The World's Loudest Acre:
Wacken Open Air 2002
Saturday, August 3, 2002
A clear, bright, sunny morning. No rain; no mud; warm but not hot.
Could we be in for the perfect-weather Wacken day? Indeed, were our
problems over? Not by a long shot. The drunk Germans in the room next
door, who played bad dance remixes of Bon Jovi tunes at four o'clock in
the morning, should have been an omen. Foolishly I ignored them, and
after a call to the front desk--"Zey are makink too much noise? Ja,
I vill see about it"--I figured that was the last Wacken
Tribulation I would have to endure. Wrong!
We had spent the morning at the hotel squinting at various Italian
metal stars who were staying at our place--Fabio Lione of Rhapsody, for
example--and were about to leave for the festival site when I realized
my wallet was completely empty. Damn, I must have bought a lot of beer
yesterday! Thankfully there was an ATM machine right next door to the
hotel. I inserted my battered, chipped credit-union ATM card, which I've
had since 1992, and waited for the machine to prompt me to enter my pin
number. No dice. THIS MACHINE IS CLOSED. I punched "Card
Return." THIS MACHINE IS CLOSED. I punched "Cancel"
several times. "Give me my card back, you fucking piece of Teutonic
trash!" ZIS MACHINE IST CLOSED!!!!!!! No money. No ATM card.
Nothing! Oh, did I mention that Wacken doesn't take credit cards? Enter
Wacken Tribulation #4: EVERGREY IS GOING ON STAGE RIGHT NOW AND I'M
COMPLETELY BROKE!!!!!!!!!
I'll skip the account of the various phone calls I had to make, some
back to the United States, to stabilize my financial situation; I'll
merely mention that this incident is why we didn't arrive at the
festival site until AMON AMARTH, the legendary human beer-wipers
themselves, were about to take the stage. Several of us were quite
stoked to see this great band perform live, but it was a little
uncomfortable out there. Remember how I said in the morning it was warm
but not hot? Well, scratch the "not," and enter Wacken
Tribulation #5: heat. Shedding your shirt helps to a certain extent, but
it can still get damned hot in northern Germany in the direct sunlight.
Amon Amarth were awesome. Simply awesome; no other way to describe
it! Angry, violent, blistering Viking metal, but with some great
melodies and a lot of power. Every song came at you with the power of a
runaway freight train, and from a technical standpoint their performance
was pretty much flawless. After the incident yesterday I was ready to be
pretty harsh with this band, but they certainly took the wind out of my
sails in short order, turning in one of the top performances of all of
Wacken. The crowd responded in kind, resulting in one of the highest
collective energy levels of the whole festival. By the time they left
the stage all the tribulations of Wacken had disappeared from my head.
It was now pure fun, just as it was meant to be, and now nothing could
dampen my spirits.
(Ice Maiden's Commentary: Argh! No Evergrey or Wizard
because of the credit card fiasco! I had to make AMON AMARTH, who have
that brand of death that I most enjoy--beautiful in its brutality. An
incredible set, which made the heat bearable, but after it I decided to
once again head back to get a drink, check email and get out of the sun.
Black Goat and Skyklad had found a peaceful wooded spot behind the
stages where they set up a blanket and their cooler. Ahhhhhh….to sit
in the shade and chat with old friends. Nice! I decided to sit back and
wait for FALCONER before venturing forth again.)
The sun was still high and the heat pushing well into the 80s as
NUCLEAR ASSAULT took the stage. I haven't been a tremendous Nuke fan in
years past, but I thought I owed it to them to give their set a fair
shake, particularly after having the great opportunity to interview Dan
Lilker earlier this spring. The crowd certainly responded to Nuclear
Assault as if they were the second coming of Christ, or the first coming
of Satan, or something. Unfortunately even good old '80s thrash can get
a bit thick to handle in such heat. A great performance, if you're a
thrash junkie; if not, the cold beer backstage is a slightly better
draw. Especially if Punishment Due is buying, which, after telling him
the story of my vanished ATM card, he definitely was!
The next band on our list was one of the reasons I had crossed the
Atlantic: FALCONER. Having worn their first self-titled album almost to
pieces from playing it so much, only to replace it with their second
triumph, I was extremely enthusiastic to see how they'd pull off a live
set especially at Wacken. The crowd at the Party Stage was composed
almost entirely of like-minded Falconer diehards, because when their set
began it was like a fireworks show in honor of the gods of metal! It was
obvious to me that Falconer, with their low-key stage presence, is
either not that experienced in live shows or not that comfortable
playing them. However, this is a band where the music speaks for itself.
The enthusiasm in the air during their fantastic set came mostly from
the spectators, but that was good enough. Great vocals, shredding
guitars, and the occasional segment that sounded like a Viking drinking
song was exactly what we all wanted to hear. Hail Falconer! Despite
already having given us peaks like Dickinson and Borknagar, Wacken was
only getting better.
(Ice Maiden's Commentary: FALCONER's self-titled was my top
pick for last year, so I was very excited to see them. Muertos hits the
mark when he says that they lacked a little of the stage presence to
make this one a great performance. Nonetheless, the crowd was happy to
see them, and this was definitely a fun, sing-along set. I realized I
was missing IMMORTAL. I had seen Immortal twice recently with MANOWAR,
so, knowing I was missing another favorite band, I stayed for all of
Falconer.)
The only bad thing about Falconer was that they were playing at
mostly the same time as IMMORTAL, and when they were over, only 20
minutes or so remained of the famed Norwegians' set. By now the heat was
beginning to dissipate and we were settling in for another one of those
magical Wacken evenings. Immortal is sort of an odd band to see in the
daylight--there's something vaguely ludicrous about corpse paint and
bullet belts in full summer sunlight--but what I saw of their set was
excellent. They weren't quite as powerful as when they opened for
Manowar back in May, but had I not been enjoying Falconer on the Party
Stage, I certainly would have given Immortal my full attention.
Back on the Party Stage, I could not convince Nomad to stay for more
than a few minutes of VANDEN PLAS, despite the fact that I liked their
sound very much. I had never heard of this band before, and I noticed
that the lead singer appeared to have a non-derogatory picture of Jesus
Christ on his T-shirt, but they played snappy, well-written power metal
with clean vocals and a fair amount of energy. I was motivated enough by
the ten minutes or so of the Vanden Plas set I witnessed to purchase one
of their albums at World Of Music in Hamburg the day after the festival.
Despite this being a Christian band, I probably would have enjoyed the
CD, except I discovered that the CD case contained by mistake a Vision
of Disorder CD and the record store said they didn't have any more
copies of Vanden Plas with which to replace it. Ah; c'est la vie.
Perhaps just as well.
(Ice Maiden's Commentary: After the Falconer set I grabbed
Skyklad and headed over to the one show I had to catch at the Wet Stage:
DREAM EVIL. The organizers had made an improvement by leaving an
entrance to the Wet Stage inside the festival area, so we didn't have to
exit the site to get to the entrance as in previous years. The tent was
as smelly, crowded and hot as in previous years, however. Hint to the
organizers: stay true to the "Open Air" name for ALL stages. A
third day of camping makes many a metalhead rank…
Out came "pretty boy vocalist" number three. Who is this
lad? Short brown hair? He could be in an Aber-whatever and Finch
(Fitch?) ad. Well, at least it was better than the dyed blond coif he
sported on the album sleeves of "Dragonslayer", possibly my
favorite release of the year. Out sprang Snowy Shaw, the drummer and the
only member of the band who looked like the band sounds: pure '80s
traditional/power metal. Wearing short lycra shorts and a sweet-ass
mullet, he started hazing the crowd with short drum solos and crazy-eyed
gestures to get them cheering. Dream Evil had a few false starts as the
sound was adjusted, and the band made a couple of good-natured jabs at
themselves. These guys were fun, and they were having fun-hamming it up
with the crowd, posing back-to-back as they rocked on their guitars,
throwing picks and sticks to the crowd. Playing virtually the whole
album, from the rollicking and catchy "Chosen Ones," to the
slow and simpering ballad, to the rock 'n' roll sound of "Heavy
Metal Jesus," to the plastic-sword-raising "Chasing the
Dragon." This is "nice" metal. It's happy. It's
"having a good time" metal. If you think Hammerfall are
"gay", you won't like Dream Evil.
I had FUN at this set, and after Skyklad's head banging forced her
out of the heat of the tent, I pushed to the front and danced with a
trio off little metal chicks from Japan. We sang ourselves hoarse.
Woohoo! Dream Evil played my favorite set at Wacken, and I left the Wet
Stage sweaty with strains of "We keeled the Drag-gone" running
through my head.)
Hmm, a moral question…see HYPOCRISY (for the third time), or go
backstage and drink beer? Well, anyone who knows me would have to guess
that the beer would win, and they would be correct, but I did catch
enough of Peter Tagtgren's landmark band--returning to Wacken after
their 2000 showing--to register my general approval. Had I not been
asleep on my feet when Hypocrisy played Portland back in June, I might
have had a rough idea of what their set list would be, but I don't. Did
anyone else see them? Bueller? Bueller?
Beer, food, aspirin…good weather, in fact a beautiful evening
brewing…the metal gods were indeed smiling. There was a palpable
electricity in the air as we gathered for EDGUY. Various other bands may
have made the equation sweeter, but deep down I have to admit the major
reason I was at Wacken this year was because of this band. Exploding
onto the stage with fireworks and the title track from their album
MANDRAKE, the hallowed German power metallers owned the stage from the
very beginning, and frontman Tobias Sammet's pipes were wailing as
gloriously as on any of their studio albums. They launched through many
of their favorites, but the personal highlight of the set was
"Babylon," the first track on the 1999 "Theater of
Salvation" album and, in my opinion, one of the great power metal
songs of all time. Edguy do not quite have the control of crowd
enthusiasm that Gamma Ray or some of the other great power metal bands
have, but I expect this will come with more experience. Nonetheless the
Edguy set lived up totally to expectations…at least until the last
number. What is it with Wacken performers wanting to do silly polka
numbers at the end? I won't sully my Edguy review by describing it; I'll
just pretend it didn't happen. Edguy were awesome. I eagerly look
forward to seeing them this fall at Prog Power on American soil.
(Ice Maiden's Commentary: You guessed it, "pretty boy
vocalist" number four hit the stage with EDGUY. Although I'm a huge
fan of their albums, and this set was snappy, I left Edguy more
impressed with their stage set than with the music. It just goes to show
you that having too high of expectations isn't necessarily a good thing…
After about half the set I ambled over to catch HEATHEN. They were
outstanding, with a frontman who knew how to get the crowd hopping.
Yowza! How much awesome metal can one girl take???)
As darkness fell on the last day of Wacken, the only truly
excruciating moral choice of the festival presented its ugly head. BLIND
GUARDIAN is one of my favorite bands of all time, but some idiot
scheduled UNLEASHED--a classic cult band I have never been able to get
enough of--to play on the Party Stage at the same time! Since Blind
Guardian were supposed to play for two hours, I decided I would see the
beginning of their set, then slip over to the Party Stage to catch
Unleashed, and return to Blind Guardian when they were over. Hopefully
there'd be enough good metal to go around.
For reasons that will become apparent, I'll describe BLIND GUARDIAN's
set first. The truest sign of favor from the metal gods was that before
I had to leave for Unleashed, they played my two favorite
songs--"Welcome to Dying" and "Nightfall," and both
were absolutely stellar. I had some doubts about how Hansi Kürsch's
ragged, hypnotic voice would play to an open air festival, but I needn't
have worried. His vocals were the backbone of Blind Guardian's awesome
performance. From fast stuff to slow stuff, quasi-thrash metal to almost
folk, the most popular German metal band of all time definitely showed
the crowd why they enjoyed that status. Once I returned to the set from
the Party Stage, everything else they played was merely icing. Their
encore was the perfect finale to Wacken--wistful, sad, powerful,
crushing, energetic and thoroughly flattening. I don't know how someone
could not love Blind Guardian. I don't know how any Blind Guardian fan
could not love them at Wacken. Here was metal's greatest on display,
giving it their all. Here was one of the reasons this was the best
Wacken.
(Ice Maiden's Commentary: Blind Frickity Guardian! Woohoo!
Very excited, I started snapping photos in the pit, caught between just
wanting to watch from such a close vantage point and wanting to capture
the moment. After snapping my pics I made my way from the front of the
stage up the side to get free from the crowd. Holy shit-I think almost
the entire festival site was jammed with metalheads, all watching and
singing along. All the way from the front of the stage, through the
market and food stalls and all the way back to the entrance to the site,
folks were crowding in to catch the act. Amazing. A literal moving sea
of metalheads. I stopped to sway along with everyone else to
"Nightfall." It was all I really HAD to hear-and they played
it right off the bat. I stayed for much of the set, then wandered to
catch a few songs of UNLEASHED before retiring to the backstage area,
where I chatted with some drunk Portuguese and a few fellow journalists.
One more Tequila Sunrise and my Wacken was over. OK, that's not entirely
true…there was still all the folks and Wacken story swapping yet to
happen in the bar back at the hotel…)
And here's another. I slipped through the crowd toward the Party
Stage nervously; I could still hear Blind Guardian playing loudly from
the True Metal Stage, and wondered if I was shooting myself in the foot
by deserting them. I found UNLEASHED had already begun their set. These
legendary purveyors of Viking-themed death metal have always had a
special place in my heart since I discovered the "Eastern
Blood--Live in Poland" live album. Just seeing Johnny Hedlund on
stage again, after a lengthy hiatus from metal, was exhilarating. The
best was yet to come. As soon as I got close enough to Unleashed to not
hear annoying "noise bleeding" from the Blind Guardian set,
they launched into the awesome "Victims of War," probably my
favorite Unleashed song. A few whiplash-filled, headbanging minutes
later I was possessed, and I weaved through the crowd to get as close to
the band as possible, winding up almost at the metal barriers right in
front of the photo pit. What occurred over the next twenty or thirty
minutes is something I can't even adequately describe. The metal coming
out of the guys on the stage was so pure, so powerful and so energizing
that it truly reached the highest level of metalness that it's possible
to achieve. Imagine the best metal show you've ever been to, the one
that was the most fun, the most pure, the one you most did not want to
end. That was what it was like. It was dark and starting to get cold and
Wacken was almost over, but this band was taking their crowd to a whole
new level, one you rarely reach even if you've been in the scene for
years, even if you've been to dozens or scores or even hundreds of metal
shows. The music gets inside of you and for a while that's all there is.
You are metal, and the metal is you. When it ends, you realize you've
seen one of the greatest metal sets of your life. If the Unleashed set
at Wacken 2002 was not the greatest metal band performance I've ever
seen, it's certainly in the top three. All I know is, all the hardships,
the thousands of dollars I'd spent to get there, the long hours on
planes and trains and in unfamiliar hotel rooms, all the work that was
piling up for me at my office back home in my absence--it was all worth
it.
Unleashed is the last band I'm going to talk about, because they
were, for me, the end of Wacken. What happened after that barely
mattered. We went backstage; we had more beers; I chatted with
Francesco, with Claudio, with Cristiano, with Punishment Due, with Black
Goat, with all our friends I'd been hanging out with for that whole
glorious weekend. I remarked to Nomad once: I could live at Wacken; I
could die at Wacken. This Wacken was the best of them all. It wasn't
just the bands; it was the experience, the friends, the incredible sense
of belonging that only metalheads can truly understand. Going back to
the hotel that last night--having one last drink at the bar, taking off
your muddy shoes for the last time, putting away your press pass and
cutting off your wristbands--you know instinctively that you'll be back,
and all you can feel is pure optimism. Let's come back next year! We'll
get everybody--all our friends--all the Metal-Rules people--everybody we
know, and we'll all make it a great party! And who will be booked next
year? Stratovarius? Rhapsody? Dismember? Manowar? Iron Fucking Maiden?
The sky is the limit. Yes; I could live at Wacken, I could die at
Wacken. Get me in the door, give me a beer and a running order and point
me to where the bands are playing and where I can find my friends. And
if I never again set foot off the world's loudest acre, so be it. I'll
be happy.
(Ice Maiden's Commentary: Loudest acre? Make it loudest 30
acres and everything else Muertos says is right on-- I will return to
Wacken, come hell or high water.)
