As this year’s Wacken is approaching fast – only about a month left – I’d like to look back at last years festival.
This is the third part of my festival reports about Wacken. You can find the one for 2008/2010 here: Wacken and for 2011 here: Wacken ’11. You might want to read them before you continue.
Ticket trouble and stuff…
Last year’s Wacken was again different from its predecessors. When I finally decided on going there I had no ticket at all, but as the Wacken forum has a sell-area as well, getting one wasn’t too hard. I just had to check in with the forum frequently.
I’m not sure if I decided to get the ticket before or after I knew the “pal” from the Hina Matsuri – who is not Iron Eve (check out the „Cast“ page for more information) – would want to go there too.
I remember us talking about it on our way to or back from the Japanese feast.
Anyway, I got a ticket for her and myself.
While DarkFairy and I were at the Metalfest we also started talking about Wacken and she decided to come as well. So the hunt for a ticket started anew, but in the end I went from no ticket at all to having five tickets. Two of which went to friends of my colleague and fellow student.
Though as I hadn’t heard anything from the pal until shortly before the festival I still had her ticket when she said she couldn’t come and I had to get rid of hers. Let me tell you: It’s no fun doing that two weeks before the festival.
Everyone I replied to did not reply back, so in the end I was stuck with the ticket and 150 Euro unpaid by her until now.
Regardless of all that nonsense above, Fairy and I planned our trip there and as I was staying at a room in Uetersen at that time Fairy decided to try out the new train that goes directly from Cologne to Hamburg and stayed a few days longer than just the festival.
Unfortunately the week she stayed was also my first week in the new accommodations and upon our introduction I forgot to mention Fairy to my landlady. (Funnily we got an addition to our contract about giving away the WLAN key and people staying longer than two weeks afterwards. I’m kind of sorry the other two who lived there with me had to sign theirs as well, but it is kind of understandable for a landlord to do something like that.)
Needless to stay Fairy could still stay when I explained it to the landlady, but before she arrived there I picked her up at the train station in Hamburg Altona. It wasn’t fun getting there the first time as I somehow managed to find a rout – or rather my satnav did – that involved a lot of traffic lights and construction sides.
A half an hour ride by car took me about an hour, so I got hopelessly late when her train arrived.
Shortly after we finally found each other I started talking funny, like misusing/-pronouncing words and so on. We had the same effect during the Metalfest days and more or less each time we Skype and we will probably also have it when I get to her place before Wacken this year…
If you ever meet both of us together somewhere: Don’t expect us to be able to talk properly (be it in German or English…)
Well, the week of Wacken was also my first week of semester, again, so I had to leave Fairy alone for some hours each day to go there and see what they wanted from me/us. It was also the first semester I was officially in a different group than before, therefore not being there in my very first week was unfortunately not really an option…
I am still sorry that Fairy had to put up with all this, but I am still grateful that she did.
During her stay we did some exploring around town and Hamburg, but I won’t be covering that in this post. Maybe in a post of its own, but I’m not sure yet.
As I had to go to my lessons each day and nothing special was in the Running Order we stayed in Uetersen until Wednesday and used the time to work some more on „Warlords“ our book project (Find more about it on this Blog: dfppentertainment.wordpress.com).
A long and sunny day…
Thursday became our first day at the Open Air. We’ve been there pretty much the complete day – at least it felt like that, but we think we went there about noon.
As we weren’t staying in the Camping Area we had to use the Parking Area for a Day and we kind of drove in a circle around the village before we found it.
I think the first day it was already full, so we had to park in one of the streets nearby. We scribbled down a little note for the window, that said we were sorry that we had to use the parking spot.
It was a warm and dry day and it probably was the only day I could have worn my beautiful coat, but it was too warm for it. We used Thursday to explore the grounds to see the new attractions like the “Thrash of the Titans”-field and the „Bullhead City“ circus tent (which we never actually entered, as we found it weird to show the bracelets at the entrance). But also to have a look at the old stuff, as this was Fairy’s first Wacken. I think we even managed to get our festival-shirts that day.
Even though we did not really understand what the meaning of the Titans- field was, they did have some neat stuff there like the many robotic creatures in the form of a dragon, a horse and a spider. Seeing them move makes you want to know how they are controlled and programmed, at least if you’re a bit into IT-stuff as I am, for everyone else its a fancy show with robots and fire. For me too, but I still want to know how they did it…
Music-wise did we only fully listen to U.D.O., whom I wanted to see at one of the previous years, but didn’t because of the late schedule-spot. We just sat down in front of the Main Stage and enjoyed the concert. While we did so a random guy came up to us, to ask if we had a program and then continued to sit and talk with us for a moment.
I know U.D.O.s singer from his collaboration with Hammerfall on their cover of “Head over Heels”. I actually only discovered that it was this singer by coincidence as I heard an U.D.O. song in the Christmas calendar from the Metaltix-Homepage. The voice sounded familiar and I had to think of/remembered the song and then looked it up. So when that song was played I simply had to stop the conversation and actually listen for once.
Throughout it Fairy commented that the singer’s voice and appearance reminded her of a gremlin, I’m not sure he would like that comparison…
During this concert we by the way took the very first actual picture of both of us and we had met twice before this.
Afterwards we might have seen a bit of Saxon but we decided to get going anyway as we were somehow pretty tired and exhausted from all the wandering around.
The beginning of the end…
Friday was one of the days were we would have liked to get to the festival earlier, but couldn’t as I had to attend some lessons that went way longer than the concert we wanted to see, which was Oomph! around noon. We only managed to get there in time for Hammerfall and they had already started when we were at the entrance of the Stage Area.
It still was a great concert and the beginning of a muddy weekend…
During the night and the morning hours it had rained that much that the fields were so drenched that you couldn’t stand in one spot without moving your feet, without getting stuck, every few seconds/minutes we had to lift a foot to free it again.
Fairy wanted to see Dimmu Borgir and Orchestra next, but somehow we seemed to only have seen a bit of it (as it was on my partly-list). We both can’t really remember why we went away. Might have been the sound, might have been hunger, might have been something entirely different…
What we did see, however, were In Flames with their school uniforms and Rock music and they were quite nice. As it was already late when their show ended we contemplated whether we should stay for In Extremo or call it a day. We decided for the former and we did not regret it. The show was the same they had at the Metalfest, but still great. It was streamed on television as well, so my colleague wrote me that she was watching it too.
We watched it from the sides where the Axe Festivalshowers stood and right beside us was this weird drunkard that, though he left us alone, was pretty annoying – especially towards the guards that stood there too. I can’t really believe that people would actually want to shower this publicly in those things…
Some decisions should better be made awake…
Anyway, when In Ex were done we made our way back to my car in the Parking Space for a Day. We had to walk through quite a bit of the Village for that – and this festival was the first time for me to see a bit more of it as we did not only park outside, but also had lunch or dinner in one of the many food places – and at some point we both – though completely sober – kind of started walking in wiggly lines, far too tired to walk straight…
When we finally got to my place after the concert it was about 4 o’clock Saturday morning, I think, and we had to get rid of the mud on our trousers.
Little did we know, that that was only the beginning….
So completely tired we hit the hay, keeping in mind that we wanted to buy groceries the next day before we went to see Gamma Ray or so was the plan…
When I woke up about 10 o’clock I went to Fairy’s room carefully waking her and asked what we should do. We had missed Oomph! on Friday, which she had wanted to see, and we were both far too tired to properly work. So we dismissed seeing Gamma Ray after we had made a very slow breakfast and went shopping afterwards. This actually led to one of the funniest experiences that weekend – except all the hilarious moments we had while editing our book:
We had invited some fellow students of mine for barbecue on Sunday, like some kind of closure for Fairy, so we went to buy the stuff to get the barbecue working and meat, Fairy also got herself a bread-thingy and we returned to the house.
One after the other had dropped out of the invitation, so only the guy from the MPS was left and we decided that we might as well have the barbecue at his place, with him and his flat-mate.
At that point we had the firm conviction, that we had everything we needed: Stuff for the barbecue and meat.
So we drove off to Wacken.
Well…it again had rained, so the mud was even deeper now and you had to be really careful with every step you took, unless you actually wanted to end up doing the splits.
We wanted to at least be there for Amon Amarth, but we came about an hour before it, so we started to listen to Cradle of Filth while struggling through the mud to flee from their pig-squeals towards the Wackinger Village. Yes, flee, as it sounded like they were slaughtering piglets on stage. Unfortunately Ingrimm were not able to drown out the entire squeaking…
So after a while we went back to the Video Wall to see Amon Amarth and we even found a more or less hard place to sit through it near the football field, which was still one of the rare spots of green. I think Fairy at that point read through the Metal Bible she had acquired. Just as I had done when I had watched Judas Priest like that the year before…
I’m pretty sure we even saw one of The Incredible Blood Brothers stalking through the mud. I had seen them in person – not in their show – on a Horror Convention (The Weekend of Horrors, about which I might add a post one day [Edit: Look at the bottom for the Pingback] )).
It was really interesting how everyone had different kind of techniques to advance. He had his shoes covered with a blue plastic bag. Others wore rubber boots – others none at all and we had our trusty boots to carry us through it; dirt in every gap of the shoe sole and mud nearly up to the knee.
When it was time for Schandmaul we wade our way towards the Party Stage. We had contemplated for a while if we should see them or The Scorpions that would be playing parallel on one of the Main Stages. As it was far more likely the concert of The Scorpions would be recorded and displayed, the decision was clear.
So when we found solid floor again we sat there until shortly before the concert. While we did so we took one of my favourite mud pictures, that even made it into the title-picture for our shared Facebook-Page (DFPPEntertainment), as well as my own (Poisonpainter) and my private one. I don’t really know why I like this picture, but it is somehow fun and the light in it is nice…
When the concert was about to start we moved on to find another spot to stand during the concert.
Two funny things occurred throughout it.
The first: While they played a thundery front was making its way towards the stage from the side. We watched the lightning and heard the thunder and when we had decided to put on our rain capes and had just finished doing that it poured down. Again.
The second is the final realization after our shopping earlier and went something like this:
“Um, [Fairy], we don’t have anything for lunch tomorrow…”
“Yeah, I know, but we didn’t buy anything that goes with the meat either.”
“We shouldn’t go shopping when tired…”
“Yup.”
So we stood there partly wet (as we tried to clap along and the rain poured into the capes…), exhausted from all the walking through the mud, with no prospect of lunch the next day.
But the show was great.
They even finished before The Scorpions, so that we could watch the finale of their show on our way out. It made us glad we had chosen Schandmaul, as the singer of the Scorpions seemed old and tired – it was their retirement show after all. So that was a good choice there.
As surprise act they had announced Edguy earlier that weekend, but as we had just seen them at the Loreley (Metalfest) as well, we decided to go and not wait until 2 o’clock for their performance, besides: It would be recorded.
On some occasion when we stayed in the Wackinger Village we shortly listened to Vogelfrey, but I can’t recall which of their many concerts it was.
Realizations…
Anyway, on her Blog Fairy had also made some realizations way back:
– Dixis (portable toilets) are unfriendly. Even if you greet them, they do not make a reply. XD
– “Knee deep in mud…” Sabaton must have found inspiration from Wacken.
– Wacken is like Rock am Ring. Just better.
Full Post here: Erkenntnisse by DarkFairy (German)
Let me tell you a little about them…
The Dixis
In the forum Fairy and I know each other from was a guy (Nebelkrähe, I spoke of him in my post about Concerts in 2012) that asked us to send his regards to the Dixis. Well, upon arriving at the Village on the first day and passing by the first loo Fairy greeted it, but it did not respond at all…
Luckily no one was in there to hear her greeting and say something – though that would have been funny.
The Mud
I think I’ve mentioned the mud to quite some extend already, but let me tell you it was muddy and it was awful getting all the mud out of our clothes.
We were really happy that we had decided to not camp there…
After one of the concerts we passed by a tent that was completely surrounded by mud. We have no idea how anyone was able to enter or leave that thing…
The “Knee deep in mud” comes from Sabaton’s The Price of a Mile and might be slightly exaggerated, but it was pretty close to that at times. Besides the mud splashes went up the whole trousers leg and sometimes even further…
Still, we had fun cleaning off everything, because it was ridiculous how much mud was on those clothes/shoes…
Have some pictures for it:
Oh, and we saw a guy standing in the middle of a puddle of mud, having lot’s of fun. No idea, if he ever managed to get out of there…
Rock am Ring vs. Wacken
Well, Fairy attended the Rock am Ring the last few years and it’s one of two major Rock-Festivals in Germany (The other being Rock im Park) and therefore she could pretty well compare these two festivals.
Her conclusion was: The booths and everything are pretty much the same, but the music and the people are way better – for a Metalhead at least. 😉
So in conclusion: We didn’t really saw that many concerts as we were way more comfortable with sitting in the dry and warm house and working on Warlords, but the once way did see were fun.
Besides: It was muddy.
Until the very last day, we had decided that we would not attend the next Wacken and focus on some minor festivals.
And then came the trailer…
Sabaton, Rage and some other good ones confirmed right from the start and more and more added to that throughout the end of last year.
When Rammstein – one of Fairy’s most favourite bands – were confirmed, we finally bought our tickets and now we are looking forward to all those amazing bands that will play this year. 🙂
PoiSonPaiNter