Event:	Wacken Open Air 2009
Written by:	Baz Anderson, GT, Promonex
Published:	26.08.2009
Galleries:	Wacken Open Air - Wacken, Germany, 30th July-1st August 2009 by Baz Anderson (165) Wacken Open Air 2009 - Wacken, Germany, 29 July - 01 August 2009 by Promonex (50)

Barry: Wacken Open Air is the biggest metal festival in the world, there is no doubt about that, and it probably has the best atmosphere across 70,000 like-minded people of any gathering of this magnitude in the world. This year gave us Wacken Open Air number 20 and even though the festival took every opportunity to remind us this was the 20th anniversary, it was weirdly forgotten, or ignored, that from this year it has actually been 19 years since the very first festival, and so a 20th anniversary would actually be next year. The festival pulled many rabbits out many of many hats to make this festival a memorable one, including for the sake of celebration the inclusion of at least one band from each of the past Wacken festivals, along with more things to do and see away from the stages including a wrestling tent among other things. One thing the festival did pull out of a hat was also a remarkably bland line-up with killer punches for headliners, which caused some controversy among metalheads, but probably not as much as the inclusion of bands such as Bullet For My Valentine and Bring Me The Horizon.



Barry: The festival, as always, was welcomed into the village by the locals who always seem keen to help and wave the Wacken flag outside their houses, the metalheads once again in general were greatly respective of the village. Inside the festival arena the sound from the stages was generally good. Standing at the front of the main stages doesn't quite destroy your ears as much as some other festivals, but always seems comfortably louder. The Party Stage is the one to have grown over the last couple of years, and although probably the best third stage in the festival's history, if you don't stand close to it you'll get a load of unwanted noise coming from the main stages. W.E.T. tent once again was the same size and thus could be uncomfortably packed at times, but strangely this probably did not seem as bad as previous years. Weather-wise it rained very hard the night before the festival, and then also very hard rain through the first night of the festival. Apparently this storm destroyed and up-rooted tents in the campsite, but luckily this would be the last rain we would see. In general, while the bands were playing the weather would be either very pleasant or very hot, unless your name is Running Wild who left the metal world with a bit of a storm.

D-A-D

Gorm: Old time Danish hard rockers, playing for nearly 30 years started the festival for me. Even though their last few albums (save the latest) have been a bit soft and whiny I was expecting them to pull of some of their older material. And as vocalist Jesper Bintzer said: "we've been going through our basements and attics and found our old instruments?meaning we're playing old music today." That they did and they even brought a backdrop with their old name Disneyland After Dark (not used anymore because of a Disney lawsuit). Unfortunately too much time was wasted on Jesper babbeling and dragged out in- and outros, so the show got quite boring after a while. The sound wasn't really impressive either, mostly because of the wind I guess and my position. Therefore I didn't stay for the whole thing and thus missed a hard rock version of the Danish national hymn.

Schandmaul

Barry: Schandmaul pulled a large audience, no doubt mostly a German audience for the German band. These are probably good fun if you actually are German, otherwise it was a bland set that did nothing but play off the whole folk instrument fad going on at the moment and waste a bit of time.



X-Plod

Daniel: While Schandmaul kicked off their set, Romanian Metal Battle contestants X-Plod closed theirs. The most curious thing about this band was that none of its members was older than 13 years, the vocalist even being merely 9 years old. And that's just what you got: kids holding guitars and trying to be metal might appear somewhat adorable at first, but once the singer made it clear that he hasn't any hair on his balls yet, you just wanted to cover your ears and run off. These kiddos actually made Hanson seem talented... and made me wonder about the Romanian jury's taste...



Der W

Barry: A secret band would be playing a slot on the Party Stage, but overhearing that this band was none other than German-in-joke-band J.B.O. and seeing one of those pink balloons float on by it seemed like a better idea to stay put for the time being. That would be in favour of seeing Der W. That's right, who? Well it was worth a try wasn't it, but it turns out these are also a German-in-joke band who don't actually tell any jokes. The band presumably put on a show, but the sheer lack of anything interesting made it impossible to remember even what they looked like.



Running Wild

Barry: To continue with the German onslaught of bands we got a two-hour dose of the real pirate metallers Running Wild accompanied by a small gang of dressed-up German people saying German words at the audience. Not got a clue what they were, or why they existed. It was no secret however that this was unfortunately to be the very last show from these legends of the genre and thus the audience had grown into the massive sea of people Wacken can produce, but although people were there in mass, there wasn't a lot of movement, we'll assume they were quietly enjoying the set. These guys will be very sorely missed, especially as they put on a great show here in the middle of a flash-flood falling from the sky. Kicking off the set with "Port Royal" they put on somewhat of a best of show to say goodbye, all the favourites were present in the setlist apart from "Treasure Island", which in a two-hour set would have made a great and epic addition, but was unfortunately omitted. These guys will probably be missed more than they realised in a time when we need as many of the classics around to fight back against the fads and trends of today.

Gorm: Before Wacken I had only heard a song or two from Running Wild and as I quite liked those and since it was their farewell show, I decided to check them out. I didn't regret that. Actually I now regret not paying any attention to them before. The show was great and the music too. Never really understood the weird stage acting though, but that was the only negative thing about it. The sound was fine and the audience pretty enthusiastic. All in all a nice concert.



Heaven & Hell

Barry: For the first time of the entire festival it actually now felt like an international event as fellow Brits Heaven & Hell took the True Metal stage to close the first day. Again a huge crowd was present for these musical legends playing Black Sabbath songs. Dio tonight appeared to be working more in a professional mode getting on with the job as opposed to enjoying being there, and the rest of the band didn't make much more of an effort to engage in the vast audience either. Delighted people were all around however to hear all these songs from the Dio-era Black Sabbath days as well as a fair chunk of the newly written album. An encore including "Neon Knights" this time was extremely warmly received, even if it did sound somewhat mutated into some macabre up-beat death march as the song was played with all the same settings as the doomier, heavier and deeper songs of the set. The set lacked something though, the title track "Heaven & Hell" sounded great, and just look at the musicians on stage, it should have been perfect, but there was some kind of spark missing that prevented it from being magical.

Thursday, 30/07/09 / Friday, 31/07/09 / Saturday, 01/08/09