“ MetalDays have built a very strong scene in Slovenia, but the festival is simply so big that the number of visitors that buy the weekly ticket is lower. A unique, hellish energy that radiates through the vocal as well as the guitar sound and makes random passers-by stop, too. Progressive riffs and the concept of war themes left many visitors with the impression that they’re witnessing “the soldier who’s been left behind”. The Dutch band presented its 2012 album Deathhammer and the space under the small stage, a ten minute walk from the main stage, was packed full.

Give us noise!” shouted Martin van Drunen, the frontman of theDutchdeath/doom metal band Asphyx, on the smaller stage a few minutes before Volbeat’s performance on the big stage. “Tolmin isn’t that good for us, since they’re more into ’soft’ metal. One of the organisers, Boban Milunović, stepped before the crowd that chanted the band’s name and apologised, explaining the frontman was having trouble with his vocal cords. This time Poulsen completely unexpectedly walked off the stage before the chorus. The guitars played by Poulsen and the new addition to the group – a former member of Antrax – Rob Caggiano just warmed up when Poulsen started his sixth song by singing: ' Well, I've heard that the devil's walking around.' Heaven nor Hell, a song from the band’s 4 th studio album(before Caggiano’s arrival), Beyond Hell/Above Heave, that won fans across the pond, turned out to be the last Volbeat’s song at this year MetalDays, where the Danish soft metal band returned after its 2008 performance. We look forward to returning on stage, so that we can give our fans a good show,” told Michael Poulsen, Volbeat’s frontman, to MMC five hours before the performance in a fairly quiet voice. There’s no bigger compliment than returning so many years later to a sold-out festival.

There were a lot of other bands, too, and the audience was amazing.

' We were last here five or six years ago, it was a lovely performance. Volbeat left the stage less than 30 minutes into their performance.

Volbeat album names