W:O:A

Wacken Open Air

Wacken, Germany: 30 July – August 1 2009

Wacken. The Mecca of metal. The… ummmm… well, you get the idea. Its kind of a big deal. People know it. This year Wacken turns 20. Some may argue 21 is the real celebration, but 20 isn’t bad either. The fans showed their belief in the festival, with it selling out in December, long before the majority of bands had been announced. People may have been holding out for a mammoth beast of a headliner like last years, some band called Iron Maiden, but that isn’t normally the in Wacken style. Wacken has differentiated itself from the other metal festivals in europe by putting its emphasis on more solid line up, than headliners and filler. And this year was true to that.

With the press reception only opening on the first day of the festival, I was in the weird position of arriving on the first day of music. No time to settle back and get wasted the night before the bands hit the stage. After the mammoth hike to meet friends at the camping ground, it was time to erect the tent, and down some beer refreshments. One could argue alcohol hinders ones memory to write a review, and well, they are correct. But we all know Wacken is half about the music, half about the camping, and a quarter about the rest (metal market, Medieval area etc). That’s right, Wacken is 125% a festival.

The afternoon started with an hour hike through the town to get the press passes, seeing a lot of the locals out the front of their houses, just happily watching the crowds go past, the trip back was a lot quicker with some awesome dude giving us a lift. Kudos to you sir. The first night featured bands like Drone (they do ´Machine Head` better than Machine Head), Lacuna Coil, a never ending 2 hour set from Running Wild, and of course the Dio fronted Heaven and Hell amongst others. Dio is one small bastard, but he can still sing for his age, with his voice sounding great on the night. I was expecting a bigger crowd for them, but after they had started it was still relatively easy to get close without pissing off too many people. For those more familiar with their back catalogue, the show featured a mix of old (Heaven and Hell, Neon Knights and the epic I) and a few tracks from this years The Devil you Know (Bible track, Fear, and Follow the tears). Anthrax pulled out days prior to the festival after ditching their latest singer. With the beer flowing thick and fast (can that saying apply to beer?) much of the first night is a blur, except of course the ridiculously huge drum kit from the H&H drummer, but to his credit, he hit those toms above his head! Lacuna Coil showed the spreading of the Wacken wings in terms of metal genres, and Running Wild, well, I still don’t know anything of theirs despite it lasting 2 hours. A beer before bed was the finishing touches to day 1 of Wacken 2009.

Friday was my kinda day. It started with beer, and continued with bands. There had been crazy rain overnight, so the grounds turned to mud pretty quick. Walls of Jericho was the first band on my agenda. Extreme chick fronted hardcore. This was the first time I went “hmmmm there is a fuckload of people here (~75000) and there is no D barrier” that seems a bit stupid. So the band played and the front woman screamed commands in the way only hardcore bands can scream, and the crowd reacted giving her the brainless hardcore circle pits she so desired. Despite looking like she was having some form of muscle spasms, I’m pretty sure it was some xtreem hardkor moves onstage she was pulling while singing. Next up was the band Airbone, so I skipped them and left to check out the ´Bullhead city wrestling’. Turns out it was a typo and the band was actually Australia’s favourite time travelling band, Airborne. From what I saw at the end, the crowd was loving the guys though. Anywho, back to the wrestling. I was half expecting Olympic style wresting, but after the arrival of the dancers who were… well, lets just say it wasn’t the first year they been dancing onstage in such a revealing manner, that it became obvious this was to be American wrestling.

As fun as that wrestling is, there are some things that should be left to Americans. Like patriotism, Americans do wrestling the best. Seeing some Germans in terrible Lycra outfits seemed a little odd, and the few words whispered in each others ears prior to a move added to the amateurishness of these ‘wrestlers’. That being said, after a few beers the wrestling was fun, and the dancers appeared to be in their 20’s.

After the Wrestling and a nice feed and beer in the Viking Village, it was time to return to the music. Hammerfall were doing the best to inspire the crowd with their power metal, and multiple renditions of Hearts on Fire, or songs that sounded a lot like it. Following on from Hammerfall was Bullet for my Valentine. A band that had signed on for Wacken in previous years only to pull out due to the massive difference in their metal, and what is predominantly at wacken. I’m glad this year they stayed for the ride. Wacken never ceases to amaze you. During BFMV af father walked through the crowd towards the front with a kid on his shoulders, and very young daughter by his side, before entering the circle pits. That’s what you call good parenting! I digress, Bullet put on a good, opening with the usual set closer of Waking the Demon, and kept the pace up fo their allocated time slot. I was surprised there was no calls for a wall of death during their set, but more on that later. There were no slower singalongs for the Wacken crowd (All these things I hate, hearts burst into fire) but they did play a new song from their forthcoming album.

After Bullet there was a painful wait till In Flames. A few beers later we got in position for In Flames only to realise there is STILL in hour to go in the Motorhead set. What do you take if you have a shit band, and turn the volume up to ‘too loud’? Fucking Motorhead. I couldn’t decide what was worse, the music, or the pain to my ears as they upped the volume for their set. There is a chance he used to be able to sing, but Lemmy cannot sing any longer. This was one of the longest 75 minutes of my life. There was a drum solo in the middle of the set to break things up a bit, but I have seen mothers in labor in less pain than their drummer during the solo. Eventually they played Ace of Spades, and everyone is happy.

The crowd was so ridiculously packed by the time Motorhead finished, I was tempted to give my feat a rest by just lifting them both up and seeing if in the cramped crowd I would float or not. The lead up to In flames was quite awesome. A video, which at the start which could be mistaken for some ad, featuring a drunken man stumbling around his house, changing the station on the radio. Some more beer, some more scanning on the radio. Rather than having the frequencies on the scanner, it was years in the history of In Flames, and once this was realised the anticipation for their set grew even more… 2006 – Take This life, 2008 – The Mirrors Truth, 2009 – Alias, the scanning got to the ends, some explosions on stage, the curtain fell, and In Flames kicked into Delights and Angers. One of the most awesome starts to show I can remember.

I have to pause here for a second. D Barriers. As of now, it might be a novelty factor for wacken, being one of the biggest festivals in the world – and only one I know of – that doesn’t have a D Barrier, but Wacken needs one. It doesn’t have to be meticulously measured like roskilde, just a barrier taking up most of the width of the grounds to stop the crowd from pushing too much from the back. Its ridiculous to think 75000 can just push from the back. When Delights and Angers actually started, the only way you could mosh was if the person next to you was jumping at the same time.

During the first 2 songs I was in 2 big collapses in the crowd, the second time with about 150 people, and being at the bottom of that, lasting about 2 minutes is scary as fuck. A minutes OK, but after that people really start to panic. Without a D barrier, people keep pushing, the sides fall in on the people already getting crushed on the ground, and when the crowd surfers come in as well from the top and fall in the hole, its incredibly fucked up. Speaking to people after the show, I wasn’t even in the biggest crowd collapses out there! So minus a shoe and some possessions, I attempted to leave the mosh. This was even harder and I was wrecked by the end of it from trying to push the over -cramped crowd out of the way to leave.

I hope no one ever does, but if someone does die in the crowd at Wacken, they will be fucked big time for being so slack with crowd security, especially after everyone else lifted their game after the 9 deaths at roskilde in 2001 from a collapsing crowd.

For those who could stayed, they were treated to an awesome show from In Flames, with a solid mix of new and old. Following Delight and Angers was The Hive, Trigger and Cloud Connected. Only for the Weak made a solid return after being absent from their setlists for so long. Dead End (only the second time ever played) with Lisa Miskovsky taking the role of female vocals in the track, an acoustic rendition of Alias, the ever amazing The Chosen Pessimist, and closing with a bang as ever with My Sweet Shadow. I’m sure had I stayed it would have taken the top spot of best gigs from in Flames at Rock am Ring 2006. But it was not to be. Doro and Amon Amarth finished off what was to be an epic day.

Day 3 started pretty much like the previous 2. The checking of the merch stands. If you want a Wacken shirt you need to buy it the day before the festival starts. There is annoyingly only a limited run of the Wacken shirt with all the bands on there, and on the first day of music they are all gone. Seems like such a loss when they could easily sell at least twice as many of the shirts!

After a feed and beer, it was time for the trek to the festival grounds… this time in thongs. While bumming around in the press tent, we noticed a press conference going on, with a lot of questions aimed at what seemed to be a ruling of no walls of death at wacken to combat the spreading of the swine flu?! One of the most ridiculous things I’ve heard. Had I not heard it from the press conference, I would have thought the ever charming front man of heaven shall burn must have been taking the piss. Although not being familiar with much of their material, Marcus Bischoff does make their concerts enjoyable with his approach to being a front man, not the slayer hard man this-is-fucking-metal-and-we-need-to-be-boring-and-angry approach. At times pleasantly inviting the crowd in front to mosh along, but not wanting to sides to feel left out, extending the invitation to them aswell. Thanking the fan in the crowd offering him his kebab, but kindly declining due to being vegetarian. Marcus had asked for massive circle pit, and the crowd delivered… taking a speaker stand in the middle of the pit! After HSB it was a return to the press area for a few more beers and some of that quality meat at Wacken. Pain won the In Extremo/Pain clash, and although having a big gathering at the Party Stage, I was expecting a better reception from the crowd to their catchy as fuck party metal. Maybe they were just saving it all up for Shut You’re Mouth, as that was when the crowd finally joined in. Shame it had to be on the last song.

Volbeat. 3 times I’ve seen them in the space of 33 days, and with each listen the band has grown on me a little more. Taking the heavy music, clean singing approach to their music, maybe its just needing to be familiar with their music to make it more enjoyable. Despite giving it their all, the Wacken crowd was too drunk at times to sing along properly to some of their songs, which Michael Poulsen, Volbeat singer and guitarist was all too happy to point out.

During Volbeats set their was a crowd gathering toward the rear of the festival site to witness some quality mud wrestling. Im guessing they were absolutely hammered, as some of those hits would have hurt!

Final headliner slot of the festival went to Machine Head, who like In Flames, stepped up with a nice visual show compared to their usual shows. Watching this show from the very back showed 2 things, Wacken is massive, and secondly the massive crowd was getting into Machine Head more than I imagined. Putting on a better show than when I’d seen them 6 weeks prior at novarock, Robb Flynn was feeding off the enthusiasm from the crowd, with more calls for cricle pits, and more uses of the word fuck than I can imagine in a long time. Not in a bad way, but in a ‘Wow! Fucking wow! You mother fuckers are just fucking crazy!’ kinda way.

Opening with Imperium, and giving a better mix than at novaRock, featuring older tracks like Old, an awesome version fo the Burning Red, and finishing with the awesome ‘Let Freedom Reign with a shot gun blast’ of Davidian. After the massive weekend of music, beer, and long days, it was time for an earlier night with the even earlier start to leave Wacken and get to Poland the next day.

Other than the music at Wacken there is lots to experience. There is the already mentioned Bullhead City Wrestling, The beer garden with its own stage there, the medievil stage in the medievil village, with foods, beers, and entertainment of the medieveil type. The metal markets, stalls upon stalls of metal paraphernalia.

The facilities overall are pretty good. In the camping area they could be increased, but as guys just piss against the fencing, they don’t get that much use apart from the hike the girls have to take each time. If you are a European festival virgin, the toilets may be a little new to you. Generally they are long drops, a toilet seat, and  a big open space below for everything to fall in, which is cleaned often with a massive vacuum cleaner. If you get a fancier toilet, it was a sheet of al foil, on a roll, under the hole. I guess the advantage of this is not having to look at the shits of people who came before you, but it also means what you leave behind is there for all to see unless you pull the leaver to roll the al foil onto a cleaner peice. fun stuff!

Wacken is something you have to experience if you’re a fan of metal. Wacken always has strong line ups, some festivals will have better, but the experience of Wacken comapred to any other festival is completely different. And if its something you want to experience, you better get in quick.

Following in tradition of australian camping festivals selling out too quick regardless of the line up, with 322 days till Wacken, already 20,000 tickets have been sold, so get in quick, and dont miss out on Wacken 2010!

Review and photos by Scott Boelsen