That was Sinner Rock 2023

Once a year it gets very loud in a small, idyllic village in Hesse with a population of 1,200. The SinnerRock Festival has been taking place annually in Altengronau in the Main-Kinzig district since 2018. Organized by Renate and Steve Iorio and supported by the entire community. This year the festival was expanded to a third day and this was completely dedicated to all the powerful women in the world and featured completely female-fronted bands.

Power Women Day Kickoff

On Thursday, September 7th, SinnerRock opened a day earlier than usual this year and with four female-fronted bands, there was a lot of volume and at the same time a fight against sexism, racism and all forms of unequal treatment.

The bands

Brunhilde was the first act to open the festival at 7 p.m. The Fürth quartet around front woman Carolin Loy has been active since 2013 and the name is taken from Quentin Tarantino's “Django Unchained”. Her debut “Dollhouse” was released in 2015 and her fourth album “27” was released last year. With their sound mix of The Pretty Reckless, Guano Apes or Skunk Anansie, but with their very own stamp, Brunhilde whirl across the SinnerRock main stage and deliver concentrated power for an hour and inspire the large audience from the start.

After a short break, the Dutch Happy Hardorcker from The Dirty Denims took over the stage. The Dirty Denims have two power women in their ranks: singer, guitarist and organizer Mirjam Sieben and drummer and singer Suzanne Driessen. The quartet spices up their happy hard rock with a touch of punk and lots of fun. Since the 2014 debut album “High Five”, two more studio albums and two live albums have been released. From the second song onwards, Mirjam's fans were encouraged to join in and they sang along and rocked along.

The third and penultimate band on the opening day were the veterans of Exilia around front woman Masha Mysmane. Founded in Milan in 1993, Exilia achieved their international breakthrough in 2004 with their second album “Unleashed” and have been a constant ever since with their mix of NuMetal, crossover and punk. “Heroes and Dust”, the Italians’ 7th album, was released this year. And so Exilia started straight away with their classic “Underdog” and mixed songs from then to now in their set and swept, jumped and headbanged from one end to the other end of the stage. After 60 minutes, Exilia also finished their set and gave way to the last band of the day.

The band League of Distortion concluded Power Women Day on the first day of SinnerRock. The band was founded in 2020 by Exit Eden singer Anna Brunner and Kissin' Dynamite guitarist Jim Müller during the pandemic. The quartet's self-titled debut album with 10 songs was released last November. The band impresses with their dark and hard modern metal/metalcore and power through the entire set and also use the entire stage without standing still. Frontwoman Anna captivates all fans with her great and unique voice and a cover of Disturbed's “Down with the sickness” also gets the League of Distortion touch and makes fans and band jump and headbang.

The Festival

All Power Women Day bands (but also all bands in general) took time for fans before and/or after their performances at the merch stands or on the festival grounds and diligently signed autographs and posed for photos with the fans. Two more female fronted bands were also featured on Saturday: the alternative rockers Darcys Fault from Fulda and the modern metallers Enemy Inside from Aschaffenburg. There were also many powerful women behind the scenes who make this family festival possible. There were many hard-working helpers at the counters, the merchandise stands, at the Red Cross and in many other places. At this point we would also like to highlight Renate and Steve Iorio, who are both musicians themselves and are at the forefront of organizing this festival. Renate is originally from Australia and Steve from the USA and the couple has lived in Altengronau since 2017.

We hope that this festival will continue for a long time and that it will continue to be so well supported by the community and the bands.