Event:	Wacken Open Air 2008
Written by:	Baz Anderson, Promonex, GT
Published:	10.10.2008
Galleries:	Wacken Open Air 2008 - Wacken, Germany by GT (9) Wacken Open Air 2008 - Wacken, Germany, 30 July - 02 August 2008 by Promonex (104) Wacken Open Air - Wacken, Germany, 31st July-2nd August 2008 by Baz Anderson (135)

3 Inches Of Blood
Sweet Savage
Nyne
Mercenary
Holy Moses
Exodus
Carcass
Warbringer
At The Gates
Girugämesh
Dream Of An Opium Eater
Nightwish
Axxis


3 Inches Of Blood
Barry: 3 Inches Of Blood only penetrated my ears because of the promise of Exodus on the other stage next. Still, this band has one of those names that just turns you away without even listening to the music, but they were not that bad at all live. They played a very modern form of speed metal, rather straight-forward and slightly aggressive power metal in a way, and they created a monster of a mosh pit with it so they obviously do have their fans out there.


Sweet Savage
Barry: Sweet Savage, yes, Sweet Savage took the True Metal Stage in place of Exodus and because of this took the brunt of chants of "Exodus! Exodus!..." in between songs. It would have helped if the chipper Irish frontman had told us what on earth was going on, but obviously he liked hearing another band's name chanted at him. The band played some good old, good quality hard rock and by the end of the set had won most of the audience over. We were still left wondering what was happening though.



Band Gallery:
Barry: Sweet Savage gallery


Nyne
Promonex: Realizing that Exodus wouldn't be playing yet and having seen Sweet Savage a few days earlier already, I decided to give the Metal Battle contest on the W.E.T. stage a try again. Nyne was to open the day for me and this Greek formation specialized in industrial black metal, a style of music I didn't really expect at this festival. Pervaded by technoid beats, which reminded me a lot of their country mates The Elysian Fields, their cold and sterile extreme metal was a great change from all the conventional metal styles at the fest. The band appeared completely detached from the audience, showed no emotions and didn't communicate at all and after their short set they wordlessly went back to whence they came.



Band Gallery:
Promonex: Nyne gallery


Mercenary
GT: I had the pleasure of seeing my fellow Danes Mercenary on the Party Stage this morning and they were as the previous two times I've seen them full of energy and actually managed to get quite response from the audience even though it was still a bit early for some of us. The band members were themselves a bit surprised by the response and the number of people attending their show and we got a big "Thank you" for showing up. The setlist contained primarily songs from the newest album "Architect Of Lies" but also had some of their classics. I like their new album I do, but I just prefer "11 Dreams" and "The Hours That Remain" since these two are a bit harder and the set had just too few songs from these albums. Still a good way to start your Saturday.



Band Gallery:
Promonex: Mercenary gallery


Holy Moses
Barry: Holy Moses took their scheduled slot on the Black Stage and sounded highly impressive indeed. Finally, a band with a woman singing that is not a gimmick, Holy Moses have been around since the early eighties but with frontwoman Sabina Classen as the only survivor since those days. This was good old German thrash metal, and it sounded good, music to our ears, a large audience (when isn't there one at Wacken) again were watching, it must have been a thrash metallers Christmas also bearing in mind what eventually came next.



Band Gallery:
Barry: Holy Moses gallery


Exodus
Barry: Exodus finally took the True Metal Stage and was greeted by a huge roar that had been building since they were originally due to be playing. Bursting on with "Bonded By Blood" the band played most material from the very first album and the latest three. Long song from new album "Children Of A Worthless God", which was introduced with a random rant about Bin Laden (Americans... I know.) did seem to bring the running of things down slightly, and so it would be preferable for Exodus to keep to the fast-paced, action-packed thrash metal they are known and loved for. New songs such as "War Is My Shepherd" and especially "Deathamphetamine" sounded just unreal live though, I have never heard such an onslaught of crushing thrash metal. Overall one of the highlights of the day and the whole festival, Rob Dukes was taken back by the experience as watching the masses apparently nearly made him forget to sing.



Band Galleries:
Barry: Exodus gallery
Promonex: Exodus gallery


Carcass
Barry: Carcass pulled in one of the largest audiences of the festival, and rightly so as this is probably going to be the last tour of these English rot 'n' rollers and so one of the last opportunities to see the Carcass combo. It felt quite bizarre to hear this kind of extreme, underground music played over to the masses of people, death, black, grind, whatever, extreme metal doesn't feel complete if it is not intimate but nevertheless Carcass still put on a good show and even "pulled the girl card" on us by bringing Arch Enemy frontwoman Angela Gossow out for one song. Jeff Walker was once again full of witty banter in between songs telling us that "Swansong" was "not that bad after all, was it" among other things. Original drummer Ken Owen also made a brave drum solo, which considering as Jeff put it, the guy nearly died he has had so much brain surgery, is a huge feat and respect should be given as he is still a vital part of Carcass even if his bottom is not behind the drum kit. Hopefully not the last time we'll see them, but who knows what will happen in the future.



Band Galleries:
Barry: Carcass gallery
Promonex: Carcass gallery


Corpsepainted power metallers Powerwolf were finishing their enthusiastic set as I entered the W.E.T. tent where I waited and overheard Killswitch Engage pop out of a few of their commercial hits until a good band were to take to stage.

Warbringer
Barry: Warbringer seem to be some kind of "in-thing" among thrash metallers at the moment. They are a young band, but most importantly they are a good band - they do none of this nonsense hardcore or metalcore, or partying thrash metal or whatever, they play straight up and full-on thrash metal and what a breath of fresh air it is.



Band Gallery:
Barry: Warbringer gallery


At The Gates
Promonex: Having invented the Gothenburg metal sub-genre virtually single-handedly, At The Gates have been ripped off countless times, starting in Gothenburg itself and lately having spread out to the States where this style got an integral part of the metalcore sound. But now the creators themselves were here to show the young ones how it's done and were ready to reconquer the throne. Sounding still as crisp as though there wouldn't have been a break of over a decade they delivered a show packed with energy and aggression. Tompa's speeches were relatively tame though, repeatedly consisting of no more than a calm "Thank you for remembering" in between songs. And the song selection left nothing to be desired: naturally it focused on their most influential album "Slaughter of the Soul" and trademark songs like "Suicide Nation", "Nausea" or the mandatory encore "Blinded By Fear", but they didn't forget their other classic albums represented by the likes of "Raped by the Light of Christ", "Terminal Spirit Disease" and the mighty "Kingdom Gone".
"It's been 12 years. Thank you for waiting!" Thank YOU for returning, At The Gates!



Band Gallery:
Promonex: At The Gates gallery


Girugämesh
Barry: Girugämesh seemed like a good idea at the time. The masses were watching At The Gates and so not the biggest audience of people had gathered for these snappily dressed Japanese characters, although slightly more than I were expecting. I entered this completely open minded not knowing what on earth would put itself out in front of me, but my experience with Japanese bands in the past raised my curiosity. Turns out Girugämesh are somewhat of a cross between J-rock, no surprise there, and nu metal - which was somewhat of a change to the bands over the weekend and was received very warmly by the crowd. There were a few examples of people headbanging unnecessarily enthusiastically, like they were possessed or something but supposing this will be one of the few times Girugämesh make their way over to Europe, they sure had better make the most of it.



Band Gallery:
Barry: Girugämesh gallery


Dream Of An Opium Eater
Promonex: Dream Of An Opium Eater is an interesting instrumental metal project led by Enslaved's Ivar Bjørnson. Their performances, of which this was only their third, consist of Norwegian short horror films which are projected onto a screen on stage while the four-piece band plays a live avantgarde/post-metal soundtrack. Such a sophisticated project deserves an audience which should be receptive for the art aspect of this all. Just like at the Negură Bunget gig I had the feeling that the Wacken crowd is not such an audience. Whenever you tried to submerge your mind into the hypnotizing and unsettling abyss of audiovisual bliss the people around you always managed to rip you out of your trance by cheering in the middle of a movie and doing the same old "hey hey hey" chants. From the second movie on the light-tech was messing up as well, occasionally sending the spotlight over the screen, so that you didn't see what was going on anymore. So after three movies (named "Idyll", "Audition" and "Naïn") I decided to go for Nightwish instead, hoping that the next "dream" would take place in a seated venue with a more sophisticated audience.


Nightwish
Barry: Nightwish took the True Metal Stage and blasted out hit after hit with their new singer Anette taking full control of the proceedings. Plenty of fireworks were used throughout the set to sparkle things up a bit, because they were just about the only thing about the band that were sparkling. The set consisted mostly of songs from the new album and "Once", which isn't much of a surprise seeing as they are the two most commercially successful albums. Still, we had a few blasts from the past such as "Wishmaster" and you could call it the total murder of "Sacrament Of Wilderness". Anette is not Tarja, and this was painfully obvious when this timid little woman was standing in front of an abyss of 70,000 metallers, trying to get her voice heard. She does not have the projection or power of Tarja, she can sound all sweet and cute on the studio recording, but when it comes to the live performance she simply lacks power. Not only this, but she is not afraid to deviate from the studio recorded vocals of Tarja, or her own singing strangely, to suit her style of singing more. This sucked all the life out of true classics such as "Sacrament Of Wilderness" as all the power and passion the frontwoman should have had just did not exist and we ended up with some sugar-coated, watered down, pop version of the song. A bad day? Maybe, we'll see.



Promonex: When I saw Nightwish three years earlier on exactly this stage I was repelled by Tarja's performance which was absolutely flawless, but which appeared overly professional and cold, as if it was just a job for her. Soon after we all were to learn that this was indeed the case. Having witnessed Nightwish with Anette by now I guess Tarja's overly professional appearance wasn't that bad after all. Anette has a nice voice, I'll give you that, but when it's blasted out to 70,000 people it appears rather ineffectual and just fades into nothingness. Anette was hopping around and obviously had a lot more fun than Tarja used to, but she failed to transform the instrumental templates of the songs into the magic evergreens we've all come to love. With an instrumental faction that pulled off an absolutely main stage-worthy show and a frontwoman who might work better in a more intimate location I'm not sure whether Nightwish as a whole will be happy in the long run. Eventually there's only thing on my mind: Tarja, forgive me, for I've wronged you!



Band Gallery:
Barry: Nightwish gallery


Axxis
Barry: Axxis were in their element now, their territory after the huge tour with Gamma Ray and Helloween. Axxis, back in Germany at a huge open air festival, this is where bands like Axxis thrive and put out the best sets of their lives. This set was no different over on the Party Stage as Bernhard Weiß lead troops into... party! Even though a slight drag was; in between each song everything would be spoken in German, which is to be expected really, but it does alienate half of the audience. Still, these power metallers put on one of the greatest sets of the festival with songs mostly from the latest albums and the first two classic albums from '89 and '90. How great it is to hear songs like "Tales From Glory Island" over the huge system, but not nearly as awe inspiring as hearing the classics such as an acoustic version of "Touch The Rainbow" or "Living In A World" and "Kingdom Of The Night". Like the Wacken festival has more depth than a list of bands, an Axxis show has more depth than a list of songs - even if understanding was a little poor, the band were very funny on stage and clearly had a good time themselves. A girl from the front row was pulled up onto the stage to play the tambourine, unsuccessfully unfortunately, to "Touch The Rainbow" and so the whole set just seemed like one bit fun party with a bunch of your friends on the stage. They closed the set, and the festival for me with a fitting "Na, Na, Hey, Hey, Kiss Him Goodbye" which was the perfect closing to another fantastic and successful Wacken Open Air. No other band could have said goodbye as well as Axxis did, and this thought was confirmed even more as I was rocked to sleep by a certain "Hard Rock Hallelujah".



Band Gallery:
Barry: Axxis gallery



Barry: And that was that for one more year. Another year to be placed into the impressive history of the event. If you love the music you listen to, if you love heavy metal, then at least once in your life you need to experience the Wacken Open Air, the atmosphere is like none other. So what are you waiting for? We'll see you next year!

Thursday, 31/07/08 / Friday, 01/08/08 / Saturday, 02/08/08

Thanks for the accreditation for making this possible.
Apologies for the delay.
Written, and photos by Barry Anderson, Daniel and Gorm