The floor is pulsating. Your whole body is shaking. If it’s too loud you’re too old. This was the feeling when I walked into the W.E.T stage (one of the stages found indoors) at Wacken Open Air. It was day 1. Hours of travelling. I went a few days early to help set up and to get a good camping site. (Going early is key! If you go the day of prepare to camp far back.)
The first day, is always the best and worst. It’s exciting, you want to go hard but at the same time you’re exhausted and don’t want to overdo it. There’s a fine line. I found myself in the W.E.T stage around noon for the Wacken Metal Battles. I’m a Canadian from Toronto so of course I wanted to support Centuries of Decay, a band from Toronto. Each band has a 25 minute set, a short time to show us what they’re made of, before the next force to be reckoned with. Centuries went on and blew the crowd away.
Another band worth mentioning was Chugger, a band from Sweden. They had an amazing stage presence and a tight act. They came in 5th place. The winner of this year’s Wacken Metal Battles was a band from China called Die From Sorrow. They’re a Melodic Death Metal band and one to watch out for.
It’s the best feeling in the world when you make it to a festival especially one of such caliber as Wacken. Seeing the first show is a great feeling. Since it’s the first day and early there aren’t a lot of people there yet but that doesn’t stop the bands. They were loud, and extra excited because they all had something to prove.
No mud, a little beer and a lot of circle pits escalated into walls of death and crowd surfing shortly after the first set of bands had finished. Then it was time for the next batch.
It was mid-afternoon and time to check out Doro! Germanys Metal Queen was playing inside a church. To everyone’s surprise we didn’t burn up! The place was packed everyone throwing their horns in the air and fully embracing the fact that were inside a church. She was swearing, and running into the crowd as we stood on the church benches carefully moving the bibles aside. This was metal, this was what we came for, and this was Wacken. This was no longer a church of God it was the church of Doro and we the disciples.
The craziness didn’t end after the church. Of course not, this is only day one and just the beginning. After leaving the Church there was enough time to make it to Sepultura. So I thought. . . Remember when I said there wasn’t a lot of people yet. Well, they all came. Sepultura was playing the W.E.T Stage and it was so packed in there that they had to stop letting people in. So most people stood idly by and waited to hear Derrick Green’s roar. People chanting, beer flowing and dust brushing against your face.
This was Day 1 of Wacken. You’re tired, you’re excited, but you love every minute of it because you are home!