60 days out from when the Blitzkrieg Tour leaves Australia, the Wacken running order and timetabling tool has been released.

With much trepidation we checked off the bands we absolutely had to see and saw what it spat out. For me personally, it was not bad at all. Small disappointments are inevitable, but fortunately many of the bands we’ll miss in clashes are playing at Summer  Breeze too – 1349 (clash with Slayer), Unleashed (clash with Crucified Barbara), Suicidal Angels (clash with Orphaned Land), and Despised Icon (clash with Soulfly). We’ll need to miss either Candlemass or Immortal, and Enstille are unfortunately playing the same slot as Voivod and also Evile.

However, there’s nothing in there I need to throw myself over a cliff about. Yay! Until I see the Summer Breeze running order, that is…

Gojira overlaps Iron Maiden, but that doesn’t bother me… I wasn’t bothered about seeing Maiden anyway. Fear Factory’s slot is right where we hoped it would be – where is absolutely should be — in the middle of the night! That is going to be one killer set.

Kay’s Wacken Running Order of Awesomeness:

Wacken running order mass excitement is a post from: hell bent for metal

Either the Wacken organisers started listening to what I’ve been saying for the last three years, or they got sick of my whining – either way, I’m pleased to note that my favourite French environmentalists Gojira were added to the lineup in January. (The thought that I had nothing to do with this announcement has, of course, not crossed my mind).

I’ve been a huge fan of this band for a couple of years now, and while I have all their releases (including the ridiculously hard to find debut, Terra Incognita), my favourite by far is their second album, The Link, partly because of the amazing percussion (including mallet percussion) parts. I’m fairly sure that these days we won’t be hearing many (if any) tracks off The Link but never mind, it’s all killer stuff.

I’m also a bit of a sucker for accents, and once listened to the beginning of an interview where the Gojira frontman said “’ello, my name is Jo-seeeeph Du-plant-i-aaaaaair” about 20 times in a row. So cute. Ahem.

Success: Gojira added to Wacken is a post from: hell bent for metal

Well, we decided to harden the fuck up and our 2010 metal extravaganza tour will now have three stops: Wacken, Party.San and Summer Breeze.

Co-incidentally, this is the same route that Soundworks Metal Festival Travel will be taking – but we’re not going with them (although it’s a good deal they’re offering) as we have our own plans before and after.

In the lead up to Anti-Christmas this year, both Wacken and Summer Breeze have been announcing a new band every day (in the case of Summer Breeze, quite often two bands are announced). It’s a far cry from last year where Wacken didn’t announce anything at all for bloody ages and disappointed the hell out of everyone.

We now have an absolutely insane list of bands that we could potentially see. Several of then we will have the opportunity to see multiple times. It’s absolutely brutal.

Wacken

• 1349
• Arch Enemy
• Cannibal Corpse
• Crucified Barbara
• Despised Icon
• Endstille
• Grave Digger
• Immortal
• Motley Crue
• Slayer
• U.D.O.

And also Alice Cooper, Amorphis, Caliban, Corvus Corax, Die Apokalyptischen Reiter, Edguy, Ektomorf, Ghost Brigade, Iron Maiden, Kampfar, Lake of Tears, Orden Ogan, Primal Fear, Stratovarius, The Devil’s Blood, Torfrock, W.A.S.P.

Party.San

• Cannibal Corpse
• Suffocation
• Watain

And also The Devil’s Blood, Demonical, Aura Noir, Manegarm, Tribulation.

Summer Breeze

• 1349
• Ahab
• Behemoth
• Cannibal Corpse
• Dark Tranquillity
• Despised Icon
• Gorgoroth
• Hypocrisy
• Kylesa
• My Dying Bride
• Obituary
• Origin
• Sepultura
• War From a Harlot’s Mouth

And also Anathema, Asphyx, Barren Earth, Callisto, Cumulo Nimbus, Dark Funeral, Die Apokalyptischen Reiter, Dying Fetus, Eisbrecher, Eisregen, Ensiferum, Feuerschwanz, Fiddler’s Green, Freiwild, Gwar, Hail of Bullets, Ill Nino, Insomnium, Korpiklaani, Leaves Eyes, Letzte Instanz, Long Distance Calling, Maroon, Mono Inc, Necrophagist, Orphaned Land, Pantheon I, Poisonblack, Rebellion, Solstafir, Subway to Sally, Swallow the Sun, The Crown, The Devils Blood, Tracedawn, We Butter The Bread With Butter.

Tooo… much… metal!

New plans: three festivals is a post from: hell bent for metal

I was checking a couple of facts on the Wacken Wikipedia entry when I noticed that there’s a couple of extra bands listed for 2010 in the entry: Devour The Masses and Crysis. They’re not listed on the official Wacken site (German or English versions – the German version often gets updated first) and a Google search does not bring up anything. According to the edit history of the page, Devour the Masses was added a couple of days ago and Crysis at the end of August.

Of course, the fact that it’s on Wikipedia does not make it true (duh). But it’s interesting nonetheless, yes?

New announcements? is a post from: hell bent for metal

Tonight we fly out… excited? You bet!

Last week I got the fantastic news that Metal As Fuck has been Wacken-accredited which means I can go in the press areas. Ooooohhhhh As well as being very very VERY fucking cool for me, it’s great because the site has only been running for a few months, yet already it’s getting recognised as a serious, quality source of metal news, reviews, interviews and general what-have-yous (haha that rhymes). So it’s yay for me and congratulations to Leticia and Foss and the rest of the MAF team, just for being awesome.

So now we “just” have to pack and then we’re off. Right after I finish uploading this client site, answer a few more emails and make some notes for the people looking after our cats, house and business.

And look, I even cleaned and polished my trusty doc martens, which will be my feet’s constant and faithful companion for the next three weeks.

Today’s the day is a post from: hell bent for metal