Kavarna might have seemed a strange location to hold on a three-day rock festival only a couple of years ago, let alone the distance from the rest of the world, but now it looks like every single fan capable of enough energy to survive the battle with the constant puking, noise, alcohol and metal, is present here.

Day one: With extremities of festival life only beginning to show up, it’s hardly the peak day. People are adapting to tent life, only tasting the questionable beverages and food, generously on sale practically everywhere around here. You can spot sleepy metalheads wandering like zombies through the graveyard near the festival camp, but not aiming to exhume dead bodies and eat them like proper metal fans do in the imagination of stunned old local people, but to brush their teeth using the one and only water supply here. Parking lots around the graveyard are backed with vehicles, all wearing signs of being property of long-haired creatures that tend to bang heads on the echoing Pantera chorus “re-tarara-spect-tarara-wa-a-alk”. Some are smoking and laughing, others sleep in their own vomit near the tent. Beautiful, isn’t it? This is all metal is about, and we love it this way!

Tonight’s gig opens with Solaris, who promote their comparatively new album, massively recommended by a vague guy who’s going back and forth tonight, making sure he has asked every single person present to buy the new album. Not the best way to promote the otherwise not bad, but a little outdated prog metal that Solaris play with fire and anticipation. Good, we think, because this is merely grindcore, compared to what is coming up next...

B.T.R. are what you want them to be, depending on the case. Once they were metal, then turned to greasy pop only to experiment with sounds and bad hairdos. Tonight they fail to impress me again, albeit their cover version of The Crickets' song "The Taste of Time"В was good.

At 10 sharp Heaven & Hell (or Black Sabbath with Dio, as you like it) invaded the graveyard gate-like designed stage with aristocratic pre-historic finesse. Dark clouds were gathering over the thousands of punters who had come to the arena to see Dio, Butler, Iommy and Appice - the line-up that once recorded cult albums like “Heaven and Hell”, “Mob Rules”, “Live Evil” and “Dehumanizer”. No classic was spared tonight. From “Childen of the Sea” through “Die Young” up to the very final strike of the encore “Neon Knights”.

It seemed this unholy company managed to split the clouds so all the thunders and lightning freaked out miles away from the gig, but the storm could be clearly seen from where we stood. Be it the little devilish figure of Ronnie James Dio murmuring magical phrases andВ bathing in red light as he was the Satan himself, or the mighty persona of Tony Iommi, we will never know, but the gig escaped the rage of nature.

Unfortunately, it escaped the enthusiasm of the audience, too. It was weird to see people who hardly raised their hands in the air as they were forced to go to that concert. Front lines must have had great time, but some of the others looked like they are waiting for the end to have a big yawn and go to bed. To be honest, “Heaven and Hell” (the song) was way too long for my taste as well, with all these soloing again and again, but all in all, Dio is a frontman who really knows how to get a crowd going, so it was somewhat weird to see how a concert of a great band couldn’t touch the audience much. Shame.

Words: Stefan Jordanov

Photos: Victor Alexandrov

More photos are available in the GALLERY.