hell bent for metal

So this years Wacken is not with­out con­tro­versy. If you read the forums, there are quite a few unhappy peo­ple talk­ing about the unex­cit­ing line up, espe­cially for a 20th anniver­sary. On first appear­ance when you look at the list, it does seem like a lack­lus­tre line-up, espe­cially when you look at what the Hellfest fes­ti­val has pulled out.

So far, 46 bands have been announced, with a few self-confirming (it’s a shame when a band has to do that!). I def­i­nitely think the organ­is­ers have made some seri­ous mis­takes and while Wacken itself is an insti­tu­tion and always will be, read­ing some of the posts on the forums, espe­cially from peo­ple who have been com­ing for many years, there is a lot of dis­con­tent among the faithful.

I must say that I’m also of the opin­ion that com­par­ing to the Hellfest line up, Wacken is not as amaz­ing this year as the 2008 show was (and that was epic).

How­ever, enough whin­ing and bitch­ing, let’s take a look at what we have. Con­sider the fact that we have 3 days of music, and you’re never going to get every band you are dying to see. My *must see* bands from the list so far are;

• Amon Amarth (this is worth the fes­ti­val alone, and I am most psy­ched about this)
• Cathe­dral
• Ein­her­jer
• End­stille
• Engel
• Enslaved
• Ham­mer­fall
• Heaven & Hell (Ronny James fuck­ing Dio, noth­ing else to say \m/ )
• In Flames
• King­dom of Sor­row (sadly no longer playing)
• Lacuna Coil
• Machine Head
• Motör­head
• Napalm Death
• Nev­er­more
• PAIN
• Saxon
• Tes­ta­ment
• Nerve­cell (self confirmed)
• Eths (self confirmed)

So that’s 20 bands that I really badly want to see. That’s a hel­luva lot if you think about it. Now let’s add the bands I would like to check out between my *must* list;

• ASP
• Bork­na­gar
• Doro
• Kor­pik­laani
• Rage
• Run­ning Wild
• Tracedawn

So that’s another 7 bands. Not to men­tion the addi­tional 15 that should still be added before the fes­ti­val (going on tra­di­tion of around 60–70 bands on the bill).

They may not all be super pop­u­lar bands, but fuck me, it’s still a bril­liant line up of bands that here in Oz we may never get to see. Of the ones I listed, we have only seen 5 live. Run­ning Wild announced this was their final show ever, and while there is some­what of a power metal over­load this year, it’s still some­thing to see.

I am not going to say how I think that BFMV and BMTH (sorry, can’t bring myself to type out their names) are a really strange addi­tion to what is typ­i­cally a classic/dark metal fes­ti­val. But hey, every­one needs a break to go to the toi­let or drink some more beer between the star acts.

To sum up this fuck­ing long post, I can see why this years line up is dis­ap­point­ing peo­ple who have been com­ing to Wacken for many years. I prob­a­bly share the sen­ti­ment to an extent, where I was hop­ing to see some acts that we’ve been dying to catch live – Type O Neg­a­tive would be one that imme­di­ately comes to mind.

But on the whole, am I totally fuck­ing excited about Wacken 09? In a word, FUCKYEAH.

PS: Where is the Gojira announce­ment? Come on Wacken organ­is­ers, don’t dis­ap­point these Aussie travellers!