Wacken Open Air 2005
As the years before the WOA-Team presented an ideal organized festival. But this year this aspect became more important than before. The weather didn’t seem to consider itself a friend of Heavy Metal for this weekend. In contrast to 2002 it wasn’t one big “Niagara Falls”-shower. This year the rain was lower, but it came with much more perserverance just followed by a few interruptions. But the mentioned organization was able to still guarantee a great festival by covering the mud with tons of straw which was a great logistic achievement. So most visitors didn’t care too much and had fun with the cool billing.
At this year’s WOA 77 bands played on five stages (including the Jim Beam Stage outside the festivalsite in three days for about 35000 visitors.
A tragedy happened to one visitor. Outside the WOA-area he fell in front of an ambulance driving very slowly on the main road in Wacken. The 37-year-old man (R.I.P.) left a whole family consisting of his wife and four children. We wish the family all the best for its future!!!!!
The WOA-team showed a wonderful examplary solidarity shared by many metalheads. They started a bank account on which many fans has spent for the family.
So we also want to point out on the following account you can spend:
Account owner (Kontoinhaber): Amtskasse Schenefeld
Bank (Bankverbindung): Landsparkasse Schenefeld / Holstein
Bank number (Bankleitzahl): 222 515 80
Account number (Konto-Nummer): 20 000 333
Purpose (Verwendungszweck): Spende – Metalhead
IBAN: DE96 2225 1580 0020 0003 33
BIC (Landsparkasse Schenefeld): HSHNDEH1SHF
Thursday
True Metal Stage (A Night To Remember)
Tristania It’s pretty unusual to begin a festival with a melancholic band like the Gothic Metal-act from Stavanger. But anyway the Norwegians rocked. Lead by the beautiful female singer Vibeke Stene as two male singers and weaponed with the new album “Ashes” the sevenpiece earned much applause. This performance was much better than those ones had been done on the “World Of Glass”-tour. Go ahead this way!
Candlemass The next act should even become much slower than the band before. The Doom-legend around front-monk Messiah Marcolin brought a splendid performance to their fans. The Swedes opened with the new “Black Dwarf” and conitnued with the familiar “Well Of Souls” and “Dark Are Veils Of Death” before they presented by “Copernicus”, “Born In A Tank”, “Assassin Of The Light” and “Seven Silver Keys” further tracks from the new self-titled release. In the end of their set the Doomsters offered classics like “Under The Oak”, “At The Gallows End” and “The Sorcerer’s Pledge” and left a satisfied crowd.
Oomph! This German band was a main influence for the well-known successful act Rammstein. But after nine longplayers they currently reached the music television’s heavy rotation. Lead by the variable voice of singer Dero the band presented Electro Metal including catchy hooklines combined with a cool groove. People who hadn’t been sure about this band fitting to the billing celebrated the show including hits like “Gekreuzigt”, “Tausend Neue Lügen”, “Fieber” and of course their biggest single “Augen Auf!”.
Nightwish This evening bands with female vocalists weren’t really exotic. Musicians and technicians took care that this appearance became a show in its deepest sense. Supported by a wonderful light show the band started with “Dark Chest Of Waters” from their current “Once”-album. After this furious beginning the six Suomis around female singer Tarja Turunen presented their calm side by the also new “The Siren”, “Ever Dream” and “Deep Silent Complete”. So the full spectatorship didn’t get in motion just swinging their lighters. That changed when the band turned to faster songs like “Planet Hell”, “Wishmaster”, “Slaying The Dreamer” and “Nemo”. But followed by much jubilation the band returned on stage to play “Wish I Had An Angel” and the Gary Moore-cover “Over The Hills And Far Away”.
W.E.T. Stage
Hatesphere For the first time there was action on two festivalsite-stages (Jim Beam Stage not included) on a WOA-Thursday. Presented by the Metal Hammer “Hellfest Party” the Danish Dynamite held a demonstration of modern Thrash. So fronter Jacob Bredahl introduced the pretty full tent with the advice they are not Nightwish which meanwhile started the second part of their show. The five nice guys served the fans preferring harder stuff. They took a small accent on material from the new Thrash-masterpiece “The Sickness Within” by the title track and “Murderous Intent and played a couple of older hits with the opener “Vermin”, “Low Life Vendetta” or the final “Hate”. After the regular set the fivepiece exclusively interpreted Metal classics from Ozzy Osbourne (“Bark At The Moon”), Suicidal Tendencies (“Trip At The Brain”), Obituary (“Threatening Skies”) and Anthrax (“Caught In A Mosh”) supported by the writers from the magazine Metal Hammer who filled up the stage to bang and party to the classics right between the acting musicians. The euphoric crowd got in action, too and created many moshpits. A wonderful alternative to the Main Stage-act for fans like me!
Jim Beam Stage
Mambo Kurt After last year’s success the stage returned in front of the beer garden and “hammond-organ-god” Mambo Kurt returned on it. For another time he interpreted well-known songs from very different genres (“Paradise City”, “Raining Blood”, “I Just Called To Say I Love You”) in his own funny way. Very entertaining again!
Friday
True Metal Stage
Morgana Lefay The year of 2005 is the year of the return of Morgana Lefay. The Bollnäs-boys started with well-known classics (“The Source Of Pain”, “Master Of The Masquerade”, “When Gargoyles Fly”) before introducing new “Grand Materia”-stuff (“Hollow”, “Angels Deceit”). The band around great fronter Charles Rytkonen and now short-haired guitarist Tony Eriksson showed a lot of action and had fun appearing in front of so many fans who celebrated the second classics part like the first one (“The Boone He Gives”, In The Court Of The Crimson King”, “Maleficium”) before the fivepiece dismissed them with another new track (“I Roam”). The Swedes are still one of the leading Power Metal-bands – live as on their releases.
Sonata Arctica Suomi’s leading Power Metal-band besides Stratovarius is definitely Sonata Arctica. Obviously the young band had won a lot of supporters who filled up the area in front of the True Metal Stage and sang lots of song parts with vocalist Tony Kakko. Despite some sound problems they celebrated hymns like “Misplaced”, “Blinded No More”, “My Land”, “Victoria’s Secret”, “Black Sheep”, “Don’t Say A Word”, “The Cage” and “Full Moon”. But in contrast to the Bollnäs-platoon the band didn’t react with any stage action. Cool gig, but they can do better.
Metal Church This reunion of one of the most important US-Power Metal-bands doesn’t still convince me. Nevertheless the formation around guitarist Kurdt Vanderhoof performed well in spite of a horrible sound and a much more horrible rain. In contrast to their first Wacken-appearance 1999 they presented a unity. One main reason for this fact seemed to be fronter Ronny Munroe (ex-Rottweiler) who should have convinced even the most traditional Metal Church-maniac. From the beginning (“Ton Of Bricks”, “Start The Fire”, “Leave ‘Em Behind”) he interpreted the Metal Church-treasures in an ideal way. The band satisfied their old school-fans with their hymns “Gods Of Wrath”, “Metal Church” and “Watch the Children Pray” which got supported by the guest-appearance of Vicious Rumors-guitarist Ira Black. The fans who followed the show ignoring the rainy weather celebrated their heroes happily. Returning to my criticism I need to mention the fivepiece still ignores the great Mike Howe-era. That’s a sad fact which needs to be changed!
Edguy For another time the band around front-clown Tobias Sammet stuck on my nerves. I can’t understand the big following the fivepiece from Fulda had reached. In spite of the constant rain an enormous crowd celebrated tracks from the current “Hellfire Club”-release (“Mysteria”, “The Piper Never Dies”, “Lavatory Love Machine”) as older material (“Land Of The Miracle”, “Babylon”, “Vain Glory Opera”). While the encore “Tears Of A Mandrake” Tobias climbed up under the roof of the stage being around 20 meters high. As the other encore of course the fivepiece played the video-single “King Of Fools”. The performance was celebrated loudly, Mr Sammet stuck with his many jokes even on some fans’ nerves, but with his gesture pouring a bottle of water over his own head to be as wet as the loyal crowd was standing in the rain he even caught my sympathy. For a short time of course!
Machine Head Till the gig people had discussed about the headliner Machine Had, but just until. With only the opener-blast “Imperium” from the current “Through The Ashes Of Empire”-album they bombed all doubts away. The next 75 minutes should become an overwhelming show consisting of smashers like “The Blood, The Sweat, Tears”, “Ten Ton Hammer”, ”Crashing Around You”, “Old” “From This Day”, the power-ballad “Descend The Shades Of Night” and the everlasting fans’ fave “Davidian” to which thousands of supporters shouted the chorus (“Let Freedom Ring With A Shotgun Blast!”). The very tight fourpiece earned as much support for their cover-medley consisting of “Creeping Death” (Metallica), “The Trooper” (Iron Maiden), “Territory (Sepultura)” and “Walk” (Pantera). Mainman Robb Flynn held the “Fuck”-factor high in his comments and thanked the fans for their support followed by very loud jubilation. Wow! What an appearance! The Oakland-gang was one of the best Wacken-headliners I have seen yet!
Corvus Corax & Orchestra After Apocalyptica finnished their set on the Black Stage this combination offered even more classic. The musicians were supposed to interpret Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana”, but they changed the title into “Cantus Buranus” to avoid confusion about it. So they didn’t open with the famous intro “Oh Fortuna ….. Velut Luna”. The appearance included a choir, different costumes, an orchestra and many folk instruments played by Corvus Corax themselves who usually play a Medieval Folk Rock-style. This performance fulfilled high musical standards, but in the dark cold night it also bored by the time.
Black Stage
Naglfar The day was supposed to be opened by darkest Black Metal. So the weather sayed ‘no’, or in this case even more ‘yes’, and switched to autumn mode. After Jens Rydén had quit the band the only bandfounder left Kristoffer W. Olivius now acted on microphone instead of the bass guitar. The Blackies from Umea introduced tracks from the new release “Pariah” (“A Swarm Of Plagues”, “The Perpetual Hours”) as older material (“When The Autumn Storms Come”, the set finishing “At The Brimstone Gate”). I don’t call myself a big fan of the band, but their appearance was okay anyway. Just the sound could have been much better.
Illdisposed One of the nowadays coolest live-acts invaded the stage. The essence of their live quality is their own hard style with many funny statements held in nearly perfect German by fronter Bo Summers. So he introduced the crowd by the question: “Are You Here?” After the opener he asked the audience “Seid ihr ‘erwacken’?” (“Are you ‘awacken’”). The fourpiece still acting with just one guitar by Batten mainly concentrated on songs from their strong current masterpiece “1-800 Vindication” (the opener “I Believe In Me”, “Dark”, the video-single “Still Sane”, the hymn “And Now We’re History”), but didn’t forget their older stuff (“Fear The Gates”, “The Purity Of Essence”, “Kokaiinum”) supported by a big fanship. Curious visitors trying the band out were convinced musically as by the entertainer of the year, named Bo Summers who often pointed out they are a gay Danish band. In the end of the set Bo asked the crowd if they should play faster. After a very loud ‘yes’ he answered they’re not able to do that. All thumbs up for the Aarhus-task force!
Bloodbath Many people awaited a band which usually is just a side-project of musicians from Katatonia and Opeth added by Dan Swanö (mainly known from his ex-band Edge Of Sanity). But it was their first live-gig ever which was even held with original fronter Opeth-mastermind Mikael Akerfeldt who had properly quit the band and had been replaced by Hypocrisy-/Pain-mainman Peter Tägtgren. The band members were completely suited with white shirts which were covered with blood-like red colour which also covered their faces. A cool corpsepaint-alternative! The Swedes played all three tracks from their debut-mini-release “Breeding Death” (the opening title track, “Omnious Bloodvomit” and “Furnace Funeral”), presented three classics from their debut-longplayer “Resurrection Through Carnage” (“Ways To The Grave”, “So You Die”, “Like Fire”) and focussed on their current album “Nightmares Made Flesh” (“Outnumbering The Day”, “Cancer Of The Soul”, “Bastard Son Of God”, “Brave New Hell”, “Eaten”). The big fan-crowd went totally mad. After one song Mikael advised the screaming fans this was a Black Metal-concert and they need to scream darkerlike grunting. After they had done he advanced the following scream levels: ‘Higher’ – ‘High Pitch’ – ‘Dani Filth’! The supporters fulfilled all his claims and continued banging their heads till the show’s end. After this nearly everybody knew he/she/it had seen a very special unique performance.
Obituary The long awaited return of the Death Metal-legend from Florida was supposed to happen in this year’s festival summer. Like at the With Full Force they chose a much too long intro before they entered the stage to begin with “Redneck Stomp” from the new release “Frozen In Time”. Besides the strong rain while their gig I was a little disappointed they were playing just a few classics like “Slowly We Rot”. And like the last time I came to the conclusion the appearance was cool, but still leaving much space to improve it. We’ll see on their club tour!
Within Temptation The shooting stars from the Netherlands had made big progress bringing a couple of their songs into the heavy rotation of the music channels MTV and VIVA. The band started with “See Who I Am”, the current video-single “Stand My Ground” and “Jillian” from the well-known chart-entry album “The Silent Force” while it was still raining. Besides other new tracks like “Angels” and “Forsaken” they also presented by their “Enter”-debut-album-tracks “Enter” and “The Other Half (Of Me)” their harder side including grunts from guitarist Robert Westerholt. Supported by a nice light and pyro show the gig became one triumph, so that even at the end of the show the rain stopped and the sun came out. Sharon Den Adel wearing a black leather dress mastered even the highest tones. After the cool cover version of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill”, “Caged” and “Mother Earth” the fivepiece closed their regular set to return with the encore “Ice Queen” which was celebrated by the fans with high sung choirs. An extraordinary show convincing all doubts they could be too much mainstream for the festival!
Special Surprise Act: Stratovarius The secret became history when the Finnish Power Metal-institution entered the stage to play a 15 minutes lasting set. They filled the short time with “Hunting High And Low”, “Black Diamond” and the new single “Maniac Dance” and earned much support from the audience. The harmony between the returned singer Tomi Kotipelto and guitarist as bandleader Timo Tolkki seemed to be back again. And by the way the tight band introduced his new bassist Lauri Porra to the fans.
Apocalyptica Compared with the huge audience the four cellists attracted even more fans than the headliners Nightwish and Machine Head had done. The Finnish Metal Classic-combination brought own compositions from the younger releases bythe opener “Path Vol. 2” “Hope” as by the new “Apocalyptica”-album-tracks “Life Burns”, “Betrayal” and “Bittersweet”. The four musicians got much louder support when they played their Metallica-interpretations “Master Of Puppets”, “Enter Sandman”, “Fight Fire With Fire” and “Nothing Else Matters”. After the regular set the band returned on stage to play the Grieg-hommage “Hall Of The Mountain King” leaving a satisfied audience.
Samael Actually in my opinion the innovative Swiss band offered with their hard as technical sound the ideal live music for the night time. But it must have been the rainy weather of the whole day which had probably cost too much stamina of many fans. So the number of supporters left in front of the stage was pretty small. But those saw a strong gig including the meanwhile familiar video projections. Vorph, Xy and Co earned applause for songs from the current album “Reign Of Light” (“Inch’Allah”, “On Earth”) and even more for their classics (“Shining Kingdom”, “Rain”). Cool show!
Party Stage
Mercenary Early in the morning (11.00 a.m.) the Danish Melodic Metal-shooting stars started the Friday on the third open air-stage. They were the right wake up-call playing a pleasant fresh kind of Melodic Metal. With the variable voice of Mikkel Sandager, a tight active band, songs from their current “11 Dreams”-album (“Redestrucdead”, “Firesoul”, “Falling”, “Into The Sea Of Dark Desires” / “World Hate Center” and the final title track-hit) and a journey back to the “Everblack”-longplayer (“Seize The Night”) they convinced the Party Stage – audience in the early morning.
Gorefest Suspense filled the atmosphere in front of the Party Stage: The reunited Death Metal-band from the Netherlands pleased the fans with their long awaited live-presence. After seven years the fourpiece around front-growler Jan-Chris De Koeyer and drum-phenomenon Ed Warby hadn’t lost any intensity. They totally renounced of material from their forthcoming release “La Muerte”. Their fans didn’t mind celebrating “Low”, “The Glorious Dead”, “Demon Seed”, “Mental Insanity”, “Erase” and a Death Metal-version of Kraftwerks “Autobahn”. Great comeback-appearance!
W.E.T. Stage
Suidakra The band from Düsseldorf offered a strong performance full of energy. The voice duel between the two sixstringers Arkadius (main singer) with aggressive and Matthias with clean vocals fascinated the tent’s spectators. Many people just stayed there escaping the rain outside and were surprised by this Melodic Death Metal-force. Most people felt animated to get in motion. Surprisingly one of the best appearances this year!
Reckless Tide The second year in a row the German band appeared in Wacken. Before they entered the stage the tent had become much emptier. Those who had stayed saw powerful Thrash Metal with two fronters.
Saturday
True Metal Stage
Dragonforce The British group played Speed Metal in its deepest sense. So everybody in front of Wacken’s biggest stage got woken up by them. Although they are a pretty new band with their two outputs “Sonic Firestorm” and “Valley Of The Damned” a lot of fans seemed to know the lyrics and celebrated their faves. Me didn’t, but I need to mention this was a tight as professional appearance.
Overkill One of the very few rainless phases in combination with sunshine of this year’s WOA happened while the NYC-Thrash Metal-evergreens. For another time the band around fronter Bobby ‘Blitz’ Ellsworth and bassist D.D. Verni proved their live class by a bunch of classics like “Hello From The Gutter”, “Elimination”, “Rotten To The Core”, “Wrecking Crew”, “In Union We Stand” the numerous supporters didn’t hesitate to let grow the action on the spectatorside. With the final two smashers “Old School” and “Fuck You” they left their happy fans. Right after the gig the sun got covered by clouds, which should cause rain again. Overkill seem to have a very mighty supporter!
Axel Rudi Pell Then the time had come to give the fans of Melodic Metal / Hardrock what they want. Axel Rudi Pell and his international formation started with “Tear Down The Walls” and “Nasty Reputation” and let follow a best of by the medley “Masquerade Ball”/”Casbah” in a maxi version including a lot of improvisation, “Strong As A Rock” and “Fool, Fool”. By the Rainbow-cover “Temple Of The King” and the oldie “Call Her Princess” the band finished a performance that had made the decision easy to stay while it was raining. Vocalist Johnny Gioeli impressed by his voice for another time. But who was the guy singing as an hommage to the movie “Kids” ‘Oooooh, oooooh, skating with Casbah …” while the chorus of the song “Casbah”?
Hammerfall Suitable two the visual concept of the new album “Chapter V: Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken” and the latest “Icereaker”-tour the stage looked like somewhere around the poles. And the next 75 minutes should surprise me! The Swedes introduced new material as “Fury Of The Wild” and the current video-single “Blood Bound” that was sung by the huge fan crowd like the classics “Renegade”, “Let The Hammer Fall”, “Riders Of The Storm”, “Hammerfall”, “Crimson Thunder”, “Heeding The Call”. The band impressed me playing tight and appearing very professional. In comparison to their first gig outside Sweden in Wacken 1997 the band had evolved a lot. With “Templars Of Steel” and “Hearts Of Fire” to which the very huge hammer in the stage background got in motion Joacim Cans, Oscar Dronjak and Co closed an astonishing performance.
Accept The last concert of their jubileum-reunion in Germany was supposed to be held in Wacken. And although
U.D.O. are the consequent evolution of the Accept-split this appearance spread out a very special atmosphere. From the opener “Starlight” the band ruled the festivalside like it had never been away and let “Living For Tonite”, “London Leatherboys”, “Metal Heart” and “Up To The Limit” follow. After “Flash Rockin’ Man”, “Breaker”, “Head Over Heels” and “Neon Knights” a long instrumental interrupted the songlist. Then Accept’s voice Udo Dirkschneider, dressed with a long leather coat instead of his usual camouflage-brandmark, returned to the micro. With “Restless And Wild”, “T.V. War”, “Turn Me On”, “Monsterman”, “Love Child”, “Midnight Mover” they became celebrated like a soccer team after winning the Champions League-final. While the classic “Princess Of The Dawn” the band had technical difficulties. No matter to the crowd filling the minutes with singalong choirs. After they had finnished the regular set by “Fast As A Shark” Udo Dirkschneider, Wolf Hoffmann, Peter Baltes and supporting drummer Stefan Schwarzmann returned with “Burning”, “I’m A Rebel” and the final encore “Balls To The Wall”. A great combination between musical skills, a hammer classicss-etlist and a wonderful atmosphere created by the musicians as by the euphoric crowd! Respect to a band which acted like they had never been away!
Onkel Tom & W:O:A Firefighters On my ninth WOA-visit I watched my eighth Onkel Tom Angelripper-appearance. And I need to say: The other seven before had been much better. Last year’s morning slot on the Jim Beam Stage right next to the beer garden with the Wacken firefighters had been a nice experience. But this time returning to the ideal Onkel Tom – party time the firefighters ‘orchestra’ filled the stage instead of a couple of fans Onkel Tom usually invites to come on stage. Besides the weather this was the main factor minimizing the party factor which had been so high all over the years. Drinking-hymns like “In München Steht Ein Hofbräuhaus”, “Wenn Ich Einmal Traurig Bin”, “Karamba, Karacho, Ein Whiskey” or “Es Gibt Kein Bier Auf Hawai” get their real party-effect with fans on stage. So for the next time I would recommend to let Onkel Tom Angelripper and the WOA firefighters only play seperated. Cheers!
Black Stage
Zyklon It was up to the Norwegian band with the discussable name to wake up for the third and the last day. No matter to the guys around the ex-Emperor-musicians Samoth and drum-wonder Trym. With hyperspeed-numbers from their two outputs “Aeon” (“Subtle Manipulation”, “Psyklon Aeon”, “Two Thousand Years”) and the debut “Worm Ov Worms” (“Worm World”, the set closing “Hammer Revelation”) they played against the sunshine. An exotic weather phase many other bands would have payed for.
Suffocation The band from New York inspired with their smashing Death Metal to much headbanging and moshpit activity in front of the stage. Not to bad for a band playing while noon. Shouter Frank Mullen thanked the fans in his pretty long statements for several times and after “Effigy Of The Forgotten” an impressing performance was done. It’s good to have them back!
Dissection Right back from prison this reunion is a very much discussed one. But one which attracted a lot of fans. Those were happy to watch classics as the opener “Nights Blood”, the following “Frozen”, “Unhallowed”, “Thorns Of Crimson Death”, “The Somberlain”, Where Dead Angels Lie”, “Retribution – Strom Of The Light’s Bane”. The group around Jon Nödtveidt got supported by fourstringer Hakon Forwald and presented with “Starles Aeon” and “Xeper I Set” two new tracks which will be published on the forthcoming album. But in contrast to their 1997-appearance (in the afternoon while hottest possible heat!) they didn’t convince me at all. And according to the mentioned unmusical ‘problems’ I must conclude: I don’t need such a reunion!
Marduk The Swedish Black Metal-legend played one of their weaker shows. One opponent was the sound which disturbed tracks from the current output “Plague Angel” (“Seven Angels, Seven Trumpets”, “Steel Inferno”) as older classics (“Slay The Nazarene”, “Baptism By Fire”, “Panzer Division Marduk”) and that was too low by the way. The other opponent was new fronter Mortuus who acted like ‘encino man’ in his earliest days and din’t seem to be the right replacement for Legion. Of course he needed to play with blood in the end of the show. Yawn! The bad sound wasn’t the band’s fault, but besides that there’s a lot to improve, especially at the vocalist position.
Kreator In contrast to Marduk the Thrash Metal-institution played a very strong show. This line-up had become a tight unity over the last years. So Thrash-grenades like “Pleasure To Kill”, “Violent Revolution”, “Extreme Aggression”, “Phobia” or “People Of The Lie” found their optimal effect and the crowd went crazy. Fronter and mainman Mille Petrozza showed a wonderful gesture dedicating the classic “Flag Of Hate” to the Wacken visitor who had died at the weekend (look at introduction!). After “Terror Zone” and “Tormentor” they left the stage and their satisfied fans in front of it. Very strong appearance that convinced fans from all different sub-genres!
Sentenced A historic hour was supposed to follow: Suomi’s finest played their last gig in Germany. Vocalist Ville Laihiala announced tonight’s motto: “One hour, no bullshit, just music!” They caught the crowd’s attention with a greates hits consisting of the opener “Excuse Me While I Kill Myself”, “May Today Become The Day”, “Nepenthe” (which was played much too early!), “No One There”, “Broken”, “Bleed”, “No More Beating As One”, “Ever-Frost”, “Vegeance Is Mine” and “Noose”. While the songs “Where Waters Fall Frozen” and “The Rain Comes Falling Down” it started to rain, but the crowd didn’t care about. They watched a very special appearance which was finished by “End Of The Road”. But I missed something surprising and another “Amok”-track like “New Age Messiah”. But nevertheless a great band said farewell and will leave a big gap! Good-bye!
Party Stage
Holy Moses The German formation around ‘Mrs Grunt’ Sabina Claasen presented a well-balanced set between new (“Symbol Of Spirit”, “End Of Time”) and old (“World Of Chaos”, “Finished With The Dogs”, “Current Of Death”) of their now 25 years long lasting career. The Shock Therapy-cover “Hate Is Just A 4 Letter Word” was dedicated to a friend of the band who had died short time before and finished the regular set before they returned together with Onkel Tom Angelripper to perform together “Too Drunk Too Fuck”.
Surprise Act: Martin Kesici ‘What a surprise!’, most spectators may have thought when the winner of the casting show ‘Star Search’ entered the stage. He was motivated to entertain the big crowd, but he earned total rejection. Nearly all spectators turned their back to the stage holding one special finger in the air. So you couldn’t really describe this appearance as successful!
W.E.T. Stage
Goddess Of Desire While Onkel Tom entertained on a big stage the band from the Netherlands did the same in the tent. Count August and Co got the usual support by four stripping ladies. Some people enjoyed it, some didn’t. Nothing special, but entertaining as well. Metal To The Metals!
Conclusion:
This year’s Wacken had the most difficult conditions caused by the weather. Since the Dynamo Open Air 1997 I hadn’t experienced such a permanent anti-festival-weather. So we need to praise the big job done by the WOA-organizing team and all the helpers. Tons of straw were brought to the festival area to cover all the moist mud which was coordinated very professional. Besides that the visitors got the offer to let their car pull out by a tractor for free. Another exemplary aspect was the atmosphere: Fans, securities and everybody else were still relaxed defying the rain. The billing fulfilled high approaches and included many great appearances.
So especially the writer of these words is looking forward to Wacken 2006, my tenth WOA-participation in a row since my debut in 1997! The first bands for 2006 are alreay confirmed: Subway To Sally, In Extremo, Die Apokalyptischen Reiter, Soilwork and Children Of Bodom! We’ll be there: Rain or Shine! I think the next time(s) we all (orgnizers, helpers as fans) deserve much more shine!
Special thanks go out to Sheree Hesse, Britta Kock and the WOA-team!!!!!
At the Wacken Open Air 2005 rocked, drank and partied Tobi Wan Kenobi, Primal Dirk, Dumbo and Vera!!!!!