Wacken 2008

Might want to grab something to drink and a snack, here's a long read for you…



Thursday 31 July



Mustasch

Aah, first band I saw this year was the Swedish Heavy Metal band Mustasch. They're a very solid band generally, I really do enjoy their albums although I don't think they really stand out that much. It was exactly the same to see them live. They put up a good show, with a good mix of both old and new songs. It was just a nice and smooth start for the festival, good band to get in the mood for more with.



Voodoo Kungfu

I had to see these guys. Just look at the name if you wonder why! Seriously!

The music turned out to be some kind of Chinese Folk/Black crossover with really high shrieks and just lots of stuff going on all the time. They made me think a bit of Sigh, naturally. Still they were definitely unique although I'm not sure if I'd call them good. :P



Nashville Pussy

There were basicly no other bands left this day that I wanted to see apart from Maiden (who obviously played last), so we just found some shadow which happened to be pretty close to the Party Stage where Nashville Pussy were playing. Southern Rock/Metal. Pretty decent as background music while talking. Cool with 50% chick-band too thou.



Sturm & Drang

A band that I've heard about, and they played last year as well. My friend had also heard about them, so we were curious to check them out. First song; Oh, some German Power Metal. Well, that's OK. Second song; Breaking the Law. Yeah! Awesome way to fire up the crowd so early in the set already! Then a mediocre song of their own and then they tried to steal Iron Maidens thunder by playing Fear of the Dark. Seriously guys, get real. Oh well, I think they belonged with the other coverbands (Metakilla & Rokken) instead of on one of the big stages. Oh well.



Iron Maiden

Ah! Here comes the real deal! After waiting for quite a while it was finally time to see them for the second time in two weeks. The festival area started to get really crowded by now. It would not surprise me at all if at least 90% of all the 70 000 people were there to see Maiden. Still we managed to catch a pretty good spot where we could see both the stage and perfect vision of one of the video-walls. Maiden themselves didn't disappoint at all. It was the exact same setlist as the rest of the tour, and it's still a great one with all the classics. Unfortunately the sound was horrible to begin with. It wasn't until they played Wasted Years that I started to get as excited as I did in Stockholm.

Oh, that's funny by the way. Maiden really DO love Sweden. The speech he held in Stockholm was a lot more personal than the one he held at Wacken. We really are special after all. :)

Also I feel the crowd was cooler in Stockholm. I mean, Bruce could barely speak – he was out-done by the crowd. At Wacken they were a bit more tame. Still the sing-alongs were bloody awesome! Run to the Hills and Fear of the Dark are unforgettable for sure!

All in all I felt Maiden were a bit more on their toes in Stockholm, but that doesn't mean it was a bad show at Wacken. A "so-so" show by Maiden is an excellent show by anybody else so…

A fine first day anyhow.







Friday 1 August



Grave

Ah, what better way is there than to start the day with some Death Metal from Stockholm? I can only think of a few. Very humble guys they are! They were really happy to see that so many had managed to wake up so early to see them, as this is the biggest show they ever did and probably will ever do.

Since they've pretty recently released one of the very best Death Metal albums this year according to me I was even more excited to see them than I'd normally be. And they didn't disappoint at all. When the crowd screams that they should play more ("Spela då förfan!") instead of talking you know they do something right. Nice mixture of old and new songs as well, I didn't miss anything anyhow since it was such a short set. Awesome ending with Into the Grave. Hope I'll see them again with a longer set. :]



Cynic

This is a rather strange progressive Death band… Very cult as well! So I figured it'd be cool to have seen them. Haven't really listened to any of their stuff beforehand, but what I saw and heard was rather enjoyable.



Unearth

After Cynic the sky opened. It was raining so hard. I was meeting up with some friends at a mead-stand and we kind of got stuck there thanks to the rain. I saw some of Unearth from there and they seemed allright. It was actually some people there still moshing despite the heavy rain. :P



Ensiferum

I didn't have any expectations on Ensiferum since I think they lost so much when Jari left them, but actually Petri did an OK job with the old songs. He should work some on the clean vocals thou.

They had really cool finish kilts by the way, they sure represented the Viking-spirit. Also the rain had pretty much stopped so they had gathered a pretty large crowd. Actually I think I saw more Ensiferum shirts on the entire festival than any other band-shirt. Didn't realize they were quite that big.

The set was really nice anyway, really cool to hear LAI LAI HEI (although in that song I missed Jari's voice and guitar the most) and the other old ones like Windrider and Hero in a Dream etc. Then Iron to finish it all off. Very enjoyable!



Kamelot

I've seen Kamelot two times before, they were really good both times so I had quite some expectations on them. I really don't know what happened, but they were horrible. Khan made every mistake you can possibly make on a stage. He missed notes, he was offbeat, he forgot words, he didn't even see the crowd, he was completely lost. It was painful to see. Biggest disappointment of the whole festival.



Sabaton

Off to Party Stage instead to some Swedish Power Metal. I like Sabaton, they're cool and their singer is rather unique. OK, they play very simple songs – but it works. And seeing them live was pretty much what I expected – they sound just like on CD. What did surprise me thou was how awesome frontman they have. He was sooo good at connecting with the crowd. He really fired everyone up and made the Party Stage deserve it's name!

For example he grabbed flags from the first row from the crowd which he ran around with. First a Swedish one and then a polish one for the song "40 to 1" (which is about the German invasion of Poland in WW2). They were really playing for the crowd. It was really cool to see! Also nice to hear songs like Panzer Battalion, Primo Victoria and Metal Machine live. :]



Sonata Arctica

My friend wanted to see them just because, so we kind of watched them on the big screen while grabbing something to eat and then later from in front of the other mainstage (to have a better spot for Opeth later). I don't think any Sonata Arctica fan would've been disappointed. I don't like them, but it wasn't too horrid. :P



Opeth

Ah! One of the bands I was looking forward the most to see! Seen them before, but I never get enough of Opeth! Also it was nice to see the new line-up live as well. They only had a one hour set, so only 5 songs unfortunately. But it was some cool choices thou like Wreath for example. And Mike… haughty as always. First thing he has to say is "I see there's a lot of wet girls out there…". :P

Ah well, their performance was brilliant as always. Axe is a monster on the drums, never missing a beat and Åkeson did a good job with the old songs as well. Although you can hear he likes to play faster stuff then Lindgren wroth. :P

Awesome show indeed, really looking forward to December when I'll see them again with a full set. :]



Children of Bodom

I didn't really plan to see CoB, but I think it was pretty impossible to miss them. They were so extremely loud! We were standing far to the back just watching one of the big screens. Trying to talk, but it was impossible. So we just ended up fooling around (and got funny looks :P ). Oh well, at least I got confirmed what I've always said. Alexi is a sloppy guitarist. Also he's a fuckin' rockstar dude, I don't think he fuckin' said a single fuckin' sentence without fuckin' swearing dude. :P

Not very interesting, but I was just waiting for…



Nifelheim

I've seen these guys, Bröderna Hårdrock (The hardrock/heavy metal brothers), two times before. They play some excellent Black Metal and usually they have the stage show to reflect it. As they used to work as gravediggers they have some real human skulls on stage for example…

I was hoping it'd be like first time I saw them where they really kicked ass (the second time was to a larger crowd and they didn't quite cut it), but I don't know. They did a good job, and they've become a bit bigger since last time I saw them. They had really good support actually.

Worth mentioning is that the brothers behind the band are huge Iron Maiden fans, so I bet they were really happy with themselves playing on the same festival. ^^

I didn't want to miss The Haunted so I was off after a few songs.



The Haunted

Finally some good Thrash Metal! This was a really cool show, the songs were awesome and there were barely no talk inbetween the songs. More time for Thrash! More time for heavy riffing! More time for headbanging! Just excellent!

Also I got a ugly hat from some random guy. I only saw a black shape since he had a spotlight behind him, but my friend who stood next to me said that he looked really satisfied with himself when he saw me – then he put his hat on my head and walked away. Odd! But it's funny things like these that are the most fun with Wacken if you ask me. ^^



While waiting for Avantasia we also catched the two last songs of Corvus Corax. And what the hell is that? Horrible. It was definitely two songs too many. It was one of the moments you wished you could fast-forward life…



Avantasia

Oh well, then finally Avantasia got up on stage. I was really looking forward to seeing Jörn Lande with them and all that. So when he got on stage for the second song I got a bit excited. Then I realized his mic didn't work. Bah. We were already tired and with that disappointment we left to the tent instead. We heard while outside the festival area that they got the mic working later, but still that sucked.

I was hoping that seeing Avantasia would give me the energy to see Gorgoroth as well, but I missed them. Oh well. It was still a very good day thou.







Saturday 2 August



Machine Men

So we start the last day of the festival with some finish Power Metal. They played their stuff really well actually, was a very solid performance. But it just felt like there was something missing, they didn't quite connect. Still a nice warm-up.



Stone Gods

We went over to the True Metal stage to see Exodus, but instead we found this. Irish southern rock thing? It was horrible. I saw many many disappointed Exodus fans walking away from the stage, and actually there were barely half the people who where there originally that stayed… :P

Didn't stay long either, we went over to the Black Stage and talked instead, waiting for…



Holy Moses

Had been looking forward to seeing Sabine and the boys really. I really love german Thrash Metal so this I thought be really cool. It wasn't a "wow-experience" thou, I don't know maybe because I missed most of the classic Holy Moses songs in the set. It'd been cool to hear Taste My Blood, Master of Disaster or Currents of Death for example. So the set was kind of disappointing, but the performance was good thou. But why have they started with keyboards? That's very not Thrash… The songs from the new album with the keys sounded OK thou, will be interesting to hear on CD later. Oh well, a solid performance at least.



Exodus

Exodus and Stone Gods had apparently changed times I found out by luck. Unfortunatly I only got to hear the first couple of songs thou. But what I heard sounded good and made me want to hear the rest as well. They had a really mighty anti-climax intro as well. Shame I didn't get to see more of them. Damn them for changing times…



Obituary

Oh well, after a bit of a break I went back to see Obi. Oldschool Death Metal is always cool stuff live, and Obi is no exception. I saw most of the gig from the back thou, but even back there it was good support from the crowd. However, the crowd didn't really go crazy until the very last song (Slowly We Rot of course) thou. Still a very nice set and I'd definitely want to see them again if they can just get their asses to Stockholm sometime.



Carcass

Fucking Carcass! One of the main reasons to go to this festival! They were awesome really! Also they brought out Angela Gossow (Arch Enemy) to do some vocals for the third song together with Jeff Walker ("Not to be confused with some country artist…"). That was really cool actually. Jeff told us not to worry thou, they still hate Arch Enemy. :P

Nice set of songs, all the classic, great support from the crowd and Jeff's also a pretty good frontman.

Also they brought Ken Owen out to make a drum solo. For those who don't know it's the original drummer, and since the band quit he's had two brain surgeries and been in coma. The man can barely walk or talk, so I think it was very impressive that he went out there to hit the skins one more time. Such a nice gesture.

And they of course finished the set with Heartwork. Great stuff.



Powerwolf

Off to the W.E.T. stage to catch the last two songs of Powerwolf. Rumanian Power Metal at their best. They had quite a big crowd and lots of people singing along in their songs as far as I could tell really. Looked good from what I could tell (not worth missing Carcass for thou!).



Warbringer

Stayed in the W.E.T. tent to see this Bay Area Thrash band that I'd heard some about before. Was curious to see what the fuzz was all about. When I say Bay Area Thrash you should get a pretty good picture of how this gig was. Really nice stuff. I got really hot from all the headbanging in the tent during this gig so it was a blessing to come out to the slight rain outside afterwards. Will definitely keep my eyes open for their debut album anyway. I always like some good Thrash. :]



At the Gates

The rain stopped in time for At the Gates, perfect. Because this was the highlight of the entire festival I think. I'm not a huge fan of AtG, I like them thou. But their gig was awesome. Great mix of songs from all eras, great performance, not so much talking more music… And when the crowd screams "GO!" in the beginning of the first song I swear all the hairs on my body was standing straight up. They had some awesome support from the crowd, and you can really understand that Tompa Lindberg was a bit out of breath when he says "Thanks for remembering". We were somewhere in the middle and when I looked around there was hands in the air for as far as I could see. Now that was bloody awesome.

One of the big highlights of the festival for sure. If you get the chance go see them before they call it a day for good.

Oh, and also Jeff Walker (Carcass) almost ran into me during this gig while he was passing by aiming for the bar. Both Carcass and At the Gates were praising each others on the stage so it wasn't just empty talk as they actually came out to see each other. ^^



Nightwish

My friends wanted to see them, so I sticked around with them in the back. But when my point was proved that they sound like Eurovision with their new singer my friends left for the tent to sleep pretty soon.



Dream of an Opium Eater

While I was waiting for Watain I went into the W.E.T. once again and there this band was playing. The name says pretty much it all. It was an instrumental band, standing in the darkness playing while some psycadelic pictures where shown on a screen behind them. Sounds like Tool? Yeah, the music does as well. Was pretty enjoyable.



Watain

Soon after Dream of an Opium Eater got off the stage Watain got on it. I must say they probably had the most atmospheric stage of the entire festival. With all their crosses and red smoke and stuff. It was very Black Metal and it really made the experience ever so much cooler. They had really good support actually, and I think they played through their entire latest album (but in a different order), might have skipped one song or so. Me I didn't really get the adrenaline pumping until they player Stellarvore and then the highlight Sworn to the Dark, but then I had to leave before the last song as I heard Pleasure to Kill from the outside…



Kreator

Yeah, they actually started their set with Pleasure to Kill the bastards! And they followed up with Enemy of God, Betrayer and Suicide Terrorist. To kick-start like that and still have enough great songs for the rest of the set shows how good of an repertoire Kreator really has, because it wasn't a single dull song. Phobia, Flag of Hate, Extreme Aggression, Tormentor, Reconquering The Throne, People of the Lie, Voices of the Dead and Impossible Brutality was also in the set. Just awesome. Needless to say it was headbang-tastic. I still would love to see When the Sun Burns Red one day and I did miss Violent Revolution but still it was really good.

Mille went a bit too much over the top when he wanted people to scream 'HATE' for Flag of Hate thou, dragging it out just a bit too much. Other than that he did a good job, being his evil self in between the songs as usual.





After that I felt pretty satisfied so I went to bed instead of staying for Lordi. All in all it was a really nice festival this year as well. I still feel last year was just slightly better. Maybe it's just because it was a first-time experience then thou. Also I started to get a bit tired of how many people there were. There were as many last year as well, and it's just ridiculous. I mean, everyone comes out for the big bands. When the big bands happen to be Nightwish and CoB for example, bands I don't want to see all the people makes it impossible to go anywhere… On the other hand when the big bands are Iron Maiden and At the Gates that I want to see all the people makes the experience just a bit cooler. Two edged sword that…



This year I felt the Swedish bands really stood out thou, maybe it's patriotism speaking but to me they were the most memorable ones. If I'd have to make a top-five it'd probably be something like this; At the Gates, Iron Maiden, Kreator, Carcass, Opeth. And the surprise this year would be Sabaton who did really well. Cheers! See you next year perhaps. :]