6/3 • Sacred Reich - Heathen - Axxis - Nifelheim - Sorcerer - Neck Cemetery

6/4 • Blind Guardian - Asphyx - Grave Digger - The Night Flight Orchestra - Atlantean Kodex - Villagers Of Ioannina City - Suicidal Angels - Indian Nightmare

6/5 • Accept - Michael Monroe - Midnight - Night Demon - Artillery - Sulphur Aeon - WolveSpirit

[Dajana] In retrospect… I don’t know… It was a different ROCK HARD FESTIVAL this year, whereas I cannot really explain the “differentness”.

One fact: it did so well to be at an open air festival again. I guess, I hugged and cuddled thousands of people ;) More than ever, bands were rather secondary, especially, since the line-up was just average. Reasons for it are well enough known. I had my personal highlight every day (NIFELHEIM, SACHRED REICH, THE NIGHT FLIGHT ORCHESTRA, SULPHUR AEON), that’s enough :) But there was nothing surprising or new musically. Pricing around the festival was also a turn-off, but I assume, it will get even worse next year. The rainy Sunday was nobody’s fault and so was the second helping in matter of Covid.

The CCS security team seemed to have many problems too. I saw only new faces, employees with no experiences of such a festival, especially in the photo pit, when the first crowd surfers tumbled in (and got injured).

On the plus side – thumbs up once again for the festival organization team. Thank you for ROCK HARD FESTIVAL 2022, for the smooth orga around and behind the curtains. It’s great that festivals happen again. Let’s keep the fingers crossed that scene and business recover and fans get rid of contact avoidance.

See you next year! :)

[BRT] Okay. Summary. Splendid feeling to be on a festival again with all these crazy and loved people I met after a felt eternity, and to forget mad reality for a while. This all did so incredibly well and recharged battered physical batteries a bit. So I want it to go on!

My personal highlights were, as expected, SORCERER, VILLAGERS OF IOANNINA CITY and SULPHUR AEON. THE NIGHT FLIGHT ORCHESTRA was fun and MICHAEL MONROE the biggest surprise to me. It was a good mixture of bands, surely a billing to be on the safe side, which mainly was due to the (post-) pandemic risks booking overseas bands (as just experienced during the Detze Rockt festival this weekend, were Brazilians Violator actually reached European shore but contracted covid the day of their show).

But the biggest highlight of ROCK HARD FESTIVAL 2022 were all the people to meet after this long time. Organization was good, less chaos, relaxed people. On the negative side, all the positives afterwards count. Well, I think, sooner or later we all will catch that fucking virus. That this happened on a windy open air, whereas nothing happened during the indoor/club shows before is… strange.

[Seb] The bad part first: Even though we hoped to be rather safe at an Open Air, almost all three of us (and several other who were around) caught Covid. No idea how that happened, my suspicion is the beer stalls and the mugs, but it is of course pointless to speculate now. At least it looks like as all of us, while partially out of order for a couple of weeks, didn’t get too seriously ill, I actually did not even have to take a day off at work…

Covid aside, it was simply great to be/to have been at a festival and tell other about it after such a long time. While the billing was, of course, more skewed towards fans of “conventional” metal (and, if it wasn’t, the festival would probably never have been backed by RH magazine and become such an institution at all), there was still music for others like me: Not only were my upfront expectations met by the likes of NIFELHEIM, SULHPUR AEON and MIDNIGHT, the short-notice-replacement ASPHYX were an extra treat for those of us who are into harder tunes. And then there were some surprises were bands would be either better as expected or tolerable when they previously were absolutely not ;-)

For the already confirmed 2023 edition I’d hope for a more “traditional” running order format again: Maybe one or two bands more each day and in exchange less than 50-60 minutes for the “lesser” bands: An hour long set, especially when played by bands who aren’t actually used to play that long at festivals, was at times a bit too much and felt dragged out during the afternoon “sessions”.

[BRT] That’s a good point Sebi. I think, 30 up to 40 minutes is way enough plaing time for a festivals set, especially on an afternoon.

[Seb] Another thing I did not like, but is by no means the fault of the RHF crew: Some people seem to have forgotten how to behave at a festival during those pandemic years. I’ve got nothing against even heavy drinking and had my fair share of that in earlier years, but especially on Saturday too much beer and too high temperatures seemed to cause an somewhat aggressive “background atmosphere”. Or maybe I am just getting old and no longer used to anything after two years, could also be the case ;-)

Story • BRT, Seb, Dajana • pics © Dajana & Dajana Winkel • Photography