Wacken 2000
60 bands, 23000 headbanger and one of the best festivals ever …
This year´s there were no problems travelling to Wacken… just 4 hours in the car and we (a group of about 20 people) arrived in the small town in the north of germany. The first thing to do at a festival is to drink a beer and to build up the tents… ok – we drank the beer, but then we noticed that some people forgot their tents – but it´s a festival and no kindergarden – so no problem… 😉 The next thing is (after drinking another beer) to get the backstage passes. Equipped with the passes we were ready for Wacken 2000 ….
Thursday:
The first day of the festival began with 3 classic rock bands – Krokus, Molly Hatchet and the Company of snakes. I missed Krokus because we stood in a row to get backstage passes… so Molly hatchet was my first band at Wacken 2000. Molly Hatchet recorded a live album this evening – so their set was a best-of of their cds… the gig was ok … but not my kind of music…
The Company of snakes (Whitesnake without their former singer D. Coverdale) surprised with ex-Bad Company singer Gary Barden at the vocals… but also not my kind of music… but i think a great rock start for the festival…
After the Company of snakes gig we started BBQ and got really drunk…
Friday:
Wow – 4 stages and just 2 persons to cover it and to take photos… really a hard job…
So let´s begin with the True Metal stage:
Samson: I just knew that Bruce Dickinson was their former singer – now i know that their singer is Nicky Moore and their guitarist is Paul Samson. And i know that lots of NWOBHM fans really like that stuff – the reaction of thecrowd were very positive … great begin of the festival…
Rhapsody: One of the few bands I wanted to see because I’ve never seen them before. There gig and the set they played was okay, but not really exciting. I expected more intensity, so I was bored after a short time. But however, most fans enjoyed the “Spaghetti”-Metal-Band.
Stratovarius: It was my fifth or sixth Stratovarius gig and the best so far. Their setlist wasn’t really surprising. Especially lead singer Timo Kotipelto was in a much better mood than two years before. At the end of their gig nobody noticed that his hand and face got hurt seriously by a pyro.
Iced earth: One of my favorite bands!!! And the only gig this year – so i had to see them. Jon Schaffer played the first gig after his surgery and so he was a little handicapped. They played all my favorite songs like “Night of the stormrider”, “Watching over me” and – as the highlight – the cover of the Iron Maiden classic “The trooper”. GREAT !!!
Black stage:
Vader: Death Metal from Poland – that must be Vader. Fast and powerful songs – no melodies – yeah , that´s Vader. Not my kind of music.
Dark funeral: Sorry – i just took some photos and then went back to my tent …
Umbra et imago: Normally not my cup of tea. But to me their (involuntary) satire-show is the main aspect of the gothic band. What a bunch of freaks, especially their front guy Mozart!!!. His ridiculous announcements like “Make sex, not war”, and the sex- show with two naked ladies were amusing, but not really funny. Songs? Nothing to mention.
Immortal: They want to be evil – and some people in the audience seem to believe this. … But I think just another black metal band – and like all black metal they got a terrible live sound….and – in my opinion – this music cannot work in the noon while sun is shining…. but their fans seemed to be happyand in heaven, ehh in hell, of course … … 😉
Marduk: I really like their latest release “Panzerdivision Marduk” – so i was really looking forward to see them live… but – like Immortal – they should not play in the noon while the suns shines… so next time all the black metal bands should play on a smaller stage in the night…. that would create a better/darker atmosphere for this kind of music …
Armored saint: Thank you for this reunion! One of those few reunions which are really necessary!!! It wasn’t the usual senior-adventure-camp-gig. So the “saints conquered Wacken”. Their Best-Of-Set included all classics and considered three Revelation-tracks (“Creepy feelings” is god!). John Bush did a phenominal job. Just the sound could have been better.
Hypocrisy: Like on their live CD “Hypocrisy destroys Wacken” from the 1998 edition of the festival they destroyed Wacken again … Peter Tägtren and his guys played all the classic Hypocrisy songs and my favorite songs “Fractured millenium” and “Roswell 47”. But next time I hope for a better sound …
Six feet under: A great singer is Chris Barnes NOT !!! But he really likes all kinds of drugs… that´s my impression… but the crowd celebrates songs like “War is coming”. But please: DO NOT PLAY TNT FROM ACDC AGAIN !!! PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Party stage:
Pink cream 69: The main event that evening. They played a great gig and for sure they won a lot of new fans. Especially the band’s anti-nazi comment and the following “Keep Your Eye On The Twisted” caught a lot of feedback of the crowd. My swedish drinking partner, who has never heard of the Pinkies before, and me were very excited about one of the best gigs played in Wacken 2000 and it animated us to even drink much more.
Wet stage:
The black sweden: This wasn’t a typical metal show. It wasn’t a typical show at all, but it was pure entertainment. The Black Sweden covers lyrics from Abba-Hits with well-known rock ‘n’ roll-riffs on their only output “Gold”. So they played those crazy as fantastic combinations like “Take A Chance On Me” / “Enter Sandman”, “Ring Ring” / “Breaking The Law”, and so on. Their outfit – completely silver – was a further cool idea. So we had much fun.
Saturday:
True metal stage:
Blaze: Former Iron Maiden and Wolfsbane singer Blaze Bayley and his new band got a really impressing debut cd “Silicon messiah” out. Check out the songs “Born as a stranger” and The Brave” on his CD !!! Beside his own songs he also played the 2 Maiden songs “Futureal” and “Man on the edge” – great gig… i´m looking forward to his next CD …
Lizzy Borden: Another “oldtimer” in the Wacken-billing. To me it wasn’t a highlight. Especially their stage show – the axe-clown killed an ugly naked woman – was more than just ridiculous. To the end of the show they concentrated on rocking the audience (epecially by their hymn “Me Against The World”). But why didn’t they play “American Metal”?
Nightwish: After their show in the Zeche in Bochum (where i did an interview with Tuomas – check it out on Renegade2k …) I became a big fan of the band and their sound… so I really looked forward to the gig…. and was a bit disappointed because of the poor sound and the whole show was kind of irrelevant… but Tarja really looks great …
Doro: What do I have to tell…. like every Doro show it was perfect…. classic songs like “Burning the witches” and the excellent cover of Billy Idols “White wedding” – but the songs with the german lyrics suck … so next time no german songs…
Dee Snider: After the cancellation of the Thin Lizzy gig Dee Snider was the substitution. Last year he couldn´t play Wacken due to different reasons – but this year he really “rocks” Wacken – in my opinion he was the highlight of Wacken 2000. Like every time Twisted sister play ACDC´s “It´s a long way to the top” as their intro – and after the intro 3 really classic songs followed: “What you don´t know”, “The kids are back” and “Stay hungry”. Followed by other great songs like “I wanna rock” and “Under the blade” …. What a gig… What a last song: “You can´t stop Rock´n´roll” … Nothing more to say … 🙂
Zakk Wylde: What a voice! This guy rocks !!! The well-known ex-Ozzy Osbourne-lunatic didn’t just fascinate by his guitar-playing. Besides that the show was powerful and banished the crowd by his natural “Fuck-off-attitude deep in the night. His “War Pigs”-cover was one this years Wacken-highlights.
Black stage:
Sentenced: Sentenced is also one of my all time favorite bands… And it was the band with the most beautiful chicks in the crowd. They played their set drunk as every time. Their show was much better than this year’s Dynamo festival. And this time I even enyoyed the “Crimson”-songs, which didn’t work on the open-air-gig in the Netherlands.
Morbid angel: I’m not a too big fan of this band and so to me the gig wasn’t spectacular. My deepest respect to the guitar-playing of the bandleader Trey Azagthoth. The fans enjoyed the gig of the Death Metal-legend, but I still prefer “Death” (maybe next year?).
Venom: I was really looking forward to the Venom show…. I was really happy to do pics of the live show and the pyros…. but shit happens…. no photographs were permitted to enter the photo pit in front of the stage… and so no photographs could work….so my mood was really down…and then the bad/terrible performance of these old and ugly band gave me the rest … hope they split up soon and never come back …sorry guys …
Party stage:
Spiritual beggars: The Wacken festival is not very well known for stoner rock bands like the Spiritual beggars – so they were kind of exotic… But Spice and his band really ruled… it was the right contrast to the black and death metal bands… so I hope for more stoner rock next year … maybe Spice´s sideproject “Mushroom river band” …
Engine: They opened their set with “Monster” from their self-titled debut album and played one of the most energetic and enthusiastic gigs (Like Sentenced better than on this other festival somewhere in the west) at this year’s Wacken. Fates Warning-singer Ray Alder – one of my favorite shouters – and his well-known sidekicks (Joey Vera of Amored Saint, etc.) best reactions possible at that time (deep in the night) from a small crowd. “Falling Star” is their absolute hit, but the whole set didn’t include any filler songs. Excellent!
Sunday:
We travelled completely happy and tired home …. a great festival ended …. hope to see you all again there in 2001 …
Lotte (Lars Vormann) & Tobi Wan Kenobi (Tobias Zimmermann)