Wacken Open Air 2017: A First person report

You just can’t consider yourself to be metal if you haven’t experienced WOA Festival at least

once in your lifetime. Full stop. It is not a secret that WOA is in the bucket list of every

metalhead, it’s not only about the way it sounds; it’s the way it feels.

We had the honor to take part to this legendary event, following the journey of a piece of

music from start to finish.

After analyzing the line-up of various festivals around Europe in 2017 the LIR staff, decided

that Wacken is the best billing festival, also considering the variables Quantity – Quality –

Price.

The first Wacken Open Air was held august 1990 on the farm fields of northern Germany , at that time the bill consisted of six bands. Now, 27 years later the festival has become so big and famous that we can count over 150 bands. We are talking about a festival with outstanding dimensions, with a striking number of stages and an impressive area of 270 football pitches.

With more than 75,000 visitors, the festival attracts every kind of fan of metal music, with a range of genres ranging from black, death to thrash to gothic and even folk metal. All types of metal and hard rock are covered, with a bit of metalcore thrown in for “good” measure.

The bands come from all over the world and it is therefore a great opportunity for us Europeans to enjoy a bunch of bands from other continents and they are not often on tour.

During the years every decent metal band on the globe has played there, and it is considered by the artists as THE best metal festival on the planet.

Some of the games organized @ Wacken Open Air

For us has Wacken 2017 started already last year when we decided to be a part of that.

WOA has been a life dream and finally we had the chance to experience it. Although we have been listening to metal for over 15 years there were a lot of bands that we learned to appreciate.

Wacken was not only music, it was an all-round experience. WOA meaned to us to be a part of a big community, sharing our life passion with people from all the world and having fun together.

We were impressed by the good organisation of the festival. Every participant receives a Full metal bag with a lot of useful stuffs like for example a rain poncho, a foldable water bottle and a first aid kit including plaster strips, blister plaster, towelette, sun-blocker and a condom!

The kit comes inside a mobile phone bag which is waterproof.

Metalheads are know even for their love for beer and this year the beer has been guaranteed by a 7 kilometers long underground pipeline that provided six glasses every six second. There were also loads of on-site kiosks and pop-up structures selling different kind of food, merchandise, alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages.

So what were the people like? Can you imagine more than 75000 people having the best days of their lives? It was amazing to feel that energy! We met a lot of interesting people from all the world and we enjoyed the atmosphere. Mostly was everyone in good mood, laughing about the crazy things that normally can made you angry, people help each other (for example when you feet is trapped on the mud 🙂 ) .

Who would have thought I would finally break the curse and see Alice Cooper perform, he’s been literally a hero of mine since I can remember but I could never manage to see him play.

Being up close. Seeing the precise movements; sensing the connection between performers.

This is one of the reason we love WOA and music festivals in general.

It won’t be possible to mention all the 150 bands which took part in this amazing place, but we picked a very personal and for sure non mainstream selection

Europe Live
Credits: Max Rutigliano 2017

Bands to Remember

The LadiesinROCK team has made a special selection of our festivals’ favorites. So here comes

our top list:

KRYPTOS

It doesn’t happen every day to meet some kick-ass, old school Heavy Metal band from Bangalore!

The first time I listened to these guys I thought, OH MY GOSH, I have been looking for these

kind of sounds in other bands for many years, and I have finally found them! If you, like me, dig bands like Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Accept, Kreator, then this is totally the band for you. What is really great about Kryptos is that they have this classic HM attitude without being derivative. They ARE truly original in their old school style .

Kryptos was formed in 1998 by Nolan Lewis (vocals/guitars) and Ganesh K. (bassist).This have long been considered to be one of the true spearheads of the Indian metal revolution upholding the old school metal ethos laid down by the 80’s NWOBHM/Thrash movements

As they stated in their Facebook page, their mission is: Evoking the true spirit of heavy metal the way it was always meant to be.

They played during prime time midnight slot on the last day of Wacken, which was in my opinion the best way to conclude this amazing experience.

We had the honor to meet these guys in person and hang out with them. They are super nice & down-to-earth people, true at heart with their fans and as fans. I have asked who is their favorite artist and, of course, they replied in chorus: JUDAS PRIEST!

KADAVAR

I am a huge fan of 70’s rock and KADAVAR perfectly incarnates the psychedelic allure of this golden age.

As their website correctly points out, KADAVAR invite us to escape the 21st century’s soulless musical mishmash once again by entering the realms of “Abra Kadavar“ – down-to-earth handmade classic rock from a time when music still used to be true art!They are a rock band from Berlin, Germany, founded in 2010. The trio is composed by the guitarist and lead vocalist Christoph “Lupus” Lindemann, drummer Christoph “Tiger” Bartelt and bassist Simon “Dragon” Bouteloup.

Their retro sound, incorporating psychedelic rock and stoner rock, has been compared to bands of the 1970s hard rock/heavy metal era such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.

BRUJERIA

What I love about them is that they are not afraid of stand for what is right and raise social and political complaints. Plus they do it with a funny & satirical twist. It is worth mentioning their parody/remake of The Macarena, re-named “Marijuana”, and the fantastic song “Viva Presidente Trump”, with the intro taken from a Trump’s speech.

Brujeria is a Mexican death metal band formed in Tijuana, Mexico in 1989. Their name

comes from the Spanish word for “witchcraft”.

Their style is definitely something. During the show they were wearing marks and they where jumping around with machetes.

Their show was extremely entertaining, the only thing I can say is: Viva MEXICO Cabron!

POWERWOLF

Powerwolf were created in 2003 by brothers Charles and Matthew Greywolf (spoiler alert:

they’re NOT really brothers!). Then, the drummer Stéfane Funèbre and the keyboardist Falk

Maria Schlegel joined the band. During a holiday in Romania, Charles and Matthew met

Attila Dorn, who moved to Saarbrücken (powerwolf hometown) and became the singer of

Powerwolf. They debuted in 2005 with the album Return in Bloodred.It’s not easy to change the perception of a musical genre but Powerwolf are really able to do

this to power metal. These german/romanian wolves have their own unique approach to

metal: they’re funny, they’re self ironic, they use corpse paint, they love werewolves and

they spread metal religion in a really convincing way. But there is more, they’re great

musicians, just think of the fact that the singer Attila Dorn studied classical opera at the Music Academy of Bucarest, and their live performances are really thrilling!

VOLBEAT

Volbeat are definitely one of the biggest name of this 28th Wacken Open Air edition; they’re

on their sixth album, Seal the Deal & Let’s Boogie, released on 3 June 2016. You cannnot

ignore that they are a really rewarded band: Volbeat have received ten nominations for the

Danish Metal Awards and won three trophies; they also won a Steppeulv award in 2006, a P3Guld award in 2007 and a Zulu Award in 2008.

They also stand out for two peculiarities: they include Danish and American members, just

like the formerly Anthrax guitar, Rob Caggiano, and, although singer Micheal Poulsen roots

in death metal, they have a really heavy sound mixed with melody and pop choruses as they

are inspired by artists such as Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash.

ORANGE GOBLIN

Orange Goblin is an English band formed in London in 1995. Their first three albums were in

the stoner genre but on 2002 with Coup de Grace they began to add doom and other

influences to their sound and become more heavy metal.

They will drive you to crazy headbanging.If you like Motorhead you will love this band!

It is as a live band that Orange Goblin have founded their formidable reputation and our experience at Wacken confirm the expectations. We really enjoyed their performance, the best part was when the crowd instructed by the vocalist did a wall of death! Those are real fans!

CANDLEMASS

Candlemass is a Swedish doom metal band formed in Stockholm’s suburbs 1984. Rated in

2013 as Sweden best metalband, they have sold more than 15 million albums all around the

world. Candlemass secured the 2006 Grammy award with the following motivation from the

jury: “The pioneers of modern doom metal finally succeeded in reuniting their most classic line-up. The result was an eponymous album of epic proportions.”

Although many different line-ups Candlemass has succeeded to keep their unique style

thanks their founder, bassist, songwriter and bandleader Leif Edling. We had the possibility to talk with them and take some shots during the meet and greet and that confirmed our impression that they are not only great artists, their are also humble and friendly.

We’ve seen their live performance a lot of times, and also at Wacken they confirmed their great professionalism and love for the music

POSSESSED

Formed in 1983, Possessed are hailed as the godfathers of the death metal genre even if a lot of fans (and us too) wonder if it would be better to define them a thrash metal band.

After breaking up in 1987, and briefly reforming from 1990 to 1993, the band reformed under original bassist/vocalist Jeff Becerra in 2007.

Not everyone knows that they were one of the first band in metal genre to experiment growl. Their masterpiece Seven churches (1985) with fast drumming, brutal guitar riffs and satanic lyrics still gives me goosebumps.

They performed during the morning and despite that there were a lot of metalheads enjoying their perfomance. Before their started playing we could feel the euphorical atmosfere.

A big applause goes to the Possessed for this show, and even more for Jeff Becerra, full of energy during the whole show.

It was worth to attend the loudest & best party of the year!