Dream Theater is an American progressive metal and progressive rock band formed in 1985. The band is well known for the technical proficiency of its instrumentalists, who have won many awards from music instruction magazines. Dream Theater has sold over two million albums in the United States alone and over ten million albums around the world. Sharing stages with musical titans Deep Purple, Iron Maiden, Porcupine Tree, Megadeth and Emerson, Lake & Palmer (to name a few) has contributed to the rightful perception of Dream Theater as one of rock’s greatest live acts. Petrucci and Myung have known each other since before they were in high school. They assembled what would become one of the world’s most impressive musical collectives together with fellow Berklee College of Music student Mike Portnoy.

Sabaton is a heavy metal band from Falun, Sweden formed in 1999. The band‘s main lyrical themes are based on war and historical battles. This is heard in the albums Primo Victoria, Attero Dominatus, Coat of Arms, Carolus Rex and Heroes, in which all of the songs contain these motifs, except final tracks which are tribute songs to influential heavy metal bands. Lyrical content drawn from World War I, World War II and other conflicts is prevalent and includes songs about battles and leaders on all sides of said conflicts.

Slayer has influenced many of music’s most successful bands, from Ministry and Deftones to Slipknot, Sepultura, and Killswitch Engage, and continues to earn new generations of fans while staying true to its ceaselessly devoted followers. Throughout its history, Slayer has played host to many bands’ breakthrough tours, taking out System of a Down, Hatebreed, Chimaira, In Flames, and Clutch, among others. Slayer’s legacy is cemented in music forever, and the band remains undaunted in its directive to make punishing, aggressive and exciting music. Since their debut album in 1983, the band has released two live albums, one box set, six videos, two extended plays and ten studio albums, four of which have received gold certification in the United States. The band has received five Grammy nominations, winning one in 2007 for the song “Eyes of the Insane”, and one in 2008 for the song “Final Six” both from 2006’s Christ Illusion).

Avantasia is a German heavy metal/power metal super group project created by Tobias Sammet, vocalist of the band Edguy. In 1999 he founded his side project “Tobias Sammet’s Avantasia”, an all-star Rock Opera that would allow him to collaborate with superstars such as Alice Cooper, Klaus Meine & Rudolf Schenker (Scorpions) and members of other legendary bands such as Kiss, Mr. Big, Magnum, Helloween, Uriah Heep, Rainbow and many more throughout the years. All of his recent albums entered the top ten charts in countries all over the world. His latest Avantasia-release “The Flying Opera – Around The World In 20 Days” went straight to number 1 in Germany, Sweden and Austria! He has sold more than 3 million albums worldwide, he has played more than 600 concerts in almost 40 countries in Asia, North America, Central America, South America, Australia and Europe: composer and vocalist Tobias Sammet is one of Germany’s biggest internationally acclaimed artists in recent music history.

In the history of Heavy Metal not many bands can claim to be able to celebrate their breakthrough twice. Accept managed this in 2010, with their reunion record ‘Blood Of The Nations’; returning with a vengeance by charting all over the World and topping critics’ and fan polls in the process. In their home country Germany, Accept charted at an incredible #4 in the Media Control Charts. The newest Opus, Blind Rage, is the most successful chart album in the band’s long history. ‘Blood Of The Nations’ in heralded the modern era of Accept, and now with Blind Rage the band climbed the throne of the charts. With this pole position in the official German Album Charts and top scores all around the world the band breaks their own record once again.

As one of the leaders of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, Saxon had eight UK Top 40 albums in the 1980s including four UK Top 10 albums and two Top 5 albums. The band also had numerous singles in the UK Singles Chart and chart success all over Europe and Japan, as well as success in the US. During the 1980s Saxon established themselves as one of Europe’s biggest metal acts. The band tours regularly and has sold more than 15 million albums worldwide.

With 80,000 festival visitors, and including personnel a total of roughly 86,000 attendees in 2011, the Wacken Open Air Festival attracts all kinds of metal music fans and hard rock from around the world. The festival, first held in 1990 as a small event for local bands, is now one of the biggest festivals worldwide. Line-up: AVANTASIA, ACCEPT, APOCALYPTICA & AVANTI! ORCHESTRA, SAXON, STEEL PANTHER, HAMMERFALL, DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT

With 80,000 festival visitors, and including personnel a total of roughly 86,000 attendees in 2011, the Wacken Open Air Festival attracts all kinds of metal music fans and hard rock from around the world. The festival, first held in 1990 as a small event for local bands, is now one of the biggest festivals worldwide. Line-up: SLAYER, MOTÖRHEAD, KREATOR, HEAVEN SHALL BURN, CHILDREN OF BODOM, AMON AMARTH, EMPEROR