On the official Wacken site they’ve published this stunning photo of Wacken at night. Check out the large version, it’s wicked.

Dave got some photos of our campground at night. I think they illustrate that it was FUCKING FREEZING quite well…

Brrrr!

Wacken At Night is a post from: hell bent for metal

Metal as Fuck also has a few photo galleries from Wacken:

• Swashbuckle
• Engel
• Grand Magus

I’ve started putting my photos on Flickr – my Ballroom set is up, anyway – but Dave has done a much better job already with most of his up: Europe 2009.

First Wacken diary is up! is a post from: hell bent for metal

It’s awesome and hilarious at the same time. The photo slideshow was truly great. The sub-titles, not so much. But I think there’s something in Wacken All Night for everyone:

Wacken All Night — an unofficial tribute by THE PAST ALIVE

Wacken All Night, eh? is a post from: hell bent for metal

Our side-trip to Switzerland this year is largely homage to my love of two Swiss icons: H.R. Giger and Celtic Frost. While I haven’t had any luck trying to line up purchase of one of Tom Gabriel Warrior’s death masks, the tie-in just got a little cooler with the announcement that the ex-Celtic Frost front man will be performing on stage at Wacken with Norwegian black metal supergroup Sarke.

It’s like they knew I was coming!

Warrior at Wacken is a post from: hell bent for metal

I didn’t look at the pictures but when I was telling Dave, he said was pretty sure they would be the bog standard USB drive with logo on the metal flippy bit like we are getting as promo materials a lot lately.

As it turns out, no. They are freaking BULLET-SHAPED! The news item doesn’t tell you what the capacity of the drive is but these days they’re usually at least 2GB… but who cares how big they are when they’re BULLET-SHAPED?

That’s a pretty cool USB stick is a post from: hell bent for metal

While Charp has dropped off the tour again (second year running… that boy is just unreliable) we have picked up a Vagrant and will be meeting up with several other peeps on and before the festival.

If anyone would like to catch up, we will have these German mobile numbers when we land in Hamburg on the 27th, so you can send us a text:

goatlady kay: +49 1578 453 0334
metalbeast dave: +49 1578 450 4479

The Ballroom, a metal club near the Fishmarket area in Hamburg, had a Wacken warm up party on the Monday night which is where we met Stu and Nicola who we ended up camping with and a whole bunch of other awesome people who we don’t really remember much about (there was a lot of alcohol consumed). We also met a bunch of Perth people which was quite amusing. They have a whole bunch of pre– and post-Wacken events planned and we will definitely be at one or all of them.

Looking forward to meeting some new metal peeps!

Coming to Wacken? Talk to us! is a post from: hell bent for metal

PS: Gojira

Bio-warfare is a post from: hell bent for metal

I know that without Christian and Raymond, it’s only half the Factory, but I think for the time being it’s as good as we can get. And that is still going to be fucking epic.

Fear this is a post from: hell bent for metal

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!

Stop! Metal time! is a post from: hell bent for metal

Image by Der Ohlsen via Flickr

Dear Organisers of Wacken Open Air,

Guys, I know you’re busy. Hell, it’s the 20th anniversary – no doubt you have a lot of shit to sort out. However, we’re a little over four months out from the main event and there’s only been 32 bands announced. That means there’s at least 30 or 40 announcements to go.

Some other big festivals like HellFest have already announced full lists and let’s face it, they’re massive. I realise that you sold out all tickets months and months ago so you don’t need to entice punters to buy but there’s some of us that are feeling a little bit put out. You don’t want us peeps that are travelling half way around the world to start thinking we’ve picked the wrong festival.

Some bands have all but announced that they will be there and that’s great (Devildriver for one). But they wouldn’t need to if you’d just feed a little bit more info out to the media.

If you’re still trying to finalise stuff, here’s a hot tip: GET GOJIRA. You won’t be disappointed I promise. Don’t worry about Saxon and Manowar.

Kind Regards,
The Goatlady.

How about a lineup update? is a post from: hell bent for metal