Nova Rock 2017 - Pannonia Fields, Austria - 17th June Day 4

Wendi's blahmusik

Who would have thought that a Brass Band on first thing on the last day would draw the biggest crowd of the day until Hasselhoff showed his mullet some 11 hours later? Playing classic German beer hall songs including the German version of roll out the barrel the crowd went wild. Crowd surfers everywhere and a man dressed as Pikachu climbed the sound engineers gantry.

Very enjoyable, some of the band stuck around looking justifiably confused watching Eskimo Callboy and wondering how they are quite so popular here.

Eskimo Callboy

Germany's answer to Linkin Park back when Linkin Park were still pretending to be a metal band rather than a pop act. Certainly heavier and definitely better than you would think. They should be thanked for introducing synchronised industrial party poppers to metal music.

I doubt the stage manager who had to deal with streamers that wrapped themselves around the stage's stanchions was equally thankful. We worried at one point that they lights where going to set them on fire.

Suicide Silence

Deathcore is not an easy genre for the first timer to get into. Hardcore ''suey" fans seemed to lap it up through. A somewhat strange set. Relentless chugging, one paced music accompanied by a deep growling screaming where, to the untrained ear, all the lyrics sounded like the words Donald Duck be repeated over and over again.

Then out of nowhere they ended their set on a Corrosion of Conformity ballad (what is it with deathcore bands and bad ballads: see Code Orange). Unfortunately the vocal talents of lead singer Eddie Hermida where stretched to breaking point by the requirements of actually singing. The out of tune result was a bit of let down to an otherwise passable 30 minutes.

Epica

Has a band ever been so appropriately named? Their 40 minute set was so epic it was physically exhausting. Combining a chugging metal sound with the theatrics of a lead singer who also happens to be an operatic soprano Epica made for a hugely entertaining symphonic metal experience. Although perhaps one better seen than heard. At one point the entire bands had their heads down, their long flowing perfectly conditioned locks tumbling down their faces and over the frets of their instruments. They presumably thought they looked awesome. They weren't wrong, looking like some sort of hellish shampoo advert.

Despite this the real star of the show was the only band member without acres of beautifully conditioned hair, the very follicly challenged keyboardist Coen Janseen. He started the show behind his keyboard on an remarkable rotating platform. Then he upped the ante by strapping on a curved wireless keyboard before jumping into the crowd yet somehow still managing to not miss a note. Extraordinary.

Hatebreed

Hatebreed are the masters of where most journeyman metal bands find themselves condemned to mediocrity: the breakdown. Not for Hatebreed. Whereas plenty of other metal outfits are satisfied with one paced, one dimensional chugging metal riffs Hatebreed feeds on their hardcore roots and mix up the pace, slowing it down and grinding it out, in some of the craziest breakdowns around with predictably chaotic results. This gig was no exception, with an awesome back catalogue and a front man who knows how to work the whole crowd and not just the pit this was a set for the true metal fan. Looking down the Barrel, In the Ashes They Shall Reap and Destroy Everything have to be three of the best live hardcore songs to witness live.

The energy was huge, the songs classics, the set one of the highlights of all of Nova rock.

Broilers

Really enjoyable German punk band with an occasional horn section thrown in. They must have been good as without knowing any of their songs or understanding German we managed to dance their set away. This presented something of a challenge as it was difficult to know when to point and shuffle at the right times, not understanding German didn't help.

Green Day

Green Day are terrible live. Seriously terrible. As a band they seem to have lost all faith in the quality of their music and have instead resorted to tedious bouts of crowd participation to liven things up. At this stage in their career I'm not even sure you can even call them a band, maybe children's entertainers might be more accurate.

No matter how exciting it is for a 15 year old Green Day fan to get on stage and sing badly in front of thousands of people, it is frankly really dull for everybody else. Particularly when you repeat the whole charade over and over again. It's like watching someone's Facebook feed for two hours where all they do is take selfies of themselves, except this time you're paying for the privellege.

We paid our money to see professional bands perform songs to the best of their ability not some teenagers who won the Green Day 'play on stage' lottery turning the whole spectacle into a school concert. In fact winning this lottery seems to be the only reason why anyone goes to a Green Bay gig these days.

Billy Joel's antics are equally irritating, since the band have morphed into children's entertainers he might as well put a clown suit on make some blow up balloon animals. Seriously at one stage I swear we were only seconds away from pass the parcel and pin the tail on the donkey.

This set was so bad we abandoned it half way through to watch Sabaton instead on the other stage.

Sabaton

Think Epica but replace the soprano singer and beautiful guitarists with less glamorous looking beer swilling Swedes. The lead singer was reaching for his inner Judas Priest with a leather waistcoat studded with metal plates to make it look like a body armour with a six pack. Although we all knew the truth of what was under there...Like Epica they were enormously entertaining if dealing somewhat with unusual subject matters for a commercial metal act. The song dedicated to the Siege of Vienna and Prince Sobieski's Winged Hussars is not a theme that you can imagine Motley Crue covering.

Sabaton rounded their set off with the lead singer downing his third pint and engaging in some good natured nipple tweaking with his guitarist. They looked like they were loving every moment of it and so were the crowd. At the end he thanked everyone from watching them instead of Green Day, he didn't need to as we were busy thanking them for not being Green Day.

David Hasselhoff

When does being ironic cease to be ironic. Perhaps it's the moment you get David Hasselhoff to sign your Don't Hassle the Hoff t-shirt. Your ironic appreciation just got real when you queued up to get that shirt signed. It's the same predicament that Steel Panther have, you can't be ironic for 30 years. Irony expires and from its ashes kitsch fandom emerges.

Confusing the matter further is that, for god only knows reasons, Hasselhoff is a legitimate pop star in the German speaking world. More people turned up to watch him at 12:30am on the last day of the festival on the Red Stage then turned up to watch any of the other bands that day. He even got crowd surfers, including the remarkable spectacle of crowd surfers surfing on top of crowd surfers, like actual surfers.

He has some terrible songs and tells some weird, creepy anecdotes like one about the girl who goes to his house and "asks to see the Knight Rider" some of that sleaze just doesn't wash off easily.

The crowd lapped it up though eve when he threw in a couple of crowd pleasing lacklustre covers, Dean Martin he definitely isn't. Bizarrely, considering all the talent that preceded him, he was also the only act to have an encore. He signed off with an advert for the Hoff Cruise, a 5 day cruise around the mediterranean with the man himself. The mind boggles.