Three days, three stages, 80,000 people a day and one very smug Eddie. Rock im Park’s 30th edition turned Nuremberg’s Zeppelinfeld into the beating heart of European heavy music, and we were there for every sunburnt, beer-soaked second of it.

Photos by Megan Hasberger (@intoxicated.scp)

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Thirty editions in, and Rock im Park still knows exactly what it is. The southern twin of Rock am Ring rolled into Nuremberg’s Zeppelinfeld from 5 to 7 June completely sold out, with around 80,000 punters a day descending on the historic fairgrounds by the Dutzendteich. The bill read like a fever dream curated by every version of yourself since 2004: Linkin Park, Iron Maiden and Volbeat up top, with the new school of Bad Omens, Electric Callboy and a frankly absurd undercard snapping at their heels across the Utopia, Mandora and Orbit stages. Amped packed the cameras, dusted off the GCSE German, and got stuck in.

Friday on the Utopia Stage belonged, early doors at least, to The Pretty Reckless. Taylor Momsen and co. drew a colossal crowd for 2pm, and with fifth album Dear God landing on 26 June, the New Yorkers had plenty to prove. They didn’t need long. For I Am Death sounded enormous in the afternoon sun, all doom-laden swagger and that voice, while the likes of Heaven Knows and Take Me Down reminded everyone that nobody does big, bluesy, arena-sized rock quite like this band. Consider our appetite for the new record well and truly whetted.

Then came the chaos. Electric Callboy are a band who treat the phrase “festival set” as a personal challenge, and their early-evening slot before Volbeat was less a gig and more a 75-minute cardio session with pyro. Hypa Hypa and We Got the Moves did their usual demolition work, RATATATA had the entire Zeppelinfeld bouncing like it was a Babymetal co-headline, and their cover of Sum 41’s Still Waiting hit the elder millennials right in the sternum. With new album TANZNEID on the way, the Germans rolled out fresh material to a home-soil crowd that received every drop like gospel. Throw in a drum solo medley and the now-traditional Electric Bassboy interlude, and you have one of the most purely entertaining sets of the weekend. Nobody, and we mean nobody, parties like Castrop-Rauxel’s finest.

Friday’s late-night sleeper hit, though, came over on the Orbit Stage. Basement at 10:20pm felt almost illicitly good. Having caught the Ipswich lot in the sweat-dripping confines of Leake Street earlier this year, seeing Covet and Whole ring out across a German festival field as the temperature finally dropped was a different kind of special. Andrew Fisher remains one of UK alternative’s most quietly magnetic frontmen, and the band’s grunge-soaked melancholy proved the perfect comedown before Palaye Royale took the baton into the small hours.

Our Saturday kicked off with a shot of eyeliner-streaked nostalgia turned thrillingly current. Black Veil Brides hit the Utopia Stage at 1:55pm armed with Vindicate, their seventh album barely a month old, and crammed a remarkable amount into 50 minutes. Knives and Pens sent the elder emos feral, while the new material (Bleeders, Hallelujah, Certainty and the title track among them) sounded leaner and meaner than the band have in years. Andy Biersack worked the colossal early crowd like the showman he’s always been, and with Download looming this weekend, UK fans are in for a treat.

Hollywood Undead followed and did precisely what Hollywood Undead do: turned a metal festival into a block party. The LA masked men have been festival-circuit certified for the best part of two decades now, and the one-two of Everywhere I Go and Bullet into a closing Undead had the Utopia field grinning, jumping and rapping along in unison. Subtle? Absolutely not. Effective? Devastatingly.

But Saturday, and arguably the entire weekend, belonged to Iron Maiden. The Run For Your Lives tour celebrates 50 years of the institution by mining only the first nine albums, and on this evidence, it’s the best decision the band have made in decades. Walking on to UFO’s Doctor Doctor and The Ides of March before tearing into Murders in the Rue Morgue, Bruce Dickinson and co. delivered two hours and five minutes of pure heavy metal theatre. Eddie stalked the stage during Killers and The Trooper, Rime of the Ancient Mariner unfolded in all its 13-minute glory, and Infinite Dreams, resurrected on this tour for the first time since 1988, was met like a returning deity. By the time Churchill’s Speech ushered in an encore of Aces High, Fear of the Dark and Wasted Years, with the entire Zeppelinfeld singing every melody back at the stage, it was hard to argue with 80,000 people’s conclusion: half a century in, Maiden remain untouchable. The Monty Python outro of Always Look on the Bright Side of Life felt like the cheekiest mic drop in metal.

Sunday demanded an early start, and Loathe made it worth every minute of lost sleep. Opening the Mandora Stage at 12:50pm, the Liverpool crew brought their shapeshifting blend of crushing metal and shoegaze haze to a crowd that grew visibly by the song. Kadeem France, fresh off that unhinged Knocked Loose cameo at Slam Dunk a fortnight ago, remains one of the most compelling vocalists in heavy music, swinging from feral screams to Deftones-worthy croons without breaking stride. Two Way Mirror in a sun-drenched German field is an experience we’d recommend to anyone. The best band on the bill before lunchtime, no contest.

Over on the Orbit Stage, Magnolia Park flew the flag for the genre-agnostic future. The Orlando outfit’s mix of pop-punk bounce, trap-tinged breakdowns and outright pop hooks shouldn’t work on paper, and absolutely does in practice. Joshua Roberts is a frontman built for festival stages, and the mid-afternoon crowd, a healthy blend of curious metalheads and day-one fans, left thoroughly converted. In a weekend stacked with legacy, Magnolia Park felt like a glimpse of where all of this goes next.

By the time Linkin Park brought the curtain down on Sunday night, the 30th Rock im Park had made its case emphatically. A sold-out site, a lineup that collided five decades of heavy music without ever feeling like a museum piece, and an atmosphere that only a city-centre festival with this much history can conjure. The beer was cold, the sunburn was biblical, and the Zeppelinfeld delivered once again.

Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got about 36 hours to recover before we do it all again at Donington. Download, we’re coming for you.