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Wacken Open Air 2005

2005-08-22
Stadt / City Wacken 
Land / Country Germany 
Web www.wacken.com
 
Veranstaltungsort:
Location
 
Datum / Date04-06. AUG 2005 
Bildergalerie / Picturegalerie wacken2005 
Photos: Diana Nitschke, Torsten Volkmer, Dajana Schweickert, Melanie Haack, Stephan Grunwald 

More than 35´000 metal-fans celebrated over 70 bands for 3 days on the first weekend in August and put the 2000-resident-village of Wacken to a state of emergency for the 16th time despite the torrential rain. After a short while the whole festival-site resembled a giant mudhole.



The organizers arranged for a solid ground at least partly with more than 200 bales of straw. But Wacken and slobber – fits somehow! From all Europe and even Japan friends of heavy sounds pilgrimmed to Schleswig-Holstein. Wacken has long been the yearly site of pilgrimage for metalheads.


THURSDAY




OOMPH! – True metal stage



It´s been 10 years since they last played in the 2000-resident-village in Schleswig-Holstein. Neither then nor now they are one of the typical Wacken-bands. As Co-headliner on Thursday they nevertheless put up a pretty rocking show – even though a few watched the gig rather discontentedly. The bigger part of the crowd, however, partied with the band who was as usual clad in white straitjackets. Fittingly, frontman Dero raged over the stage like a nutjob, jumped around, stuck his tongue out and had the look of a madman. They played powerfully and stirring like opener “Wenn Du Weinst” from their latest album “Wahrheit und Pflicht”. The crowd didn´t know every word by heart like at last year´s M´era Luna festival but to their chart-success “Augen auf” everyone was shouting along. Summary: They solved a not easy task pretty well. The reaction of the crowd was better than many expected. Only one thing was missing: No sounds of their song “Das weiße Licht”.


NIGHTWISH – True metal stage



Actually Nightwish nowadays have a thankless task when they are onstage – at least at festivals. Their concerts during regular tours become more and more bombastic, the sound is nearly perfect as everything else too – what is left for a festival performance? I´ll just say this much: It was worth it again.




Still, the atmosphere of the music simply unfolds better in big clubs or halls. It was sad that the guitar went a bit unnoticed and there was no song from the album “Oceanborn” on the setlist. Anyway, the Finns lived up the expectations on this first day of the festival and even friends of pyrotechnics had their fun. The Finns performed a wide range of songs but of course some fan favourites had to be neglected because the gig had to end at some point. Older songs like “Kinslayer”, “Wishmaster”, “Over the Hills and Far Away” alternated with newer material like “Nemo” and “Wish I had An Angel”. After all together 14 songs great fireworks closed the last concert of the day and sent the festival-goers back to the beerstands.


FRIDAY



NAGLFAR – Black stage

It wasn´t easy for Naglfar as the first band on the Black stage on Friday. Only a few fans were able to get out of their tents at this early hour, which must have looked a bit pathetic from the stage. Furthermore, also the responsible sound technicians seemed to be not yet awake or sober because the sound was overly dominated by bass, singing and drums which didn´t do any good to the Swedes´ black metal. One good thing, however, was the aggressive charisma of Singer Kristoffer Olivius whose evil look went well with lyrics and atmosphere. With this passion even the veins on the back of his head emerged clearly and this attracted some dozy ones. In addition to the sound problems another drawback was that the musicians didn´t have any show onstage, which was at least noticed by the ones standing in the back. There was headbanging only in the first rows and only a few hands were up which probably brought Kristoffer to ask the crowd: “Are you with us?” Otherwise he didn´t seem to be particularly talkative this morning. Doesn´t matter, they made the best of the performance despite the sound problems. Already that should be applauded. Hats off for the patience!



SONATA ARCTICA – True metal stage



The performance from the Finnish fivesome started on time with a mass clapping of the crowd that despite the drizzle held out at the site. Already when rearranging the True metal stage the first fans with hood and umbrella were there waiting. The die-hards and the ones with an increased blood-booze-level abandoned these aids but everyone was in it from the beginning on. The band that, as they stated, played Wacken for the 3rd time thought “Nice to be back here”. “Blinded no more” as the 2nd song made everyone forget the rain: There was almost no one to be seen that didn´t sing along. Nevertheless Tony Kakko (vocals) thought that he needs to make at least female friends in the crowd by shouting “Girls, you are beautiful!” And that, although the sound, stage setting and the lightshow left nothing to be desired.



The sound was clear, the lightshow – although it was still bright – diverse enough and the backdrop rounded the stage set out. The sound on the other hand was rounded out by Tony´s voice. Obviously the Finn contained himself from partying – clearly and with a lot of power he brought his songs directly to the crowds´ ears and heads and they, at the end, had even the chance to dry before the next rain shower. At 2:19 p.m. the colourful clad Finns left the stage and hadn´t there been the strict Wacken-schedule they surely would have stayed because they had so much fun. There was nothing else to do but to thank extensively and this although they are Finns! They were still up for some bows and little presents for the fans and we also take a bow.


ENSIFERUM – Party stage



Flute, cowskin-Stetson, bare chests. If you haven´t heard of that combination then you´ve never seen Ensiferum live. “Look another stupid hat”, complained the fans. But they couldn´t complain about Oliver Fokin´s energy: the drummer pushed from the very beginning and the fans banged and jumped in his beat or they did both at the same time which led to some coordination problems, after all it was afternoon and the typical fan had already reached his midday-booze-level. They performed amongst others “Guardians of fate” and “Tale of revenge”, they thought, however, that the crowd wasn´t giving its best ´cause after they reacted rather restrained to Petri´s question: “You wanna hear some more?”, he became almost angry: “What the fuck??? I said, Do you want to hear another one?” The crowd then showed their enthusiasm with lots of crowdsurfers. When looking over the masses you could see some Stetsons – either in cowskin-style like onstage or simple Stetsons – but people were also made up as Vikings. After “Windrider” from 2001-debut the time was up and after another question to the fans: “Wanna hear one more?” and one more disappointed “God…”cause the crowd wasn´t euphoric enough, they still played “Hero in a dream” from their Demo III and everyone rode barechestedly into the afternoon rain to fight against their lethargy.


OBITUARY – Black stage




Before the performance from the guys from the Sun State of Florida there wasn´t much sun to be seen, in contrary: The rain left a lot of mud. One thing, however, you must give to the weather at Wacken: The timing wasn´t bad. At first pouring ring before the acts but when they were playing St. Peter held himself off … or was it the bands that made the rain fall more pleasingly? This was definitely the case with Obituary, despite long breaks you could call it a fluent performance. Instead of addressing the crowd in between the songs the musicians were busy discussing something and no one really looked happy. Allen West (guitar) came across overly focussed. The programme covered all stages of the band history: new songs like “Insane” were probably as well received as of course classics like “By the light”, “Chopped in half”, ´Til death”, “Threating skies” and not to forget “Slowly we rot”. You couldn´t really assess it because the crowd didn´t show too much reaction to the show onstage. Apart from a few die-hard bangers there wasn´t much going on. Then again the bangers didn´t really care about their whereabouts, they were pretty alright with those huge mudholes. Although at the end the discussions onstage got less and with them the breaks smaller the whole performance didn´t come across as one piece, which however didn´t harm the great sound and power of the band.



At the end John Tardy (vocals) even addressed the fans verbally and announced the new album “Frozen in time” which was just released after a long break.


OBITUARY – Interview



After the show Stalker met John Tardy for an interview. What he has to say about his government, how he deals with his daily routine and how he manages not to age – all this you can read in our section Stories and Interviews.


SUIDAKRA – W. E. T. stage



The 5 already have a lot of work but also a lot of changes behind them. What remained and even got increased is their energy. That´s why the tent with the Wet stage was cram-full when Suidakra finally appeared. Band and crowd pushed each other from the first second on. One song followed another and the crowd worked itself up some kind of trance where everyone attending lived only for the music and the moment. Singer Arkadius´ vocals nicely stood out and were supported by vocals from Marcel and Matthias. The gig went so fluently that it was pure joy. Tension to the core and no second to breathe – adrenaline pure. The talking was well skimped. There are not many bands that can make 45 minutes into a movie like that. It started to pour rain again but this wouldn´t have been noticed by anyone if the tent hadn´t been continuously filled up with people. You could see in the newcomers´ faces that they were even grateful for the one in charge of the rain. Suidakra should do a raindance as a thank you for those newly-gained fans but they should also thank themselves. Strong will and energy just pay off. It was generally agreed that there should´ve been 2 more encores and also that in the future no Suidakra show should be missed.


WITHIN TEMPTATION – Black stage



Despite the strong rain at the beginning many people gathered to see Within Temptation at 7:30 pm in front of the Black Stage. It was the first appearance at Wacken for the Dutch. Apart from the rain everything was of course perfect: Perfect stage setting in Within Temptation-style – statues, hanging canvas and a backdrop graced the stage and Sharon graced a perfect-fitting corset. The failing of the screen was not that perfect, though and one couldn´t really understand the acts of the camera crew. At first they desperately tried to find some help, some technicians twitched here and there on the camera cables, then they looked like giving up. Either the problem was solved or the performance just drew all the attention, anyway after Within Temptation´s set the camera was shifted to the True Metal Stage without having noticed the “fixing”. With their first song “Who I am” the band had won the crowd already over, everyone rocked to and fro together, singing loudly. Sharon took up that enthusiasm and thanked after almost every song either in German or in English. ”Super, fantastic. Respect. You are heroes!” With the 3rd song she wanted to show even more closeness to her fans and sang it while sitting on the edge of the stage. Although there are 6 people in Within Temptation the action onstage was rather moderate. At least they had some decent fireworks up their sleeves but it was kind of dozy. The first bursts were still aggressive but the last ones ended up in smoke less in time, without causing much attention. The song “Enter” from the same-titled album (1997) came off powerfully, the musical effort, regarding sound and vocal power was convincing. Also Sharon seemed to be convinced, she showed that she´s the one taking center stage. She didn´t speak about THE album but MY album. Towards the end of their 75-minute-show that was longer than anyone else´s, they played a cover of Kate Bush´s “Running up that hill” that rapt the fans and heralded the forthcoming finish. A sunny end because the rain that was pouring at the beginning had been blown over soon. With the song “Caged” the crowd was restored to their festival-freedom: “The atmosphere at such a metal festival is unique, thanx for being there for us…”


MACHINE HEAD – True metal stage



Rob Flynn and his boys had brought along some nice weather and it kept up for the whole 75 minutes which alone was already inspiring. It might have also been that despite some technical problems and good but too quiet sound every song including the announcements was cheered frenetically. In any case the choice of songs and the untamed atmosphere onstage contributed to the fact that the crowd was carried away form the first song on. Almost every hit song was played and they made everyone´s day with brilliant cover songs. The song choice ranged from their debut “Burn my eyes” to their latest offering “Through the ashes”. Highlights for me were “Ten ton hammer”, “Descend the shades of night”, “Old” and “Davidian”. When playing cover songs like Maiden´s “Trooper”, Metallica´s “Creeping death”, “Territory” by Sepultura and Pantera´s “Walk” you couldn´t hear the band as good but it was because of the loudly singing crowd and not the quiet sound.


SURPRISE ACT 1 – STRATOVARIUS – Black stage

Stratovarius played as a surprise act and after the cancellation of Hanoi Rocks it was a very nice surprise. As much pyro as fit into 15 minutes paired with 3 well-chosen songs “Hunting high and low”, “Black diamond” and “Maniac dance”. Sadly, it didn´t work to drag Timo Tolkki and his boys to the Party Stage instead of having the Hanoi Rocks backup play the WET stage… as a trade-off.


APOCALYPTICA – Black stage




These 4 guys and their cellos are just terrific – and it wasn´t different in Wacken. Whoever thinks it could get boring after a while to listen to the sounds of 4 cellos plus drums and without singing for a whole concert was proven terribly wrong. Apocalyptica offered a mixed set of Metallica – cover songs like “Master of puppets” and own songs like “Betrayer”. Cello goes Metal – it just works for the 4 Finns, intense hairshaking onstage and also from the crowd that had come running.


POTENTIA ANIMI – WET Stage



Potentia animi came up with 3 cowl clad musicians, bagpipes, shawms and some other equipment. Because I´ve never seen the band live before I was excited to see if they meet the stereotype that their appearance suggested or if they could surprise me. The band was said to be an insider´s tip before and so the expectations were high. Taking a look at the audience with a lot of people wearing Schandmaul, In Extremo and Corvus Corax shirts, it actually had to be clear for me. There were no surprises but 45 minutes of a mixture between the aforementioned bands. One positive point was their waggishness and humor in their lyrics which was, however, a bit too lame for me but to much delight for the bigger part of the crowd who applauded the monks keenly. The ones who like this kind of music will embrace this band as well.

TERÄSBETONI – WET stage



And now the time has come to listen to the sounds of 4 men hailing from the Nordic Finland at dark hour on the WET stage. Let us hear the lore about heroic deeds, wars, courage, power and amaze the people with brave warriors who stand there in a infernally hot and steamy shack to bring joy to their loyal and from afar travelled subjects. 10 minutes delayed Teräsbetoni brought the house down on the WET stage. Their show couldn´t be anymore of a cliché. Bare chests, black leather pants, blond hair like you would expect it from Finish warriors. The lyrics are of course in their native tongue but this shouldn´t be a problem according to Järvinen (guitar). The guys appeared like they wouldn´t take performance and fans too seriously, there were announcements like “What, you don´t speak Finnish? Then you have to hum this song!” There were even special songs for the ladies and the crowd also turned into warriors in their imagination “You are warriors!!!!!” This demonstrative looseness was very likeable and this although the guys were warned about the German fans – you only get one chance here! Suitably to their name [Järvinen: And in German it´s Stahlbeton – ferroconcrete (interview for Metallinfo, by Stefan)] metal hard as concrete was delivered to man and woman; spirits lifted – battle won. If they will ever return??

SAMAEL – Black stage



Samael´s singer Vorphalack is one of the few men who look good in a skirt. Dark but nice applies best for the Swiss. While Vorph sported charming but lofty gestures bassist Masmiseim jumped and smiled throughout the whole set. With an excellent lightshow, powerful sound and a nice choice of songs Samael knew how to end a glorious 2nd day of the festival. The soggy but freezing crowd enjoyed the atmosphere and because of the lack of energy swayed – here and there was moshing and dancing but most people just swayed in time – from song to song and way too fast the set was over and cut off. 5 minutes more hadn´t hurt anyone and so band and crowd were happily sent off to beddy-byes.
SATURDAY



SUFFOCATION – Black stage



The queue at the entrance was getting longer and longer – the security and some fans got nervous. It was Saturday, about 2 p.m. and everyone slithered towards the Black Stage where some bales of straw had been spread. When the first notes sounded accurately even the security showed understanding and everyone with raised wristbands could pass without further controls, so that most of the people came slipping through the mud for the 2nd song “Funeral Inception”. Suffocation presented themselves as a unit from the beginning on. It was striking that the band wasn´t dressed in the typical Wacken-style but Frank Mullen (vocals) won the crowd over in a white-blue shirt and jeans and also drummer Mike Smith thrashed in white. A little less striking was the stage setting, which was not to their disadvantage but to point out their straight style. After the 3rd song Frank addressed the crowd for the first time: “Ah yeah, this was great! I love you guys so much! Thank you for sticking around for so many years!” and the programme went on with “Infecting the crypts” from the 1991-released album “Human waste”. The fans rewarded this with an astonishing lot of action if you consider the alcohol level of most. Some revealed an excessive worship for the band (or was it just the excessive consumption of booze?) with a humble gesture: kneeling in the mud, bowing low before whom- or whatever. Because there were apparently no women in the front to bow Frank dedicated the song “Breeding the spawn” to the “beautiful ladies”, which spurred the men to show the band which gender “bangs harder”. With thanks from Frank: “You guys fucking rule! It´s fucking great to be here…” the balance was restored and “Effigy of the forgotten” could be enjoyed by everyone equally. Speaking of enjoying: Frank left no doubt of what means pleasure to him. “German ladies, German beer” and a hotel room and then doing whatever he wants to do. It is of no matter for us that the song “Surgery of impalement” followed this statement and we leave this to everyone´s own interpretation. Thank you to Frank for no further comments.


OVERKILL – True metal stage



Bobby “Blitz” Ellsworth and his NY Wrecking Crew let the hell loose and played to the crowd´s delight whose age was clearly above the Wacken average mainly big hits and sing-along classics like “In union we stand” and “Rotten to the core” ensured Overkill a wild atmosphere. Those old gentlemen still have it and hopped onstage like youngsters. Not bad!


MACHINE MEN – WET stage



Power is one of the words that comes to mind if you have to describe these young Finns whose in 1998 formed band that appears both still fresh and professional rocked the WET stage on Saturday afternoon. Singer Anthony abused his mic and also the rest of the band (Jarno - drums; J-V - guitar; Eero – Bass and Jani – guitar) was in no way inferior to him. The frontman´s voice was on top – the sound nicely balanced – but because of the muted mic the singer´s face reflected pretty much his labour. During the 2nd song “Betrayed by angels” he managed it to get his troubles across to the sound crew but it still went on till the 4th song before the mic was finally too loud!! Bit by bit his power got slightly aggressive: “How are you, Wacken?” As he got no reaction from the half-full tent he said peevishly “Ohhh…I can´t fucking hear you!!! I said ´How are you, Wacken`?” Another attempt with a new mic. With track 2 “Dream and religion” from their latest album “Elegies” which he described as “pretty cute” he made the tide turn and after the sound problems were fixed the atmosphere in the tent relaxed. There were 2 guys that relaxed a bit too much and those 2 naked dudes would´ve been a bit more interesting in tensed form. With only a sock that wasn´t on his foot (!!!) that bloke took to the stage to please the musicians with a beer donation directly into their mouths. Shortly after a copycat followed suit but wasn´t half that funny as his buddy. Refreshed and with another new song “Back from the days” the originally mere Maiden cover band convinced everyone in the now numerous crowd. And all those who weren´t convinced yet but like Back-to-the-roots-Dickinson stuff can´t ignore these Finns.

:

MARDUK – Black stage



The atmosphere spread by the gloomy troop of Marduk was evil-dark. Singer Mortuus was running up and down like a wild animal in a cage. Bandleader Morgan played with his cohorts one dark highlight after another in a experienced and uncompromising way. The lightshow that was mainly composed of white light supported the frosty atmosphere. Songs like “With Satan and victorious weapons”, “Baptism by fire” and “Slay the Nazarene” were frenetically celebrated by the corpsepainted crowd. Funny were the paper swords, axes and other “dark” objects of the mainly young crowd. At the end there was another bloody incident that was a bit over the top when Mortuus poured a goblet of fake blood over his clothes and also the daylight was a bit disturbing.

FINNTROLL – Party stage



Of course it was very crowded in front of the Party Stage as the performance of the Finns approached. The front rows were packed out and in the back people had to switch onto portaloo-roofs and trees to snatch a sight to the stage. No one was willing to miss Finntroll. The cofounders of the Hummpajugend which nowadays has grown into a countermovement of the Turbojugend and rejoices an increasing number of supporters played a “hammer hard” 60-minute show which wasn´t short of hits like “Trollhammaren”.



Their musical journey led them through all of their albums, which included “Jaktens tid” and the seething crowd discharged its energy in the form of a lot of crowd surfers and other activities. Critics and fans agreed: the smaller Party Stage has a familial closeness but the guys are just too big. Big, bigfooted, bighearted, bigmouthed enough for the big Black or True Metal Stage – you wouldn´t find any big empty spaces there if they were put onto these stages. Every fan can only hope that this band especially live will be with us for a long time.


HAMMERFALL – True Metal Stage





Like water turns to ice at freezing point some people jamming together will turn into a band when there´s enough passion. What started 1993 in Sweden in a homely atmosphere was also impressive at Wacken Open Air 2005. They thrashed out best melodic metal from an icy cave, which was a bit kitschy but the knack for kitsch belongs to the genre like the bag to Santa Claus. They had a lot of goodies for the fans up their sleeves what made the crowd to forget the cold weather and rather party untamed with the band. “Hammerfall”, “Hammer of Justice” and “Renegade” made sure that everyone´s heart was warmed. It was amazing that the stage setting didn´t melt because of the bright Swedes and the energetic crowd in front of the stage.



SURPRISE ACT - Martin Kesici - PARTY STAGE



It was curiosity that drove me away from the spectacular Kreator to check out Martin Kesici aka Emkay who is probably better know from the German “Idols” show than for his band Enrichment. This “untrue” trait in the eyes of many festival-goers resulted in the imitation of a fan who was dressed as a Duracell-bunny. The bunny, according to some, was a little up on the other side of the place in front of the Party Stage and turned around because the girl who was wearing the bunny-suit only wanted to surf the crowd. To cut a long story short – the crowd that had appeared numerously did the same as the “bunny” and turned their backs to the stage. The whole thing was accompanied by the constantly raised middle finger and there you had it: everyone was swimming the same intolerant tide. Martin was prepared for flying beercups but this was just too much for him. Dear Wacken-fans, it´s not my favourite music either but why that embarrassing reaction? Please complain about it to the organizers who booked the band and do the same as I did and go back to Kreator or go peeing or something. A bit more tolerance hadn´t hurt. I was told later that nothing changed in the band-crowd-situation for the whole 20 minutes of the show, the music was good metal-tinged rock and the frustrated band escaped to the backstage-area after 4 fast songs to lick their wounds.



KREATOR - BLACK STAGE



There was something around Kreator because when the band entered the stage wrapped in a dense red mist you could see a lot of … red mist. I had missed the intro because of the surprise act and so I can´t say for how long you could marvel at the mist but after a while it was gone. Then you could catch sight of a bombastic lightshow that was brought along in addition to the Wacken lightshow and apart from frontman Melle Petrozza the rest of the band could only be recognized dimly. As this wouldn´t have been already enough there were some decent ornamental posts that contributed to the fact that guitarist Sami Yli-Sirniö´s lack of motion was widely overlooked. They started with “Enemy of God” titletrack of the latest album, followed by hits like “Pleasure to Kill” which was even more fun with Mille´s incomparable announcements, “Phobia”, “People of the Lie” and brilliantly played “Violent Revolution” and “The Patriarch” intro topped off this hour of thrashy entertainment. The sound was good only a bit too quiet, there was just a bit too much fuss about it and apart from some small dissonances in “Pleasure to Kill” it was a perfectly played set. Kreator was one of the highlights from the festival´s Saturday and were only topped later by Sentenced.


ENDHAMMER - W.E.T. STAGE



At first only the drums can be heard then after almost a minute a bassist is joining in followed by a guitar then another and finally the voice finishes the whole. About 4 minutes of this intro from those guys from Hamburg and the mood in the WET tent was close to boiling temperature. Singer Miro greeted the relatively empty tent in good humor: “We are Endhammer from Hamburg! Cast off!!! Cast off!!!“ And so the boys set off to new shores with their German songs that deal a lot with Hamburg, harbours and loneliness. The powerful music really made the small crowd listen and they also had something to see with the singer´s restless activities. Also people from outside noticed that because slowly the tent – now with hustle and dancing - filled up by and by. When announcing the song „Alles, was dir bleibt“ („Everything that is left to you”) Miro pointed out their self-produced, 3-song-containing Demo-CD “Endhammer – Hamburg” which has to be categorized as “Neue Deutsche Härte” (“New German hardness”). “Die Zeit drängt” (“Time is short”). With full speed the devilish finale was approached “Den letzten beißen die Hunde” (“The devil takes the hindmost”), which swept over the crowd like a tornado. The only deficit of the band is their lack of popularity. Hopefully they´ll soon produce more of these songs that kick ass in every way because brute sounds with powerful lyrics aimed at the everyday demon is what the world needs. In conclusion it can only be said: Still waters run deep.


ACCEPT - TRUE METAL STAGE




Udo Dirkschneider and his cohorts delivered a solid show but because half of the crowd was tired, soggy and therefore gruffy the enthusiasm of the band fell by the wayside. Together with the other half of the crowd that braved the poor weather hits like “Balls to the walls”, “Metal heart”, “Rebel”, “London leather boys” and “Up to the limit” were worthily celebrated. To our surprise we found a well-mixed crowd like at the Rock Hard and Tuska festival. Accept managed it to transfer their cult status from the 30-year-olds and up to the new generation of metallers. Know-how and quality stand up in the end!


PRIMORDIAL - W.E.T. STAGE

We know that they overdo it a bit with drinking on the Emerald Isle. Nevertheless A. A. Nemtheanga proved insistently his current state of mind. He forgot that he just asked for some crowd action “Bang your fucking heads” and attention of the people in the tent “Are you ready? Are you with us?” Both things he repeated after and during every second song. The good thing was that the songs weren´t only played but blasted out to the crowd with enthusiasm and energy. In general the Dubliners didn´t hold back with power. If you could see energy in color then you would´ve seen the changes from crimson to snow white over green-white-orange and culminating in pure, impermeable jet black. As jet black as the cover of their latest album “The gathering wilderness” from which they played “The coffin ships” and rocked the huge crowd even more. Heat develops, as is generally known, by movement and here everything moved. No Black-metaller who didn´t change his color – air, space and stand were in short supply but there was enough Primordial. Obviously many wanted to have it: The tent was crammed although Accept rocked on the True metal stage at the same time. Nemtheanga whose corpsepaint smeared with his sweat honoured this after the last song: “Great my friends, thank you!” The encore had to be omitted like for many others too because of the strict Wacken schedule. Nevertheless he took the time to come back to the stage for another personal thank you to his friends: “Thank you my friends, really!”


SENTENCED - BLACK STAGE



Not a dry eyes in the house. Everyone who hasn´t had already a lump in the throat or suddenly a tear in the eye because of the biting wind at the Rock Hard Open Air or at Tuska could make up for that here with the band. Besides many songs from the “Funeral” album that were more than suitable for the occasion the band put together a varied selection of hits from all their creative periods. More than at other festivals they played on this farewell tour you could see that this affected the Finns emotionally. “Small” technical difficulties like a bass that refused to play were smoothed out. Around me people sang along – partly well partly off-key – and with ballads like “Dispair-ridden hearts” and “Sun won´t shine” everyone standing closely around was mercilessly snuggled up. As the last concert in Germany it was perceived by everyone including us as touching and way too short but if it had been up to the audience Sentenced could have played one or more hours after their final song “End of the road”. Good bye and thanks!


APPEAL FOR DONATION

A deadly accident overshadowed this year´s Wacken as a alcoholised man in his thirties ignored an ambulance a little outside the site and, according to the organizers, ran into the car that was going at walking speed. Our condolence goes out to the family and friends. Wacken Open Air has opened an account, so please show your solidarity and help his family:


"Sparbuch 2838550045
Postbank Hamburg
BLZ: 201 100 22
IBAN: DE66201100222838550045
BIC: PBNKDEFF201 (Ort: Hamburg) "

Quote from the Wacken homepage

For more infos go to the Wacken homepage
www.wacken.com

What concerns us, even though we were all sick afterwards it was still a nice festival and there were enough highlights to say: See you again next year!








Melanie Haack (MH), Kim Gerdes (KG), Lisa Bruchwitz (LB), Samira Alinto (SA)


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