This was my first year at the Rock am Ring festival at the Nuerburgring (Germany) and there were a lot of bands that really impressed me. We arrived on Friday noon and luckily some friends had already pitched our tents near the entrance, so we did not have to walk far when we went to the festival area. (For those who do not know the area at the Nuerburgring: cars are forbidden at the camp-sites, but there is an assigned parking area close to each camping area; but the camping areas can be as far as six kilometers away from the festival area - there is even a shuttle bus to reach the farthest sites.)

The Rock am Ring festival offers three stages, each of them far enough away from the next one to not disturb the audience with different music. So a lot of band overlap - which forced me to decide against some bands I actually wanted to see and to attend some bands for only a few songs before switching either to one of the other stages.

Arriving on Friday afternoon in bright weather, we were eager to see some good live performances. We first went to the main stage, situated at the pit stop of the racing course, to see Mando Diao. Later on somebody said that it was amazing to see how popular a band can become without even putting bass guitar and bassdrum together - I have to agree, but nevertheless I enjoyed the show.

On this Friday I attended three more amazing gigs: Green Day, where we had a really hard time not losing each other close to the stage. But it payed off, since for the upcoming R.E.M. concert we had nice comfortable places in the first row. During the R.E.M. show, it started to rain heavily. Even the stage was completely soaked with rain, R.E.M. continued to rock the audience. Frontman Mike between two songs: "We have seen and done quite a bit, but I have never been that wet in front of that many people". When the R.E.M. Gig was over I decided to get a little warm up with In Flames at the smallest of the stages, the so called talent stage: I've been looking forward to seeing In Flames, but they did more than just fulfilling my wishes: Starting with Pinball Map, the setlist contained Only For The Weak, Reroute To Remain, Touch Of Red, as well as pieces, I have never seen performed such as Morphing into Primal or The Hive (both from Whoracle). All in all I went exhausted to my tent - which luckily was not amongst the ones blown away by the stormy wheather. I regret that I was not able to see the following bands which played on Friday: Killswitch Engage, Life Of Agony, Within Temptation, Apocalyptica, The Prodigy, As I Lay Dying.

Saturday morning I woke up with one thought in mind: Today I will see Iron Maiden! I quickly figured a second thing about this Saturday: It will be a day with much time to hang around. We went to the stages at 2:50 p.m. to check out Helmet, but I left again to explore the remaining merchandise tents. I was a bit disappointed because there were only 4 metal-record dealers (and universal records) present - I would have really enjoyed browsing through a non-metal cd/vinyl collection - but there was none.

Next Band was In Extremo: Starting their show with Erdbeermund they played a great gig despite of the time - can you imagine In Extremo in daylight at 15:50h? I could not, but they did really good job! Right after In Extremo we decided to get something warm (Met was the choice of the hour) and sat out in the car. Thus I cannot tell anything about the shows of Slayer and Mötley Crüe. Returning at 7:00 p.m. we saw the last songs of The Thievery Cooperation. This band plays an interesting mix of Samba, Blues, Jazz, Folk and whatever... (not my kind of music plus and the bass guitar was far too loud, apart from that) I had a good time watching professional musicians doing their job. The first of the two big acts this evening was Marilyn Manson. The few songs I watched convinced me of two things: That guy is crazy and that guy is crazy. Marilyn Manson did have a really extraordinary and creative show, switching clothes and accessoirs for virtually every song - it's hard to describe, go watching him if you happen to have the chance at some festival.

The moment I had waited so long for arrived: Iron Maiden entered the stage. They heated up the audience with masterpieces as Run for the Hills and The Trooper and the whole show was filled with classics like Die With Your Boots On and The Number Of The Beast. The Stage was large, but Bruce was everywhere. There was a number of Stairs, Gangways and Towers built on stage and the members of the band played a perfect show with these possibilities. One song I want to mention is Fear Of The Dark: sadly they didnt play it - my heart ached since it is one of the greatest songs for crowds to sing along loudly and clearly - anyway: it was a great show - one of the festival highlights for me! After having seen Iron Maiden, we stopped by to see The Hives play great Rock'n'Roll - I believe I would have gone Rock'n'Roll dancing if Iron Maiden had not soaked up all my engery....

Bands I regret I was not able to see on Saturday: none really. After a cold but dry night we woke on Sunday morning. Topic of the day was the discussion about the Surprise Headliner (replacing Limp Bizkit). Weeks before rumors mentioned the name Böhse Onkelz again and again, but that had long calmed down. Rumors on Sunday morning and afternoon mentioned Rammstein or Die Toten Hosen to be the guest, some people even dreamed about The Rolling Stones or U2...

For me the Day started with Die Geilsten - a Rock Band with a hip-hop singer who really made me laugh. I really liked the music and ideas of that band, but I still do not know whether I laughed with that rediculous, yellow costumed guy or more about him. It was time to experience some real music and went to the main stage, where The Hellacopters were playing. The Hellacopters performed a sound classic rock show, and even if I did not know any of the songs (except two covers) I had a good time. Later on during the evening we attended Billy Idol (I know he wrote many hits, but I was surprised I could sing along for one hour without being to much of a Billy Idol fan), Lacuna Coil (great gig, I am looking forward to purchasing the new allbum which is going to be released soon) and Velvet Revolver (have you ever seen Guns'n'Roses? If not, go for Velvet Revolver. Three former G'n'R members (guitar, bass, drums) continue to play the unique sound here.) One band left to play, and still the surprise headliner has not been announced up to this point. The German band Wir Sind Helden proved they are worth a headliner spot at that festival. Altough it had again begun to rain the crowd sang along every song. Coming from the fun I had, Wir Sind Helden was one of the best shows at Rock Am Ring 2005 - I wished they could have played longer (they had only less than one hour) and the weather would have been better.

Then, it was officially announced: the big headliner for this years RaR was Die Toten Hosen (Actually this was well known before, since it was announced 2 hours before on radio and television). Not being a DTH fanatic, I was a little bit dissappointed at first but in the end I surrendered to the party atmosphere and sang along all the well known songs (that is: all songs) and jumped and shouted. Frontman Campino made sure to include everyone into the party, so that even far away from the stage people were having a good time. This concert ended in a great firework. Bands I regret I was not able to see on Sunday: 3 Doords Down, Silbermond, Kattcar, Subway To Sally

There are two bad things that I found disturbing at the Festival: First of all it was dirty and there was waste everywhere. Not that I am too sensible - in my opinion, W:O:A is a clean (clean enough) place - but at Rock am Ring it was just too much. It was not allowed to take along plastic bottles on the festival area - only Tetra Packs, which softened up and made a hell of a dirt lying on the ground. The second thing is: there was advertisement present everywhere. I often asked myself why even the stage monitors have to be decorated by some Fujifilm or Telekom ads.

Some short remarks:
Price: Euro 105 is really much, but was worth it in my eyes.
Sound: It was seldom too loud, never not loud enough, and always (but with the bass guitar at The Thievery Cooperation) the single sound was well balanced.
Cleaning/Water: The toilets at the campsites were kept clean all time, but it was Euro 0.50 to use them. The people wishing to take a shower at our site had bad luck, since there was only cold water (and as mentioned above, it was really cold in the nights and mornings).
Atmosphere: Just like the weather, small spots of sunshine again and again, but a bit 'quiet' int he meantime. I do not know how it would have been with better weather, but I doubt it could have reached the Wacken feeling.

Putting it all together I enjoyed that festival that much, that I will keep an eye on the line-up for next year, and if only a few good bands are announced I will go and buy a ticket again.