Wacken 2011 Review

WACKEN OPEN AIR 2011

The biggest Metal festival of this planet is a constant global player to many metalheads. It’s not just the size, it’s the whole Wacken-feeling from the stages over the campinggrounds to the visitors who come from all over the world taking a holiday in Germany or rather in Europe within the Wacken adventure as its highlight. So this year there were so many different languages heard while walking over the festivalsite we can just conclude: “Wacken – Connecting Metal People!”
Musically madman Ozzy Osbourne, NWOBHM-legend Judas Priest and the Rock ‘n’ Roll – icon Motörhead were just the heads of a high class billing. Exclusive shows of Iced Earth (Last one with their voice Matthew Barlow!) or of Avantasia (Last show ever!) just showed the importance of Wacken!
The organization worked very well as it had done all the years before. The festivalsite as its ways to the different stages offered much space for the masses, the clean restrooms were for free use and the variety of food and beverages was huge. After forbidding circle pits and wall of deaths in 2010 the WOA-organizers asked its visitors in a voting about this issue and they gave the recommendation to allow those elements of pit-action and so the organization did.
In contrast to most of the forecasts the weather played a good role from thursday on.
Like the latest WOA-editions the fans also had the opportunity to visit the Wackinger Village with several viking as medieval shows and market, the Bullhead City tent or a Jägermeister bar bringing you to the height of 50 metres above the festival offering you a great view on itself besides some drinks. Besides that the organizers enlarged the program in the Bullhead City Tent as in the Wackinger Village and in the Beergarden by mainly medieval bands and fun acts, also on wednesday.
But of course we concentrated on the festivalsite reporting about the regular program. Also remarkable was the fact that besides TV stations from all over the world reporting about the WOA, German TV broadcasted live from Wacken!
At this year’s Wacken Open Air 75 bands appeared on the four regular stages (besides several shows on the Beer Garden Stage, the Medieval Stage and Bullhead – City Tent as lots of competitors within the Metal Battle contest as further performances on the W.E.T. Stage on wednesday) in the three days for about 75000 visitors (Sold out in february!).
To the writer of these lines it had been the 15th WOA – participation in a row, and still everything worked well as in 1997.

Thursday
True Metal Stage
Helloween Because of technical problems it took a long time before the Melodic Metal – icon from the near city of Hamburg was about to start. Beginning by “Are You Metal?” and the classic “Eagle Fly Free” the fivepiece still had to fight with technical difficulties. And what followed didn’t satisfy my expectations about that gig at all. After playing several classics including a “Keeper Of The Seven Keys”-medley singer Andi Deris and his companions extended the band hymns “Future World”, “Dr. Stein” and “I Want Out” to a maximum by a couple of crowd chants games and unnecessary comments leading this show to a live catastrophe.

Ozzy Osbourne Everyone on the filled festivalsite was very curious about the madman and nobody should get disappointed. Ozzy was the big star of Wacken this weekend, his voice convinced and his band consisted of several instrumental genuises. The setlist contained by “Mr. Crowley”, “War Pigs”, “Bark At The Moon”, “Road To Nowhere”, “Shot In The Dark”, “Iron Man” or “I Don’t Want To Change The World” lots of classics celebrated by the audience while ignoring the latest albums which probably nobody worried about. Of course in the middle of the 90 minutes lasting set Ozzy needed a break which got filled by his bandmates playing solos. After finishing the regular set with “Crazy Train” the prince of darkness and his band returned on stage to perform the encores “Mama, I’m Coming Home” and the Black Sabbath – classic “Paranoid”. The combination Ozzy & Wacken worked very well. Amazing!

Black Stage
Skyline It had become tradition the band of one WOA-organizer opened the regular program on the festivalsite. Supported by the German Metal-personalities Doro Pesch, Chris Boltendahl, Tom Angelripper and Udo Dirkschneider they performed the Wacken-hymns “We Are The Metalheads”, “Wacken Will Never Die”, “Auf Nach Wacken” and “Heavy Metal WOA” as several cover versions.

Bülent Ceylan Last year the comedian and self-declared metalhead Bülent Ceylan entertained the Summer Breeze as surprise guest. On the SB – press conference he announced it’s a big dream to him appearing in Wacken. And so just one year later he stood in front of the WOA masses which probably majoritarian had fun. I prefer political cabaret anyway.

Frei.Wild I don’t know the necessarity to fill a vaccum of the split Böhse Onkelz which existence I doubt by a worse copy of them. The band from South Tyrol performed German lyrics with primitive tough-guy messages and their music was nothing special. But many fans seemingly enjoyed it supporting them.

Blind Guardian The Fantasy Metal – institution from Krefeld satisfied the melodic fraction after the Helloween – disappointment right before. Vocalist Hansi Kürsch and his comrades took care about the communication with the audience without to forget to mainly let the music do the talking. So besides the newer “At The Edge Of Time” – songs like the opener “Sacred Worlds” and “Wheel Of Time” the band performed a greatest hits setlist consisting of “Welcome To Dying”, “Nightfall”, “Traveller In Time”, “Imaginations From The Other Side”, “Lord Of The Rings”, “Valhalla”, “Majesty” and the set closing ballad “The Bard’s Song” sung by thousands of fans. The musical skills of the musicians as their live-action impressed and inspired the crowd to long applauses.

Friday
True Metal Stage
Suicidal Tendencies Mike Muir and his bandana band were one of the first Crossover bands ever and they still are unique in the scene. They opened with a hammer classic triple consisting of “You Can’t Bring Me Down”, “Join The Army” and “War Inside My Head”. Mike ran the stage up and down in his very own way. Because of the latest full-length album had been released eleven years before the instumental magicians of course performed a best-of-set which ended with the well-known “How Will Laugh Tomorrow” and the band-anthem “Pledge Your Allegiance”.

Sodom The German Thrash Metal icon can be called as a steady guest in Wacken. The trio considered by the opener “In War And Peaces”, “Feigned Death Throes” and “The Art Of Killing Poetry” three titles from the also named current release “In War And Peaces” besides all those classics like “Outbreak Of Evil”, “The Saw Is The Law”, “Agent Orange”, “Blasphemer” and “Remember The Fallen”. Mainman Tom Angelripper and his both comrades bid farewell with the medley “Stalinknarrenhagel”, but the fans missed “Ausgebombt”.

Trivium The American Metal shooting stars including their new drummer Nick Augusto started by “In Waves” with the title track from their brandnew album. Songs as its live presentation showed how professional this quartet had become in the latest years. The following classic “A Gunshot To The Head Of Trepidation” emphasized this impression. And the setlist chronology consisting of “Black”, “Like Light To The Flies”, “Built To Fall”, “Pull Harder On The Strings Of Your Martyr”, “Down From The Sky” and the final “Throes Of Perdition” spoke for itself. Vocalist Matt Heafy communicated with the crowd, partly in German, and so this appearance rocked. Awesome!

Judas Priest It was time for British Steel in Wacken, one of the few big bands which had been really missed by the Wacken visitors as probably by the organizers. So the NWOBHM legend appeared on its farewell tour at the WOA. Supported by Richie Faulkner who had replaced original member K.K. Downing the band began by “Rapid Fire” and “Metal Gods”. In front of a filled festivalsite interpreted classics like “Victim Of Changes”, “Night Crawler”, “Turbo Lover”, “Blood Red Skies” and “Painkiller” surprisingly well, especially Rob Halford surprised hitting his notes right after he had disappointed often the years before. But the live-presentation sucked. Old men just watching their instruments, no motion on stage and no communication to their numerous fans. And to let the crowd sing the whole lyrics of their hymn “Breaking The Law” wasn’t the best idea I guess. So the heroes of many metalheads finished by the classics “Hell Bent For Leather”, “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’” and “Living After Midnight” a show that was musically good, but because of the mentioned presentation emotionless.

Airbourne The Australian AC/DC-soundalikes opened by “Raise The Flag” and “Born To Kill” from their recent release “No Guts, No Glory”. This was their third WOA appearance and even in the night bandleader and fronter Joel O’Keefe climbed up the stage again while playing “Blackjack”. A cool Rock ‘n’ Roll Party after midnight ended with the hit “Too Much, Too Young, Too Fast” and the title track of their debut “Runnin’ Wild”.

Black Stage
Ensiferum The Finnish Pagan Metal combo welcomed thousands of fans in the sunny noon. And those celebrated the title track of their latest output “From Afar”, “Battle Song” and “Stone Cold Metal”. But those Pagan music as shows are much too similar to each other.

Morbid Angel Before this appearance there had been a controverse discussion between the Morbid Angel fans because of the experiments on their new record “Illud Divinum Insanus”. And the fourpiece performed by “Existo Vulgoré”, “Nevermore” and “I Am Morbid” three titles of it in a row in the middle section of their set. Technically the whole appearance worked well, but of course the fans celebrated classics like “Maze Of Torment” or the final consisting of “Chapel Of Gouls”, “Where The Slime Lives” and “God Of Emptiness”.

As I Lay Dying The Metalcore / Deathcore icon from San Diego caused a big crowd in front of the stage which showed their raised popularity. And they stressed it by an amazing show containing hits as the opener “Within Destruction”, “Sound Of Truth”, “Through Struggle”, “An Ocean Between Us”, “Parallels”, “Nothing Left”, or “Forever”. Besides that the quintet calls by Tim Lambesis a charismatic fronter its own. The instrumental skills of the guitarists Phil Sgrosso and Nick Hipa as those ones of their drummer “Jordan Mancino” did their part to let this show become successful. And bassist Josh Gilbert did his backing vocals part very well. So the band finished a jubilated appearance by “Confined” and the classic “94 Hours”.

Heaven Shall Burn Germany’s leading formation in Metalcore / Deathcore set standards how intensive a show can be for another time. Suited in red shirts as black pants and supported by their large video screens and several pyro effects the crowd experienced an hour they probably won’t forget. Beginning with “Profane Believers” and “Voice Of The Voiceless” several circle pits started. And they moved on while “Forlorn Skies”, “Combat” and “Endzeit”. Remarkable was the idea to motivate the female spectators to take part in crowd surfing with the destination photo pit where they got a HSB-shirt each. Cool idea! And in the end after “Behind A Wall Of Silence” and “Return To Sanity” the quintet spent tribute to Edge Of Sanity by covering “Black Tears” which of course found the applause of many metalheads.

Triptykon After Cradle of Filth had canceled their WOA-participation the new band of Tom G. Fischer got presented as their short-term-replacement. The fireflame-decorated stage took care of a strange atmosphere while the band played by “Procreation (Of The Wicked)”, “Circle Of The Tyrants”, “Babylon Fell” and “Synagoga Satane” four tracks of Fischer’s former band Celtic Frost. Generally interesting as strange show.

Apocalyptica The four Metal cellists are very well-known. And such a band is probably one of the few which is predestined for a show in the deepest night. So the left audience enjoyed the atmosphere this formation spread. Of course the Metallica-interpretations “Master Of Puppets”, “Nothing Else Matters” and “Seek And Destroy” got the most applause. Nice!

Party Stage
Primal Fear After starting with technical problems while the opener “Sign Of Fear” the Swabian fivepiece surprised with their early set debut-classics “Chainbreaker” and “Battalions Of Hate”. The Melodic Metal fans celebrated Ralf Scheepers, Mat Sinner & Co who bid farewell by their hymn “Metal Is Forever”.

Van Canto Beginning as a project this a capella formation just assisted by a drummer had become a real success as the WOA-participation showed. Interpreting the whole instrumentation as vocal lines of Metal songs as “Whishmaster” (Nightwish), “Rebellion” (Grave Digger), “Primo Victoria” (Sabbaton), “The Bard’s Song” (Blind Guardian), “Kings Of Metal” (Manowar) or “Fear Of The Dark” (Iron Maiden) with one female and four male voices seemed to have its audience. To me one of the most overestimated bands nowadays, after two songs this appearance bored.

Rhapsody Of Fire Long time, no see! The Symphonic Metal group showed they hadn’t been lazy in the meantime of their absence. Technically this performance was on top of the instrumental skills of this weekend, and that all worked well with Fabio Leone’s siren. Although they had released by “Eternity” a new record just two months ago the band considered no material of this one. From the opener “Triumph Or Agony” till “Emerald Sword” they concentrated on more familiar compositions.

Morgoth After a long absence of the Metal scene in general as of Wacken in special (Morgoth had appeared at the WOA in 1995!) the first big German Death Metal band had to fight with several technical difficulties. So the stage monitor sound was the only sound to hear for the fans in the beginning. But this changed after and the numerous fans celebrated the setlist which completely contained classics like the opener “Body Count”, “Suffer Life”, “Unter The Surface”, “Pits Of Utumno” and “Isolated”. The cult is back!

Kyuss Lives The following appearance was supposed to become one of the most interesting ones of the weekend. The desert and dust sound of the Stone Rockers were a nice change to the typical metal acts. As expected vocalist John Garcia and his bandmates didn’t move too much, but groovers as the opener “Gardenia”, “One Inch Man”, “Asteroid”, “El Rodeo” and the final “Green Machine” entertained very well.

Saltatio Mortis One of the most horrible shows of the weekend should become the medieval Folk Rock act from Mannheim. Their tracks sounded like I had heard them thousand times before and the intrusive performance of their fronter sucked. Besides that the combo presented by “Eulenspiegel” a title from the forthcoming output and the duet with Doro for “Salome” was the only positive surprise of this hour.

W.E.T. Stage
Sirenia After several changes on the position of the female vocals the Gothic Metal quartet might have found by Aylin a great singer with much perspective. The Spanish vocalist harmonized very well with the band from Stavanger. After opening by “The End Of It All” and “Fallen Angel” from their new album “The Enigma Of Life” Morten Veland and his band filled the rest of the 30 minutes by former material (“Lost In Life”, “The Other Side”, “The Path To Decay” and “My Mind’s Eye”). Cool show!

Slime I needed to watch the billing for a second time when I noticed the probably most political German Punk band would appear in Wacken. A contrast? No, an hour after midnight the tent was pretty filled up with a crowd which sang the lyrics of “”Alle Gegen Alle”, “Religion” or “Deutschland Muss Sterben”. It turned out to good show as alternation to the rest of the program.

Shraphead As last act of the day in the tent the Norwegian Heavy Rock newcomers had to play for just a very small audience. The performance, especially the one of their fronter, as rockers like “Merry Go Round” or “Blind And Seduced” of the so named brandnew debut showed this band deserves much more, for example a second chance in Wacken.

Saturday
True Metal Stage
Crashdiet The fourpiece from Sweden seemed to live their Glam Rock beginning with their rouged as suited style and ending up with their sound as its live presentation. To play encores they left the stage earlier after “Rebel” to which vocalist Martin Sweet had entered the stage on a Harley-Davidson to return with “Armageddon” and “Generation Wild”.

Dir En Grey The also rouged Japanese appeared for the second time in Wacken. The Visual Key icon stuck on my as on many others’ nerves with seemingly uncoordinated sounding tracks combined with psycho screams. Next!

Iced Earth This fourth band’s appearance was a very special one: It was the last participation between Iced Earth and their voice Matthew Barlow. And what followed can be called nostalgic. After the “1776”-intro the quintet opened with “Burning Times” after which Matt showed a great interpretation of the Ripper-track “Declaration Day”. “Vengeance Is Mine”, “Last December”, “I Died For You”, “The Hunter” as the final “Something Wicked This Way Comes” – trilogy consisting of “Prophecy”, “Birth Of The Wicked” and “The Coming Curse” belonging to the best US Power Metal is able to offer, especially by Barlow’s voice. Thousands of enthusiastic fans celebrated the show which got closed by the encore “Iced Earth” and a very emotional farewell of Matt who got standing ovations by the crowd for minutes.

Avantasia Another farewell was up to follow next. Edguy’s vocalist Tobias Sammet announced this WOA-appearance would be the last show of his Avantasia project ever. Supported by Jorn Lande, Bob Catley, Michael Kiske, Kai Hansen and Oliver Hartmann on the vocals this show became pretty varied and fulfilled its art approach. To me the whole Avantasia project is too cheesy. Whatever: The fans had their fun.

Motörhead “We are Motörhead – and we play Rock ‘n’ Roll”. This pre-announcement of every Motörhead show sounds pretty familiar to every headbanger. And so the seventh WOA-appearance of Lemmy & Co began. And besides “Get Back In Line” from the recent “The Wörld Is Yours” output the trio concentrated on classics like the opener “Iron Fist”, “Metropolis”, “Rock Out” or “In The Name Of Tragedy”. After closing the set by the Sepultura-dedicated “Going To Brasil”, “Killed By Death” and “Bomber” Lemmy, Phil Campbell and Mickey Dee returned to perform the encores “Ace Of Spades” and “Overkill”.

Subway To Sally It had become a ritual to let the East German Folk Metal sevenpiece entertain the crowd deep in the night as they did this time again. Beginning with “Henkersbraut” the band appeared in front of a respactable crowd meanwhile it started to rain. Especially the old hits like “Sag Dem Teufel”, “Falscher Heiland”, “Veitstanz” and the encore “Julia Und Die Räuber” which was sung by the audience earned much support.

Black Stage
Moonsorrow This Finnish fivepiece is one of the few Pagan bands which really kick ass with good songs. And so they did by opening the last day of this year’s Wacken-edition in the sunny noon. After “Kylän Päässä” they decided to perform the epic “Tähdetön” which of course took a third of their time, but it was worth it.

Kataklysm One of the best Death Metal acts nowadays rocked the early afternoon sustainable. By “Push The Venom” and the classic “Manipulator of Souls” the fans noticed just in the beginning of the show what it was about: Doublebass attacks, tight riffs and the grunts of Maurizio Iacono allowed each single person just to headbang and/or to mosh. And the Canadien madness continued by “Taking The World By Storm”, “Illuminati”, “In Shadows And Dust”, “As I Slither” and the final “Crippled And Broken”. Strong!

Mayhem And so the following act lead us to the question why this former Norwegian Black Metal icon whose popularity is mainly based by a murder to their founder and the suicide of their ex-fronter had this position to appear. The show was closed by “Pure Fucking Armageddon”, a title which allows different interpretation relating to the musical quality.

Sepultura Before Wacken we had seen different Sepultura shows at different places which were mostly okay, but I had always missed the vibe. The first Brasilian WOA-showdown should change this: From the start marked by the classics “Arise” and “Refuse/Resist” the band rocked the whole festival area. Especially shouter Derrick Green showed a very strong appearance, so who does really miss Max Cavalera? The band acted tight that also songs from the newer band phase as “Kairos” or “Choke” convinced. Just the Ministry-cover “Just One Fix” could have been replaced by another own song. Anyway this performance surprised absolutely turning out to the best of the whole weekend in this strong billing. The final of the set containing the classics “Troops Of Doom”, “Territory”, “Inner Self”, “Ratamahatta” and “Roots Bloody Roots” spoke for itself.

Kreator The Thrash Metal institution from Essen is a pleasant guest in Wacken always guaranteeing an amazing live show. First of all the huge video screen instead of a backdrop impressed showing different animations, classic album covers as pics from the bands’ early years. Mainman Mille animated the fanship as usual to give their best to the opener “Hordes Of Chaos”, “Endless Pain”, “Enemy Of God”, “Phobia”, “Reconquering The Throne”, “Violent Revolution”, “Betrayer”, “Flag Of Hate” and “Tormentor” in the end, just “Extreme Aggresions” should be missed.

Children Of Bodom On other festivals the Finnish fivepiece appear as headliners, in Wacken they have to play much later after them which shows the high quality in the WOA-billing. But this high level didn’t get fulfilled by Alexi Laiho & Co. Too spiritless they acted through their set starting with “Not My Funeral” from the new “Relentless Reckless Forever” release and ending with the encores “Are You Dead Yet?” and “Hatecrew Deathroll”.

Party Stage
Visions Of Atlantis The self-announced “breakfast band” served Symphonic Metal which really was too much in the warm noon. From their opener “At The Back Of Beyond” to the finisher “Memento” their music sounded very typical Austrian. Not my cup of tea!

The Haunted The Swedish quintet around the Bjorler brothers are pure live power. Beginning with “Never Better” from the new “Unseen”-masterpiece they let follow a best of setlist containing “99”, “The Flood”, “D.O.A.”, “No Compromise”, etc.. Lead by their charismatic fronter Peter Dolving they had no problems to animate the motivated crowd to take part in a great show which should end up in the great final consisting of the double track “Dark Intentions” and “Bury Your Dead”.

Knorkator They’re back: The only Comedy Metal band which is really funny decided to return after their split, and that was definitely a good decision. Opening with “Der Ultimative Mann” the band nearly defined what entertainment is about. This also applied the cover versions of Ace Of Base’s “All That She Wants” and Boney M.’s “Ma Baker”. Besides that fronter Stumpen animated to several exotic gestures and interactions the crowd directly realized. Astonishing was the huge audience who completely filled the ground in front of the Party Stage meanwhile the Black Stage with Mayhem just counted a small number of fans in comparison to Knorkator. All hail to Stumpen, Alf Ator, Buzz Dee & Co!

Vreid The Norwegian Black ‘n’ Rollers introduced by the opener “The Arche”, “Fire On The Mountain”, “The Sound Of The River”, “Wolverine Bastards” and “The Look And The Others” pretty many tracks from their new “V”-record which filled half of the show. But of course the last played title “Pitch Black” was the most jubilated one. Anyway, the show can be counted to one of the band’s desastrous ones because they had to fight against a couple of technical problems.

Danko Jones From the opener “The Rules” on the Rock ‘n’ Roll trio definitely kicked ass. To me this was the right Rock-shit to party after a long weekend with tons of good Metal. And playing against Kreator on a neighbored stage Danko Jones explained from his early days how he had become a die-hard-Kreator-fan and what it means to him playing next to them. Very sympathic as charismatic and entertaining this man showed himself. Later comments were again related to Kreator in a very funny as respectful way. And that what was it all about: Metal, Rock ‘n’ Roll, respect and party! The audience understood that and celebrated “First Date”, “Full Of Regret”, “Sugar Chocolate” and “Cadillac”.

Eläkeläiset Party isn’t a strange word to the Finnish vodka-polka-coalition. So they drank vodka and played their Polka-interpreted cover versions of classics like Iron Maiden’s “Run To The Hills”, Queen’s “We Will Rock You”, Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction”, Kiss’ “I Was Made For Loving You”, The Scorpions’ “Wind Of Change” or Motörhead’s “Ace Of Spades”. The left visitors had their fun with the sympathic group while it started to rain. Anyway: A good closure after this great weekend!

Conclusion:
Wacken Open Air 2011 was the 15th WOA in a row for the writer of these lines. A lot has changed while the festival has evolved step by step and the early sold out by 75000 fans showed the progressed WOA is completely accepted. This has a lot to do with the very varied entertainment options as by the organization which guarantees the success of a raised festival. The only important short-termed band-cancelation Cradle Of Filth got well- replaced by Triptykon and COF were directly confirmed for the next year. Many shows from very different sounding bands met high acceptance by the international audience coming from all over the world
The prices for food and beverages stayed the same as the years before (e.g. 3,50 € for a 0,4 l beer or softdrink). We enjoyed our Wacken 2011! So see you in Wacken 2012 – rain or shine! Special thanks go out to Britta Kock and the WOA-team!!!!! At the Wacken Open Air rocked, drank and partied Tobi Wan Kenobi, Lotte, Dumbo and Snake!!!!!