The Heaviest Metals

“So, what do you say? We set up three stages, call up 28 bands and we’re done?” Oh, if only reviving the Mystic Festival had been so simple! The process of bringing back the event which hosted bands such as Iron Maiden, Slayer, Nightwish and Behemoth in the early days of the 21st century in Silesia was far more complex. Following a few years of plotting and scheming, bosses of the Mystic label, promoter Knock Out and the Gdańsk club B90 decided to bring back the celebration of heavy sounds to the capital of Małopolska. On 25 and 26 June, the main festival stage at Tauron Arena Kraków resounds with different flavours of heavy sounds: nu metal (Slipknot), power metal (Sabaton) and symphonic metal (Within Temptation). The stage at the Polish Aviators’ Park features artists including In Flames from Sweden presenting melodic death metal and King Diamond, bringing his incredible vocal range from Denmark. The headliners of The Shrine stage in the carpark are the Polish project Batushka exploring Russian Orthodox religion and the influential death metallers Immolation from New York. (Bartosz Suchecki, “Karnet”)