Written by:	Promonex, corrupt, Valentin B
Published:	September 17, 2010
Event:	Wacken Open Air 2010 (Website)
Location:	Festivalgelände, Wacken, Germany
Organizer:	ICS Event Service
Galleries:	Wacken Open Air 2010 - Day 3 by Promonex (124) Wacken Open Air 2010 - Day 2 by Promonex (146) Wacken Open Air 2010 - Day 1 & Miscellaneous (NSFW!) by Promonex (55) Metal Train 2010 by Promonex (120)

Table of Contents
Friday, 05.08.2010
2.1 Amorphis
2.2 Orphaned Land
2.3 Job For A Cowboy
2.4 Ill Niño
2.5 Die Apokalyptischen Reiter
2.6 The BossHoss
2.7 Blaas Of Glory
2.8 Endstille
2.9 Evile
2.10 Kamelot
2.11 Arch Enemy
2.12 Tarja
2.13 Grave Digger
2.14 1349
2.15 Slayer
2.16 Ihsahn
2.17 Anvil

Thursday, 04.08.2010 featuring Apocalyptica, Altar, Skyline, Metal Hammer Awards, Alice Cooper, Mötley Crüe, Iron Maiden, Gojira

Saturday, 06.08.2010 featuring Caliban, Kampfar, Die Kassierer, Overkill, Lock Up, Delain, Metsatöll, W.A.S.P., Cannibal Corpse, Sólstafir, Edguy, Immortal, Candlemass, Rotting Christ, Soulfly, Tiamat, U.D.O., Conclusion


Friday, 05.08.2010
When we were crawling out of our tents on the second day of the festival, the sun was shining right in our faces. The weather forecasts have been brilliant and with Kamelot, Arch Enemy and a once-in-a-lifetime show by Grave Digger there was a lot to look forward to.


2.1 Amorphis
corrupt: Day 2 started off on a high note, namely the one of Amorphis. The Finns brought their latest album and a custom microphone that made their sound one of the best on the festival. Although there was close to no interaction with the audience, it was obvious that they were in a really good mood and royally entertained a surprisingly large crowd under the burning sun. They played many songs from Skyforger, which was good for me, as I haven't yet listened to their earlier work. But other people seemed to enjoy the show just as much. I don't know if it was the aforementioned cone-shaped microphone or their technicians, but Tomi's vocals sounded so good you could suspect they were using playback. This show was just incredible.

Valentin B: Amorphis had the thankless task of playing at 11:45 in the morning. Fortunately this didn't affect them and even though the first half of their show was pretty lacking in interesting songs, towards the end the vocalist showed what he is really capable of, unleashing some of the older tracks. Now judging from his clean singing you might think that it would sound pretty crappy, but that is absolutely not the case. I would dare to say he is even on par with a certain vocalist from a death metal band that was on to play on the next day. All in all they made for a good metal breakfast.




2.2 Orphaned Land
corrupt: Next up were Orphaned Land with a sound a little worse than Amorphis. But they managed to get on top of that during the first two songs and from then on the concert was really good. Their computer did work for once which means that all the extra instruments were there and the performance came way closer to their albums than last time I've seen them. It also meant that they could perform "Sapari" with samples of Shlomit Levi instead of Kobi's voice. Simple as it may be, this song definitely excited the masses. As did their playing "Halo Dies", a song I've never seen them play live. About halfway through the show, they started playing more songs from the last album, hence really progressive stuff. At this point the show lost its flow for a while because the depth and density of that work is really hard to transport to an audience that big. In the end they sped things up again and managed to get most of the audience back for a furious finish. For "Halo Dies" they had a guest singer on stage who helped during the really fast dialogue part in the end. It was awesome. You could tell the band really enjoyed playing and chose their songs and the order wisely to leave the audience with a powerful ending. One thing though. Kobi, if you read this, please, please stop making that "I am not Jesus Christ" joke. It gets soooo old.


2.3 Job For A Cowboy
corrupt: First of all. I didn't see them. The reason why I'm still writing this is a weird situation that was brought upon bands and fans alike by the organizers, which peaked in ridiculousness during this very show. The organizers had decided to ban circle-pitting, mosh-pitting (yeah, those are not real words) and the infamous wall of death this year. Preventing walls of death is probably a good idea in a crowd as big as Wacken's can be, but a circle pit? People running around in a circle are that much a risk that it has to be banned? Well, as the organizers told us after the Metal Hammer Awards, they spoke to all the bands and found they were all in agreement about this. As it turned out later, they were pretty selective about which bands to pick up on their "promise". With the biggest bands, they would just do nothing about it. I guess if Bruce Dickinson had called for a 50m wall of death, they had even jumped the thing. With the smaller bands they did the funniest thing. They created a special sign for the video walls that showed a traffic sign crossing rotating arrows and said Please No Circlepit. I still don't get why the circle pit is the most dangerous of the three. Maybe bands agreed upon the ban for the wall of death and the organizers found, you can't keep people from moshing anyway, so the root of evil has to be the circle pit. Whether this sign was shown or not, was - if not based on a band's popularity - pretty much just random. With Job For A Cowboy however, apparently being small enough, they dared to take the ultimate step. As it seems, the band called for a wall of death. And the organizers therefore interrupted the show and made an announcement in German and English to please stop. As can be seen here, the fans reacted to this with just another wall of death, which resulted in the concert being aborted completely. As far as I know they only did this to Job For A Cowboy. There were walls of death at other shows, including bands such as Caliban where nothing happened. A reaction like this from some of the most experienced organizers of the world was just plain funny. Like offended children, they denied to play with the other kids until that playing would be by their rules.




2.4 Ill Niño
corrupt: After the first two really good bands, I was up for the first band of the day that I had never heard of before. And boy do I wish it had stayed that way. Ill Niño started playing way louder than the other bands before them. Not loud enough to completely ruin the sound, but still too loud to be enjoyable. All their songs sounded simple and alike. Generic nu metal with nothing to impress me. And if I hadn't been able to see their singer and see that he's not in fact Alexi Laiho, I wouldn't have believed it. Haven't heard that many fucks and shits since my last Children Of Bodom concert. They had a reasonably sized crowd that seemed somewhat excited. But for us bystanders, this show was entirely boring.

Promonex: Nu metal used to be quite big until the middle of the 00s when it was replaced by metalcore. Now that the dust has settled there are only very few nu metal bands left. Ill Niño is one of them. This year they opted to play at several metal festivals, but it was obvious that they were out of place here at Wacken, musically even less so than ideologically. More than once frontman Cristian Machado was speaking of "You metalheads", displaying the band's position outside the boundaries of the metal scene. The music itself wasn't that bad, their nu metal with tribal elements surely had some nostalgic value for many people who had taken the nu metal path into the scene. But in the end it was Cristian's attitude which was quite alienating for many people.




2.5 Die Apokalyptischen Reiter
Promonex: Having seen Die Apokalyptischen Reiter only a few days earlier as headliners of Eisenwahn Festival, I actually wanted to skip their show. But when the intro turned out to be "...vom Ende der Welt" of their glorious third album All You Need Is Love from their death metal days, I decided to stick around a bit longer. Unfortunately this intro was quite deceptive as it led into "Wir sind das Licht" from their latest album, so the setlist wasn't really any different from the one at Eisenwahn, only with less verve than at their headlining show. I therefore decided to go for a drink instead.

corrupt: Originally, I didn't plan to see Die Apokalyptischen Reiter. They are one of those bands that only sell because they sing in German and they seamlessly align with all the other big players of Germany's folk rock scene. So I spent some time in the press camp, enjoying a coffee and then slowly returning to the festival ground to catch the last 30 minutes of their show. And I do have to say it was a very good one. The guys were in a good mood, the sound was awesome and their crowd was huge. So in the end I even managed to enjoy this concert.

Valentin B: The Apocalyptic Horsemen took the stage and opening with the sing-along "Wir sind das Licht" they gathered the biggest audience of the day so far. Renowned for their crazy stage shows and bombastic music, they didn't disappoint and made for excellent entertainment even if you didn't know one word the guy said throughout the show. Closing with the fan-anthem "We Will Never Die" and the cheesy "Seemann" they made for a crazy hour filled with laughs, headbanging and shooting merch items from a small cannon into the audience.


2.6 The BossHoss
corrupt: Never heard of The BossHoss? Rightly so. The seven Germans from Berlin found their niche in playing rockabilly-style country folk and pretending to be Dixie Americans. So nothing a MetalStormer would immediately associate with. We spent most of their show lying on the ground laughing at the guys' fitted accent thinking: "Who the hell would like this stuff?" But every time we looked around, everyone was dancing, jumping and singing along. The singing along part is understandable since The BossHoss only cover famous songs, with a spectrum from Britney Spears to Outcast, stuff that is ever dominant on the radio. What they don't do however is play metal. Or rock for that matter. And the fact that this was their second time playing Wacken begs the assumption that they are one of the personal favorites of Mr. Wacken, Holger Hübner. Still their musically extremely thin set sufficed to excite most of the people on the grounds and even made four policemen, standing next to us, sing and dance along.


2.7 Blaas Of Glory
Valentin B: Another novelty band, Blaas of Glory is actually a marching band that plays covers of well-known metal tunes. Yes, you just read that, and believe it or not, it was a fun, unexpected, random and refreshing experience to simply run into them just before they started playing by the beer garden. This year they were wandering around the festival/camp area giving random performances playing marching-band versions of classics like "Hallowed Be Thy Name", "The Final Countdown" or "Ace of Spades". The guys also seemed very cool and enjoyed themselves tremendously as did the small audience gathered.


2.8 Endstille
corrupt: Endstille played in Wacken last year, only a few days after the departure of their singer Iblis. The set was chaotic, improvised and not well received. So here they should get another chance with a year's time to reassemble and rehearse. This year, the first thing that was apparent was the volume. For my understanding they weren't loud enough. I know I've complained about other bands being too loud, but black metal unfolds best if the listener is surrounded by its power. And the volume Endstille had, failed to do it for me. Also, during the first song, it seemed Zingultus was reading the lines from his lectern. At first I thought, he still didn't know his songs. But since he only did it during the first song, it seems to have been part of the show. Now for some real atmosphere, the band is clearly missing a second guitar. That is not to say the show was bad, only it could have been more complex. Endstille had a few surprises with them. For one singer they brought the guest singer from last time to perform a song with two singers. For this song, both guys left the stage and sung from on top of the barriers in front of it. Then unfortunately I had to leave to catch Evile, who were playing on the W.E.T. stage at the same time. While I was gone, it seems they had a second guest singer there. Thanks to the already mentioned excellent running order, I couldn't have both and hence missed this part. What we did get however was a really good show and a well-receiving audience. Endstille had a lot to make up for after last year, and for the most part they did. For the real atmosphere their music is entirely too simple and monotonous. But the show still was great, even though Zingultus was mostly swearing when making announcements. Six minutes too early they left the stage and a sweaty, excited crowd.

Promonex: After the drama surrounding their former singer Iblis and the chaotic search for a new vocalist, Endstille had finally found a suitable replacement in Zingultus of Nagelfar fame. While Iblis had used to be an entertainer of the vilest kind, Zingultus emanated some kind of dignity on stage which gave him the appearance of a politician preaching his agenda to the masses. The overall setup of the stage underlined this impression: Zingultus behind a lectern and the whole band behind barricades with barbed wire. At the end interim vocalist Lugubrem from Mexican band Mordskog, who was handling screaming duties during their infamous Wacken appearance in 2009, joined Zingultus for the last two songs, "Frühlingserwachen" and the beautifully hateful "Navigator." In my opinion the overall sound was great for Endstille's invidious kind of black metal, but performing in broad daylight sure took away a lot of atmosphere.




2.9 Evile
corrupt: As already mentioned, Evile were playing in parallel to Endstille. That is to say that whenever Evile didn't play, the only thing audible were the latter. Added to that, the W.E.T. stage again was so full of smoke that one could hardly see the band. And I'm not exaggerating. So we witnessed a pretty standard and really static show. They played a solid set and even took the time to tell the story of their deceased bassist Mike Alexander, but otherwise failed to amaze me. This show was by far no match to the powerful appearance they made at this year's Rock Hard Festival. After just 30 minutes, the show was over and I couldn't help but regret leaving Endstille a little.


2.10 Kamelot
Valentin B: From a distance, the sound for Kamelot was excellent, though I've heard otherwise from a certain German dude. For people who aren't die-hard fans I guess this was a decent show, in my opinion nothing special apart from lots of flames for a daytime concert, and the only slight disappointment in regards to bands for this year's W:O:A.

corrupt: How many bands exist today that still play awesome power metal? Most of them either went glam rock or symphonic movie-score-whatever-nonsense. Among the few who remain, Kamelot is one of the last examples of a true power metal band. One that manages to progress the style and still stick close to its original recipe. The Norwegian-American quintet brought songs from their upcoming album Poetry For The Poisoned as well as many old classics. In the beginning they had some sound problems that took a while to resolve. And even after that, the drums were so dominant that both guitars and vocals were drowned in them sometimes. The background vocals, performed by a woman and a man wearing masks on a podium next to the drums were clearly audible though. Weird sound aside, the show was really nice. The new stuff sounded cool and their setlist was well chosen. Two years ago when they played in Wacken, they had Alexander Krull on stage to sing Shagrath's part of Mephisto in March Of Mephisto, which was one of the best parts of the set. So naturally, the expectations for the song were high, especially as Alex Krull was scheduled to play with Atrocity the same night. Unfortunately though, nothing happened. No Krull, just Khan and some samples. Certainly the only stain on an otherwise close to perfect set. Khan was in a very good mood and really took his time to interact with the audience. The band even had to pause for a while when a hot-air balloon floated over the audience and took their focus away from the band for a few minutes. But that only seemed to enlighten their mood.




2.11 Arch Enemy
corrupt: Next up: German/Swedish Gothenburg veterans Arch Enemy. Those who know me, know that I'm not particularly fond of post-Liiva Arch Enemy. That said, I'm astonished myself how often I see them live. And they usually deliver, if you don't count Angela Gossow's flat out stupid announcements. As could be expected, Arch Enemy had one of the biggest crowds of this festival so far. And one of the youngest ones. But the show, as always, was really good. Angela tried to talk to their audience in English to reach the festival's international crowd and the result was a bunch of announcements that were even more ridiculous than her usual German sexist nonsense. But she didn't lose too many words and so the show was flowing smoothly. Their sound was once again awesome and their setlist well chosen. A great show through and through, even though they finished ten minutes early.

Promonex: The show itself was very good and even their pathetic singalong songs like "Nemesis" and "We Will Rise" sounded awesome live. What struck me as particularly positive, was their attitude towards the foreign visitors of the festival. Even though Angela Gossow is from Germany, she clearly stated that she'd be speaking English, so that everyone could understand her. In Extremo and Die Apokalyptischen Reiter, take note!




2.12 Tarja
corrupt: I couldn't see Tarja's full show since she was playing in parallel to Arch Enemy. But I was so curious as to what a show by Mrs. "I don't want to be connected to metal" looks like nowadays, so I spent my time walking back and forth between both stages. A friend of mine who is not deeply interested in Arch Enemy stayed with Tarja, so most of this information was gathered by her. First of all, I have never seen an occupant of a metal stage that uncertain of her own performance. Not even Liv Kristine (Leaves' Eyes) is that unconfident. It seemed like Tarja couldn't believe her own eyes and ears that people were actually cheering at her, so she spent most of her announcements, verbosely thanking her audience for the applause. That said, how could an audience of presumably mostly old Nightwish fans not be pleased by a concert of the bands original singer that has two of their songs on the setlist? She covered "Sleeping Sun" and "Wishmaster", not to mention Whitesnake's classic "Still Of The Night." The whole concert was a single showcase for her voice. As on CD, the sound of the band was kept flat in the background, so Tarja's voice was the center of the arrangement. Also it seemed that most of her huge audience was just as curious as I was in the beginning because there was a constant stream of people leaving the grounds or walking over to Arch Enemy. Really nothing special here, neither musically nor in terms of a good live show. And I can't say I was surprised either.


2.13 Grave Digger
corrupt: Ever wondered what Manowar would sound like after a life of whiskey abuse? Just kidding, Grave Digger were in for a special show this year to celebrate their 30th anniversary. To honor this occasion, they decided to play their classic album Tunes Of War in its entirety and also bring a few guests to the stage. They played a few songs with German a cappella metallers Van Canto as a choir, played a duet with Doro Pesch and one with Blind Guardian's Hansi Kürsch. Introduced and sometimes accompanied by a company of bagpipe players. The show itself was certainly amazing, and their fans really knew how to honor the special event. But for someone who doesn't know the album or that much else by the band, there wasn't much there, so I decided to take a lunch break and watch the show from afar.

Valentin B: Oooh yeah! After skipping most of Arch Enemy's performance, I set myself up (i.e. drank some booze) awaiting an hour of musical orgasm with one of my most anticipated bands of the fest, Grave Digger. Playing their whole Tunes of War album I had high expectations for this show, but even these were surpassed when a band of no less than 17 bagpipers entered the stage for a supremely epic rendition of "Scotland the Brave". The rest of the show was no less epic and enchanting as even the fillers of the album sounded excellent. Guest appearances were also made by the likes of Hansi Kürsch and Doro. Going from heavy rockers like "The Bruce" to breakneck speed metal with "Cry For Freedom" to tear-jerking emotion with "Ballad Of Mary" this was pretty much an excellent show. Just when we thought it was all over, the band came back on stage for 3 other epic tunes, ending with the unforgettable "Heavy Metal Breakdown". Definitely one of the highlights of the whole fest.

Promonex: As Tunes Of War was the album that got me into heavy metal, Grave Digger's anniversary show was the reason for me to attend this year's Wacken Open Air. When I heard that Van Canto, a band I've learned to despise passionately, would join them on stage I've already expected the worst. Fortunately these prejudices were soon blown away as the whole show was just perfect! The bagpipers did an awesome job on the intro, Van Canto did an awesome job as background choir and Doro, who I'm not too fond of either, turned "The Ballad of Mary (Queen of Scots)" into the ultimate tear-drencher. The last time I had seen Grave Digger I was annoyed by the band alternating between new and old songs all the time, so whenever they got the crowd into singalong mode with one of their old songs, they crushed this mood by covering it up with a song from their later albums. This time though the crowd was singing along throughout the entire set, a set I'll clearly remember as one of the best I've ever seen.




2.14 1349
corrupt: Next I had to chose between Slayer and a combination of 1349 and Ihsahn. Since both the latter ones were among the reasons for my coming, the decision was easy. Goodbye Slayer and hello 1349. In 2007, 1349 played on the W.E.T. stage, which resulted in a huge chaos when thousands of fans tried to get into the small tent. This year, redemption was at hand for those who couldn't fit inside back then as 1349 were given a slot on the party stage. Many people were there to see them despite Slayer playing the black stage and they thanked with a powerful show, a great setlist, few announcements and wonderful sound. Pretty much exactly what I needed after the preceding hours.




2.15 Slayer
Valentin B: Having already seen Slayer earlier this year, I didn't stick around for much, but they did surprise me and made me headbang quite a bit with their show which was very much focused on their older stuff up to and including Seasons In The Abyss, including their epic "Hell Awaits" and one of my personal favorite Slayer tracks, "Spirit In Black."


2.16 Ihsahn
corrupt: Not being able to see the last 15 minutes of 1349 due to Ihsahn's overlapping slot, I was hoping for one of the best concerts of this festival. Ihsahn is known to play the occasional Emperor classic and his latest album After with all its glory should guarantee a most powerful show. Or so I thought. It started with the worst sound I had heard on the festival so far. There was nothing distinctive about it. Everything just sounded like a huge mash of noise. And that should mean something, considering he started five minutes late because of an extended sound check. After the first song ("The Barren Lands"), they had the sound at a level that could be called bearable. But where the hell was the saxophone player? They did play "A Grave Inversed", one of the best songs of the album (because of the saxophone) entirely without it. Instead, Ihsahn played guitar solos. That certainly ruined a big part of the show for me. Other than that I felt reminded of Tarja's show in terms of arrangements. After two songs I moved to the back of the tent in the hope to get a better sound when standing closer to the sound booth. That did work for some part. But the better sound only revealed the same arrangements I heard hours before. Ihsahn's voice and his impressive custom made Ibanez RG2228 8-string guitar in the foreground and the band in the back. And don't think there was much interaction or anything. Ihsahn entered the stage, played his set and left. That's it. No love there, no signs of gratitude other than the occasional "thank you" and no sign of at least fun. Ihsahn left me completely disappointed with a static, anorganic show full of negative surprises.




2.17 Anvil
Valentin B: After discovering the true face of the band with their excellent documentary, I decided to watch these guys' performance. Due to a combination of sleepiness, sitting in the movie field and slight disinterest with the band aside from the opening track, for the first half of their show I almost fell asleep even though the band was obviously on fire and giving their best, seeming genuinely happy to be there and play on stage at a very good time slot. It was after all probably the biggest audience they have gathered for a very long time (their AC/DC support shows don't count), but I didn't care, I just wanted to sleep. Then, during the song "Mothra", something happened. I finally got what the fuck this band was all about. The moment came suddenly, during the extended breakdown, when Lips was going through his narration thing, at one point saying: "And then the people of Tokyo...Wacken, give it up for the people of Tokyo!!" I couldn't help but laugh at the cheesiness and attitude that Lips exudes on stage and finally got into enjoying the show which was a combination of great, technical 80's metal, a drum solo with glowing green drum sticks, and, most importantly, light-hearted fun.

corrupt: Hey all you unsuccessful (and possibly boring) bands out there, ever wanted a headlining slot on the biggest metal festival of the world? No problem. All it takes is a motion picture featuring yourselves and the history of your band and you'll get a prime time slot on the biggest stage of every festival. I don't know behind which moon one needs to live not to know the recent story of Anvil, a band that nobody cared about for 20 years until they had their own film. Now, to celebrate their newly found popularity, they headline all the big festivals throughout Europe. The show itself was nice to watch at least. The band was truly grateful for the opportunity they'd been given and tried their best to play a good set and give something back to the people. But as would any unknown band occupying a slot like that, they had one of the smallest crowds I've ever seen on a festival at that time at night. Had they been given an afternoon slot, maybe around 5 p.m., their show would have been really cool. But at this time of the day they were just lost with their small audience on the huge festival grounds. They played a show of solid, but not too special hard rock, pretty much like Iron Maiden the day before. Only without the 60,000 maniacs screaming every chorus back to them. And that's the most accurate description I can find for this concert. Likeable, solid music, but entirely lost.