Walking onto the festival grounds, we’re greeted by a massive welcome home at Reload Festival — around 20,000 visitors a day made their way to Sulingen, Germany, for 3 full days of the hardest metal, punk and hardcore acts.
The feeling of this being a homecoming is widespread all over the festival. Since it’s such a small festival, and most metalheads from the area have been coming to Sulingen for years, they’ve truly formed a tight-knit community by now, noticeable in both crew and crowd. During yet another European heatwave (the fifth this summer), everyone looks out for one another a little more, making sure everyone stays hydrated and out of the burning sun as much as possible. With a crowd mostly dressed in black, these certainly aren’t unnecessary luxuries. While the German metalheads are still going to be dressed in vests filled with patches of all their favorite bands, there also seems to be a little bit of a Wild West theme going on, enhanced by the festival’s dusty grounds. The sand and dust of the landscape, mostly the result of an abnormally hot summer, is being combated with bandanas, masks and more creative dust shields (there’s even a gladiator fighting his way through a circle pit in his own personal odyssey).
Nevertheless, everyone was more than willing to fight through the dry wasteland for the amazing bands on this year’s line-up. The festival is set up with two bigger stages, organized in a way that there’s no clashes between them whatsoever. Everyone gets to see everything, without worrying about missing their favorites. With the music being focused on such a niche market (everything falling within the realm of metal), there is bound to be a lot of overlap in fans for the different bands.
Every day of the festival started out with a fun band to get the energy up from the first minute in. The very first band to open the Plaza Stage is Wrestlemaniacs, bringing the theatrics with club-bashing and chair-smashing. The crowd itself even brought their own blown-up baseball bats to swing around in the mosh-pit as well. The second day brought us some early 2000s nostalgia with Alien Ant Farm to start with. The band with the hit cover of “Smooth Criminal,” which they play as the final song in their set, reminds us of the days we used to watch MTV to see our favorite music videos, which also included their song “Movies” for some of the crowd.
The biggest surprise of the festival might have been the start of the third day though, with an estimated number of 12,000 fans showing up at 10AM for the Vengaboys. This honestly might have been the biggest and earliest party a festival has ever seen, proving metalheads will mosh and crowdsurf to just about anything. The Dutch quartet states they’ve adopted a lot of families over the years, and they’re very happy to add the metal family to their roster. It’s probably the first time they’ve seen a circle pit to their massive 90s hits, some of which they even played twice for good measure, as well as a medley of some classic rock songs like “We Will Rock You” and “Final Countdown.” Their own “We Like To Party!” turned into the anthem of the weekend, and nobody could stop talking about how much fun was had during this set for the rest of the day. They’ve rightly claimed the title of Europe’s #1 party act.
The metal scene is usually very male-centered, so Reload Festival has some awareness policies in place to ensure it’s a weekend everyone can enjoy, so everyone feels at home and respected. This is also reflected in the line-up, featuring plenty of acts with women on the roster. A couple of them really stand out above all other bands, like Broken by the Scream. The four Japanese women challenge expectations of what a metalcore band should be, mixing their raw screams with upbeat melodies. You’ll go into thinking it’s just another gimmick, reminiscent of the well-known Babymetal, with the four women also doing choreography in between breakdowns, but the dances or outfits aren’t the main focus at all. Other stand-outs are the all-female bands Vulvarine, Thundermother and Kittie, respectively from Austria, Sweden and Canada. The women seem to have more fun playing with each other than we’ve seen with most other bands, while also being deliberate about their performance beyond playing their instruments well. These bands don’t have to be treated like a novelty, because even though some of them are still finding their footing, they’re lightyears ahead of some of their male counterparts when it comes to showmanship and entertainment value.
The trajectories of these smaller bands undoubtedly are formed by one of the headliners of the weekend. Arch Enemy has paved the way for them, as one of the biggest metal bands in the world, that happens to be female-fronted. After the departure of Alissa White-Gluz after 12 years as lead vocalist earlier this year, Lauren Hart stepped into the role earlier this year. She has some pretty big shoes to fill, but the moment they hit the stage, it’s clear Lauren is exactly where she belongs. The song “To The Last Breath” is the only track they’ve released with her so far, but all older songs on the setlist already feel like hers anyway, proof of how well she took up her role.
The entire line-up is filled with the best metal bands, but there’s also a bit of punk sprinkled in over the weekend. Highlights of this example are hardcore-punk’s best and brightest Stick To Your Guns and the German skate punk band ZSK, the perfect excuses for a little less headbanging and a little more moshing and crowdsurfing. Stick To Your Guns’ Keep Planting Flowers is a call against cynicism and its violently optimistic messaging proves a positive mindset doesn’t mean you have to lose your bite in the process, as can be seen in the crowd response to them as well. The same energy could be found in ZSK’s set, with vocalist Joshi opting to get into the crowd almost immediately.
A bunch of bands made their way to Sulingen for the first time this year. Most surprisingly, Reload Festival finally got the chance to see one of the most influential bands in metal history play their main stage: the legendary Judas Priest act as the headliners on Friday night. No wonder they’ve been on top of the metal game since the 60s, as everything about their set is absolutely spectacular in every way. The band is attuned to each other and knows exactly what gets the crowd going. They’re dressed head to toe in chained-up and studded black fits with the occasional touch of leather, playing with each other just as much as they’re playing to their fans. This was a masterclass of what a metal band is supposed to be, playing with the same authority and fire as acts several generations younger. They close their set with the crowd-favorite “Living After Midnight,” a great end to their start-to-finish immaculate set. It’s almost as if they’ve done this before.
Other first-time performances come from Avatar and Godsmack. When the Swedish heavy metal band started, we finally got some much needed rain. This didn’t ruin the fun by any means, instead the hydration made everyone feel refreshed and ready to party for the last hours of the festival. Avatar’s vocalist Johannes Eckerström enters the stage in a huge box, popping up from it with a single red balloon, a first sign of how much fun this set will be. Whenever bands don’t take themselves too seriously, it always makes for the most memorable and fun sets of a festival. Godsmack’s set a little later that night gets the same refreshed and festive crowd, finally relieved of the last of the heat. Highlight of their set is when vocalist Sully Erna takes place behind a second pair of drums, for a drum battle with drummer Mike Mangini, whose drums are moved to the front of the stage as well.
On the other hand, the weekend has also been somewhat of a homecoming for a lot of the other bands. Airbourne (who played in 2013, 2016 and 2019) lives up to its name, with singer Joel O’Keeffe flying all over the mainstage. The Ghost Inside, finally making their long awaited return since they last played the festival in 2011, sound especially appreciative about the crowd’s enthusiasm for them. The metalcore band’s joyfulness just spreads out all over the field. Lamb of God (also in 2007 and 2022) is one of those staple metal bands with a killer performance as well, their production so tight, you’d almost forget they’re not the headliners, and they would absolutely deserve the spot.
We close the festival out with a band that’s truly part of the Reload family, with earlier performances in 2015, 2018 and 2023. In Flames lets their music speak for itself, barely anything on the stage besides the band. The Swedish melodic heavy metal band is not afraid to take risks in order to grow, which is reflected in the song choices for their set. While they mostly offer their greatest hits tonight, they also played plenty of newer material, especially off their 2023 record Foregone. They gave Reload one last attempt to kick up the dust and release the last bit of energy left in our systems, before we get sent off by the celebratory fireworks show as a final farewell of an amazing 21st edition of Reload Festival.
Refusing to let the dust settle, the festival announced around 30 acts for next year’s lineup before the weekend was even over, with the first headliners Electric Callboy, Heaven Shall Burn, Children of Bodom and Skindred amongst the more notable bands, with so many more to follow soon. The first two price levels of pre-sale even sold out within minutes the day after the festival, because there’s simply no place like our Reload home.
GALLERY: Reload Festival at Im langen Lande Festivalgelände in Sulingen, Germany (August 13-15, 2026)
DAY 1
DAY 2
DAY 3
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