One of the great German festivals:
Summer Breeze Open Air
It's a cold now and there's a lot of snow...
Don't know why but I prefer listening metal in winter.
However, I'll continue writing about my bright memories of the hot metal summer days!
After playing at the festival in Spain we headed to London.
It was our first time to play a solo gig in the UK!
I'm deeply moved even by the idea that there's a civilization, and people living in the same age with us on the land thousands kilometers away from Japan.
And at the same time I can't help having a strange but happy feeling knowing that GYZE is a part of those people's lives.
During this tour we had solo shows scheduled in London, Belgium and Germany.
All of them deeply moved my heart, but I'll talk about them later.
Today I'm gonna introduce to you Summer Breeze Open Air that has been held for 20 years already near the town called Dinkelsbuhl.
Out of interest I decided to check the TOP 10 metal festivals in Europe.
1. Hellfest
2. Wacken Open Air
3. Graspop Metal Meeting
4. Summer Breeze
5. Brutal Assault
6. Metaldays
7. Frantic Fest
8. Bang Your Head!!!
9. Obscene Extreme
10. Midgardsblot
Living in Japan, most of us can barely find a couple of familiar names on this list, right?
However, I think we all have heard about Wacken in Germany and Hellfest in France.
And, if talking about Germany, the next fest after Wacken would be...exactly, SUMMER BREEZE.
As we already performed there back in 2016, this year was our second time.
After the reconstruction many things including the stages have changed but the atmosphere stayed the same!
Unique features:
・Located deep in the country
・Smells with cows or fertilizers
・Sunset is beautiful
・It's cold at night
・It's beautiful!
This is the impression I'm left with.
※This is our friend Matthias who was helping and driving us both this time and 2 years ago.
(and he's wearing Wacken T-shirt!)
And what is the most important - fans are really passionate.
And security guards are also passionate about metal.
The guards were dancing with the fans who fell down between the stage and audience area while stage diving! :-)
The firefighters who were monitoring the stage were shooting the performance with their phones.
I can't even imagine something like this happening in Japan so envied, just a bit. (Laughs)
And despite the fest being held literally in the middle of nowhere, a huge crowd came all the way there to enjoy music.
On our way to the fest site we passed a wide plain. I really enjoyed the peaceful view as it reminded me of Tokachi in our homeland Hokkaido.
Returning to the main topic, the fest - There was a so called Artist Area, where we could rest and eat.
There we met this year’s headliners -
ARCH ENEMY.
It seemed they remembered us so we had a short chat.
Among the festival organizers/staff for some reason was The Jörg Michael,
Stratovarius drummer.
As we're still newcomers, GYZE were playing on the smaller Camel stage.
Will people come? I always worry about that at the festivals.
But GYZE is a lucky band! 10 minutes before the show, it suddenly started to pour! And what a lucky coincidence, the only stage with a roof was ours!
And one after another, escaping from the rain, people started to gather in front of our stage. The rain finished, but there're
more and more people coming, more than could fit under the roof. They all came to see us.
And as you can see from the video on the right, we were blessed to enjoy that unbelievable sense of accomplishment. Our show was a success.
BTW, if you're not following us on twitter yet, here it is:
https://twitter.com/OFFICIAL_GYZE
It felt like we were accepted and welcomed by the country of metal.
After the show we had a few interviews. ↓
SHUJI is a big fan of Beartooth.
He was really happy to meet Denis Connor!↓
With the owner/main organizer of
SUMMER BREEZE, Achim ↑
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And talking about the original metal festivals, the one of Japan is LOUD PARK. ↑
And I'm really sad and disappointed that this festival won't be held any more.
I really hope that in future Japanese bands upswing, become headliners, and LoudPark will be able to invite many overseas bands.
Yes, will become like SUMMER BREEZE that welcomed us.
Ryoji
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