Over the summer we travelled to Northern Germany to once again attend the heavy metal mecca, Wacken Open Air. We start the 4-day festivities at the crossroads of joy and despair, as a torrential rainstorm strikes the festival in day one!
The festival has become so popular in recent years, evident from how fast the 75’000 tickets sell out, that some fans have turned it into a weeks vacation arriving on Monday before the festival begins. While not much in terms of official festivites happens on the Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday is when things get going with the opening of the Wackinger village – an entire medieval town built with that very theme in mind.
So what happens in this village on the Wednesday? Jousts, mead slugging, axe throwing, feasting and everything medieval that could possibly come to your mind. Some of the most entertaining live acts appear in this makeshift town as well – a section of the town designated as the ‘Wasteland’ area based on Mad Max’s Thunderdome, and an entire stage built out of ‘garbage’ to house a couple of hugely entertaining acts.
Across the plains is the Wackinger stage, that is designated for Wacken’s smaller folk and medieval bands to perform on. Some of my favourite acts in recent years have performed on this stage, as it always provides something unusal and exciting…but let’s get to the festival!
So the Wednesday festivities this year were met with a different kind of extremity rather than the extreme music we came here for. The weather at Wacken was the worst the festival has seen in 26 years as confirmed by multiple locals. This area of Northern Germany was covered with a torrential rainstorm that was to last the entire evening, and the 10 years I have attended Wacken, I have never seen anything quite like it.
Though the weather was horrific with rain pouring buckets, it only thickened the metal spirit with fans getting together, slugging beer, with horns in the air. Neither were the bands going to let up on their metal duties, this is Wacken after all! So these are the bands we managed to see on Wednesday.
Monstagon
A debut Wacken performance for this band, who played as one of two rotating bands on the ‘Wasteland’ stage. It was one of those band’s that very few people had actually heard of before their performances, but another one that was bound to impress with their visual performances. The band had adopted a sort of classic ‘B movie’ theme where the band acted as butchers to the scantily clad actresses that emerged on stage from time to time.
It was greatly entertaining. The accompanying music was sludgy heavy metal that was average at best, but it was the visuals and physical performance that the band were focusing on, and that was fantastic. The members of the band certainly looked the part greasing themselves with black and grey and decorating themselves with hobo clothing.
We ending up seeing this band a couple of times given then had a couple of slots a day, and it got more entertaining every time!
Feuerschwanz
Another band that plays Wacken almost every year, it is one of those bands that is extremely refreshing to watch as a very light-hearted approach to folk metal. The name Feuerschwanz says it all really, and for those of you who need a translation, it means ‘Fire Dick’. Yup. Having seen Feuerschwanz a few times in years past they are one of those bands I feel obligated to see when I can now. They always put on a fantastic performance.
Playing a more simplistic style of folk metal, it allows the band to take priority of their silly stage antics that get the crowd going wild. My German is quite bare at best, but it is evident that their lyrics contain some humorous elements that pertain to what happens on stage, with the cat women emerging to hold up some sign that the audience respond to.
Of course the band played my favourite ‘Metnotstand in Marchenland‘, which I believe translates as ‘Emergency Mead Stand in Wonderland‘. You get the idea of how appropriate a band is like this for Wacken. It really kicks off the party!
Even though the rain was so hard we expected to see Noah’s Ark pass by, Feuerschwanz drew a very sizeable crowd eclipsing the small stage they played on, just one of many examples of the metal spirit living on, and an example of one band set out to alleviate the battering weather.
Megabosch
This band started playing Wacken 3 years ago intended solely for the ‘Wasteland’ stage given that their theme is ‘the Rockstars of the Apocalypse’, and have turned into one of my favourite acts to watch at Wacken. Another band where the visuals take presidence over the music, the custom built stage very much compliments the performance to create quite the experience when watching.
The performance features the band members donning ‘Thunderdome’ style attire, with women dancing on stage, and men firing pyro at every angle. Think Rammstein performing in Fallout and that is what Megabosch is. An eccletic performance of everything visual that you would want to see in a metal performace, and while the music is generally quite simple the hooks and choruses are quite addictive. Those I attended the festival with were frequently humming a couple of the riffs of the songs without ever hearing the recorded version once.
The band perform in German so I don’t have quite the grasp on what the band sing about, but throughout their multiple performances they do keep that apocalyptic persona on stage. Every year they have drawn more and more crowds, quickly elevating Megabosch to the status of festival favourite. Every show they put on in the festival seems to become a little bit more intricate, with the special ‘Wasteland Warriors’ making appearances. They are dressed in full wasteland attire, carry weapons and drive cars around, and fit themselves into the audience getting them riled up for the show when they can. And of course there was a stripper that made an appearance. Why not right?
Megabosch get better every year to watch and are at no risk of becoming stale to the festival. This year was no exception. As more fans come, the show just gets bigger!
Stay tuned for the Thursday festivities…
