Five Bands I’m Excited To See At Mystic Festival

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Five Bands I’m Looking Forward To Seeing Most At Mystic Festival 2025

Mystic Festival is just around the corner and I’m getting hyped. This will be my fourth year in a row attending this underrated and severely overlooked metal festival that takes place in the northern port city of Gdansk, Poland. If you’re not familiar with this festival, do a quick Google search and read for yourself why this festival needs to be mentioned alongside the summer heavyweights like Brutal Assault, Wacken, Hellfest and Download. Mystic festival may not have the eye popping number of attendees and sheer amount of bands as those aforementioned festivals, but in just about every other comparison, Mystic Festival either holds its ground or just dominates those festivals.

Are you curious now? Did I get your attention?

To say I’m excited to start my journey to Gdansk is an understatement. Now it’s time to name my top 5 bands I’m most looking forward to seeing at this year’s festival (in no particular order…).

1. Blood Fire Death – A Tribute To Quorthon And The Music Of Bathory – A supergroup composed of members of Watain, Aura Noir, Mayhem, Emperor, and Enslaved will honor the late Quorthon of one of the most legendary black metal bands of all time, Bathory. This tribute band of sorts is doing a limited run of shows and Mystic Festival is one of them!

2. Pentagram – Need I write more? Seriously, I can’t wait to see the crowd’s reaction to the meme lord, Bobby Liebling. You just never know what that dude is going to do onstage at any given time.

3. Castle Rat – I’ve never seen them before, but I’ve read all the hype about their live shows and alleged controversies. I’m not even going to check out a video on YouTube before going, I just want to be surprised either way.

4. Sepultura – I don’t give a rat’s ass that there’s no Max or Igor Cavalera. This version of the band is calling it a day and I want to pay my respects to them. Until a miracle ensues where Max, Igor, Andreas and Paulo Jr. get together on the same stage again, this is it for me.

5. W.A.S.P. – Another controversial band (are you noticing a patter here?) that is guaranteed to attract a huge audience at Mystic Festival. Even if Blackie Lawless lip-syncs “I Wanna Be Somebody,” I will fucking-a-right be singing the chorus out loud along with everyone else. W.A.S.P. and Mystic Festival is a match made in hell.

So, there’s my list. I’ll be covering the festival this year so be on the lookout for daily posts on our Facebook page, Road Reports and Photo Galleries.

If anyone reading this is going to Mystic Festival this year, I would love to read your top 5 list as well in the comments section!

Metal isn’t just a type of music, it’s a lifestyle for Nikos Mixas. In addition to playing guitar for the Phoenix’s own Mosara, he’s a contributing writer for V13 and The Sludgelord. And when he’s taking a break from it all and on vacation, you can almost be certain he’s banging his head at a metal festival somewhere interesting.