stand upright! :D ) so we could enjoy our first few beers very quickly.

During the evening more people of our camp arrived. Those guys forgot to take the thursday off, so they had to work and had to drive after the work to the festival. Heh... :P

It didn't happen much else during the day. Only that of all things those people who already made themselvs unpopular last year listened to music very loud (and very bad music indeed... like Nena or other Neue Deutsche Welle songs...).
Also, it was very cold during the night, so that it got pretty cold in my face. I think I was never this tired without falling to sleep.

Friday:

Today the last person of our camp arrived. The husband of my girlfriend's sister arrived by train. He couldn't leave Hamburg on Thursday, so he had to follow later.

Bands:

Lake Of Tears: Was O.K. . Good sound.

Die Apokalyptischen Reiter: Well... wasn't that great. The beer garden was more interesting than the band. ;)

Testament: Shitty sound. During the announcements was a very noticeable static sound. It got really annoying... I didn't watch it until the end (but due to other reasons).

After that we got out our precious "Themes"-CD. Loaded with many theme songs of 80s cartoon and other shows (like Dukes of Hazard, or He-Man). Sadly, the CD was pretty fucked up, so only about 30 of 60 themes could be played.
So, we put the CD in our portable CD-player and ran around on the camping ground (like we already did in 2007). But this year the people all were in a bad mood or something (except for some very nice people). In 2007 nearly everyone moshed to the songs, but this time... oh well, maybe next time. ;)

This night we were kept awake with shitty NDW-music, too. That those young folk can't be considerate of us oldies... ;)

Saturday:

Well, it still was very hot, so I missed Enslaved and Exciter. Plus my gf and I decided to go into the town to get some water.
We quickly found a supermarket and bought some water. On our way back we had some ice cream in a very nice beer garden.

Bands:

Amorphis: Good sound, good band. Good show. :D

Immortal: Who knows when they will split up again, so better watch them! :D
"Panda metal" at it's best. Great sound, kick-ass drums and great guitars. Great show.

Well, needless to say, but we were kept awake during the night... but luckily the people moved to a other camp soon, so we could finally sleep. Boy, I never slept that good on a festival! :D

Sunday:

We wanted to go home on Sunday. Sadly Iced Earth should play at 21:30 to 23:00 (for all of you who aren't used to a 24 hour clock: 9:30 PM to 11:00 PM). I really hoped that IE would change the playing time with Paradise Lost (who needs THEM anyway?), but it didn't happen... :(

Bands:

Asphyx: Didn't know them before. I did like the show.

Napalm Death: Yeah! Great show!

Volbeat: The songs I knew from them didn't sound that good. And the show wasn't much better either. The only good thing were the announcements. One could tell that the band had much fun, but I didn't like the music anyway.

Iced Earth: Great guitars, great drums, but THE VOICE WAS TOO QUIET! What the fuck?! Finally Matt "The God Himself" is back and then the guy at the mixer fucks it up!

It was also sad that I only could watch about half an hour of the show. :'(
But as I've already mentioned, we wanted to go home on Sunday and I don't own a drivers license. So I had to play the driver's rules... it's sad anyways.
At least I could see "Pure Evil" before I left.

No unforeseen occurrences happened during our retourn journey, so we got back home after 3 and a half hour.

Conclusion:

A great festival, if you leave the few sound problems aside. Also, some more "relaxed" people should visit the festival next year. Accosting me just because I ran around with some strange themes in my CD-player... really shouldn't be that way.
The weather was good, but during the night it got pretty cold. :D

Hopefully the festival takes place in the Amphitheater next year again!