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Events and Reports - Wacken Open Air 2002 - The other festival report
Well what a great year for Wacken Open Air (W: O: A) this year was. It had many sides to it, which will be told by me with in the next couple of lines. I will start at the start and try to work my way through all the things I experienced at W: O: A 2002, so let me begin then.
Wednesday:
It all started Wednesday the 31st of July. Ulrick, Lars, Bjarne (a good friend of ours) an myself went all the way from Esbjerg, Denmark to Wacken, Germany in a rented car, because the car of Sir Ulrick had broken down. We arrived late at night and when we started to put up our tent there where nobody near us. But as we had put up the first side of the tent, we where surrounded by metal heads and we got the tent up. After that we started with the beers, and quickly found out that we had some great neighbours, they where in to the same kind of music as we are, almost that is, at first they played some German punk/rock. But otherwise they had mostly the same style as us, and that was nice.
Later on Lars went over to talk with some Italians, and Ulrick and myself wanted to make a sandwiches with Salami and bread (we had nothing else to put on them), we meet some Germans and we talked with them for a while, then I went over to the Italians, who turned out to be a Italian death metal Band called In-sight, I got a CD by there band, and promised to review it here on our page, so I will do that when this report is finished, as I went over to Sir Ulrick who was now talking to a Swedish guy, we decided to wait with the sandwiches and went on with the beers, the Swedish guy was a rather nice fellow. He was in a Power death metal band with female vocals, the band name slips my mind right now, but I will find out later I guess, because he told us that he would contact this site and sent us a link to the music of his band. We talked with him for a long time and at 0500 in the morning we decided to go to bed, and call it a day; It would prove a stupid thing to have been awake for such a long time. We would need the strength late on in the festival, by the way I got my sandwich before I went to bed.
Rating 0/10 (because of the fact that there was no music this day)
Thursday:
Started with us finding out that the water we had bought at the Danish/Germen border was with carbon dioxide and not natural mineral water, so Bjarne and I went on our way to find some water, but this quest was longer then we had ever expected, about 1,4 km long. And in the warm summer day the sun was 36 degrees (Celsius). We walked for what seemed like hours, and when we returned we drank the water and decided to go get our wristbands, and to see some music, and so we did.
We saw "Messiah's Kiss" a band in much the same style as "Primal Fear" and then we had to go meet some other friends of ours Christian and Rune, after that we went to see "Kotipelto" the solo project of the "Stratovarious" lead singer.
The music and the sound in this show was not as great as it could have been, and the crowd was not as ready for this show as some of the others later on in the festival. After the "Kotipelto" the weather changes and the rain poured down on us, from one second to another it was storm and rain.
Then the rain stopped and the storm was over, and "Blaze" was ready to play, I will go into detail with that concert here, because I am a huge fan of "Blaze":
Blaze:
The first track was the intro and then "Kill And Destroy" was played. The sound of this show was great and the music was great to listen to. I like the songs that they played and the fact that they played an Iron Maiden track was great. People went fucking crazy when they played that song, by the way the maiden song was "Man On The Edge".
This show was great and no problems with the sound here. I like the power and the energy of the madman Blaze Bayley when he is performing, he may be ugly and strange to look at, but he knows how to get the crowd going.
Rating: 8/10
After the show the rain started again, and we went into the camp and got drunk. Then we went to the metal disco where I met a rather drunk Steen Jepsen. He was dancing a very silly dance.
All over rating of Thursday's music 7/10 thanks to Blaze.
Friday:
Well, this day was great fun musically as well as just us being silly and strange.
It all started with me waking up with the voice of Steen and as I told him that we had met him in the disco he looked rather searching. I then asked him if he could remember meeting me, he said he could but he could not...
We wanted to see a lot of metal this day and here is a list of the band's we saw Friday and a list of bands I heard while waiting for the next band to go on:
Bands I saw and will review:
Iron Savior
Angra
Pretty Maids
Savatage
Bruce Dickinson
Bands I heard and won't review:
Domine (thanks to the mud on the festival ground)
Necrophobic
Debris Inc.
Dying Fetus
Borknagar
Destruction
Iron Savior:
Not too great sound, and a little to short set. The people were not ready for the powerful music at that point of the day. I guess it would have been better later in the day, but otherwise an ok show with some great songs from the whole career of Iron Savior.
6/10
Angra:
Angra surprised me with the power and the great sound they had was a big help to get to re-discover this band. I think I will go out and get some of the new stuff from this great Brazilian band. They played a killer set, with great potential and great control over the instruments. The fact that they played a traditional Brazilian song on five drums, kicked ass.
7,5/10
Pretty Maids:
Well, what can I say about this live performance other than great balls of fire! It was hard and heavy from the first song to the last, and they knew how to win the favour of the crowd; people went crazy around me, including myself of course.
The mix of new and the old tracks such as "Future World" and "Red Hot And Heavy" and the new track "Virtual Brutality" made for a great heavy mix, and help to get the crowd into a sing along mood.
7,5/10
Savatage:
Well, this show was one of the greatest at this years W: O: A. The sound of the concert was brilliant. I had high expectations for this festival gig, but they kick ass, and the crowds where going wild from all the brilliant tracks. I especially like the tracks "Chance" and "Morphine Child", both long tracks with several vocals sung on top of each other. It sounded great and I liked the fact that the band seemed to be very happy and they were great together.
9/10.
Bruce Dickinson:
This was why Lars and Bjarne had come to Wacken, to see Bruce Dickinson. After a few minutes delay he came on and the sound was great, but not as great as Savatage. The crowd seemed to want more than Bruce delivered, and the tracks they played were ok but I would like to have seen/head more "Chemical Wedding" material. Bruce is in Iron Maiden and played some Iron Maiden songs as well, and that kicked ass. Those songs were where the crowd went most crazy and it gave a great insight to what a Iron Maiden concert would feel like.
8/10
After the show we went back to the camp ground and drank some beers, and we all had very much fun. Steen and I ended the day by singing as loud as we could a Virgin Steele classic "Gate Of Kings". We are pretty sure that the whole of Wacken heard the song, and wanted to hear more, but I was a bit tired and drunk so I went to bed.
This day was a 9/10 because of the great music the brilliant weather and the cold beers and the sing along before we went to bed.
Saturday:
If you have read all of the above, you will remember that I talk about us staying up until 5 in the morning well this is where we could feel it for real, I was very tired and only managed to see:
Edguy
Blind Guardian
And before we went up there we started to drink beer and listened to some music in the camp and that was very funny and we got very drunk and silly.
I didn't want to see any music except for Edguy and Blind Guardian.
Edguy:
Had some problems at first with the sound, but four songs in to the set it became better. It was a great set list with some of the best power metal songs from the band and even a song from Avantasia, so all in all an ok concert.
Blind Guardian:
I had waited ever since the first time I went to Wacken to see Blind Guardian, so my expectations were high to say the least. When the show started I could not believe what great sound they had, and what great live musicians they are.
The show was so great and I guess that over half of the people on the festival saw this band play their brilliant set. My expectations were all met, and I went crazy when they played my favourite song from the new album, a little song called "And Then There Was Silence". An epic of about 14 min. in duration, so I had to stand and look at the stage to believe what I heard.
9/10
Then we went back to the camp and fell asleep, to get up early next morning to go home and sleep or have sex with our girlfriends, those of us that have a girlfriend (myself not included)
This day was 9/10 because I was so very happy and drunk and because I got my first ever Psychotic Waltz album "Mosquito" and the great Spock's beard Album "V".
So all in all this years Wacken Open Air was a great success.
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Nice Wacken mud...
Angra
Withering Surface
Pretty Maids
Heavenly
Savatage
Savatage
Evergrey
Vicious Rumors
Back at the camp
Two blokes...
Vanden Plas
Vanden Plas
Edguy
| Written by Mads
Tuesday, August 6, 2002 |
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RevelationZ Comments
| Comment by Bjarne (Anonymous) - Saturday, May 11, 2002 | Helt sikkert.
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| Comment by Mads Aanum (Anonymous) - Tuesday, August 3, 2004 | hahahaha...
well I am leaving for wacken in tomorrow... I can't wait, and I hope to get to sing "Gate Of Kings" again with steen hahaha that is a tradition that should be kept alive forever...
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