review by: Roberto Martinelli

Things were initially not boding well for the 13th annual Wacken Open Air metal festival. My co-producer Steppenvvolf picked me up at Frankfurt Airport to begin a 7-hour drive through traffic jams and almost constant rain up to this little town 45 minutes northwest of Hamburg that no German who isn't a metal fan has ever heard of.

The possibility of rain was about the worst thing that could happen. Wacken is pretty much the metal equivalent of Woodstock: a rinky-dinky town with a big ol' open field on which they set up some stages and hold this festival of heavy metal excess. This means there are practically no hotels to speak of, so everyone sets up tents and roughs it for three nights, something that is made all the more "interesting" when you factor in the amounts of alcohol consumed by the ever hilarious cast of characters that show up yearly.

There are the dorky, balding Swedish twins from the band Nifleheim who are only differentiated by what Iron Maiden tattoos they have on their arms, the guy dressed up as a monk, the guy in leather with a massive, demonic bull's head mask, the guy in the Santa Claus robe, and the Neanderthal with the spiked collar with black mud smeared all over his face. Then there were the more common ones, like the young couples with matching Cannibal Corpse t-shirts, and the married couples who were there with their young children; the burnt-out, middle aged metalheads and the young, wide-eyed metal fans who revel in their concept of extremity, and the young ones who would fit in very well in mainstream society.

There are something like 40,000 of these people that swarm down from all parts of the world like a pestilent tide of black onto this quiet village, and there was a very real possibility that the whole thing would be ruined because of storms. Luckily the rain subsided after half of Friday, but not before much of the area not held together by grass had become very muddy or downright soup-like. Thankfully, the Wacken organizers managed to procure a bunch of bails of hay that were forklifted in and spread about over the mud (above).

The greatest fear associated with the rain and mud would be the very real possibility that heading into the dark woods to answer the call of nature would be problematic and that one would have to turn to the already dire sanitary facilities (which are horrendous enough in the VIP/press area, which is far and away superior to the general campground) would be even worse, as inconceivable as that may seem. But this year the organizers managed to improve things markedly by hiring an older couple to keep things as clean as could be reasonably expected. The only downside to this was that every trip to the toilet would cost you 50 cents, and showers were $2.50. So while it hurt to have to pay half a buck just to be able to wash your hands, it was more than made up for the fact that no one would wander into the showers and mistake them for urinals.

While Friday is practically day one of this fest, it is technically the second day as it follows an evening of acts that are generally of less interest to the majority of people. These acts had improved since Wacken 2000, in which the headlining bands that day were Krokus and Molly Hatchet. This time around acts like Doro and Kotipelto played. We unfortunately were not in time for those, but we were in plenty of time to hear Rose Tattoo, the emergency backup AC/DC, play an hour's worth of the same song. The Wacken organizers love this type of band, which seem to show up every year. This is ironically despite the fact that everyone who attends the festival seems to not actually want to see these bands.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 02.

This year's fest, whose entry ticket had increased to 60 dollars (hereby referred to in euros), was sold out. The amount of bands seemed to be the same, but they were more spread out in the schedule, with no two bands playing simultaneously on adjoining stages. As it was last year, the smallest of the four stages (the so called WET Stage) was in a large rectangular tent, but this time one had to actually enter the concert grounds to access it.

There were some logistical problems initially as Stormwarrior and Avalanch, who were scheduled to start at 10 am, had to wait a good 15 minutes as the not-quite-but-almost skinhead, militaristic security team that is brought in every year wasn't letting anyone in until the same time that the bands were to start. It didn't really matter much as Avalanch is very forgettable Spanish power metal and Stormwarrior is about as cliched and re-hashed as you can imagine. The German-ness of this festival shone through again as things were right back on schedule after the first band. This will never cease to impress me, especially when you compare the notoriously haphazard Milwaukee Metalfest (and other Jack Koshick Presents events), which is infamous for having to cut short the sets of headlining acts due to time constraints resulting from poor time management and basic planning.

I had foolishly chosen to wander outside the festival grounds and into the soupy general campground area, where a human bottleneck had formed by the staunch security guards who were checking the rush of tens of thousands of people for glass and alcohol through eight turnstiles. So I took the long walk around a cornfield and back to the quiet journalist entrance area. Vomitory began its set of uninteresting and samey death metal as I made my way back. This band offered such little interest that even a fan with a Vomitory t-shirt was milling around far from the stage while the band was playing.

Speaking of death metal, there were very few such bands to speak of at Wacken 2002. Even fewer were proper black metal bands - an argument could be made that there were in fact no bands that played (or no longer played) black metal despite there being a "Black Metal Stage." There were even fewer such bands than there were at Wacken 2000. This is in stark contrast to American metalfests in which the majority of the bands are death metal bands. Rather, power metal and more traditional metal acts made up the majority of the Wacken list. Any personal tastes aside, the Wacken way tends to be the better of the two extremes, as death metal bands below the elite level all sound like a bassy mess with blastbeat accompaniment, and most black metal bands can't actually play live.

But when you have power metal acts like Italy's Domine, the other extreme starts to seem more attractive. Domine takes power metal cheese to the next level with uninteresting rhythmic arrangements, thoughtless lyrics and mediocre singing.

Next up on the stage adjoining the True Metal Stage was Necrophobic. Some think that this band is black metal, but all I could hear was very banal and simplistic death metal.

Dornenreich (above), which ironically could be argued being the most black metal band of Wacken 2002, played its set on the Party Stage, the third biggest venue. The Austrian band played most of its set from its third and latest album, Her Von Welken Nächten, and did so extremely well considering the band had only had two rehearsals with a new drummer and keyboarder. The bizarre, paranoia-inducing, whispered vocals were pulled off excellently. The only thing that could be criticized was the bass player's cringeworthy attempts at singing. Even his ambient "aahhs" were very poor. Also, the band may be well-advised to concentrate on its faster material and avoid slower songs from its previous albums.

Wolf (above) was one of the bands that I was looking forward to the most coming in to the festival, and the Swedish group did not disappoint, although I would have personally liked to have heard more than three songs from their marvellous first album. Wolf is a breath of fresh air on a metal scene whose melodic, clean singing bands tend to be of the happy, power metal variety. This quartet is a return to the kind of rough yet soaring heavy metal songs of the first half of the 1980s, the kind of music that is most suited to be played in a live setting. While the vocalist couldn't quite pull off live the higher register that predominates the first album, Wolf's set was a rip-roaring and fun ride that put smiles on the fans' faces.

Brazilian power metal act Angra was also pretty high on my list of bands to see. The band's first album, Angels Cry, is one of my top five picks for best power metal album ever, and even though the singer that was on that particular album had since left the band, taking half the members with him to form Shaman, I was still keen on hearing this group of fantastic musicians live. The new singer, Eduardo Falaschi, may not be stylistically as much to my tastes, but he is nonetheless excellent, something that he proved live. In fact, Falaschi sounded better live than he does on record, and he is a very good presence onstage. However, Angra's set was all but ruined by a problem that seemed to plague almost all the bands that played on Wacken's two main stages.

While Angra was preparing to take the stage, the intro track to Rebirth, the latest album, was played. This was eventually accompanied by what sounded like an airplane taking off: a sort of solid wall of unchanging bass drone. Objectively, it was sort of cool, but any notion that this was the intended effect was dashed as soon as the band began to play its actual songs. For some outrageous reason, the bass guitar and bass drums were turned up to such extreme and distorted levels that they nearly completely drowned out the other instruments and threatened to make the vocals inaudible. And especially since Angra's music is less about the drums and more about the melodies and arrangements of the other instruments, hearing the sonic equivalent of Angra playing on the runway of an airport was too horrible to bear. I was happy to hear one of the band's greatest songs, "Carry On," played as I perused the stalls at the metal market, some 200 yards away. Although this prevented Angra's presence at WOA 2002 from being a total waste, it was still regrettable that the talents of these stellar musicians were wasted by appalling sound choices.

I now have a love-hate relationship with Dying Fetus. I love 'em because of albums like Destroy the Opposition, which is one of the greatest technical death metal albums ever, but I hate 'em because of how band leader John Gallagher has either kicked out or driven out all the other members who played on that record. This is especially unforgivable considering that Dying Fetus had Kevin Talley, one of the most impressive drummers I've ever seen live. The new drummer is of course up to speed to play the challenging material, but he's a far cry from Talley. So, out of allegiance to one of my musical role models, and since I had already seen this band twice, knowing full well that no performance of theirs would ever top what I had seen the first time, when Talley and the other Destroy... guitarist were still in the band, I opted to take some time to dig deeper into the metal market. Also, the new, diminutive man whose job is to do the high vocals (that the bass player used to do) is the kind of crass annoyance that embarrasses Americans when they are abroad. I wasn't too surprised considering the tumultuous nature of this group to discover that there was no longer a second guitarist. Despite that, the opening track to Destroy the Opposition sounded up to par to the elite musicianship of this band.

The Wet Stage (tent) may not have seemed the place where one of the greatest performances of this year's WOA would take place, but Heavenly proved that it was possible. I had especially taken notice of the irresistible talents of this happy French power metal band when I first heard their debut album, Coming from the Sky: Excellent, high power metal vocals that are complemented by wonderful back-up singing, scrumptious soloing and infectious songs.

It was lucky for the audience that Heavenly isn't a band that has reached a high level of fame, because if it had the band might have been put on the horrible main stage. As it was, the tent suffered no problems of massive over-bass like the larger venues. When will the metal world ever learn? Metal doesn't need to be pumped up any more than other kinds of music. Being loud often leads to being incoherent. Death metal is a perfect example of this: how many death metal performances have you been to where all the instruments came through clearly like on the record?

Heavenly engaged the enthusiastic audience with an equal balance of songs from their two records. The handsome, clean-cut singer was an excellent frontman, and the black haired guitarist was very entertaining and likeable with his playful, nonchalant facial expressions and solo wizardry (above). You can tell these guys are serious about their music without getting all caught up in it, and that's really cool. Check this band out if the chance arises.

I was hesitantly excited to see Destruction: this pioneering German thrash band that had put out essential records in the 1980s had become stale and generic. And while I can't say from experience that things have changed live since the old days, but what I saw from the muddy field told me something wasn't right. A harbinger of things to come was the opening song, which I didn't recognize as "Curse the Gods" until the lyrics began. Then I remembered that Destruction had redone their classic on their latest album. The new version just pales in comparison. Bands should really stop making "updated versions" of their career defining songs. Fans fall in love with the band because of these originals; when the newer, generally inferior songs are performed, it feels like you're in an unpleasant dream, or that your ears aren't working properly. And of course there were the horrible sound problems that added to a tepid set made so by the inclusion of so many newer, uninteresting songs.

The crowd for Bruce Dickinson was the first massive one of the festival, with what had to be at least 20,000 people. All who attended got to see the most engaging and professional set of Wacken 2002.

It was curious to see that not one member (aside from Dickinson himself) from the band's last record, 1998's Chemical Wedding, was in the lineup. No Roy Z, no Adrian Smith. In Smith's place was a woman who apparently contributed to Dickinson's Skunkworks album.

Speaking of the Chemical Wedding, it was almost equally remarkable that only one song was played from that record ("The Tower") despite the album being Dickinson's most acclaimed and successful solo effort. Three songs in the set came from Accident of Birth, and the others from his earlier, more obscure solo works. Amongst these was "Tears of the Dragon," which caused near tears and hair ripping from some enthusiastic fans who were standing around me.

Four Iron Maiden songs were also interspersed in the set: the rarely played "Revelations" and "The Prisoner," the dreadful yet inexplicably successful "Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter," and the glorious "Powerslave." All were pulled off marvelously, with the exception of "Powerslave," whose solos were interpreted in a way that were inferior to the original Dave Murray/Adrian Smith version.

The Bruce Dickinson of WOA 2002, from the flashy showmanship of the musicians to the over the top drum solo, was more of a rock band. This would probably explain why "Powerslave" sounded a little odd and why the set concentrated more on Dickinson's more rock albums. Regardless of personal set wish lists, the band was astounding. Dickinson himself sounded better live than I've ever heard him on record and, man, does he know how to work a crowd. Despite his announcement that he would be 42 in a week from then, Dickinson sprinted and jumped urgently about the stage, prompting different parts of the audience to sing along and generally making the live experience worthwhile.

Sometimes the bass overkill problem seemed not to be a problem. Luckily, one of these rare instances was for Children of Bodom, whose set expectedly was as precise and faithful to the studio recordings. It was interesting to see that most of the keyboard parts, and especially the flashy solos, were done with the keyboarder's right hand.

And while the set was dead on, it definitely had its peaks and valleys. Hatebreeder is clearly the band's best work, and the four or so songs from that record had the crowd going the most. The songs from the other two records, the less focused Something Wild and the slightly ho-hum Follow the Reaper, elicited less of a response.

Children of Bodom also played a song from their upcoming album. The song was titled something rather awkward involving the term "24/7." It sounded a good deal like the songs on Follow the Reaper, but perhaps less jaunty.

JBO is some sort of German phenomenon. It must be. No non-German metal fan whom I spoke to had even heard of JBO, even though JBO played on the main stage at a prime time. According to Steppenvvolf, JBO is a joke band that parodies famous metal songs. Great, the metal Weird Al Yankovic. It also turns out that JBO stands for "James Blast Orchestra," which is in itself a parody on a Dutch pop singer called James Last. One Dutch fan said James Last was the cheesiest music ever, and "therefore it's a big hit in Germany." Oh, sort of like the David Hasselhoff thing.

Anyway, JBO was terrible, but that's probably 'cause I don't get it. I could make out their parodied version of "Enter Sandman" to include lyrics about Metallica selling out. Somehow I don't think I would have made enjoyed it better even if it had been in a language I understand.

I had been jazzed about seeing Candlemass live since I first saw the Wacken line up. The Candlemass set was billed as a reunion, which meant Messiah Marcolin on vocals and the classic, cheesy but glorious doom metal songs that made this band famous in the 80s. But as I was waiting for the band to come out on the Party Stage, instead out strolled a man in his 50s, all dressed in denim. He casually approached the mic and dragged off a cigarette while addressing the cheering crowd in German. Who the hell was this? It turned out that another Germany-only hit, Torfrock, had switched places with Candlemass and that I had entirely missed the latter's set. It was really a stupid move, as Candlemass ended up playing at the same time as Bruce Dickinson. I heard that Candlemass were great. What a disappointment.

Rounding out the night (which finished at 3AM) were two bands. The first was Warlord (above), a group that released a cult record 18 years before and who hadn't done anything since (not even play live, according to the singer). The group had reformed, sort of, with two original members (guitar and drums, I think) hiring four new musicians and putting out a new record. All of the material was in the same vein: quality, old school epic metal with classic melody constructions. The singer was quite good, too. I'd like to check out this band's albums.

The other band was an abhorrent cock rock metal group called Red Aim. Just the sight of the cheesy, greasy singer and the way he strutted about the stage with his shirt open, revealing his disgusting, pasty white guy-ness made me retreat to see Warlord some more.

DAY 2

Up bright and early at 9AM. Not for any real, compelling reason, mind you, but nonetheless the brightness of the morning, my out of whack internal clock and the excitement of covering the festival made it that I was at least totally conscious to hear the first two thirds of Rottweiler's set from inside my tent. The band, which played a relatively macho, above average version of European power metal, was a pleasant surprise.

Meanwhile, Stormwitch was playing the True Metal Stage. This band had some decent, if not generic, rock/power metal tunes to offer.

The Chilean band Criminal also had something of interest to present with a set of death metal with uncommon keyboard accompaniment. The material wasn't strong enough to be interesting for the entire 30-minute set, but what I did see was worthwhile.

It wouldn't be for some hours until Macabre hit the stage, so I went into town to go to the bank. There are only two banks in the village, and each has one ATM. So the lines were long, very long - about an hour and a half. Some nice metal fans from Holland and England made the time go by a lot faster.

It was also very difficult to find non-carbonated bottled water in Germany. Even the stuff billed as not having gas has a low level of it and tastes like Perrier gone flat.

I got back in plenty of time to see Macabre put on a fine show. As you may know, this US band's songs are all about various serial killers. The main vocalist/guitarist introduced each song with some graphic and yet amusing background about the killer in question and what he did to his victims. The set was well played, and it was cool to see the awesome drum skills of Dennis in a live setting.

Another dilemma as Falconer was playing at the same time as Hollenthon. The internal debate was settled in that seeing Hollenthon in the tent would make it difficult to be in time for Immortal, whose set started 10 minutes after Hollenthon's.

Falconer (above) played well in front of an adoring audience despite some initial technical problems with one of the guitars. The singer sounded good and the songs came across as harder overall due to the live setting.

Immortal's (above) turn came up and the band opened with "Wrath from Above" and "Damned in Black." The set was basically an abridged version of what they played on their US tour, but played "Unsilent Storms in the North Abyss" and by not playing their mainstay "Blashyrkh." The sound on the black metal stage was again horrible. I sadly made my way out of the crowd in front of the stage to go hand out Maelstrom flyers. It was at this point that I made the interesting discovery that the bad sound problems were overcome if you stood at least 200 yards from the stage where the sound became clear. The downside was that the people on stage were very small.

Admittedly I had never seen Cannibal Corpse live, so I was curious to see what the fuss was about. It was true that the live show is energized and tight, but Cannibal Corpse's formula got tired about five years ago. The band is unfortunately trapped in a situation where it can't progress or it will lose its fan base, which will not be replaced as long as the band continues to be called Cannibal Corpse. So the band is condemned to rehash the same stuff over and over, giving us beyond meaningless songs like "Compelled to Lacerate."

I try to like Blind Guardian. Really, I wish I did like them. Then I could have been part of the massive club that watched the band's two hour set. The music was certainly well done and the vocals unique, but there's generally been something largely missing for me about this band.

Even if Wacken tries to bring in some musicians that depart from the standard loud metal format, the gods of true metal will crush them. Such was the case with Haggard, a group made up of 15 or so musicians that blend doom metal with acoustic, medieval music and operatic singing. It seemed like Haggard's formula might work, but it also seemed like the juxtaposition of doom vocals with Renaissance faire music could be silly. Of course, I would have no way of actually determining this as Onkel Tom (which is Sodom's Tom Angelripper's project of German drinking songs put to thrash metal) was playing at the same time on the next stage over.

Haggard was nearly completely drowned out. Everyone in the Haggard camp, from the audience to the musicians, was annoyed. Tensions were high on stage, where you could feel the rays of frustration shooting from the conservatively dressed musicians holding violins, over to the stage to their left, where Angelripper was fronting his agro, beer themed songs while a group of revelers and hob-nobbers from the VIP area danced as one of the attractive women from the group took her top off. Ironically, it was a perfect finale for the world's most over-the-top music festival.

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