Sepultura was not the headliner of the day, but they were one of the largest international bands that Rockharz had to offer this year, and a long and noteworthy career had secured the Brazilians a good evening slot on the Dark Stage.

“Was ist los? Gut? Geil!”
- Derrick Green (vocals)

A drum and other, none-categorical sounds was what got to open Sepultura’s show, and as the band members began pouring in on the stage, a loud and impressive roar shot out from the German audience. Derrick Green was the last man to enter, only showing his face when it was time for the first vocal line, but he still entered with such vigour and charisma that he got the voices of the crowd all worked up again after having died slightly down as the band began playing.
They shot off into a fast track, probably older one, which I sadly didn’t have time to catch the name of in all the excitement, and then moved on to Refuse/Resist which certainly didn’t sit any less right with the crowd. The tempo of the latter song had been turned up a bit from the original recording, but that actually only made it work even better in this live-setting, where people were crazy with moshing, headbanging, crowd-surfing – heck, practically every type of crowd activity you know of was present here, and in one big melting pot which was bubbling away for the sake of the these thrash/death legends.

The set went on to include both newer songs and older classics, all of which were positively greeted by the fans, and Green in turn did his best to show the bands appreciation of the country they were in by throwing a lot of short German phrases around, hoping that they sounded al right to his hosts, even going as far as asking how we liked his German (in English mind you). Well, having heard way too much German through the day which I didn’t understand much of at all, I could have done with a little more English from start to finish, but there was no denying that the locals responded very well to the idea.
Most of the show went to music though; Sepultura had an hour to play, and they were intent on getting as much as possible done with it. This made for a quite fast, and very intense show which left few not gasping for air as it moved relentlessly on, song by song.

“Herr Kisser, alles gut? Super!”
- Green (vocals)

Whilst Territory was clearly the headbangers favourite, and we all got to take a shot at some of the lyrics for Inner Self by ourselves, there was a larger, more unexpected trick up Sepultura’s sleeve this night; for the old Roots song Ratamahatta, the band invited a special guest on stage to play with them, a guest who was none other than Andreas Kisser’s son, Yohan Kisser!
While the idea may have been sound (or just a rip-off of what former member Max Cavalera does a lot with his family), it sadly fell apart on the reason that the poor kid seemed frightened for his life being presented to the large, German mass of people in front of the crowd. He stood as glued to the stage amps for the entire song, and whilst his playing may have held water (I couldn’t really tell who was doing what due to the sound) there wasn’t an ounce of actual performance in him. Kisser senior even left the stage for a while to guitar-battle with his young offspring, but the kid nearly didn’t even raise his head as his father was standing beside him. What could have been an interesting input in the show became nothing more than a sad let-down both musically and parentally, as Yohan Kisser clearly wasn’t ready for this type of thing.
Another fail, a much smaller one to any extent, was when Green shouted out for a wall of death for the last song of the evening, Roots Bloody Roots, but only got a mosh going. Well, “only a mosh” gives off the wrong image, as it was one large and wild mother, but it was no wall of death, that’s the point.

Overall, this was a vital, powerful and highly entertaining Sepultura which will not go down in the history books as something redefining, but definitely worth watching. They should, however, leave the whole family involvement to the Cavalera’s, and instead try and make up a trick or two of their own.

Setlist (incomplete):

Refuse/Resist
Kairos
Mask
Septic Schizo / Escape To The Void
Territory
Inner Self
Arise
Ratamahatta
Roots Bloody Roots