Wacken 2007 Report-RLSMETAL
We are entering a new era of RLSLOG. An era where we cease to be merely people who run a scene release blog. RLSLOG is becoming more than that, and this is our first project: Project Wacken 2008. We are taking the music section of RLSLOG to a whole new level. Wacken Open Air is THE biggest Metal festival in the world.
This year Over and myself will be present as press representatives for RLSLOG. Below is a little summary of last years festival and in a couple of minutes we’ll post the pre-report for this year’s W:O:A. The festival takes place between July 31st and August 2nd, so look forward to a detailed report of the biggest metal party in the world in early August.
Don’t worry though, your usual scene releases will be as accessible as ever. Nothing is going to change on that front.
- ReeGed
WACKEN!
Since both me and ReeGed were at Wacken Open Air 2007 (although we didn’t know each other back then) we’re both going to talk a bit about the experiences we had last year.
-Over-
What a feeling. I am sitting with my best mate in the local Train, destination: Heide! Yeah, I actually said Heide. Wacken was still some days away so cheapskates as we were, we bought a so called “Schönes Wochenend Ticket” (German for “Nice Weekend Ticket”). Basically you can travel through the entire country for 30€ (about 50 USD) with 5 people, which makes about 6€ ( ~10 USD) per person! Sadly we were only 2 and you are only allowed to use the local railway, meaning it took us about 10 hours to get from my place to Heide and the ticket is only valid for one day, either Saturday or Sunday. Got to take the sweet with the sour 
(Before we came to Heide, I met an old girlfriend from Hamburg, greets to her :/).
In Heide we stayed at my friends place. I met him several years ago while playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein online. He also taught me the basics of Metal Music (so he is one of the people who made me who I am now ). It was nice to see him “in RL” and this year in Wacken we will meet again! Our days in Heide were filled with shopping (Absolut Vodka!), meeting new guys and girls who wanted to join our “tent-city” and in our “spare time” playing a crappy Diablo II pen and paper game. I am not really in the mood to elaborate on that one, since it was just too gruesome.
On wednesday we finally drove to Wacken. Surprisingly it took us only a few minutes to get past the security/ticket checks and unload our stuff on the camping grounds. Unfortunately we got split up into several groups, scattered all over those grounds, however we managed to re-group after several adventures. With a couple of burdens dealt with, we opened up our camp, celebrating with a nice drink (a warm glass of coke for me D: ).
After a small while another bunch of guys joined our party. Due to the weather (it was all wet and rainy a few days before) the cars had to be parked at a separate place but our people actually found a gap in an adjoining forest and drove through with their cars, which ended with a small jump and us being the first peeps on that particular camping ground with cars 
The word spread and soon everybody had their cars next to their tents.
Next on the To-Do-List there was the Ticket-Trade-In. This meant trading in our ticket for a Wacken bracelet which u have to show at the entries of the stages so you‘re eligible to pass. I can’t remember the rest of that evening too well anymore, since I suddenly found myself being awake the next day. My mates told me that I actually drunk a bottle of Vodka, so uh the rest is self explanatory.
Thursday:
Wacken 2007 was my first time at Wacken Open Air and I was about to see my first band ever. The oh so fabulous NEAERA. They turned out to be some lame Metalcore’ish band, so I was quite disappointed by the fact that people lured me to their gig with phrases like “cool Melo Death Band” and “New uprising german Melo Death Band”. Most of the day I spent wandering around the “Metal Market”, a place where u can buy T-Shirts, CDs and other band merch. Then I finally went to the “Party Stage” at 8 o’clock to see a band called TÝR. I wasn’t too familiar with their music at the time, but its a nice group of guys who keep their tracks slow and more “quiet”, so it actually doesn’t matter where u stand to get the feeling of TÝR’s soothing tunes!
The last gig I caught that day was Letzte Instanz and from what I have heard before from their recordings didn’t convince me at all. Nevertheless I stayed and watched their gig since all of my mates with whom I had watched TÝR also stayed to watch LI. I have to admit that I liked their live show since it was very well made, but I still dislike their Studio recordings, so there is no chance I will listen to them again.
After their gig it was about 10pm. Some other bands were still playing, but none of them aroused my interest in particular so I went back to my tent. In my tent city I met some other guys who were actually friends with the people I got to know in Heide so there was some nice chatting going on. Eventually I went to bed to regenerate.
-ReeGed-
Friday:
The day of Fire! If you were there you will remember the fire on the Wacken grounds. Due to the wet conditions i mentioned earlier, the Wacken-Crew decided to lay out some straw at the festival grounds. Well, someone dropped their cigarette into the dry straw and it caught fire almost immediately. Luckily nobody got hurt due to the work of the Wacken Firefighters! Unfortunately I missed Napalm Death completely due to this accident since they wouldn’t let people into the concert areas.
Friday meant I was going to see some bands I had enjoyed for years, but never seen live. The most prominent of these was Falconer and Enslaved. Falconer was the third band I saw that day after an early morning gig with Suidakra and a massive performance from Therion. My friend and I waited right at the front for an hour or so, befriending some fellow Falconer fans before the band took the stage with the title track off their latest album „Northwind“. Almost only tracks off the Mathias Blad albums (their first vocalist who has now rejoined the band) were played which pleased the crowds. The crowds chanted along to anthems like „Spirit of the Hawk“, „Catch the Shadows“ and „Mindtraveller“.
Enslaved is a big name in the Norweigan black metal scene, but is best described as „Viking Metal“. It was another one and a half hours until Enslaved would take the stage, but there was nothing else we were interested in seeing at the time, so we kept our spots right at the front and waited for the Norweigans to play. They finally came on and played some great tracks, both old and new. „Return to Yggdrasill“ from their latest album „Isa“ went down especially well. I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t play my favourite Enslaved song „Havenless“ but altogether it was a great experience.
Saturday
The final day of Wacken. On Sunday it was time to pack up and leave. Saturday hosted some of the biggest bands and definitely some of the most exciting ones. Bands like Immortal and Cannibal Corpse are legends in their respective fields (Black and Death Metal).
As the recent tradition calls at Wacken, one Japanese band is invited every year. This year one of the most popular Japanese bands in the west played on the Black Stage: Dir En Grey. Even though they have left their roots in Visual Kei, it was obvious Dir En Grey have kept some of their early stage manners. Vocalist Kyo writhed around in spasms around the stage, continuously scratching himself across the chest, resulting in bright red blood dripping down from an open wound. Disturbing but visually very strong, as is common in Japanese bands. Some real crowd pleasers were offered such as “Saku”, “The Final” and “Obscure”.
Unfortunately I missed Jesper Strömblads side project Dimension Zero due to the gig time clashing with Dir En Grey. Jesper Strömblad is most known for playing guitar in In Flames, who played later that night, showing off a spectacular light show and fireworks.
As expected, Cannibal Corpse hosted an amazing mosh pit. I moved back after a while and managed to capture this little video, including the introduction to their most notorious track “Hammer Smashed Face” which was previously banned in Germany.
Wacken had officially ended for me. It was time to get back to the tents and have one last drink around the camp fire before we went to sleep and packed our stuff in the morning. A “Grave” (Swedish Death Metal band) T-shirt belonging to a French Canadian sparked some conversation on the bus journey to the airport, but after that there was no sign of Wacken metalheads.
It’s been an unforgettable experience.
See you in Wacken!
Saweeeeet! Any chance of finding full concert rips from Wacken?
sounds good, will give a read after top gear, lolz
Sounds geil.
“Geil” is what they say in Germany for terrific or brilliant. Also means horny or aroused. “einfach geil” is the intensification.
“Wacken ist einfach geil” is all the German you need for surviving an awesome experience. It really is.
You shouldn’t miss the movie “Heavy Metal Village”. It gives you some cultural background on the region its people.
I enjoyed reading this, have you thought of making another blog RLSMUSIC or RLSMETAL or something for all these reports or other ideas you have? I would enjoy that and it would make it alot simpler.
yeah, Heide, I live there
very interesting, i dont listen to metal but i like the fact that you guys are actually reporters. Ever thought of going to other festivals?
@6 yes, other events with other genres of music are being considered =)
I saw RIPSAW last Friday, they’ll be playing at Wacken as well - they’re kinda OK, I suggest if there’s nothing you know playing while RIPSAW is you go check them out if you’re there… They were pretty heavy
the wacken movie is called “full metal village” and is a really great documentary!!!
Good for you guys, man.
Really important that the site move forward, and not get stale. As a lover of all music, your DJ releases, and the move into metal makes me smile down there.
Respect.
djmedi4.com
That’s very interesting.
What do I do now?
Where’s the ‘Next Page’ link?
Very interesting, maybe because I’m also a metalhead…and because I was at the Wacken 2007. I’m glad you guys appreciate metal music because in france it’s still quite underground…
Stay Brutal….
Where is the NEXT PAGE link?????????
There is only one page i can view right now
It still there lol …
It just came back… but for almost 40 minutes there was no “next page” link
Even #11 agreed
Where is the Cannibal Corpse video you mentioned?
Forgot to link it. Its up now
Nice. Wacken looks to me as one of the best festivals on the planet. Never been there, I am always on holiday around the first days of august.
But i went 3 times to Lowlands (Netherlands) and this year i will be going to Sziget in Hungary.
This is a nice addition to the site!
Greatings from the Netherlands (and where are you from)
Vodka? What about the Apfel Korn and Jägermeister? Im my days of living in Germany I think the main “metal” bands were MSG and Grobschnitte (think I’ve spelt that right, and a grösse bier was only DM1.60, those were the days. But I look forward to this years report, and more music on RLSLOG too.
haha beer 1.6DM
its 2€ now or so, dunno i dont drink Korn, beer or jägermeister, just vodka :s
This is an amazing post !
THX
Great post guys, looking forward to seeing more stuff like this
I love metal, but not the current bands. I want to see:
Venom
Celtic Frost
Destruction
Sod0m
Kreator
Mercyful Fate
Black Sabbath
Accept
Judas Priest
Todays metal falls strictly into two categories.
1. American metal - All d tuned and ryhtmic. Very tired sound that has been the statuc quo for 20 years. Think and blame the great band Pantera for at least bringing that sound to the forefront, but no one knows how to play straight ahead any more (Think Black Sabbaths Mob Rules or Metallica’s entire first album.)
2. Norwegian black/death metal: Replete with stupid face paint. Too fast to get into, all sounds the same. If you go faster than slayer you are missing the point of metal. Think of Dimmu Borgir and Emperor to get and idea of worthless metal bands.
So thats why, to me, metal is dead.
venomhed.
You need to understand that (as with everything in the world), sound of metal changes. Every form of music changes. If nothing changed, you would be saying “it’s so boring….” Back in the 80’s when the likes of KREATOR jumped on the metal scene, the lovers of NWOBHM were saying the same thing as you are now. Two & a half decades later, KREATOR are described as the “godfathers of death/thrash”.
It’s not everyones cup of tea, but music evolves. If I had to make a list of my top 10 albums, they would all be between 1978-1993. But I do listen to todays metal. It ain’t great, but it’s still good.
And there are way more than just the 2 categories of metal you mentioned.
Metal isn’t dead…it just evolved
man, so so so jelous.
one day i will go to Waken.
ReeGed your pretty lucky dude.
i saw cannibal corpse here in my hometown my mate jumped off the second story balcony into the mental pit.
this story was well good.
cheers
METAAAAAAL
maybee im too young to have ever had the chance to see Pantera or Venom
but
i dont think metal is dead.
ive been too loads and loads of shows and it doesnt seem that dead with fists and horns in the air, circle pits crunching, music deafening.
its fun.
and it is to a degree missed by a large part of the community, and that is also what makes it special to me.
again cheers
Lol, excellent form on getting an excuse to get press passes from the tour publicity firm. I can’t really talk trash though, because as a music journalist who’s only freelancing right now, I’d probably do the same thing.
(In fact, in college, I think I did a few times).
We are entering a new era of RLSLOG. An era where we cease to be merely people who run a scene release blog. RLSLOG is becoming more than that, and this is our first project: Project Wacken 2008. We are taking the music section of RLSLOG to a whole new level. Wacken Open Air is THE biggest Metal festival in the world.
OH BOY!
If any of the editors in the US live near the mid-south, they should report from Bonnaroo next year.
That’d be interesting… they really need 1 day passes though.
hey cool move!
we are of course expecting pictures
i’m living in hamburg, so its just a couple hours away for me.
have not missed one yet.
the best part is driving PAST pinneberg, and only having to see it out the window as you drive by (a insider joke for the north germans).
cya dort
oh i think i just revealed that i’m old ;-(
Awesome post, I wonder if we could see something like this for WGT (Wave-Gotik-Treffen), another great festival, 4 days with 150+ bands - although this one`s more goth oriented.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_Gotik_Treffen
In theory everything is possible, we just have to be accepted by the company running the festival and then we need ofc. interested reporters. I have like 1% knowledge about the gothic scene, so it would be pointless for me to go and afaik no one on the team is into gothic so chances are more or less bad to get a report from that festival :/
Judas Priest is terrible.
Saw them at Oz fest in 2001 and they sounded terrible, had no energy, and their music does not translate to a live show at all. That kinda crap just isn’t “metal” anymore, they are about as hard as bon jovi.
heh? priest is not even playing wacken this year as far as i know.
btw you saw priest in their worst phase - congratulations!
priest, maiden etc have been around 30 years.
they must not be so “terrible” then, i guess otherwise they would have disappeared long ago because no one would buy their tickets.
gimme a break!
man wacken 2007 ruled, only 19 more days and i’ll be there again!