Post Wacken Update
Another year goes by and another Wacken is over. It seems like a distant memory already rather sadly - hard to believe that just over a week ago we were drinking in a field near Hamburg, eating copious amounts of meat in inappropriately sized bread, and generally being chuffed to bits by an array of awesome performances from the likes of Iron Maiden, Carcass, Primordial, The Rotted, and (yes Danny) even Gorgoroth, featuring everyone's favourite Christian poster-boy - Gaahl. All too depressing then, that I'm back into the swing of work and it feels as if I'd never left :-S
Weather-wise it was beautiful, if a little scorching on some days. When our plane landed on the Wednesday we were greeted by a rather grey looking Lubeck and outside it was chucking it down - initially I feared the worst but by the time our 2 hour taxi ride to Wacken was over we were underneath a bright blue sky and melting from the 30°c + heat! It was like this until Friday afternoon, when it chucked it down - turning the place into a bit of a swamp. It didn't last however, as the heat returned Saturday morning and pretty much baked the mud solid again by breakfast time. The only other rain we had was at 2am whilst watching Lordi end the festival, so all in all we were fairly lucky.
This was probably the smoothest Wacken yet to be honest - in terms of the whole trip going right (great weather for once, and thankfully the camp site we chose featured no english/irish idiots burning stuff, meaning a 5am panic evacuation was not needed) and also the organisation of the festival too. There seemed to be many more food stalls, video screens, toilets, bars - everything really. I was also worried about all the British people ruining Wacken after hearing nightmare stories from people who attended 2007 - perhaps we were really lucky but I certainly didn't see any evidence of it this year. I shant bother going into a blow by blow account of everything that happened and all the random hilarity and in-jokes that ensued, as it probably only interests the people that were involved, and they already know what happened anyway. Needless to say, Will's current nickname is "Hellknob" and I am apparently "Icy Calves". I only got smashed off my tits once during the entire weekend as quite frankly it was too bleedin' hot for beer! I had to keep drinking juice drinks to stop myself from dehydrating. Still didn't detract from anything tho. Ace times!
The main band I wanted to see was Carcass. Thankfully they exceeded all expectations - and even Danny & Andy were suitably impressed. They sounded absolutely perfect after all these years - and I am positively giddy with excitement to see them in a small venue later this year, pure stonking metal brilliance! :D Angela Gossow even came on to sing "Incarnated Solvent Abuse" with them so that was a nice surprise. (After which Jeff Walker commented "I still don't like Arch Enemy!" :D ).
Down sides? Opeth being bloody awful at a festival once again. Completely in-audible. It took me 3 minutes to work out they were playing "Demon Of The Fall" - one of my all time favourite songs. I only hope they bother to sound better for the BOA crowd seeing as they are headlining for 90 minutes :S Such an irritation as I know that for indoor gigs Opeth are absolutely untouchable and really are quite something. You can't win 'em all I guess.
The other downside would be the exchange rate! This time round I spent the same amount of ££ on euros but obviously ended up with nowhere near the same amount of Euro's as 2006. This was evident when I ran out of money on the Friday despite having purchased barely half of what I normally would and had to use the site cashpoint to draw out more :( Damn you strong European currency! //shakes fist.
As a result of Wacken being fairly costly I am now completely skint, which has meant that unfortunately BOA is out of the question this year, which is a shame as the lineup is fairly decent and it's always good fun, but with a day trip to London towards the end of the month, no food in the cupboard, and about £100 to last me til the 29th of August, it's not really going to happen. Hopefully next year they will consider putting it on a little further away from Wacken, considering they are targeting the same fanbase!
Wacken photos are up on Facebook featuring silly faces, silly hats, and er... moobs. Anyone who is on my LJ but doesnt have me on Facebook and wishes to see these please feel free to search "Rich Kleiser" and add me.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=143878&id=536450220 - Part 1
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=143882&id=536450220 - Part 2
There will be a video of some of the bands and us lot being arses soon too, once I have spliced it all together.
There, that was my quarterly LJ update.