Rock am Ring 2024: A Weekend Review

This year has been my second year visiting Rock am Ring, planning to visit it next year as well. Five nights camping and four whole days spent at the infield.

WEDNESDAY - ARRIVAL

Arrival time was in the early evening after about a four-hour car ride. Campsites were muddy due to the heavy rains the days prior, but thanks to kind fellow campers we eventually found a space to arrange our tents. Even more kind staff helped us to blaze the muddy trail from our car to the tents, with the tyres of our handcart consisting of more mud than the actual tyre.

We let the day come to an end with a typical festival beer, some chats with our camp neighbours and anticipation for what’s to come.

THURSDAY

Starting the day easy with an energy drink, a few rice crackers and instant noodles, discussing how to spend the remaining time till the actual festival starts on Friday. The weather cleared, muddy paths dried off almost completely and the sun was shining leaving us with a little sunburn in the evening.

We decided to head over to the infield at noon to buy festival merch already before it was mostly sold out and made an excursion to the famous LIDL Rock Store. It features everything you can dream of - from air mattresses and tents to fresh pastry, snacks and of course the infamous beer.

FRIDAY

The first band we watched on Friday was the US-American metalcore band Fit For A King at the Mandora Stage (middle-sized stage), playing their famous songs such as “Breaking the Mirror” and “When Everything Means Nothing” amongst others.

A personal surprise for me was the beautiful singing voice of bassist Ryan O’Leary.

Next up for us were the Californian Cemetery Sun at the Orbit Stage (smallest stage).

Such mood boosters - loved everything about their performance! Played older hits such as 2016-released “Fake Love”, 2017-released “Piece of Sh*t” and my personal favourite: 2019-released “Fly”.

After Cemetery Sun finished we headed straight to the Utopia Stage (the biggest stage) for British garage- and blues-rock duo Royal Blood.

Already missed a few songs of their set due to the overlapping of the playing times of the different stages, but luckily still in time to see “Little Monster” followed by a drum solo.

In between we decided to take little eating and sitting breaks and watched the British pop-punk band Neck Deep at the Orbit Stage from afar.

I saw them at least three times before and felt like they used to sound better, but it might have been because of the distance and the boxes, but they definitely played a good mix of older and newer songs! To be fair I don’t really know their newer songs and don’t listen to them anymore, but I was very happy about “Gold Steps” and “Kali Ma”!

The second last band we watched on Friday was the American alternative-rock band Queens of the Stone Age at the Utopia Stage.

Actually I don’t listen to them so I was surprised how good they are. Loved singer Josh Homme’s attitude and guitar solos!

We finished the first festival day with the Ohio-based hardcore band Beartooth at the Mandora Stage.

Where do I even start? Singer Caleb Shomo is such an energetic performer on stage - the whole band! They are such grateful and grounded people, performing their live debut of “The Surface” of their newest album of the same name from October 2023, but also older songs such as “Disease”, “Hated” and “The Lines”.

SATURDAY

On Saturday we spent most of our day at the Utopia Stage, starting with the female-fronted pop-rock band Against the Current from New York. Singer Chrissy Costanza’s stage presence is nearly untouchable!

“Legends Never Die”, which they wrote for League of Legends, was definitely the crowd’s favourite.

They were the first band to perform on the Utopia Stage on Saturday so the crowd wasn’t quite as big as for the bands performing in the evenings, but the atmosphere was special nevertheless!

In the following hours, we also stopped to watch the German alternative-rock band the Donots, which I personally don’t listen to, but I love what they support and stand for and have to say: “They aren’t bad!”

Next up was another German metalcore-/trancecore-band, which is also quite popular outside of Germany: Electric Callboy.

I wasn’t a big fan of their music, but the way they interact with the crowd and boost the mood of thousands and thousands of people is incredible! After seeing Electric Callboy it’s nearly impossible to not be in a good mood and they also brought Baby Metal on stage to perform their new song “Ratatata” together!

The Canadian rock band Billy Talent was a surprise for me because I listened to a live performance on the radio a few weeks prior and it wasn’t good at all, but seeing and rather hearing them live changed my thoughts - they do sound good!

They performed a good mix of songs and of course played hits such as “Rusted From the Rain”, “Surrender”, “Red Flag” and “Fallen Leaves” at the end of their set.

Green Day as one of my favorite childhood bands was definitely a band I was more than excited to see live!

They played for a long time, almost concert-headliner length and performed a good mix of older and newer songs. It was also lovely to see how many parents-aged people watched their performance to sing and dance to hits such as “American Idiot” or “Holiday”. We left after “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” because the night was so cold and sadly missed “Wake Me Up When September Ends”, but it was such a fulfilling experience nonetheless!

“This song will forever be for my grandfather, Dr. Paul Schaper. May you rest in fucking power!” The dedication of “I Was Alive” by Caleb definitely didn’t only get me to tear up.

Finishing this very emotional but fun set with “In Between”, a singing crowd and lots of beautiful fireworks!

SUNDAY

It was already the last festival day, filling us all with a little sadness and exhaustion, but still enough energy for Californian metalcore band Atreyu at the Mandora Stage. I was super excited that they played Rock am Ring because I had to sell my concert tickets for last year’s December show in Münster and they didn’t disappoint!

Their stage presence is phenomenal, their interactions with the crowd are almost as if they are friends with everyone not even to mention their talent! They sadly didn’t perform a lot of their newest songs which are my favorites, but their set was quite short in general.

After Atreyu and a food break, we decided to take a ride on the Ferris wheel to see the whole infield from above which was even more stunning than expected!

Next up was “America’s band” Polyphia at the Mandora Stage. They only play instrumental and probably have two of the best guitarists with Tim Henson as a very well-known guitar player and Scott LePage. They were definitely my surprise at the festival!

Polyphia were directly followed by the British metalcore band While She Sleeps, also known for their very talented guitarists Sean Long and Mat Welsh. They played a lot of their newer songs such as “RAINBOWS”, “SELF HELL” and “TO THE FLOWERS”, but also older ones like “Four Walls” or “Silence Speaks”.

Their interactions with the crowd always feel like you have known them for years - superhuman people!

The last band during daylight was the German rap-rock-band Kraftklub at the Utopia Stage.

In my opinion a perfect band for a summer festival - mood boosters!

I’m not a fan of German music, but with them, I definitely got a new German favourite band to listen to!

They were directly followed by Italian 2021 Eurovision Song Contest winner Måneskin.

Singer Damiano David animated the crowd almost between every song, making sure everyone was in a good mood, playing English songs such as “HONEY (ARE U COMING?)”, “SUPERMODEL” and “I WANNA BE YOUR SLAVE” but also Italian ones like “CORALINE”, “IN NOME DEL PADRE” and of course “ZITTI E BUONI”. For “KOOL KIDS” they even brought a few “kool kids” from the crowd on stage.

On our way to leave the infield for this year, we stopped to watch at least a few songs of the Australian metalcore band Parkway Drive at the Mandora Stage. They played a good mix of older and newer songs such as “Vice Grip” and “Idols and Anchors”, ending the festival with a big firework which we heard and saw from our camping area.

Hopefully, see you next year, Rock am Ring!

Words and photos by Michelle Klinge

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