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Events and Reports - Wacken Open Air 2006 - Steen´s Festival Report
Mmmm Noodlesoup!
Another year, another Wacken Open Air Festival. Nina and I were the only staff members attending this year which was a new low. The weather luckily turned out to be close to perfect though and as usual those of us who did pull ourselves together and go had a great time as is usually the case at Wacken. On the bus down there I managed to suck up all my beers, play "loud" music on my small 4-watt portable stereo and sing several Manowar songs to a guy a few seats away. As we were nearing the festival ground I noticed the guy sitting next to me put his head in his lap and say loudly "Why did I sit next to him!". The trip down there went pretty fast for me...
No photo pit passes for us this year so pictures are missing from several concerts since it was impossible to get close enough to the stage.
After the usual hassle to get into the camping ground with only a press accreditation paper we had finally settled down in our camp around midnight. Funny thing, the first guy we meet at the entrance to the festival was Dennis (the menace) who you may remember from this years Sweden Rock Festival. I'll also take this opportunity and make it perfectly clear once and for all that Dennis is NOT also known as a beer-vacuum-cleaner (Sorry man, couldn't help it). We had arranged to meet inside the festival area at 20:30 but since we both were delayed we stumbled into each other at the bus stop outside the festival ground at that exact time, which was unintentionally weird. Dennis had just arrived with French metal maniac, Fabrice and they also settled in our camp. We had a lot of trouble getting all our equipment to our camp since most of us were rather drunk and kept disappearing but in the end we made it and I was seriously confused when I arrived at the camp wondering who was carrying my tent and then found it already set up (Hail Tobias!!).
The first couple of days were as usual a riot. Lots of partying, singing and being very silly. For those reasons the first couple of days are a bit fuzzy. Not a big problem since the bands I wanted to see only started arriving on Friday. Still, I managed to catch Victory, part of MSG and Scorpions on Thursday as well as the ultimate hang out place, the Cocktailbar. When Nina Mads and I found the Cocktailbar on Thurday afternoon a big guy was already lying passed out next to the bar. We found this highly entertaining for some reason.
Mads had convinced me to come along and check out Victory which weren't on my schedule. This proved to be a great decision as the band played a very nice set. The band was happy and their melodic touch seemed to please the crowd. After the Victory show we went to check out the backstage area which hadn't changed much. My favorite Wacken food "Chicken im brot" was still being served so I was happy. On the way back to camp I caught MSG playing UFO's "Too hot to handle" which sounded absolutely awesome. But after their show at Sweden I only made a quick stop to check out this song before moving on.
I decided to catch the Scorpions show, which was set up to be something special with Uli Jon Roth and Michael Schenker announced as special guests. I found a good spot in the Cocktailbar for the show and had a most excellent time and that is pretty much all I remember. Some way during the show I met Dennis and Fabrice and Dennis proceeded to buy interesting drinks all through the show. I can't get into details about the Scorpions concert since I was honestly too inebriated to remember them. I did try to be serious though and what I gather from my 6 pages of hard to decipher notes is a show with more ups than downs. Apparantly we got great versions of "Bad Boys Running Wild", "Speedy's Coming" and were treated to lots of songs from the 70'ies. The show ended with "Rock You Like A Hurricane". I can also gather from my notes that I don't know shit about Scorpions, which I actually wrote. So I'll just move on...
Back at the camp the party lasted long into the night.
Friday
Peter had arrived some time during the previous night and he proved to be the best wake up call I have ever had at any festival. As he brought out his newly purchased bottle of Jack D. and poured me an absolutely huge drink in a beer glass the breakfast on that day was saved! This also meant that any hangovers stopped banging my brain and took a long swim instead. The weather was perfect by the way (Hi Anders!).
I discovered that my new notebook sucked since the pages I had written kept falling off and they were impossible to keep in order. I tried numbering them but managed to forget this detail after a few drinks each day.
The toilet situation at Wacken is not very satisfying. Every visit to the toilets costs half a Euro and the queue time varies from 10 minutes to an hour depending on the size of the queue of couse. The few free toilets that are available are far between. So after spending an hour on going to the toilet in the morning I was about ready for some music.
Danko Jones was the first band I caught but the lead singer made me go away again after just one song.
I missed the first song of Nevermore and arrived as the band was starting on "The River Dragon has come". "I, Voyager" and "Engines of Hate" continued the show but unfortunately the band had a monstrously bad sound where I was standing and it made it impossible to make out any details. The band seemed highly charged and the audience was pretty wild with lots of crowd surfing and headbanging going on all around me. Highlights included "Dead Heart in a dead world", "Enemies of Reality" and "Narcosynthesis", which were all relentless. "Born" ended a show that was let down by a bad sound.
I met up with Mads and we went to check out Opeth. They too had a bad sound at the beginning of their show but it improved slightly. "Still life" is still the only album where I really know the songs and after 25 minutes, three songs and not a note that sounded familiar I decided to leave Opeth and check out the surrounding festival area along with Mads. Opeth just couldn't keep my concentration today.
After hitting a few bars we went to the camp for a bit of music and soon it was time to check out Korpiklaani who were playing the same time as Carnivore. Korplikaani played the party stage and it was completely packed when I arrived, impossible to get anywhere in the crowd. I managed to get a good spot at the back on the right of the stage, but here a real annoyance of the Wacken Open Air comes into view. The Party Stage and the two Main stages are so close together that when a band is playing on either of the big stages that sound drowns out the sound at the party stage unless you are standing right at the front or at the left side of that stage. This ruined the Korplikaani show for me, which otherwise looked to be very interesting.
During the festival I also noticed that sometimes the sound at the two big stages was extremely low, low enough that you could talk in a normal voice to the person standing next to you and it would be louder than the music. That was the case during Gamma Ray's show and several others. I don't know if this was a way of trying to compensate for the problem I just described but in either case none of this is satisfying for the festival goer and I hope that next year the festival area will be re-arranged or enlarged to eradicate these annoyances.
Since Korplikaani was destroyed I went to check out Carnivore who had a great sound and played some straight ahead thrash metal. It was good but not too exciting so I got something to eat and went to check out the German Dezperadoz who, as I remembered, were playing an interesting hybrid of western inspired heavy rock. Dezperadoz were playing the small tent called the W.E.T. stage and it turned out to be the perfect setting form a real country and western party. The band played a great show and the gum chewing frontman managed to get the audience really into it. A scantily clad girl was used a a prop and she came on stage to much applause and switched the guitars and threw money to the crowd. The songs were catchy and had a vibe that made me want to dance towards the bar. The audience went absolutely wild during two of the catchiest songs and all around me wild Germans were jumping and dancing around. It looked like some kind of weird Metal Polka. Unfortunately the frontman kept talking German through the show and I didn't have a clue what he was saying. Dezperadoz were a highlight of the day for sure.
As I walked out of the tent after Dezperadoz I caught that last song of Children of Bodom, "Follow the Reaper" and this sounded quite excellent as well. Unfortunately the few bands I really wanted to see this year were scheduled to play at the same time ans the bands I wanted to check out. This was the reason for me missing the full shows of bands like Battlelore, Morbid Angel, Children of Bodom and Whitesnake.
After a pitstop at the camp I headed back again to check out the band with the must-see name of Metal Inquisator. They were also playing in the tent but again the closeness of the stages ended up destroying my enjoyment of their show. Ministry was playing at the same time and their sound was so loud that even when stading in the tent and Metal Inquisator were playing it was possible to hear Ministry in their sound. It didn't work at all for me so I went outside to see a bit of Ministry who had a close to perfect sound. It was extremely loud, but also very clear. Not knowing any of their music beforehand I was rather fascinated but also a little put off by the many effects and the overall weirdness of the show. I headed to the press tent to try and write down some notes from the events of the day. I almost ended up falling alseep so I headed back out to the festival area to check out part of Battlelore. I only caught the first 10 minutes as Ministry were still playing and interrupted the Battlelore show as well. Primal Fear was set to go on at 2:00 in the night and I decided to head out into the cool night air in order to stay awake.
After a quick intro Primal Fear blasted into the two first songs off their latest album. The songs worked great live and managed to blast the sleepiness out of my soaked skull. "Nuclear Fire" is a personal favorite and it was great to hear it live. Primal Fear didn't put on as convincing a performance as I have seen them do in the past. Ralph's voice was not in the best shape and he struggled on occassion to keep the high notes. The show was still very enjoyable and we were served with plenty of great songs. With only an hour of playing time the set was just a bit on the short side.
Setlist:
Demons and Angels
Rollercoaster
Nuclear Fire
Seven Seals
Angel in Black
Running on the dust
Diabolus
Battallions of Hate
Final Embrace
Metal is forever
Chainbreaker
After this I headed back to the camp and went straight for the tent to get ready for one more day of Metallic pleasure.
Saturday
Dennis presented me with a beer, which he had brought from the local brewery in his hometown. When I tell you that he lives in a German city called Ulm you can probably imagine how much fun I had with this beer. It is now standing on a shelf in my living room next to an herd of cows. Another great breakfast for me...
The best concert of the festival for me came with Metal Church, who were playing at noon and brought out an arsenal of Heavy Metal songs that I had just started getting into. The band started 10 minutes early and we missed the first song, "A Light in the Dark" from the new album. Mads, Nina and I quickly made our way through the crowd and got a good spot at the front of the stage. The band brought a lot of energy to the stage and every member looked like he had a great time. Vocalist Ronny Munroe sounded great live while Kurdt Vanderhoof and Steve Unger were very engaging on guitar and bass respectively. "Watch the Children pray" got a good response from the audience and Ronny commented that we were the best audience they had had at a festival so far.
"Mirror of Lies" from the new album is not exactly one of my favorites but it worked well live. I would have loved to have heard a song like "Beyond all Reason". "Gods of Wrath" worked just brilliant live and everyone screamed along. "Beyond the Black" was extremely powerful and "Metal Church" ended this trilogy of songs from the debut album. A fantastic ending to a great concert, or so I thought. Before long the band came back on stage and as a special treat they performed "Mirror of Lies" for a second time. This time they told us that they were shooting a video and we should go as crazy as possible. So if you see this video and notice a white summer hat headbanging/jumping up and down then that is me...
The day before I had found the Metal Church debut pretty cheap at the huge Metal Markt and after the concert I just couldn't wait to get home and listen to it properly. The Metal Markt was a great success this year and I found plenty of hard to find cd's there. Unfortunately I found it impossible to stay there for more than 1 hour since the place was so damn hot.
After Metal Church we went to celebrate the great concert back at the camp and I ended up missing Arch Enemy. It was simply too hot to spend all my energy now since several highligts were still to come. The first was Orphaned Land. The only band on my must-see list which I hadn't seen live before. Naturally I was very excited to see if they could bring their complex sound from Mabool to the stage. Lead singer Kobi Farhi has a great charisma and the band in general looked very happy to be there. Guitarist Yossi Sa'aron had a big smile on his face though the entire concert. I started out at the front and tried to get some pictures while the band opened the concert with "Ocean Land". They played an excellent version of this one. "Halo Dies" and "Find Yourself" were other highlights in a show that was both interesting to listen to but also entertaining to look at. As the band began playing "Norra el Norra" I had moved further back in the crowd and I watched several thousand people jump crazily through most of the song. I of course couldn't help but follow. Overall a great show that only disappointed slightly because the band did not manage to bring the magic found on the Mabool album to the stage in its entirity. There was just too much played back from a tape.
I hooked up with Nina for the Gamma Ray show which ended up being a very fun party as we bumped into Dennis at the beginning of the show. We had a really nice threesome of drinking, singing and headbanging though the whole show. The set list was pretty much the same as the show I saw a few months ago at the Sweden Rock festival, only a bit shortened. Highlights included "Man on a Mission" where we went absolutely crazy and the always fantastic "Rebellion in Dreamland". Again it segued into the well known Helloween song "I want out". Instead of one long sing a long we got two shorter ones, but that didn't ease the fact that the sing-a-longs are just plain boring. One more song would always be preferred by me.
We continued to celebrate back at the camp and I made it back to the festival area just in time to catch Whitesnake. The two opening songs, "Hell on Wheels" and "Fool for Love" sounded really excellent and I was rather disappointed that I had to leave to catch Lake of Tears who were playing at the W.E.T. stage in the big tent at the same time. The weirdest experience was definitely during the Whitesnake concert when I felt someone fondling my back. I turned around and saw a crowd of 5 very interested people trying to read the cartoon on the back of my Chris Caffery T-shirt. A topless girl was trying to move my camera bag which was blocking her view so I lifted it up so she could see it all. Needless to say I was rather distracted for a while before I had to move on.
I moved on to the W.E.T. stage early to make sure I got a good spot for Lake of Tears. I had a feeling that this rather intimate setting would be perfect for the band and their unique atmosphere. They opened with "Return of Ravens" and continued with a personal favorite, "Cosmic Weed". This song really set the show in motion and there was a really special groove to the whole performance. Guitarist Magnus Sahlgren was very static and wore a completely emotionless expression through the entire show. He looked completely concentrated on his guitar and rarely took his eyes of it. It was only during the final song he opened up a little and gave us all two big thumbs up. Bassist Mikael Larsson on the other hand was constantly headbanging and moving around on his side of the stage. So the scene show wasn't so engaging, but the music more than made up for it.
"Hold on tight" really saw the thick atmosphere enveloping everyone. It was a great chilling moment. "The Greymen" from the latest album brought a lot of energy to the show. Another highlight for me was when the band played "So Fell Autumn Rain". So sweet and sad was the atmosphere that I couldn't do anything but stand there and suck it all in. A perfect moment right there. Towards the end of the show Magnus provided a great guitar solo. The song I missed most from the set list was "Headstones". The show wasn't quite as magical as what I had witnessed two years earlier at the Sweden Rock Festival, but still one of the best shows I saw at Wacken this year.
After the show I stayed a while, hoping for an encore, but instead I witnessed a wedding proposal from a guy who got up on the stage and proposed to his girlfriend in the audience. It had a good effect as she jumped on to the stage and gave him a big hug.
Back at the camp I hooked up with Nina and Mads and lured them with a whisky and coke to come with me and check out Motörhead. So once again we ended up in the cocktailbar. The whole festival ground was packed and it was yet another sign that the size of Wacken is growing faster than the festival ground can bear. It seriously needs to be expanded. Motörhead sounded great but after only four songs we headed outside to get something to eat and then back to the camp again. I preferred to see Motörhead a week later at the Skanderborg festival where they would play again.
I was totally beat after four days of fun in the sun so I headed straight to bed after falling asleep in a chair with a beer in my lap several times, mumbling something far out. In the end even Mads and Nina agreed that I'd better hit the sleeping bag... I will surely be back next year!
| Click pictures for a bigger version
The notes from hell...
Victory
Victory
Primal Fear
Primal Fear
Primal Fear
Primal Fear
Primal Fear
Primal Fear
Primal Fear
Metal Church
Metal Church
Metal Church
Metal Church
Metal Church
Metal Church
Orphaned Land
Orphaned Land
Orphaned Land
Orphaned Land
Gamma Ray
Gamma Ray
Lake of Tears
Lake of Tears
Lake of Tears
All pictures taken by Steen | Written by Steen
Wednesday, September 6, 2006 |
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RevelationZ Comments
| Comment by Stuart (Anonymous) - Wednesday, September 6, 2006 | If I was on Blabbermouth right now id be going on about how I got the first post or some such nonsense. Luckly this isnt Blabbermouth (thank god) and im far too clever for that.
Sounds like you had a great time Steen,i wish id gone but money was a major constraint. I do however like the look of next years line up already so its a strong contender.
Some sad news to report as Andy is at this moment holed in a Hospital bed as a result of a stomach ulcer. Which sucks but with a bit of praying to the Metal Gods he should be out in no time.
On a happier note,how good is the new Maiden album!
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| Comment by Mads J. (Anonymous) - Wednesday, September 6, 2006 | Hehe, yeah we definately had some fun this year, that's for sure. Great report, Cow-dude! :)
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| Comment by Dennis the Menace (Anonymous) - Thursday, September 7, 2006 | Yes, it was worth waiting for this Festival-Report.Great work on the words. Syntactical mayhem with a J.D.flavour! I don`t really have to mention that we had another collective highlight this year. Fabrice even brought some kind of Napoleon spirit to our highly energetic group. Thanks to all of you crazy Danish singalongers for another 4-day event.
Referring to the festival itself I completly agree with Steen about the weak points(during the Gamma Ray show it was really significant, but our choir didn`t sound that bad or what? Great Headbanger`s Ball!). Well, well, well the Cocktail Bar or what Fabrice called it: The big Festival Trap! On Saturday the Energy in my Wodka-Energies did even not work anymore. The Wodka must have takin`control. Bandwise my highlights were( in the followig order): Ministry(I was there standing, staring, getting totally out of control, standing, staring, just getting overwhelmed by the performance),Scorpions(I did not expect that high level of energy and of course the setlist couldn`t be more satisfying;"Lovedrive","Coast to Coast","Another Piece of Meat", "Dynamite", "Can`t get Enough", "Blackout", everything!),Carnivore(I love that sick shit: Male Supracy!), Morbid Angel (It was an adventure seeing Fabrice going "FULLSPEED".),Primal Fear (Old school Heavy-Meatl-Party after I even turned out as some kind of roadkill `cause of A.Jourgensen and friends), Gamma Ray( as mentioned before) and not to forget Whitesnake(Thank god, I got the chance to see them this time. Huge set including all the band highlights from the 70s and 80s. Sweet teenage memories... .Didn`t they start the gig wit "Burn" and "Stormbringer" or was it another Cocktail Bar hellucination, just as Steen`s Good-Morning-Mix at Swedenrock?)
Maybe we will find an occasion to meet before the next festival season, we`ll see. My concert plans were as usual rearranged again and I`m going to see Beyond Fear and one of my alltime favourites Vicious Rumors in November. But before that I definitely have to visit the Primal Fear fan convention which is takin`place only 50 km from my hometown according to the fact that Matt Sinner is "a Schwoab", just like me. He will play a full set with his own band followed by a 2 hour performance by P.F. as promised...
My special greetings of course go out to Mads, Nina, Grandma and noble savage Steen.
My best wishes for Andy. Get well soon for tooth and nail!
I´ll visit you on this platform from time to time and we will see us when we see us! Crash! Bang! Wallop!
Yours Dennis.
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| Comment by Steen (Staff) - Thursday, September 7, 2006 | 
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Comments: 518 | | Hehe Thanks! Yeah, It was a great time.
@Stuart: Send Andy my best wishes! If I could I would pop by the hospital to sing a little song to cheer him up :) Although I guess laughing too much won't be good for that ulcer... Get better man!
@Mads: Moo!
@Dennis: The Wacken party was definitely not to be missed. We must do it again! I'm hoping that I will be able to catch Vicious Rumors as well, but I'm not sure I will make it yet. Cheers dude! And remember to say hi from me to your most honorable citizen, Johan Gambolputty de von Ausfernschplenden- schlitter- crasscrenbon- fried- digger- dingle- dangle- dongle- dungle- burstein- von- knacker- thrasher- apple- banger- horowitz- ticolensic- grander- knotty- spelltinkle- grandlich- grumblemeyer- spelterwasser- kurstlich- himbleeisen- bahnwagen- gutenabend- bitte- ein- nürnburger- bratwustle- gerspurten- mitz- wemache- luber- hundsfut- gumberaber- shönendanker- kalbsfleisch- mittler- aucher von Hautkopft (aus Ulm)
Posted by Steen (Staff)
Thursday, September 7, 2006 |
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| Comment by Dennis the Menace (Anonymous) - Thursday, September 7, 2006 | You will be on the next Primal Fear Worldtour for sure.
Translating for the Iron Eagle. Cheers!
(By the 3-way: If your interested I´ll send you copies of the lil` stories I write down after every concert. Even in German if you want me to...) Work vicious! D.
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| Comment by Steen (Staff) - Monday, September 11, 2006 |
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Comments: 518 | | Never mind the German concert reports. Not my strongest language :) NI!
Posted by Steen (Staff)
Monday, September 11, 2006 |
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