Loudpart 12 Report
Loudpark calls itself Japan’s biggest heavy metal festival and I guess that’s true with a capacity in the Saitama Super Arena of 30,000 people in the main hall and not to forget a huge foyer that fits another couple thousand people. The event had three stages, the “ultimate stage”, the “big rock stage” in the main, 30,000-people hall and the “extreme stage” in the foyer.
I arrived at about 9:40 in the morning and the gates had opened ten minutes before that. I checked out the goods queue and it was so ridiculously long that I gave up and headed straight for the big rock stage where at 11:15 one of my main reasons for going to Loudpark 12 would play, Norwegian prog metal band Circus Maximus. On the neighboring ultimate stage a guy names Christopher Amott was supposed to open the festival at 10:30. The big rock stage was already prepared for Circus and a few people had gathered at the front but I managed to sneak in and catch a spot in the front row to the left hand side of the stage.
The Amott act was a pretty lame festival opener in my opinion. His bassist was missing because he had lost his passport in the US mail (?) and maybe that threw him off line, but nevertheless it could have been more energetic and less “I don’t really want to play today” kind of performance – at least that was my opinion.
It was thus more or less up to Circus to open the festival and they very well accomplished that mission. It was their first time in Japan and you could feel that they were excited being here. The Japanese crowd is always super supportive and did not let Circus down either and Michael said that “we are amazing even before lunch” 
Circus played two of my favorite songs of theirs too, “I Am” and “Game of Life” and thus left me thoroughly satisfied with the gig.
On the Loudpark homepage had been an announcement that there would be autograph sessions with some of the bands and Circus among them. I have never been to an autograph session in my life and since I like doing new things that was a good opportunity and I had taken my “Nine” album with me. I should have taken the jacket only but had brought the whole CD, well, I’ll know better next time.
I had a bit of a hard time finding the autograph booth amongst the herds that still lined up for the goods but eventually found it. White-clad security people asked me whether I had brought a pamphlet when I wanted to line up, what pamphlet? I had brought a CD I wanted them to sign. It turned out that you were supposed to buy the Loudpark pamphlet and line up with it and let the band sign that. But myself and several people behind me had not heard of such regulations and since there were not too many of us the security guy let us through, which was kinda nice of him.
I chatted with some other people in line and we waited for the Circus. Only some 30 people waited in line and I was the only non-Japanese. This fact, of course, made me have to explain to each of the band members that I am German and live here for 12 years already. The bassist said to me that that’s awesome and that he’s only here for two days and wants to live here . I “revenged” the ‘how long do you live in Japan’ question by giving them all my “Dome Child” and “Siegfried” postcards – you never know what it’s good for
The entire band was beaming at the autograph session and again you could feel that they were very excited and happy to be here and be doing this. I asked them to come back to Japan soon and got a “hell yeah!” I’ll most certainly go to see the Circus if they come to Japan again!
With my nicely signed “Nine” album, I headed back into the hall for Dragonforce. I had missed Halestorm due to the autograph session, sorry for that. Before Dragonforce, a band called Hibria played, good sound, lots of jumping and bouncing. Right at the beginning of Dragonforce happened what I had feared to happen – mosh pit. Suddenly the crowd around me turned into a maelstrom, and sorry that’s just not my kind of thing. I fled from the arena, which was not easy and it took some two songs and a few bruises to get out of the maelstrom.
A bit unnerved by the run in with the maelstrom, I went for lunch and checked out the extreme stage where a death metal act called 1349 was playing. One of them was dressed as the reaper in a black cloak with hood. Man, that guy must lose ten liters of water per gig, respect. I next made my way to the goods and finally there was no more big queue and even a Circus Maximus “Nine” T-shirt left for me
I made my way through to the main hall again and watched the rest of Sebastian Bach and Buckcherry from a seat on the first stand, before heading down into the arena one last time for this day for Sonata Arctica. The Buckcherry guys surely win the contest for the most impressive tattoos of the festival, some amazing artwork on their bodies!
For Sonata I got pretty much to the front again but after the second song, major jumping and squeezing let me flee a bit to the back. Luckily, it was civilized enough to stay in the arena though and Sonata delivered a solid performance with great enthusiasm, especially on the singers behalf. He talked a lot in English between songs, thoroughly ignoring that most of the audience did not understand a word he was saying
That was enough arena for me for one day and after getting a drink, I retreated to the first stand again and watched the rest of In Flames from there and then the two major acts of the day: Helloween and slayer. One word to In Flames – amazing to see the maelstrom from above! The singer said something funny too, “the security guys in the front have nothing to do. They are waiting for you!” – encouraging the crowd to do crowd surfing. Some indeed managed, but the maelstrom was clearly the more preferred method of stress relief of the Japanese crowd
Helloween was pretty awesome German altrockers who still know how to heat up the crowd, they made us sing and me even headbang while being seated Very cool band with a great sound and the most impressive drum battery I have ever seen, one guy with four base drums! Holy lord. He was the only drummer in the festival who got a drum solo, and man, he deserved it. That is quite some machine he is handling there.
Slayer, then, of course, had the biggest and most impressive maelstroms to offer and I was very happy to be sitting save and sound on the first stand and watching the spectacle from above. Slayer made me wonder how four people can generate so much noise but it is not really my line of music. Therefore I decided to leave before the end in order to avoid having to line up for forever at the cloak and having major squeezing on the train home.
It was an awesome event with a line-up very much to my liking and depending on the line up, I’ll surely go again next year. Last but not least some, if amateurish photo impressions (taken with the iPhone 4 camera) – check out my Loudpark 12 photo set on Flickr.
