Report

Mystic Festival's Warm-Up Day Was More Than Warm

Do you find yourself wide awake in the middle of the night wondering what is the largest and best heavy metal festival is in Poland? Let me help you if you haven’t been reading all my hype leading up to this festival. The festival is called Mystic Festival and it takes place every June in a shipyard in the very scenic port city of Gdansk, located in the north of Poland. Warm Up Days in brief mean that there’s a reduced number of bands playing that day and a reduced number of stages. In summary, Mystic Festival’s 2025 Warm-Up Day had some heavy hitters in terms of bands, and a little bit of rain (you’ll be reading about the rain in every report, it was a constant nuisance) and a lot of excited metalheads. For full report, please continue to read on…

Mystic Festival Welcomes You!

The first band of the day and the entire festival for me was Alcest. I reviewed their latest album a few months ago, “Les Chants de l'aurore,” and even though I’m not their biggest fan, the album was really good. The same can be said for their set at Mystic Festival. They are competent musicians, they sounded great, but they were a tad boring to watch. There were a lot of Alcest shirts being worn throughout the festival grounds, so they were definitely one of the larger crowd draws on the day.

Alcest

The next band on my list was a band that’s been trending like a rocket during this past year, medieval heavy metallers, Castle Rat. I’ve heard and read the stories about their live show, and now I was about to see if it was just an exaggeration or something worth my time. The rain started to fall as they took the stage but I forgot about that right away because I was fully entertained throughout my 3-song allowance. Yeah, they’re gimmicky, but their show is unequivocally entertaining. At one point, a human sized rat came out of nowhere and joined the party onstage. I would have loved to stay and watch the whole set, but with my raincoat already soaked, I went to the indoor food court area to wait out the rain before the grunge guitar legend, Jerry Cantrell, began his set.

Castle Rat

Then rain finally subsided before the much-anticipated Jerry Cantrell set. He is obviously better known for his work in the grunge super-group, Alice in Chains, but that’s the magic of Mystic Festival, it’s not strictly a metal festival. The festival books punk, rock, and alternative, and EDM acts as well. This year was no exception and you’ll read about them later. As I made my way to the front of the stage, you could feel the excitement from the crowd that had already shown up early. For those that never got to see Alice in Chains while they were a live band, they were more than stoked when they played some favorites such as “Them Bones” and “Would.” Visually, the band wasn’t the most exciting to watch, but I enjoyed hearing those grunge hits live one more time.

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