Wacken Open Air 2012 Battle Report

This years Wacken Open Air, the 23rd of its kind, is over and hangovers are upon us. While WOA 2012 is by far the muddiest and most wet festival I have ever had the pleasure of attending, it wasn't all bad.
Many fans feel that the quality of Wacken's line up has been steadily declining for years, but this year's festival featured several great metal acts (mixed in with the horde of talentless german gimick-bands ofcourse) such as Overkill, Testament, Six Feet Under, Kamelot, Saxon, Machinehead and others.

Sadly I was forced to skip Overkill because of a very sudden and beyond extreme rain storm. Suffice it to say, I couldn't have been any more wet if I had jumped in a pool fully clothed. Overkill was one of the bands I had been looking most forward to, and I can't imagine them putting on a bad show.
Kamelot, who played right before Overkill and right before and during the torrent of rain, I witnessed however. Having seen Kamelot fronted by Roy Khan only two years prior I had to see (and HEAR) their new frontman Tommy Karevik in action. I was immensely surprised and pleased by his performance, which indeed was more or less an exact copy of Khan's previous Wacken performance with Kamelot, but vocally Karevik was superior to the efforts of Khan in 2010. Armed with a solid setlist, a well-balanced sound and a stage routine that was pretty much exactly the same as last time Kamelot gave a great performance worth withstanding the weather for.

Another outstanding Wacken performance was that of the stoner metal band Red Fang. I was somewhat worried that their show wouldn't meet my previous expectations as I have friends who saw their show at Roskilde Festival 2012 who described it as not up to par. But as I entered the tent that is the split stage "WET" and "Headbangers" I was blown away by a warm and mighty show. Only two albums into their carreer it leaves little room for a varied setlist, but the songs they played seemed well-picked and were more than appropriate for the crowd's state of mind.

The last positive show I would like to highlight is Testament. Playing on Saturday means that some of the crowd is already hung over and tired from the previous days of partying, but that didn't bother Testament and their completely awesome show didn't leave much room for sitting down and feeling sorry for yourself. The power of Testament simply demands vicious headbanging. Musically it sounded like everyone was in their prime. Especially Chuck Billy's unique singing, which range from old school thrashy vocals to more groovy roaring vocals, was nothing but spot on, which meant they could easily play both the really old stuff and a couple of songs from their brand new album The Dark Roots of Earth.

Some of the less positive experiences, other than the oceans of mud (seriously, I have never ever seen so much mud in one place before), were the cancelling of Electric Wizard's show, who I had looked very much forward to seeing, and the performance of Six Feet Under. As I stood and waited for Electric Wizard at the WET and Headbangers stage, which was at the same time as Six Feet Under's set, we were informed that Electric Wizard was "stuck in traffic" and wouldn't be playing WOA 2012. Even as my disappointment was extreme, I realized I could instead go see Six Feet Under, of which I'm also a fan. When I arrived the show was already in full swing, but their performance was in all aspects really boring and uneventful. Even the setlist was incredibly predictable, and though the new lineup of Six Feet Under is comprised of highly talented musicians, Six Feet Under's music doesn't really leave much room for them to show their musical prowess.

In closing Wacken Open Air 2012 was a wet year, which made it really hard at times to fully enjoy the music and the festival. I know I saw fewer bands than in my previous years due to the mud making it bothersome to get around. The metal market was as always worth a visit or five, and the food was equally alright. I wish for next year that they will bring in more extreme metal bands, as these always seem to be left out, making room for shitty brass-band covers of metal songs, medieval covers of metal songs, german covers of metal songs and other gimicky german bands that none but the germans (who are indeed numerous on the festival for obvious reasons) will enjoy.

W:O:A 2011 - The Wacken Report

This year's Wacken Open Air in Northern Germany has finished and all the metalheads have gone home. The 22nd festival housed a lot of bands from different genres, the headliners being Ozzy Osbourne, Motörhead and Judas Priest, but was also guested by bands such as Blind Guardian, Triptykon, Hail of Bullets, Mayhem and Sepultura. The bands I've chosen to highlight in my festival review are here because they did something to make me remember their performance.

Judas Priest

What struck me first with these old-timers was the vocals. I've seen Judas Priest twice before, once at Roskilde Festival in 2008 and once at Priest Feast in 2009, but I've never seen frontman Rob Halford deliver such a stunningly impressive piece of vocal performance. Their stage show has always been fantastic with the coordinated headbanging and Halford's constantly changing of clothes, but on this last world tour of the legendary Judas Priest the entire band really went all-in for a terrific performance. The setlist was amazing, really capturing the essence of the title of the world tour "EPITAPH", as they played Priest classics from their entire carreer, from Rocka Rolla to Nostradamus. Even though the founding member K.K. Downing quit the band in early 2011, his replacement Richie Faulkner fit well within the band and you didn't really think about the missing Downing.

The overall performance was really good, although the typical Halford-songtraining (though shorter than normal) sort of ruined the flow of the set. The famous Painkiller song was a bit below par - vocal-performance-wise - compared to the other tracks, and though the crowd went wild with a vocal-less Breaking the Law, I feel that the audience could have needed a little more guidance on this particular track. All in all a good performance with great sound. Judas Priest did not disappoint on their last world-wide tour.

Dir En Grey

I had no idea what to expect. What I got was a Japanese quintet with a song catalogue ranging from heavy growl-driven metal to emo-ish rock with shrieking eardrum-shredding vocals. I was surprised at how easily lead singer Kyo could go from deep growls to high pitched screams in a split second, and even though the songs were greatly varied, Dir En Grey maintained a good flow in their performance. This was especially helped by the lack of talking in between songs, but I can't help but think that this language barrier-induced silence also made the band more alienated from the crowd. This lack of crowd contact didn't stop the album-current Japanese band from getting the message through, though, and they delivered a good show that most people probably wouldn't have seen coming on Wacken Open Air.

Triptykon

The legendary frontman Tom G Warrior from Hellhammer, Celtic Frost and now Triptykon finally guested WOA again, and this legend must be experienced first hand. What I got was not what I had expected. Triptykon delivers the most impressive wall of sound I have ever borne witness to. Starting out with the Celtic Frost classic "Procreation of the Wicked" in a slower and much heavier version set the tone for that night's performance, which was to be slow, heavy and mindshattering. Warrior did very little talking, but this only helped the atmosphere of the show. Never before have I experienced a performance that in such a way made the darkness seem claustrophobic, like the darkness was closing in on the audience and nothing other existed at that very moment. Tom Warrior is a very scary looking man, and with more timeless classics from the Celtic Frost era and new masterpieces the small audience was made up by dedicated fans of Tom G Warrior. The soundguys did an outstanding job on the sound of Triptykon, but I feel that the performance and the songs in general became a little monotonous during the later parts of the show. Nonetheless this was truly a show of the mighty force that is Triptykon and its' creator, Tom G Warrior.

Moonsorrow

This Finnish black/folk band suffered from having a large audience who were just waiting for other bands, but in spite of that delivered a headbang-tastic performance with lots of crowd-involvement and sing-along. The soundguys really did a number on Moonsorrow and got them some of the best sound I'd heard on the entire festival, and even the keyboard managed to shine through the heavy bass. Moonsorrow is a band known for playing songs of great length, often surpassing 12 minutes in length, and I was surprised to see how well they executed the performance of these length-wise behemoths, making no audible mistakes whatsoever and still maintaining a high level of on-stage activity. The only problems I saw was that most of the songs, because of their lengths, were hard to recognize and sing along to, and the keyboard player wasn't doing much on his podium. Other than that, Moonsorrow delivered a fantastic performance with their mix of black and folk metal, though I feel they should've played a smaller stage than Black Stage.

Rhapsody of Fire

Rhapsody of Fire, formerly just Rhapsody, is a band that has great potential to be either horrendous or fantastic live. The Italian power metalheads did much to help it be the latter rather than the former, and their performance was generally good. Semi-sloppy guitarplaying by the otherwise phenomenal shredder LucaTurilli and bad sound put them more to the first, but a strong song selection, a nice flow in the setlist and good onstage activety saved them from utter failure. At first I thought that a band of this caliber were too big for a smaller stage like the Party Stage, but during the show I realized that it would've been a mistake to put them on either of the two larger stages as there wouldn't have been an audience big enough to fill the grounds. With sing-along on classics like Emerald Sword and Dawn of Victory the orchestra-driven Italians made it clear that they belong amongst the true kings of power metal.

Helloween

Along with other power metal titans like Rhapsody of Fire, Blind Guardian, Avantasia and Iced Earth, Helloween was one of the bigger names on the power-filled program this year. Helloween's 28 year long existence has brought with it loads of praise and experience, and though this shines through in their very entertaining and professional show, there were still some elements that I really don't understand the purpose of. Right from the beginning what I assume was a power outage put a temporary stop to the show that otherwise started out wild. Helloween handled it pretty well and continued the show once the power was back. Their contact with the crowd was outstanding and, as I said before, their experience made this show rather memorable. This mostly fantastic performance was in turn ruined twice by extremely long pauses where they'd break down the song into a simple beat where the lead singer Andi Deris would talk to the audience and have them sing along to the chorus. Normally I'm all for this kind of sing-along, but this was poorly executed and way way way way way way WAY! too long. These pauses completely ruined the flow of the set, and it even seemed like they were loosing the audience at times. The very entertaining and fantastic drumsolo performed by the skillful drummer Danny Löble semi-saved the concert, though.

Helloween will forever be remembered as one of the most influential European power metal bands, and their might is clearly visible to one and all who see them live, but overly long breakdowns and talking in between songs ruins even the best of flows in live performances.

Motörhead

The British legends are back once more. I've seen Motörhead before, but the set list they brought with them this time was beyond comparison. Almost every track was a Motörhead-classic. With tracks like "In the Name of Tragedy" and "Bomber" the British trio got the attention of everyone on the festival grounds. Though not as loud as one would expect from the loudest band in the world, the sound was phenomenal and probably some of the best on the entire festival. I was surprised when the living legends broke down In the Name of Tragedy right before the solo and then picked up where they left after a backbreaking drum solo by Mikkey Dee. What was undoubtedly the coolest thing about this entire performance was the airplane of lights during Bomber. The performance of this song, I think, few saw coming. Lemmy isn't one to talk hours on end, especially not on stage, and Phil Campbell actually also did alot of talking on this year's Wacken Open Air. As always their terrific show ended with them going off the stage and then coming back to play Ace of Spades and Overkill.

Motörhead have been around since the 70's and they never fail to entertain. While not doing anything out of the ordinary, except for maybe performing Bomber with the airplane, they're sticking with what works, and it really does work.