July, August 2007 - Wacken Open Air
Monday, July 30, 2007
We had planned our departure for quite a while. John, Janine and I were the first of us to enter Wacken that day, the others wanted to follow on Wednesday. It rained. It didn't only rain, it seemed the gods would want this country to drown. Within one week it had rained more than usually during complete July. The sky was grey and the light was like a winter afternoon. A perfect day to stay at home, but we wanted to go camping. Wackens RSS-Feed and the radio stations appelled for everybody not to arrive before Wednesday. The festival started on Thursday. By myself I doubted that it would be possible to get 30,000 cars or more through the narrow streets of northern German countryside, get them all along the one and only street of Wacken, through the gates an park them all. One day. Never. By the time I chatted with Janine it wasn't even sure if the festival could take place since the whole site was literally drowining. It was the rainiest summer I have ever seen. I text messaged John to ask him what to do. His short answer was to start the operation as planned "we don't have to tell everybody that we're living around the corner".
And so I packed my things, took on Dirk's Wellington boots (they should become the most valuable thing during the next days) and caught my mom somewhere to drive me to John's place. The two of them were already waiting, the whole hall of the house full of luggage.
We packed not only John's mom's car but an extra trailer full of our stuff and arriving in Wacken we put the heaviest bags onto the hand cart, still almost breatking down beneath the stuff we were carrying ourself. We entered the camp C which was already full so far, and we sank in the mud to our knees, not to mention the cart. Once we had sent Janine out as scout to look for free space. There wasn't, so we needed to return to the asphalted street and try the next way up to the camps. At the corner we found a perfect place, everything was free, only a tent here and there. The legendary corner Metal Main Street/Ozzy Way. In heavy rain we tried to set up my tent and put the bags in there to save them from the rain. It didn't only rain - the wind was making it even more difficult. We tried to help our neighbors setting up their tents and when it rained simply too much they offered us shelter under theirs. That's when we decided to pull over our tents towards theirs to form one camp. We wanted to set up our pavillon next to theirs to have a bigger roof. It didn't work yet, the wind was too heavy to do it now. So for this first awful day we all sat together under theirs.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
The weather cleared a little giving hope for the clouds breaking up before Thursday. Still it was cold and wet all day long. Sheltered from the wind you could really enjoy the sun which came out more often.
That's how they all sat beneath the pavillon's remains
Multi-talented Andreas playing the bagpipe
Eric took a nap to become sober, a chance which Andreas took to decorate him.
Andreas again
Kreide, Tim and John (left to right)
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Sleep was impossible that night. First there was a party directly next to my tent, then Didi decided to seek shelter from the rain inside my tent where he slept for a while, until I asked Marc to get him out of there. Though I couldn't sleep anymore that night...
Arno and Lukas Erlach, Arni, Bent and Sdun arrived during the day and even found some space belonging to our camp. So, this was the day everybody should have arrived. Although probably 15,000 or more were already there the street was totally blocked. On the freeway there was said to be a 13 miles traffic jam where nothing moved so the folks had barbecue next to their cars. And it had gotten hot, I was glad I didn't have to sit in a car that day. An endless stream of cars creeped along Wacken's main street. Finally the giant started to wake up: The local firefighters' brass band played the traditional inofficial opening in the beer garden. I've never been in such a dense crowd, I could hardly see the band during the whole gig and I had to struggle to remain on my feet while being thorn around all the time. Great party. Still, Bent got lost in all that after I had given ihm my camera and other value things. At the same time Mambo Kurt rocked the W.E.T. stage.
Later, there was the "movienight" on the soccer field. They showed "Full Metal Village", Cho Sung-hyung's highly-regarded breakthrough documentary about the festival and the getting along of the Wacken locals and the metal fans. The film started with a 45-minute delay and it was just great to watch it among a few thousand others. It's great to see those places you're walking along every day on the screen. And everything was commented by the crowd "ooooooh Edekaa!" or "oooooh cow! cow! cow!" Mostly of course the local legend and hero - Bauer Uwe, the owner of the fields the festival is held on.
That guy stood besides the mobile toilets...
Main street and Raiffeisen tower (silo)
"Let us rest in peace" This is a war memorial
Edeka... it's still empty compared to the weekend
Scheiße meeting a guy who likes to wear strange pants aswell!
Goldlöckchen
Arne on the mobile toilet
The greatest gig of the whole festival - Wacken firefighters brass band
Thursday, August 2, 2007
The first official festival day. The sun burned hot up in the metal skies and the mood was rising. Doors open was scheduled for 4pm, the first gig for 5pm. Excitement - it was starting to happen, a thing bigger than any man could ever understand and I was a part of it! Sdun, Arne and Bent and me were actually right in the crowd standing in front of the closed entrance where slogans like "Tear down the wall!" (A phrase from the fall of the Berlin wall) rose soon. First we headed for the Party Stage where The Sorrow played the first gig, later I went over to the Black stage to see Rose Tattoo. Having a short break at the camp I came back to dive into the crowd seeing Sodom. A great gig though my actual purpose was to use the general movement after the gig to work my way to the front. Which worked well - I ended up in the second row when the planet's greatest live band entered for a monstrous show - Saxon! They played two hours after which I felt like dead and I really can't remember how I came back to the camp. (I was sober, just btw) Somehow I managed to enter my tent.
Cult game Flunkyball
Hundreds, rather thousands, in front of the gates adapting slogans from the fall of the Berlin wall
The Sorrow
Rose Tattoo
Sodom
Saxon
Friday, August 3, 2007
I joined Arne and Bents father to take a walk across the metal market and later attend the Grave Digger concert. I enjoyed that one from further in the back, still it was awesome. Since I wanted to be on time when J.B.O. played on the True Metal Stage I was early enough to get a place in the second row directly between the stages in front of the big screen. From this position I could also see the whle Turbonegro gig on the Black Stage immediately before J.B.O. Relatively good aswell, though miles from J.B.O. but that's a natural law. Afterwards I headed back to the camp where suddenly someone shouted my name while I was passing the Black Stage. That was Thekla who was there with Tina, who acutally was somewhere in the crowd. The two of them had been so dead proud about their "All Area No Stage" tickets and used to tease us with that. As Thekla told me now, they weren't allowed to enter the backstage area, nor were they allowed to camp at the site (had to go home every night) and they got no wristband. Total loose as it seems to me.
Having regained forces at the camp Arne, Bent, Sdun and me were about to see Schandmaul on the Party stage. On the way we somehow caught a druken guy from Bremen we couldn't really get rid of. However, after the Schandmaul gig there was a huge holdup in front of the passage between Party stage and the main festival area. That's how I missed the first half of the Iced Earth gig. Anyway I had to stand far in the back since every single muscle in my body ached. I hardly changed position to see the Apokalyptischen Reiter on the Black stage afterwards. My bones cried for sleep! I had enough, just creeped back to the camp and fell into my tent.
Beer Garden
Scheiße in his ducttape pants...
Grave Digger
Turbonegro
J.B.O.
Schandmaul
Iced Earth
Die Apokalyptischen Reiter
Saturday, August 4, 2007
There was not much going on in the Running Order fur that day. But there was an action by a fan club: You could give them your camera's chip to copy photos and if some of yours were used somewhere you could win something. I decided to take part, so I went to their stand next to the Black stage, Bend and Sdun joined lacking something to do. While we were there the gig of Dir en Grey started. The studio recordings are okay, but I totally hated their live perfomance. The singer cutting himself til bleeding and stuff. Plus Japanese is a totally unmelodic language. In front of the stage there were only a few folks so Bent took the chance to stand in the first row once in a lifetime. He shortly grabbed the fence, then said "okay, we can go now" leaving the scene. Still something to laugh about. But you just couldn't stand it for long being next to the stage, this crap almost made me puke.
So there was not much else. When In Flames should play we went back again. I don't know if anybody else was there and just got lost or if I went there alone with Arne. I'd never been so far in the back, beyond the towers, and even back there it was crowded. And then someone directly behind us puked, which I only realized by feeling vomit splashing on my legs.
After the gig there was the common movement when the crowd loosens. We took the chance to walk forward til we caught perfect places for the Subway To Sally gig. Until then we watched Cannibal Corpse on the Black Stage and made jokes about that each of their songs sounds completely the same and ten thousands of people going totally crazy because of this very bad band. Whatever, that's how death metal is...
Subway To Sally played the final gig, the end of it all. It was not only a fantastic gig but also a great feeling to be among the folks when everybody left the stage area for the last time that year. Thousands of people singing the "Spiderpig"-song, that was something I had got used to over the week. But everybody singing Subway To Sally songs, that was just great.
That night we sat by the street all the time, without sleeping. Incredible scenes were to see. The mood of the festival had totally vanished and I guess everybody felt exhausted and just wanted to go home, take a shower and sleep. And the drunken ones set tents on fire, destroyed mobile toilets and played war scenes. Still, the time til departure seemed endless and I was glad when we finally could leave with John's sister picking us up.
There they sit again - I'll never forget that
Metal Main Street
JESUS IS ALIVE! ^^
Eric and John after wearing hats/helmets all week
Sundown over Wacken
Dir En Grey
In Flames
Subway To Sally
All that remains...
About me
Bangkok