WACKEN OPEN AIR 2023 Part II – Day 2 (Thursday)
August 2nd – 5th, 2023
Wacken, Germany
By: Billy@themetalpit.org
Day 2 (Thursday)
After a very difficult Wednesday, I enjoyed a deep sleep waking up in my tent at 10am and well rested. Perfect timing as the days bands begin at 11:30am. One of the few benefits of the clouds and rain is your tent remains cool in the mornings. On hot sunny Wacken days, the sun hits the tents early in the morning turning them into “tent saunas” and you have to get out of there fast. I’m an optimist, always looking for the positive.
I heard light rain throughout the night but thankfully it stopped to start the day. First stop was coffee and breakfast. Standard breakfast at Wacken is what I would normally consider lunch, a sandwich with meat cold cuts. Then it was off to the shower camps to get the previous days mud off me. I never fully get used to showering side by side with fifty strangers at once in a large shower tent.
Festival Grounds – Day 2 Conditions
Mud conditions were at their worst levels thanks to the additional rain over night. As more people walked through the mud with each additional day, it turns into an all too familiar thick soupy texture. The suctioning of the mud on this day was so bad it pulled the sole of my friends boots. One of the external vendors on site were happy to sell him a replacement pair of boots for a ridiculous 150 Euros price tag. But he wasn’t the only one in line to buy boots. I’m always amazed how many people show up to Wacken with only running shoes (or sandals), they clearly did no research before coming. The main stage area (also known as the infield) was just brutal on this day, I couldn’t even see my boots as I stood there watching the bands and the muddy water started leaking into my well tied boots some how. But it’s not all negative, the sun was emerging from the clouds and there was no significant rainfall all day.
Ad Infinitum
The first show of the day was another female fronted symphonic metal band Ad Infinitum on the Wackinger stage. This was another of my friends favorite bands so I joined him to start the day (and fair game as I would be dragging him to see death / thrash bands). Although I knew nothing about the band, I was very impressed by Ad Infinitum. A talented and musically diverse band that kept my attention for the entire performance and I really enjoyed the set. Large festivals always provide you the opportunity to discover new bands.
The band shifted effortlessly between traditional metal, power metal, symphonic metal and even crossing into progressive metal. Vocalist Melissa Bonny was amazing with an incredible vocal range. Her voice was beautiful in slower melodic songs but she went into full death metal mode on a few occasions. Lot’s to enjoy musically as well, musicianship was top notch with plenty of interesting soloing and I loved the heavy use of the bass guitar displaying the bands progressive side. It was a welcomed start to the day and there was no rain in sight.
Lemmy’s Bar – Time for a Few Beers
The weather was still holding up nicely, it was a perfect time to enjoy a few beers. This is something I like to do throughout the festival because it’s the perfect opportunity to mingle with other international metal fans at the German beer gardens on site. It’s all large communal tables so you’re forced to sit with people you don’t know. The first question always asked – Where are you from? Second question is always – is this your first Wacken?
We went to Lemmy’s (Motorhead) themed bar with a huge statue of Lemmy out front. Lemmy had a strong connection to Wacken and considered the Wacken festival and Germany a second home. Motorhead played Wacken regularly and I still sadly remember the last time Motorhead played Wacken when Lemmy was already very ill and he collapsed backstage after just three songs and couldn’t continue. There was a ceremony this year to bring some of Lemmy’s ashes into the village of Wacken where they would remain in an urn. Crowds in the beer areas are generally light in early afternoons (people are probably still nursing hangovers from the day before).
Pro Tip – Always go to the beer garden across from the Headbanger & W.E.T. stages so you can hear / see the bands playing at the same time. Its the only beer garden with stage views.
Drain
Drain was a band at the top of my 2023 Wacken must see list and they didn’t disappoint. Hands down, the craziest band performance of all time. Drain are a thrash crossover band (with some serious punk influences as well) from California and their live show is legendary. I’m sure they broke every Wacken rule in the book with this performance. Singer Sammy Ciaramitaro spent about 60% of the show singing in the audience thanks to a very long mic cord. Other times, he threw the mic into the audience letting the crowd do vocals. He continuously demanded the crowd throw mud at the band and the audience obliged. Mud was flying everywhere, it was chaos.
By the end of the show, the band and stage were completely covered in mud. That particular stage was still a muddy mess the next day. I’m sure the bands playing later in the day were wondering what the hell happened and why was everything covered in mud. At the end of the show, the band invited the audience up on stage. Everyone jumped the barriers and joined the band on stage for the last song. There wasn’t an inch of free stage space left. If you like crossover thrash, Drain’s music is a must and I’m a big fan of the band. The jokes aside, Drain delivered a lethal set of head banging crossover thrash to die for. The mosh pit was like nothing I’ve seen before with mud flying everywhere. I had a smile on face the entire show, it was all so hilarious. Check out the attached two video clips to get a feel for Drain and their live performance.
Riot City
I finally got to see Riot City live which sounds odd as both the band and I reside in Canada. Sadly, newer emerging Canadian bands are forced to focus on touring Europe to survive financially. Canadian audiences are just too small for newer bands to tour across a massive country like Canada profitably. Riot City appeared to be thrilled playing one of the biggest metal festivals in the world, probably a dream come true. I noticed some of the Riot guys later in the crowds as metal fans themselves enjoying the festival. Riot City are part of the NWOTHM (New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal) scene and excel at old school heavy metal done right. It’s funny, the band mentioned during the show they were from Canada and everyone around me was shocked, most thought they were American.
I’m a big fan of vocalist Jordon Jacobs who can hit the high notes with the best of metal singers getting into the Rob Halford upper range. Riot City gave an impressive performance for a relatively new band. All the guys were very active on stage and oozing confidence. Riot City delivers powerful vocals, twin guitar attack, and catchy memorable song writing. The band is only two full length albums into their career but they are building a strong following in the metal community. A pretty good crowd showed up for Riot City despite an earlier mid-day time slot. Check these guys out if the come to your city.
Immolation
One of the best things about large European metal festivals like Wacken is the variety and mix of bands playing on any given day. I started my day with symphonic metal, then crossover thrash, followed by traditional heavy metal and now it was time for some old school death metal courtesy of Immolation (and I still had major thrash and power metal shows to come). The Immolation set list was heavily skewed towards their latest 2022 album “Acts of God” with half the songs stemming from this strong new release. Only one early Immolation track on this day “Under The Supreme” which I enjoyed immensely live. The remainder of the set was largely from the middle album era of the band. Although Immolation played on a smaller to mid-sized Wacken stage, the crowd was massive.
Like many old school death metal bands today, Immolation are still very relevant in the death metal scene and continue to release quality new music and deliver face ripping brutal live performances. After a day mostly free of rain, I had to break out my rain poncho for the Immolation set. Overall, a killer show!
Kreator
I’ve seen Kreator many times at Wacken and in North America and they always tend to have an extra spring in their step at Wacken. Maybe it’s playing in front of the home country German crowd or the exhilaration of playing in front of eighty thousand people (fifty thousand this year), or both. I enjoyed this performance way more than their recent Toronto, Canada tour stop on June 8, 2023. As you can see in the attached videos, the stage show was B-I-G. Outstanding lighting and fire effects perfectly synced to Kreator’s blistering thrash attack. If your prone to seizures from flashing lights, this was not the show for you.
There’s something special about seeing a more extreme metal band (Thrash or Death Metal band) playing in front of so many people on a giant stage. That’s normally reserved for today’s pop stars only (particularly in North America). I have many amazing memories of Kreator at Wacken over the years.
The setlist was broad pulling from most albums as Kreator did on their recent North America tour. They played everything from the recent NA tour but added four additional songs for Wacken – “Phantom Antichrist”, “Hail to the Hordes”, “Strongest of the Strong” and “Extreme Aggression”. All excellent Kreator songs. The highlight of the night for me was “Extreme Aggression” which comes from my favorite Kreator album of the same name, it was delivered in a particularly vicious “Extreme” aggressive manner. Well done boys.
Helloween
I would normally be completely satisfied after a full Kreator show and an entire day of live music but there was still one major show I had to see. It was time for Helloween to deliver their Thursday night headlining set. Like Kreator, I recently saw Helloween on their 2023 North American tour when they stopped in Toronto, Canada in May 2023. The band played the exact same set list based on my memory. Helloween would truly be considered a home town band as they originated from Hamburg, Germany, about an hour drive from the Wacken holy grounds. It felt like the majority of the fifty thousand Wacken attendees were in front of the stage stuck in the mud. Everyone was talking about this show throughout the day and the anticipation was through the roof.
Helloween opened with one of their newest songs “Skyfall” working the crowd into a frenzy but the excitement level entered a new gear when the band performed classic songs like “I’m Alive”, “Future World” and “Save Us”. The entire audience sang most of the choruses word-for-word along with Michael Kiske making for a very memorable night. I never fully recovered my voice for the remainder of the festival after this show. The momentum continued as Kai Hansen took over lead vocal duties on the original Helloween material including “Heavy Metal is the Law”, “How Many Tears” and a medley of “Metal Invaders”, “Gorgar”, “Victim of Fate” and the brilliant “Ride the Sky”. So much vocal talent on the stage this night with Michael, Kai and Andi singing together.
Kai Hansen and Michael Kiske are royalty at the Wacken festival and based on my ten festivals, I’m sure at least one of them or both of them were at every Wacken festival I attended in some capacity. Kiske would join Kai on stage during his Gamma Ray or Kai Hansen XXX Solo project sets, they both performed as Unisonic one year, this was my third time seeing Helloween at Wacken, and Michael Kiske appeared countless times with surprise vocal performances and as part of metal operas (Avantasia for example).
Excellent later era Helloween tracks were represented led by Andi Deris on vocals including “Power”, “Perfect Gentleman” and “Forever and One (Neverland)”. The latter was a duet with Michael Kiske and the closest the band got to a ballad all night. The encore contained two more classic sing along tracks “Keeper of the Seven Keys” and “I Want Out”. The cumulative decibel impact of fifty thousand people singing “I Wan’t Out” to end the show is a memory I won’t soon forget, the perfect way to end the night. Outside of the actual music, the show contained an impressive light show, large screen animation, fireworks and a full drone show at the end. The drones spelled Helloween high in the sky and formed into the pumpkin logo. The drones would make an appearance every night.
Final Thoughts
We grabbed a few burgers on our walk back to the tent ending a fantastic day. Enjoyed a few beers with my fellow campers on the campground discussing all the shows we watched throughout the day. Wacken is obviously about the music but I love these end of night debriefs with my fellow campers. Finally made it to bed at 3am.
Although the mud was at peak levels on this day, the weather greatly improved and Wacken organizers fixed all the scheduling issues that plagued Day 1. It was clear at this point organizers were fully committed to executing the rest of the festival to perfection despite all the lost revenue associated with the weather related ticket refunds. It’s easy to say organizers should have done this or done that but this is no easy task. They are running a mini-city for one week of the year on a farm in Northern Germany in a small town of less than 3,000 people and can’t control the weather. Thomas Jensen and Holger Hubner (Wacken creators and the two guys who run the festival to this day) and the full Wacken crew have my full respect for saving this amazing festival I love so much. Thank you Wacken – See you in 2024 Rain or Shine… and hopefully more shine.
Day 3 & Day 4 summaries coming very soon…