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Chronicle Wacken Open Air 2013

Even though the official start of Wacken is always on Thursday,  the party already starts on Wednesday with a couple of folk-metalbands. Fejd, with their quirky mix of traditional folk and metal elements, played as the first band, and immediately created a great atmosphere. Compared to the response they got a couple of years ago during their first visit to Wacken, this time it was much better. The people seemed to have really listened to the band’s latest release. The sound was not the best, the bass was way too loud in the mix but luckily the traditional instruments could be heard quite well. The setlist was a good mix between old and new songs and overall everybody looked like they enjoyed the gig.

Thursday:

Annihilator wrecked the Black stage on Thursday.  Jeff Waters and his boys went on stage blasting with “Smear Campaign” and “King of the Kill”. This created an instant headbanging pit, mostly to the joy of the band members, since flying metalheads are not always appreciated, especially when you get a boot in your head. Annihilator tried to spoil the crowd with a new track from their currently unreleased album. The response for that particular song wasn’t especially great, but luckily  the next song in the setlist was the old time classic “I Am in Command”. One could almost read the joy of being back on the Wacken stage in the eyes of Jeff Waters, who took care of all the small “chats” with the crowd, in between the set. They ended their gig with “Alison Hell” leaving us to hope that maybe it won’t take another 10 years before we’ll get to see Annihilator back at Wacken again.

The German folk metal band Faun was probably one of the most positive surprises this year. They seemed to have been the right band at the right time. They played at sunset, just two hours before the big headliner-Rammstein. Although their lyrics are mostly in German, this didn’t stop people from all over the world to stop by and check them out. Really good live-band which will hopefully play again at the festival.

We went on to check out our Norwegian friends from Ragnarok who were spreading darkness on the wet stage. Unfortunately for them, the overlap with Rammstein wasn’t exactly to their advantage. The band did a good job though, presenting songs from their latest release “Malediction” and old classics like “Blackdoor Miracle”. Since we really wanted to check out Rammstein we left after only four songs, leaving a couple of thousands true black metal fans to headbang to the Norwegians’ music.

Rammstein – totally blew away everything in their way! Literally! They proved to be the band of the festival, if not even THE BEST live act Wacken ever had on its stages. We’ve always wondered how it would be to see Rammstein in Germany. A lot of people were skeptical to this line-up addition when Rammstein was announced during the last day of Wacken 2012. Rammstein is a phenomenon and in order to understand it you have to experience it. We were expecting that playing in their own country would make them more chatty towards the crowd during the breaks as when we saw them in Stockholm a few years ago, the only thing that the singer said to the crowd was “Thank you, good night!”.  He wasn’t really much talkative this time either, but what a show they put on! The set included more or less all their hits like “Sehnsucht”, “Asche zu Asche”, “Feuer frei!, “Mein Teil”, “Ohne dich”, “Du riechst so gut”, “Benzin”, “Links 2-3-4”, “Du hast”, “Ich will” and the show finished with “Mein Herz brennt”, “Sonne” and “Pussy”. It was a real struggle to walk from the Wet Stage where Ragnarok played to the main stage where Rammstein already started “burning” the stage. But it was totally worth it!

Friday

Naglfar, the Swedish black metal band took over the stage when the temperature inside the Wet Stage tent felt like over 40 degrees. This didn’t stop the sweaty black metal thirsty crowd who gave them an even warmer welcome. During their 40 minutes set, the band played songs from all their albums end the gig with “A Swarm of Plagues” and of course “Harvest”. All in all, a really well played gig, maybe a bit too early though, judging by the attendance of the crowd.

The one and only, always late when starting a gig, Ihsahn took over the stage in the afternoon. His first comment was a big thanks to the Wacken crew who apparently always delayed him for some reason. Thus his set was cut down to only 30 minutes. If the first two, even three albums the artist released could have basically been released as Emperor as well, the forth album is probably his weakest. He played two songs from the latest issue “Eremita” but also older songs much appreciated like “Unhealer” and “The Barren Lands”. The shortend setlist combined with the burning sun resulted in the fact that a lot of people started leaving right after the second song. Emperor was announced to play next year, so we’re really looking forward to that gig. Hopefully it will be at least as good as it was back in 2006!

I’ve seen Motörhead canceling a gig just minutes before entering the stage, back in 2005 at With Full Force. Lemmy had to be flown by helicopter to the hospital. Didn’t have the slightest idea that I’d get to see a similar scenario again. It look like the frontman had bitten off a bit more than he could chew, after having apparently refused to cancel the gig due to health issues. The crowd was in for a powerful but short gig, because Lemmy almost collapsed on the stage, cutting thus the set down to less than 30 minutes. This created a lot of confusion among the fans and rumors about Lemmy’s condition started directly. The band released a statement one day later, explaining that their frontman had to go through a recovery process but that he will be back in action as soon as his health would permit him. Hopefully, 2013 was not Lemmy’s last year in Wacken!

Saturday

The first band we saw during the last day of the festival was Fear Factory, a band I’ve been following since the release of their album Archetype. I was though rather disappointed by their show, because it felt like the singer Burton C. Bell wasn’t really up to the task, and offered a weak performance.

After their weird cancellation back in 2009 Anthrax are finally back in Wacken, after their gig in 2004 with John Bush. This time with Belladonna on vocals, Anthrax prove that they can still play good shows and they make the crowd go crazy. The set contained no less than five songs of their well-known album Among The Living. It was weird though, that three songs of their setlist were covers… They have so many hits, why play other bands’ songs?

Though Candlemass sounds these days more or less like Krux, that’s not really a negative thing to say. Mats Levén is one of Sweden’s best metal singers, and regardless of which bands he plays in, he fits in like a glove! Unfortunatelly for the band, they played at the same time as Alice Cooper and the sound from the main stage was coming in waves at times, a scenario similar to the Watain (and on the main stage Ministry) gig. Apart from that, the band played a couple of songs from their latest release but the set included some of their hits as well. All in all, well played gig, maybe a bit too late considering that this was the 3rd day the of the festival (or rather said the 4th) and doom metal is not the best when you’re tired.

After watching the doomy show of Candlemass, it was up to Nightwish to take over the stage. They started the show  with some older hits: “Dark Chest of Wonders”, “I Wish I had an Angel” and “She Is My Sin”. Even though their Swedish vocalist was a good addition to the line-up when Tarja left the band, it felt that the new dutch singer Floor Jansen (ex. Afterforever) should have take Tarja’s place already a few years ago. This made the crowed really enjoy the set and the new vocalist . She was properly introduced and was received with lots of cheers. A positive surprise, for a band that seemed to have drowned in its past.

I was very excited about seeing Amorphis without knowing that they would start the show acoustically. The first part of the show was unplugged and it was a disaster from the very first second. After the unplugged part was over, they started the normal show but the connection with the crowd (that hadn’t already left) was weak. Bands like these should probably keep their special acoustic shows for gigs in their hometowns. Playing an unplugged set at a festival of the size of Wacken is doomed to turn out bad!

Wacken is considered the most important heavy metal celebration in the world, and every year thousands of people from all the corners of the world come to Northern Germany during the first weekend of August. If you consider yourself a metalhead, then you really have to pay a visit to the ”Wacken Holy Land”. I can still remember the joy when we entered Wacken for the first time, 11 years ago – ”Freu dich du bist in Wacken”. Their line-up for 2014 is already getting promising and considering how fast it usually sells out then you should really hurry to buy your ticket unless you want to watch your favorite bands on youtube!

See you next year: RAIN OR SHINE!