Hello music Lovers! It's me, 
As I am writing this post, the world's largest metal festival, Wacken Open Air, is currently going on in the holy ground of metal, Wacken, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. And as part of this is Wacken Metal Battle, which is an international band contest that was first held in 2024, participated in by bands from different countries, and for 2026, there are 31 bands competing, representing 31 different countries all around the world. The announcement of winners for Wacken Metal Battle just ended a few hours ago. Spoiler: our representative was the Online Fan Vote Winner.
But I am not here to talk about the metal battle, which has just ended, since Germany is a far place for me to watch the battle live. Instead, I want to share my experience when I went to the Numinous Fest 2026, which was held last June 20th, where Wacken Metal Battle Philippines was also held to choose the Philippines representative for Wacken.
Me as we just arrive at Numinous Fest
We arrived at the venue at around 12:30 P.M., which is just in time before the event started, but after 2 hours of travel, my friends and I felt hungry, so we decided to go to a restaurant to grab some lunch. But all the restaurants within the area were full of people, so we had no choice but to wait in line before we could eat. Because of that, two bands had already finished playing when we entered the venue.
Numinous Fest First Part
By the time that we arrived there, Bought By Blood was already on stage, which is the only local Christian Hardcore band that I know, and despite not believing unsubstantiated claims like religion, their claim of being heavy is something that they have proven as they performed. They also were our 2023 Wacken representative.
They are then followed up by Shvriken, who is our Wacken representative in 2024, wearing their distinct Japanese Sengoku Era-inspired samurai/shinobi outfits. Of course, their songs were also heavily inspired by Japanese history and folklore.
Next to them was Orca. Our very first Wacken representative during the 2022 Wacken Metal Battle. They play a dynamic mix of progressive metalcore, groove metal, and aggressive yet melodic modern heavy music with a really fluid shift between harsh screaming and clean vocals.
After the previous year's W:O:A representatives performed, they were then followed by some of the best metal bands in our local scene, such as VIE, which blends heavy, complex guitar work with dramatic and moody melodies, Tubero, which blends of brutal heavy metal and vulgar, comedic Filipino slang about everyday topics and adult humor, and Chelsea Alley, which plays heavy metal, hard rock, and metalcore music, featuring huge guitar riffs, driving rhythms, and vocals that shift from death growls to melodic choruses.
After Tubero's set had concluded, their vocalist came up to the audience to let them get some pictures, and while I did not get an opportunity to take a picture, I was lucky enough to be handed out their setlist.
Then, after some heavy tunes, we got a little break with Boney and Chocolate Factory, which were both Reggae bands. I recently got a renewed interest lately, as I listen to Aurora Wave.
And finally, before the Wacken Grand Finals start, Badwave Valkal takes the stage, bringing the high-energy skate culture in their performance.
Wacken Metal Battle Philippines Grand Finals
For the Grand Finals of Wacken Metal Battle Philippines, three bands were competing for the Championship, representing the three main island groups of the country.
For Luzon, we have Unhallowed Promethean, which I have a kind of some bias as a fellow Luzon resident, and since they are the only band I know of the three, as they served as the front act to Suicide Silence when they did a concert in the Philippines last February. In terms of their style, they play similarly to bands like Lorna Shore, featuring deep guttural growls, high shrieks vocals played with dark soundscapes layered beneath aggressive instrumentation.
Representing the Visayas region was Sentient Void, an extreme metal and metalcore band that plays a loud, aggressive, and crushing style of underground heavy music. If it's something, I definitely felt their stage presence the most among the finalists.
And finally, representing Mindanao was Forsaken Empire, who shows bone-crushing guitar riffs, relentless percussive drumming, and deep guttural vocals. And those pig squeals, I don't even know how they are forming those sounds.
After all the finalists finish their performance, we moved to the second half of the Numinous Fest to also give time for the judges to finalize their votes.
Numinous Fest Second Part
For the second part of the event, we moved far from the stage since both the long standing hours and the alcohol were starting to take a toll on my friends. I am actually fine to stay standing for far longer since I do running as my main exercise, but my friends do not have the same hobby as I. Also, we take it as an opportunity to look for our favorite bands and take a chance to have a picture with them. We succeeded in getting some.
Moral of the story, drink moderately if you do not want to be caught in my picture 😆.
The second part of the festival starts heavy again with many veteran bands performing, beginning Kjwan followed by Sin, Greyhoundz, Wilabaliw, Valley of Chrome Skychurch, Piledriver, and Arcadia. Since these were all veteran bands in the scene, that was more than enough to explain how great these bands were, because they were able to build their skills and audience through many years.
And then, we do have Overthrown from Singapore as the event's guest band, followed by Badburn, which is another one of our local bands. To my surprise, during one of their songs, Bulldozer, Thrish, the vocalist of The Bloody Countess, comes to provide backup scream vocals.
After that, there was a short break to finally announce the winner of the Metal battle. The second place goes to Forsaken Empire, and Unhallowed Promethean became the first runner-up. Sentient Void has become the champion and will be our representative in Germany. I'm sad that my favorite did not win, but since that was how the judges decided, I had to accept it and move forward to support our representative.
The event resumes with Saydie taking the stage. Although they were one of our local bands, most of their gigs for the past year have been all on oversees, so it was my first time watching them since 2025. So I took this opportunity to have a picture together with their front, Kat Taylor.
For the last four bands that perform, they were some of our most well-known local Emo bands: Fastpitch, Chicosci, Urbandub, and Typecast. So rather than heavy, most of their songs are on the gentler side, similar to a good palate cleanser to end the night and let my tired friends to rest.
And that was my experience going to the Numinous Fest. Overall, I enjoyed the concert from the beginning to the end, and we were all able to go home safely with another unforgettable memory in our hearts.
That was all for this post. Thank you, and see you at the next one!