Thursday,
August 5th “A
Night to Remember” as the Wacken team has decided to call the
opening evening of the festival was not really worth remembering this
year in my humble opinion. Zodiac Mindwarp the Powermetal.dk team
decided to miss all together. Motörhead was given a fair chance, but
when you’ve seen Motörhead twice before, even classics such as the "Ace of
Spades" don’t really arouse much enthusiasm. Lemmy does what he has
done for the past 30 years, and he does it well, admittedly, but not
really with the rock’n’roll fury one could wish. The band’s stab
at a cover of “God Save the Queen” didn’t help much, on the
contrary. Mikkey Dee is in good shape and played the gig with much
vigour...too bad Lemmy and sidekick Phil Campbell couldn’t live up to
it. Curiously,
Die Böhsen Onkelz had landed themselves a gig at Wacken. Curious,
because the festival claims to be the biggest international metal
festival in the world, and Die Onkelz sing in German only, and, unlike
Rammstein, aren’t noticed much outside Germany. Throughout the first
three songs, Die Onkelz sounded like a Motörhead cover band, only with
German vocals and a singer who can’t sing at all. The fourth
song incorporated electronic sounds which were sort of cool, but then
they had a Motörhead relapse. At this point I wasn't amused anymore
and headed back for the camp area. Friday,
August 6th The
Wacken ball only really opened when Mnemic took to the Party Stage
Friday morning at 11. The Danish five-piece took the crowd through a
good half hour of songs from the debut “Mechanical Spin Phenomena”
and one new, promising song from the forthcoming album (set for
release in September). According to himself, front man Michael Bøgballe
was hung-over from the night before, and sadly, you could hear this.
I’ve seen Mnemic a couple of times before, and this was far from the
best performance I’ve heard from Bøgballe. You would assume that
Wacken is the place where you want your performance to be optimal
because of the exposure to potential new fans, but this was not the
way it turned out. That said, the strength of songs like “The Naked
and the Dead”, “Blood Stained” and “Ghost” as well as the
overall very professional attitude of the Danes added so many plusses
that even a not so perfect performance by Mnemic is better than a lot
of other bands. Lee
Dorian’s vocal performance has always been an acquired taste. And
along with his mates in Cathedral he has made a lot of weird music
since the beginning of the nineties when he decided to skip Napalm
Death and venture into the halls of doom. In the scorching sun of the
early afternoon, Cathedral managed to turn the mood in front of the
Black Stage into something that was as dark as the darkest pits of
Mordor when the four Brits started spreading their rock-laden doom.
The return to grim doom on the two last CD’s was evident, although
the more funky doom rock hits “Ride” and “Hopkins (The
Witchfinder General)” were also aired. Only tune missed was “Soul
Sacrifice”! Former
Zed Yago singer Jutta Weinhold has managed to pull together a new
band. I didn’t like it. Arch
Enemy front siren Angela Gossow is hard as f*ck. She has a voice that
compliments the death metal influenced power-thrash of her Swedish
backing band very well, and the dynamics of the bands are impressive.
I’m not at all familiar with the band’s material, but I have to
say the impression they left me with was that their songs at times
are unstructured and not overly original. I smell hype, but then again,
perhaps it’s just me being cynical. It should also be said here that
the sound engineer got something completely wrong during this gig:
when the double bass drums are at work, you should still be able to
hear guitars and bass… Instead
of watching Mayhem beat up and burn some poor pigs’ heads and the singer
eventually cutting his own hand on the Black Stage, we followed Jørgen’s
hunch and saw British veterans Satan on the Party Stage. Not a bad
idea, I might add! Graeme English and Steve Ramsey, now both in
Skyclad, were part of this band back in 1983. And with the original
line up from the “Court In The Act” era, Satan started up with “Trial
By Fire”, “No Turning Back” & “Broken Treaties”. I could
not believe that this was the first Satan Gig in 15 years - it was like
metal heaven for N.W.O.B.H.M. freaks, killer show. (Jørgen) Astral
Doors from Sweden hit the stage in the tent known as W.E.T. Stage in
the middle of the afternoon with temperartures close to 30 degrees and
it was a nice breather to watch them “in the shade”. The band put
on a very solid performance and it was almost a home-gig for them,
since most of the small audience seemed to be from Sweden. Throughout
the whole gig they had to struggle with a very poor sound, but it
surely didn’t slow them down and they gave us a good show. Nils
Patrick showed that he has a huge potential and could emerge as one of
Europe’s leading vocalists. Their set was all from their debut album
“Of The Father And The Son”, and they all worked well live. (Kenn) By
chance, I passed the Biergarten tent as Mambo Kurt took to the stage.
Now, for someone who doesn’t understand German, this may not be very
interesting, but I had a fantastic time. Kurt plays the organ. Crap
sound, crap clothes, crap everything. BUT the songs he covers vary
from Stevie Wonder to Slayer (!). At one point, Kurt announces that
“I would like to play a song by Germany’s best bossanova band”
and then plays a bib-bob electronic version of Rammstein’s
“Engel” from “Sehnsucht”. And after an equally mad version of
“Enter Sandman”, Kurt treats us with an instrumental, two-minute
version of “Raining Blood”. Marvellous example of German folklore! Right
after Mambo Kurt it was time for this year’s most professional
performance at Wacken: Although I’ve never been a big fan of Dio, I
could only stand there and enjoy the voice and the superb sound.
Classics like “Holy Diver”, “Rock’n’Roll Children” and
“We Rock” caressed the ears and I shouted along to tunes I half
know and desperately wanted to know that night. Great concert from the
tiny man with the big voice! To
finish off Friday evening (for me, at least), Doro Pesch took to the
stage, with an orchestra, Roman columns and Blaze Bayley. This
mishmash of sentimental tunes and Iron Maiden and Judas Priest covers
was a tad odd but it seemed to go down well with the Germans in the
crowd. I couldn’t be bothered to see the end of it and left for the
vodka festivities in the camp… Saturday,
7th August Saturday
was the big day at Wacken 2004. The triple whammy consisting of Death
Angel, Anthrax and Nevermore should make this the absolute hammer.
However, first off was British Bal-Sagoth who opened the day with
their pompous Dungeons and Dragons black metal. I was a bit
disappointed that the band didn’t show up with swords and helmets,
but the music was as cool as it is on CD. I
have waited a long, long time to see Death Angel and to finally
hear the sound of the instrumental intro to “The Ultra-Violence”
over Wacken gave me goose bumps despite of the midday heat. The DA gig
was a veritable string of hits from all the albums: “Seemingly
Endless Time”, “Thrown to the Wolves”, a cool mid-tempo version
of “Voracious Souls”, “Thicker Than Blood”, “The
Devil Incarnate”, “Bored”, “Famine” and finally Death
Angel’s anthem “Kill As One” where Mark Osegueda gave so much
that I thought his tonsils would come out…
Killer gig
where you could only wish for MORE! Next
up were Anthrax. I never saw a bad Anthrax gig, but this one beats
them all! Recently enforced with powerhouse bass player Joey Vera (Armored
Saint/Fates Warning, etc.), Anthrax seemed unstoppable on this
Saturday afternoon. Anthrax has a fantastic catalogue of sing-along
tunes and a choice selection was aired, e.g. “Indians”, “State
of Euphoria”, “Caught in a Mosh”, “Room for One More”, “Only”,
“Antisocial”, “Safe Home” and, somewhat surprisingly,
“Deathrider” from “Fistful of Metal”. The concert was played
with a conviction and energy I haven’t seen Anthrax play with since
1988 – it was fantastic! Nevermore
never lacked the energy, but on this Saturday in Wacken they lacked a
sound engineer. It was virtually impossible to hear Warrel Dane’s
voice, and what a pity that was! The band seemed fuelled and ready,
but without Dane’s vocal participation Nevermore looses a great
asset. I failed to recognise the two first songs altogether because of
the sound, but the band managed to get across classics such as
“Beyond Within”, “Inside Four Walls”, their remake of “The
Sound of Silence” and a chillingly beautiful version of “The Heart
Collector”. Too bad about the sound throughout the major part of the
gig. A
couple of hours earlier, I had seen Peter Tägtgren and the other
three members of Hypocrisy plant their autographs on the quite
adorable breasts of a young German woman in the Meet’n’Greet tent.
A true rock’n’roll moment, you might say. Too bad that Wacken’s
sound again bereaved a band of what should’ve been the real
rock’n’roll moment later on. I’ve listened to bits and pieces of
Hypocrisy and really wanted to hear it, but I had to give up on the
Swedes after two or three songs, simply because their sound was all
over the place. Helloween
was the biggest German band on the bill this year, and when they hit
the stage they were greeted with a big cheer. Andi Deris showed once
more that he is no good live, and the whole set suffered from his bad
stage-presence, but the big German crowd didn’t seem to mind.
Playing a cool “best of” set with highlights from their impressive
back-catalogue, they owned the crowd, and when they introduced Kai
Hansen as their special guest the crowd never stopped cheering. “How
Many Tears” and “Future World” with Kai handling some of the
vocals were clearly the highlights of the set, and Helloween left the
stage with honours, mainly because of Kai! (Kenn) Written by Thomas, if not noted otherwise. |