Wacken 2016 - An Apprentice's Perspective

It all began during the At The Drive In Gig: Stolli got hold of two tickets for Wacken 2016 and asked me to join. Seriously? Through all the years, I have been avoiding festivals, and although Stolli knew this, he asked me. So Hell, yes, let's do it!

My ticket survived ;-)

Buddies: Stolli - we also met Richard and Rudi (real heroes in a tiny tent)
Score: 6 out of 5 (seriously, see Final Words)
Merch: official T-Shirt in green (at these very reasonable prices, you are tempted to buy even much more)
Again? This is it, for sure. Also no Wacken Cruise or Wacken Winter Event.

Special thanks go to Richard for the tickets, in which we could step in (as of writing these words, Wacken 2017 is again nearly sold out with just some 10.000 tickets left).


And of course, very special thanks go to Stolli, who was so persistent and made me going there. 

Preparation and Site Organization

Since camping was a no-go for us, we looked for a hotel. Thanks to Schnee-Weißchen's background, we opted for a Northern Hamburg hotel next to the highway leading to Wacken. This turned out to be a good decision. Since we did not want to get wasted anyways every night, commuting back to Hamburg was no major hassle (approx 45 min one way). On top we headed for Hamburg's inner city every day before the gigs, which was really cool.

But we could do this only because of Wacken's impressive organization. Daily parking has never been a problem, and we also never experienced any traffic jam. The mobile phone app really rocks and even presented thunderstorm warnings and other important updates. Considering the incredible dimensions of this festival, everything was just perfect ... except for this one obvious thing ....

Weather and Mud

As soon as you tell people that you'll be heading for Wacken, they instantly start issuing strong warnings as regards the bad weather and muddy conditions.

But this is not true - it is by far worse!

I can hardly find the right words for what we already experienced during (our) Day One. The site was already heavily soaked from previous day's rain. When heading for the wristband, I could hardly believe my eyes when we approached this spot (picture on the right).

It later turned out that this is exactly what to expect from Wacken - but we didn't know yet because it got worse from day to day. In the Infield, there was still grass on (our) Day One, and the mud was not that bad as in the first picture. However, after further rains on (our) Day One, the entire Infield basically turned into these conditions as shown on this photo. Every day there were these special moments where you said to yourself: 'No this cannot be f***ng true!' - and then you accommodate.

After some time, you realize that it actually does not matter that much to you. Quite to the contrary, everybody is moving rather slowly and seems to take care of each other. It may sound weird but the mud seems to help when you're heading for a space at the very front of the Infield. Of course it also helped that our shoes (in my case 20 year old 9 hole Doc Martins) just managed to keep our feet dry (we did not want to stand in rubber boots for typically 10 hours). But I must admit that everything would have been different without our hotel rooms - frankly rather unimaginable for me personally. The probably biggest drawback of all the mud was that you actually cannot sit down easily. Leaving that aside, the importance of the mud sank in the same way as it rose on the photos that I shot for showing off at home ;-).

As weird as this may sound, we were probably lucky with the weather. Some heavy rain during (our) Day One, one rain shower during (our) Day Two, and a thunderstorm on (our) Day Three when we were still in Hamburg. Since we had proper rain protection with us, we were fine all the time.

Finally - The Music
Like every year, Wacken 2016 presented a very mixed bag of music. Still the three days had its own disctinct focus, at least for our own choices.

Click to enlarge

So this is what we headed for:

Thursday/Day One - The Rock Classics Day

• Saxon: I have never been a real fan of Saxon, only had purchased 'Crusader' on cassette (anyone wants it??). This gig did not change something into any direction, however, it was nice to hear the title song of 'Crusader' live. And of course, 'Princess of the Night' was cool.
• Foreigner: This one remains a mystery for me. Of course, Heino also once was in Wacken, but Foreigner somehow are very 'Anti-Wacken' IMHO, and if their frontman addresses us with 'Let's go crazy motherf****s', I had to giggle. And to top my overall strange feeling about this performance, then even came 'I Wanna Know What Love Is', with some remark such as 'It's so nice to see you so beautifully'. Sorry wrong movie. I know that many people (including Stolli) thought differently.
• Whitesnake: I once had missed them in Vienna on November 2015. This one had been my personal favorite of Day One, quite surprisingly.  What helps Whitesnake tremendously is that their live performance is much harder than in the studio. Eventually I enjoyed it a lot.
• Iron Maiden: This was the official Headliner of Wacken 2016, and for the first time today, the inner stage is really packed. With this masses, it cannot go wrong. It's Maiden as you know them, and it was the last gig of their extensive world tour involving their Boing 747. The band was quite relaxed and Bruce Dickinson fooled around quite a lot. Much old school stuff, including 'Powerslave' and 'Aces High'. Again, I realize that I am no longer in this kind of music and show. But this is a matter of taste, Chapeau, nothing to complain, not a little bit.
• Conclusion of Day One: I expected no surprises with today's setlist, and there were none. Maybe Whitesnake somehow caught my special attention. But this did not negatively impact my overall fascination of this festival. From this perspective, Day One had been a smooth start.

Friday/Day Two - The Darker Day

• Die Krupps: When it comes to music, my personal Wacken 2016 started here. It helped that it was in the tent during the afternoon, and the gig was a blast. Two guitars, yes, it's much more compressed and tightened. It was the impeccable performance I was hoping for. 
• Girlschool: We watched Girlschool because they just followed Die Krupps. I quite liked their tendency to punky or Motörhead-ish style. We did not watch the entire gig.
• Eluveitie: A resume on this one is tough, the band is quite innovative and there is a lot going on on stage. However, the Irish folk themes start to become repetitive through the gig. All in all nice to see, but no more. 
• Tarja: That one was really funny. It was actually Stolli who insisted to stay for the ex-Nightwish singer. But only after five seconds of her very opera-esque singing, he looked in a very funny way and asked me to leave. No problem with that :-).
• Bullet For My Valentine: A first kind of headliner of today. I did not know them before this gig, and their performance was quite convincing.
• 1349: Our only satanic experience on Wacken, but that one was very dense. Similar to Behemoth and faces all in black-white, no communication with the crowd, very dark and very intense. Quite to the contrary, a very heartful good-bye after the gig. Not bad at all.
• Alcest: We had no idea of this band, and while sitting in the sun before the tent, we hear them and wanna see them. Alcest are the only Post-Rock band I see at Wacken, and they fully convince us. The typical mixture of nice melodies, long reverb and heavy delay effects, switching between clean and distorted sounds. Definitely a band worth looking into further!
• Ihsahn: There is a lot in the press about Ihsahn. (...)
• Ministry: My personal headliner of today. I expected a negative vibe, but was nevertheless surprised of its intensity.
• Testament: We finish the day with old school Thrash Metal. (...)
• Conclusion of Day Two: Probably the best of all three days, and also the longest one. We got everything what you can expect from Wacken, including a short, but intensive rain shower. The tent 'Bullhead Circus' made a huge differencce, also musically, with bands that are a bit off the Wacken mainstream. Compared to these very impressive performances, Ministry disappointed a bit with quite a negative vibe. 

Saturday/Day Three - Light Follows Darkness Follows Light Follows Darkness

• Metal Church: We were very exited to see them, and when we had some troubles during our commuting from Hamburg, Stolli got a bit nervous, but we made it easily. (...)
• Steel Panther: What can I say - Steel Panter are a blast. (...)
• Triptykon: I was surprised to see Triptykon on the main stage. (...)
• Twisted Sister: Another farewell tour. (...)
• (we would have loved to see Arch Enemy, but it was too much for us)
• Conclusion of Day Three: We were already tired, but it was still a great day. (...)

Final Thoughts
Why did I write all this? Because Wacken left deep impressions with me. Already on Sunday, all the memories from these three days came back and left a huge smile on my face. This was really the right thing to do - but only in this rather soft way. Without our luxury options, I concede that I probably would have just cancelled after the first night in the cold. So again, Richard and Rudi, my sincere appreciation of your achievement.

With our compromise in mind, I end up with a rating 6 (out of 5) - because it will always stand out of all other gigs. And for sure, there will be no second Wacken for me :-).