Fan Review: Rock am Ring By BlackChester

Wait. What am I doing here? Oh right… a blog, review, whatever… but for what? Rock am Ring 2012 I guess. So, where do I start?
I think I should start with the camp and the arrival. So, I was supposed to meet up with a friend near the Nürburgring. Well, he was a bit late, but when he finally arrived at the meeting point we got to the campgrounds at Rock am Ring pretty fast to get our wristbands.

The first thing we needed to do then was to put up our tents. But well…After we did that there was still a lot of stuff to get from our cars to the campsite, food etc and we didn’t finish until late that evening. But here’s my tent after I finally put it up!

We later had a barbecue and that’s how the first day went by.
The rest of our group joined us a day later so while we waited for them we just went for a walk around the other camping areas and walked by that giant festival poster.

When the rest of our group arrived we helped them unpack their car and did a little barbecue again. And yes, we already put up their tents the day before.
So here it goes, the first day of the festival and hell yeah was I excited for that Linkin Park show that night. When I got up pretty early I started to draw my flag, that a friend of mine, who won a M+G for that show, could give to the guys. So that’s how it looked like.

To explore the whole festival site we went there right when the doors opened and we checked the Center Stage first, where Linkin Park were due to play later that day.

I met up with my friends Romain and Alex from France who were waiting in the second row that time but later got to the first row!
After that my friend and I checked where he had to meet up for the LPUnderground M+G and we found Adam and Cory from the LP Crew who were just about to put up the Music For Relief Tent. Adam recognized me immediately and Cory was happy to see me wearing my black Music For Relief t-shirt.

After a short talk and the promise, that my flag will go on stage that night, we went on to the Alterna Stage where Steel Panther were about to start, and oh my god they were hilarious.
During Trivium we made our way back near the Center Stage and I wanted to get back to Zone A so I could get the best experience from the Linkin Park gig, but it seemed almost impossible to get there, so after we got to Zone B we went back to the Music For Relief tent where some of my friends worked for them that day.
After the The Subways set I tried to get back to Zone A, but again only made it to Zone B, so I stayed there during Cypress Hill but I really wasn’t happy with that situation. When I went back to try to get further again, they suddenly let around 50 people in Zone A and luckily I was one of them. Sadly my friend got left behind in Zone B, but he got a Meet + Greet so he got to Zone A after that.
Happy as I could be, I watched Kasabian, Gossip and really enjoyed Soundgarden and was pretty hyped for Linkin Park then. When the stage got prepared I almost freaked out, when they really put up my flag.

During the show I got closer and closer to the stage ‘til I was in the third row, I guess, when Chester got in the crowd and I got even further due to the crowd pressure. But all in all the crowd was pretty lame, many of them didn’t even know the words to With You or Runaway and days later people told me that Linkin Park played way to much new stuff although the set mainly consisted of Hybrid Theory and Meteora songs.

After the show was finished I met up with Romain and Alex again and I got something to drink and a pick from Maurice, because he recognized me when I called for him, when I saw him on stage.

My phone went dead so I couldn’t meet up with the rest on my group so I just went back to our tents because I was pretty tired and went to bed when the rest arrived.
The next two days kinda passed by, although Shinedown, Tenacious D, Billy Talent and Metallica did great shows that Saturday, but the crowd was as lame as on Friday. The only band, that really made that crowd go crazy were Die Toten Hosen on Sunday and I’m pretty sad and sorry for the other bands who didn’t really get the awesome crowds Rock am Ring usually has. But all in all it was a great weekend of concerts, although we all got pretty wet on Sunday when it rained from the first Band ‘til The Offspring and I was so glad, that I had dry clothes in my car when I came back from the last show and went home.
What’s next now? The story is not over yet, it’ll continue with a little road trip to Berlin, one of the reasons I left Rock am Ring on Sunday night, stay tuned.

Adie: Thanks so much to BlackChester for this great review! Awesome pictures and great flag! It just sucked that the crowd was so lame, but I’ve also heard that they weren’t any different during the other bands’ sets.
BlackChester is so nice to write us another review of Linkin Park’s show in Berlin, so stay tuned! In case you don’t know, BlackChester is the admin of BlackChester.de, one of the leading German Linkin Park fansites, so click the banner below to check it out! You should know German though…;-)