HEAVY METAL MECCA - WACKEN OPEN AIR 2008!!

[varador]

Who else attended the Wacken Open Air festival in Germany this year?

I've been studying in Germany for a year now so it was pretty easy for me to attend the festival, I probably couldn't say the same for all of you who live across the pond. Still, there were quite a few Americans and Canadians attending, as well as a whole bunch of people from various countries in South America. It's a real pleasure to see how much of an international celebration heavy metal can be, and IMO no festival does this better than Wacken.

Once you're at Wacken there's this mood of extreme goodwill in the air, that everyone's there to have a good time and to party, and nothing else.... and it's bloody marvelous. Never experienced it anywhere else. You could just scream "WACKEN!!!" for no reason while walking past tents and you'd probably hear replies of "WACKEEEEEEN!!!" being yelled all around you There's plenty of Viking imagery, helms, chain mail, armor, and horns!! Those are the best, either for holding drink or just blowing a long "TOOOOOOOOOOOT" to scare away the Christian infidels (just kidding).

The moshpits are the wildest and most enjoyable that I've ever been in If you fall, people help you up immediately. When crowdsurfing, people are actively involved in making sure you get all the way to the front so the security guards can pull you out of the crowd and send you out I got some massive crowdsurfing action during Hatebreed (twice... this was the only band I crowdsurfed to), and it was ****ing awesome!! Also, if I was just standing in the crowd and some crowdsurfer was headed my way I would almost always get a tap on my shoulder from the guy behind me to alert me to the incoming crowdsurfer. If you don't see them coming you can get a pretty bad head / neck injury but this never happened during Wacken, which is quite a feat considering I spent Wednesday through to Saturday evening watching bands pretty much all day.

For me the most outstanding bands were two death metal pioneers - namely, Carcass and At The Gates. Both had been separated / inactive for 12 years so for me to be able to see them now is literally heavy metal history... It'll be something to tell the kids if they listen to death metal.... which they will anyway

Iron Maiden was the headliner this year and I nearly got trampled unconscious while watching them. IRON MAIDEN RULES!! (haha Metalocalypse joke ) No but seriously it was quite unsafe, at least during the beginning of the show. It wasn't so much because there was a moshpit, because there wasn't, it's just that there were 70,000 people all trying to stand in front of a stage that couldn't take that many people, so there was a lot of pushing/shoving going on, and in the end entire groups of people at front and center would collapse and fall flat on the ground from the pressure coming in from the crowd at the back and sides. I was lying under five men at some point (during "The Trooper") and I just tried to relax and believe that I'd be saved... and I was... but it was really vicious. All I could do was focus, try to keep breathing, try to stay conscious, there was no point in screaming for help if the five guys lying on top of me were already doing so. So yeah, I'm glad I survived that IRON MAIDEN RULES!!

So... in conclusion... if heavy metal means anything to you... GO TO WACKEN!!

[MicahC]

That sounds crazy. I'm definitely going to see that one day. Just....gotta save the money first

Dude, Nightwish was there. Did you see them?

[Dudley]

I was there!

It was my second year in a row there, me and a few chums rented a mini-bus and drove from the North-East of England down to Hull, got the ferry to Rotterdam and drove all the way from there up to northern Germany...it was quite a trek let me tell you!

I enjoyed this year a lot more than last, the line-up was a hell of a lot better but still poor compared to HellFest in France. I'm not a big fan of Iron Maiden by any stretch of the imagination but standing in a crowd of over 70,000 people who are all singing Fear Of The Dark together is quite a spectacular experience!

I actually managed to get to the very front railing for Carcass and it was one of the greatest concert moments of my life. Bill Steer is such an underrated guitarist and it was incredible to see how good his technique is and a big relief that after playing nothing but bluesy-rock in his other band Firebird for the past decade or so he can still shred with the best of them these days.

I saw too many other bands to really give any meaningful comments on most, but Autumn were surprisingly good and I bumped into their new singer out in the crowd after watching The Haunted and she's a an absolutely lovely person and a talented musician - I recommend checking out some of her work. Soilwork were disappointing compared to usual, the crowd just wasn't getting into them. Children of Bodom doing an impromptu cover of Jump by Van Halen and Umbrella by Rihanna was practically worth the hundreds of Ģ's I'd spent on getting to Germany and back alone :P haha. Seeing Cynic live was a bit of a dream come true as well, they're all fantastic musicians and the new songs they played were fantastic.

As good as all the bands are though, one of the best aspects of Wacken is the crowds and the sheer insanity and weirdos that you can witness. I lost track of the amount of strange stuff I saw but some notable highlights included: a Rastafarian man with balloons tied to his dreadlocks attempting to fly, a group of Roman Centurions charging around the campsite in formation to buy beer and sausages etc, a group of people who instead of bringing tents had brought scaffolding, wood and tarps and had made a 3-floor building out of it and then covered it in floodlights (VERY impressive!) and a whole horde of drunken people passed out on the floor everywhere you look. If you go for a walk into the village (Wacken is a VERY small country village with only about 1,500 residents, most of whom are very elderly) you can see hordes of metalheads dressed as vikings or half-naked with funny phrases spray-painted across themselves having very polite conversations with the elderly residents in their gardens over cups of tea etc, haha. Everyone you talk to, no matter from what country they're from, is incredibly friendly and good fun, there was never so much of a hint of tension in the air with all of the drinking that had gone on and I met some people this year who will probably be friends for life.

[OLIE_ROCKS_THE_80'S]

I'd love to go to one of those Wacken concerts one of these days!!!

[varador]

@Dudley: Agreed, Carcass was awesome. I think they should take the honors for quote of the year...
(After playing first song)
Jeff Walker (frontman/vocalist/bass): "GOOD EVENING HELLFEST!!"
Crowd: "HEEEEEY!!!! WACKEEEEEN!!!!!"

@MicahC: I didn't see Nightwish, it was the one band that I decided to skip in favor of taking a nap so that I could stay awake to see Kreator and Lordi later that night.

Later that night I watched most of Lordi's set but then needed to take a dump. I was taking a dump as Lordi were playing their finale Hard Rock Hallelujah at around 2:45 AM... that's really something, I'll tell you that, the thumping bass drum in the chorus shook the whole plastic toilet and made me feel godlike as I was dumping off one bomb after the other God Wacken is so much FUUUUUUN can't wait for next year

Cynic were indeed a pleasure to watch, perfect live sound and awesome musicians. The Haunted were fun to watch as well, it was nice to see the vocalist all fit and well, he was a funny guy. The last (and first) time I saw them he had a fever and looked like he was dying on stage. Children of Bodom's impromptu of Umbrella and Jump was hilarious indeed, priceless

[Nordhauser]

I'm missing Wacken by two days.

[andy7jem]

I've experienced a moshpit like you describe at one of the UK Ozzfests when Slipknot played!! Whole groups falling over!! Crazy stuff

How were the security handling the surfers??? At any UK festivals i've been to they say it's not allowed and if your caught more than once you can get thrown out!!!!

[Lefty Robb]

I would kill to go to Wacken, but then my wallet would kill me

Originally Posted by varador

Later that night I watched most of Lordi's set but then needed to take a dump. I was taking a dump as Lordi were playing their finale Hard Rock Hallelujah at around 2:45 AM... that's really something, I'll tell you that, the thumping bass drum in the chorus shook the whole plastic toilet and made me feel godlike as I was dumping off one bomb after the other God Wacken is so much FUUUUUUN can't wait for next year

Dude, that is some serious TMI right there..

[NeglectedField]

Yeah, I was there. It was my 4th time. If you spotted a crowd of folk draped in England flags, I was one of them!

On the Wednesday I ended up drinking and entire bottle of Jaeger and I tell you I remember nothing, all I have is my accounts of my friends putting me to bed like a baby (well, I was reduced to the state of a newlyborn), and dragging me out of my tent when I started to vomit. Cue worst conceivable hangover the next morning.

I most enjoyed Negura Bunget (they use 7s!), Alestorm (friends of mine, as I like to bragg), Iron Maiden, Primordial, Cynic (watch out for their new album out in October), Ensiferum, Opeth, Carcass, Nightwish and Kreator.

[Dudley]

Varador: I think the quote of Wacken has to go to Jeff Walker for saying, just after Angela Gossow had finished singing with them and Mike and Daniel were still on stage "Don't get me wrong...I still ****ing hate Arch Enemy!", or his comment to the guys in At The Gates...the fella has a sharp tongue that's for sure, haha.

Neglected Field: On the Wednesday afternoon there was an English guy stood next to me at the big supermarket attempting to explain to the rather friendly-but-not-at-all-English-fluent woman behind the counter that he wanted a bottle of Jagermeister for himself and then saying to his mates he was going to be in a bad state later that night if he drank it all himself...could it be you? Hehe.

Also, my mates band (Wodensthrone) just recorded an album with Negura Bunget in their studio in Romania and mentioned that they use 7s as well, it was a bit of a surprise!

[marijuana_kills]

Englandsa Bloodstock Open AIr is better then WOA

Wackens become commercial now with lame ass acts like as I lay crying, killswitch, bullet for my brain,hatebreed(LAME) playing.... its all about the euros now then supporting underground TRUE metal.