Being the very first band at a festival on the very first day, can be somewhat of a poisoned apple as there is a chance people don’t show up early enough or are still getting in the mood. But if there’s one band that should be up for the task, it would be the Swedish dark symphonic metal outfit Eleine. Personally, we think they deserve to be much higher on the line-up and more time to show what they’re capable of, as the setlist for their performance at Alcatraz was way too short. With fantastic tracks ‘We Are Legion‘ and ‘We Shall  Remain‘, they have some instant metal classics on their hands, and we’re looking forward to their assured rise to the top of the bill!

What a start of this edition of Alcatraz 2023! Wind Rose brought their dwarf metal and everybody loved it. They really needed to be booked higher, and they proved it. They do have more songs than ‘Diggy Diggy Hole’, but a lot of people came for that one. And it was amazing. Wind Rose pretended to leave the stage, but they can’t without playing their most famous song. So they did. Twice. One time the metal version and the second time the dance version. Everyone was jumping up and down and digging a hole and the day just got started. The feeling on the field was amazing. Even though they were just the second band on the prison stage that day.

Powerwolf as the first and true headliner of the first day of Alcatraz 2023 came as somewhat expected with a huge fire show. Playing a nice mix of old songs and new songs on the setlist, we were screaming along loudly on ‘Armata Strigoi’, just to name one. Or then new tracks like ‘Sainted By The Storm’ that the crowd highly appreciated. The addition of Matt Heafy of Trivium to come and sing the Powerwolf classic ‘We Drink Your Blood’ with Attila was also a surprise we did not see coming or had on our bingo card for the festival. Easily the best show we have ever seen from Powerwolf, proving that they more than deserved the headline position!

With ‘The Heat is on’ from Beverly Hills Cop as intro, we got a joyride back to the eighties with the Swedish hair metallers of H.E.A.T. With better songs, but less humour than Steel Panther, they treated us to Europe-styled, catchy hard rock tunes with more swagger than you can shake a bandana at.

When KK’s Priest was announced as one of the headliners of this year’s edition, a lot of people were laughing that despite the musical pedigree that is within this collective, a band this young shouldn’t be headlining. Are they even at a level that they can do this? Well, after seeing how they took over the Prison Stage on Saturday, there is only one right answer: hell yes! K.K. Downing gathered some excellent musicians around him, with most notably Tim “Ripper” Owens on vocals, and wrote some excellent old school heavy metal tracks that are simply everything you’d want or need from heavy metal. Their setlist was a great mix of KK’s Priest work and of course the obligatory Judas Priest songs that everyone there was waiting for. These guys simply know how to bring a solid and captivating heavy metal show, and we absolutely loved how they took this headline spot and went for it at full force, not holding back even a little bit!

Gloryhammer gave a magical show full of wizards and goblins. They played their hit songs like ‘Angus McFife’ and ‘Fly Away‘, and their new songs ‘Keeper of the Celestial Flame of Abernethy‘ and ‘Wasteland Warrior Hoots Patrol‘. The last one has a saxophone solo. We wondered how they would do that live, the answer was a goblin with a sax on stage. Amazing and great fun!

Perhaps visually not so striking as the goofballs of Gloryhammer, but in terms of performance and solid songwriting, few acts can match the veterans of Blind Guardian. Proclaiming with full confidence and a bit of tongue in cheek that they are effectively the best band in the world. This band really has it all. One of the most iconic voices in the entire metal scenes, complex but coherent musical composition with one of the best guitar work in the power metal scene, and most of all captivating stories which the music elevates with heart and soul. They ran through a slew of their greatest hits like ‘Mirror Mirror’, ‘The Bard’s Song’ and of course ‘Valhalla’ to a cheering crowd that sang along every word. We were truly amazed by the crowds. Guardian does not visit Belgium too often, but nonetheless a huge portion of the crowd sang the entire songs. Not to speak of probably the loudest version of ‘The Bard’s Song’ ever, which was entirely sung by the audience. What a vibe. Tolkien and Odin nodded in approval from up high. Hansi & co, it is really time to come to Belgium far more often.