The musicians of a young German Metal band seemed to be fed up with the fact that it is incredibly difficult to find a place to play, so they took matters into their own hands and organized a festival of their own. The location was Dettelbach, a small town in Franken, Germany, and the hall was nice and very well-suited for events like this as the layout reminded of an amphitheatre. This location is perfect because even with a sold out event, one would be able to see the stage from any place within the hall, and the sound was extraordinarily good for a small event like this –- everybody who partied at underground events surely knows how bad that can be sometimes, and this was just the opposite.
It also has to be pointed out that the crowd was very friendly, as if they had invited all their Metal friends to the show. Prices for drinks and food were moderate, even CDs and band merchandise were available for very reasonable prices.
Unfortunately, the hall was everything but full with an estimated 150 to 200 fans present. For a price of 12 Euros for five bands, this was disappointing, although for the first time it would have been a surprise if it was sold out. It is always very difficult to start a festival, and fortunately the guys from Pyrolyse already announced that they will not be discouraged and will do it again.
The show started a 8 pm sharp, and Munich’s Free Key Bit Chess opened in front of a rather small audience that kept their distance from the stage, very much to the disappointment of singer Steiff who repeatedly invited the fans to come closer, but with little success. The cause for that was surely not the music, as the powerful Hardcore-influenced Metal was the right stuff to warm up the hall. Driven by a versatile singer/shouter, it had enough melodic parts to not be boring, and also a good dose of headbanging material.
Pyrolyse, the organizing band, entered the stage next. Traditional Heavy Metal with 80’s and Power Metal influences continued to entertain the audience. Although the differences compared to the band before were considerable, the audience liked them just the same. This was their home turf, and this was their crowd, so the fast-paced, straight tunes mostly hit home. They played a lot from their self-produced album Schizo, which was released in 2006 and sported German Power, but not of the Helloween kind, as singer Cherry Kellermann fortunately does not have such a high-pitched voice. Definitely a winner!
The hall filled up a bit during the Pyrolyse gig, which was to be expected as the better known bands would enter the stage next. The first one was Lanfear, who can look back at four albums that have made themselves a name in the German Power Metal scene. With new singer Nuno, they were greeted with high curiosity as a change in singers always influences a band’s sound drastically. Although Nuno was handicapped by the flu, he delivered a great show and made all the fans break into sweat -– though not for the first time this evening. The setlist had to factor in that Nuno was sick, as the band had to leave out several of their best songs. Mostly missed were the opening tracks of the last few albums: “Stigmatized” from The Art Effect and the title track from Another Golden Rage. Nuno’s voice is not as high-pitched as former singer Tobias Althammer’s, so he was unable to perform those tracks on stage on this evening. The 45-minutes passed by quickly, and the applause was enthusiastic. Overall, Lanfear was the winning band of this evening. 
The line-up of the festival was well-chosen, although it meant that Lanfear had to play rather early. Darmstadt’s Masters of Thrash Abandoned were allowed to play before the headliner, although they did not release more albums than Lanfear, and the difference in style made for a great change so that the bands of the dominating style – Power Metal – would not all play one after the other. Instead, Old School Bay Area Thrash influenced by early Testament, Metallica, and Exodus was unleashed upon the crowd. The very professional sound guaranteed the success of the double axe attack, where every note was clearly audible and made the hall bang in no time. Abandoned played tracks from their last two albums, and also from their self-produced release Misanthrope, which is out of print right now –- a fact that was cause for several disappointed comments at the merchandise stand, as well as the fact that only during soundcheck they played some impressive versions of Metallica songs, among them “Master Of Puppets.” Staff and journalists who were able to witness that earlier hoped for a complete version, maybe as an encore, but that did not come …
Headliner of the day were Mystic Prophecy. Again straight, often fast, melodic Power Metal filled the hall, which had emptied slightly, maybe due to the late time when the band entered the stage. Anyway, their show was the last bit that was missing to make this the memorable evening it was, even though Mystic Prophecy could not keep up the level of power compared to Abandoned beforehand. In this case, it was probably a disadvantage to headline the event, but still the audience honored them with more than polite applause and supported the bands selected by Pyrolyse through the whole evening with enthusiasm.
The organizers are already accepting applications for the next Against The Silence festival, and hopefully fans can expect some information on the 2008 event soon. If they can keep up this level of organization and fun for a price like they asked for in 2007, Against The Silence will become a force to be reckoned with in the German festival calendar.
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