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ANCIENT REVIEW:
WACKEN OPEN AIR, 31 JULY - 2 AUGUST 2003
Guilty parties: yours truly, Chris Emerson, Oliver Kenyon, Blake Stephens, Ian Backhouse, and our esteemed driver Phil Robinson. Plus Dan from another camp, and from Denmark: Terje, Tine, Kim, Tommy.
PART ONE: THE ROAD TO WACKEN
MON-WED 28.07-30.07.2003
And so it was that at 2pm Monday, Deathtank pulled up by my front drive loaded with three people from Yorkshire and He Of The Four T-Shirts™, for what was to be an eventful trip. The first thing I noticed was that the heater was blasting into the cabin at full whack - this, said Phil, was all that was stopping the engine overheating. And we hadn't even left Nottingham... The journey to Dover was relatively smooth, despite constant stops at every available service staion - and a couple of times on the hard shoulder of the M25 - to allow the engine to cool. Rather less pleasant were: (1) Phil's Duck Toy CD (really, don't ask!) and (2) the back roads to Oli's house in Tring, which were punctuated with more roundabouts than the world's largest adventure playground. Turning up at Dover three hours early, we were sent away to wait for a while... one very expensive pint in a dockside bar was followed by a trip into town for a rather marvellous and highly recommended burger. 1am Tuesday arrived, Deathtank was loaded onto the ferry, and a cold, dark and cloudy crossing was accompanied with Phil desperately trying not to barf his dinner over the side of the ship. But he survived, and on we headed into Europe...
After a short trip through France, heading along the all-too familiar (from Graspop trips) road towards Antwerp, with the usual stops for overheating (and some essential sleep...) the first obstacle was the scheduled trip through Brussels. Signposting in this city can only be described as utterly abysmal. It's not so much "Antwerp, turn right 500m ahead", more like "If you have taken this road, you are now heading towards Antwerp". Not useful. Plus, the designers of the roads in Brussels seem to like tunnels as much as those in Hertfordshire like roundabouts - with the inevitable consequence that we must have missed several important turnings. The intention was to stop and have a look around, but after nearly crashing into a post at an is-it-left-or-right-fucking-hell-it-doesn't-say-where-we're-supposed-to-be-going junction, buggering around the inner ring road for half an hour, and then the outer ring road on top of that... we thought - fuck this, let's find the fastest route to Germany...
Out of Brussels, back onto the open road, over the border into the Netherlands for a while... then over another border into Germany. All was going fine, Deathtank holding up well even in the blazing heat... then disaster struck, as we turned off onto a sliproad, and a worrying CLUNGK-THUD-RATTLE-RATTLE was followed by the van handling like a whale and with a rougher ride at the back than if we had square wheels. Looking at the left rear wheel to find it at a weird angle with three bolts missing was not a pleasant sight... so Phil decided to use his European AA cover. Only to find, actually, he wasn't covered. Double disaster. However, after Phil had made a tricky phone call to a German helpline, a helpful local from a Fiat garage who spoke near-perfect English turned up and explained the problem to the ADAC in far better German wthan any of us could ever have hoped... and an hour later, the ADAC truck turned up... and we were wishing our helper hadn't just left as the rather dubious-looking mechanics booted the bent brake drum and said "Alles kaputt... viele scheiße." Then, having dragged the van onto their tow truck, one pointed to the cab and said: "Three... in." Which would have left one us stranded by the roadside, so four of us climbed in anyway, with two in the ADAC truck. Phil, unsurprisingly, was a bundle of nerves as his prized vehicle bounced up and down on the tow truck, which was belting down the roads at a rather disconcerting speed. Half an hour later we were at Schneider Ford in Duisburg, home of the infamous Herr Lipp (alles klar?) from the League Of Gentlemen - and Phil was €150 lighter in the wallet. The early evening was mainly spent finding a hotel - which turned out to be the Goldener Hahn for €35 a head. Not bad, considering it gave us all a chance for a decent bed for the night, a couple of showers (much needed!) and time to work out what we would do if Deathtank was not going to be fixed in time.
Wednesday morning, complete with a plan of action for the day, we headed back to Schneider at midday to find the part they needed had been found (what a relief that was!) and that the van would be fixed by 4pm - which gave us plenty more time to check out a local kebab house. And I can say now, anyone ever heading to Duisburg will not starve if they find the Hallo Doner on Düsseldorfstraße and order the highly recommended Turkish Pizza. This was followed by a quick stop in a bar to try the local König-Pilsener - rather nice, but only served in 330ml glasses, so I had two... Phil, however, was thwarted in his attempt to order a Pernod & lemonade, so he settled for a Pernod & 7-Up. This drink will now be forever referred to as the Phil Robinson. And there was a lot of Pernod in it - Phil reckoned it was a triple at least, possibly a quadruple... After this we had a bit of time to kill, so we sat and watched an old man with a dog, walking down the street, turning a barrel organ. I reckon it was Torfrock on his day job... (see last year's Wacken for details!)
4pm arrived... and after a couple of test runs round the garage car park, and with Phil relieved of a further €220 (ouch!) we were on out way again... Auf Wiedersehen Duisburg, Guten Tag Autobahn... but it was still a very long drive. For hour after hour we thundered down the motorway at a neck-snapping 50mph, passing Osnabrück, then Bremen, then Hamburg. By this time, the sun had long since set and stops for overheating were greatly reduced. The final landmark, Itzehoe, was still 80 km away... but, after a further hour, it passed, and the sight of a signpost pointing to Wacken was possibly the greatest sight of the day. Finally, at 2am on Thursday morning, we arrived... tents were pitched by 2:15, and though the entire camp thought it was a good idea to go to bed, I headed up to the Wet Stage with Chris to find the Metal Disco... and what should be playing but Skyclad's "Spinning Jenny"! And so, after the customary air-violin-plus-medieval-folk-dance silliness with some very drunk Germans, I headed back to the tent to be ready to face the first full day in the Holy Land of Metal (© C. Emerson 28.07.2003)...
PART TWO: THURSDAY 31.07.2003
Cynics might see the Thursday as a bit of a non-event, with only four bands on one stage, starting at 6pm. However, it's a perfect warm-up for the two days ahead. Besides leaving time to pick up your wristband if you haven't done already... more fools them, the queues were a mile long by this time, it's also a perfect chance to go into the village. Having met up with the Danes - Terje, Tine, Kim and Tommy - several of us headed for the Spar shop at the other end of Wacken for our essentials - so that'll be 24 cans of Flensburger Pilsener, then. And some food, including Heisse Tasse (Germany's answer to Cup-a-Soup), bread, salami, and some German Blend-a-med toothpaste which came with a free toothbrush. In the half-mile-long queue, Phil attempted to pull a couple of German girls while Terje took photos of his efforts. The next move was for Terje and Dan to cunningly swipe a shopping trolley from under the nose of a guard who had insisted we pay a €50 deposit for it. On the way back, finding a bag of dried pasta in a sealed bag dumped at the side of the road can only be described as a Brucie Bonus. And the oddest sight of the day was a two-year-old girl throwing the horns at us.
The morning also contained a chance encounter with some of the Cambridge crowd - Baz, Emma, Siobhan, Ian, Ben and Dermott, who I didn't know and had assumed was Keith on account of being Irish. I was reliably informed that Bonzo was back at the campsite being sick, having already attempted to drink herself to the point of liver failure the night before, and that if I wanted to find their campsite I should look for a tent covered in Withnail quotes.
Finally, Thursday evening arrived, and the first band on were CIRCLE II CIRCLE. Despite Chris' encouragement, I decided to stay at the campsite as Phil was firing up the barbecue. The choice was a good one, as what I heard could only be described as wanky power metal. Finding out later that they were ex-members of Savatage only rammed the point further. With the barbecue at full power but with a long cooking time for the chicken, I set off to see ANNIHILATOR munching a bratwurst on the way. Yes, they're very cheesy in some places - and at times their lyrics can only be described as laughable - but there's no denying the riffs behind the cheese are rather marvellous. They opened with "Ultra Motion", one of their best tracks ever - and it's off the last album, as if to defy the Fifth Commandment... and belted their way through "King Of The Kill", "Never Never Land" (containing the immortal line "Take that! And that!"), "Imperiled Eyes", "Shallow Grave", "Alice In Hell" and "Phantasmagoria". All very good, but there was one thing missing - oversized frontman Joe Comeau has become the latest victim of the band's revolving door, and in his place is one Dave Padden, who looks disturbingly like he could be Jeff Waters' younger brother.
These two sets were preceded by a signing session for the two bands - as it turned out, Chris and myself had joined the queue only just in time to score the signature of the only member of Annihilator who really matters...
My next move was to head back to the campsite to scoff some much-needed and well-barbecued chicken, sausages and pork kebabs, while VICTORY played the main stage. What I heard was a second division Saxon clone - which, as it turns out, isn't too surprising as Chris later told me they're all ex-members of Saxon. So, as their set finished early (what a relief), after a short-ish pause, when I heard "Motorcycle Man" come blasting from the main stage, I assumed it was Victory playing Saxon covers just to reinforce their blatant Saxon-ness. However, when this was followed by "Denim And Leather", then "Princess Of The Night", I thought I'd head to the stage to see what was happening... then the set stopped and I could hear someone thanking the crown in a very familiar Yorkshire accent. I knew Saxon were there for a signing session - could they be playing? Sure enough, it was Saxon playing a not-very-well-kept-secret three-track set. Which I had missed. So, after kicking myself profusely before remembering I'd be seeing them headline at Bloodstock, I thought I'd grab some beer and watch RUNNING WILD for a while. Despite what Bonzo said, I didn't see a single pirate costume, a parrot on the shoulder, or a fake hook hand. Not even on any of the band members. What I did see, though, was a band that sounded very much like Iron Maiden with a bit of Judas Priest thrown in for good measure. As it turned out, they weren't nearly as bad as I'd been led to believe, neither were they as obsessed with pirates as I was told, and I ended up staying for their whole set. That said, the singer put on a very silly pirate hat for "Treasure Island", and the set was closed with their most famous (or is that notorious?) track, "Under Jolly Roger", which had the whole crowd of several thousand singing along with strong German accents.
Until Running Wild's set, which had kicked off at 10:15pm, the whole day had been a severe scorcher, and the heat properly took its toll on me - I decided to jump the Metal Karaoke and late-night drinking to crash in the tent. And that was the first decent night's sleep I'd ever had in a tent...
PART THREE: FRIDAY 01.08.2003
Now, this is where the fun really starts...
All the time up to this point I had had Chris pestering me to see DEW-SCENTED on the Black Stage. Even though I'd heard some of their thrash-death metal, my priorities had to be with the one solitary stoner band of the festival, THE QUILL - more famous now that their bassist is also part of Spiritual Beggars. Although my only experience of them was one rather dodgy track on stonerrock.com, they didn't disappoint. The singer's voice is rather squeaky, as if he's been listening to a bit too much Led Zeppelin, but the rest was pure bong-fuelled stoner riffage, which certainly did a great job of waking me, Kim, and the rest of the morning crowd up. The set was closed with the band unveiling a Swedish flag decorated with "The Quill W:O:A 2003", which was flung into the crowd. Great start to the day.
Next up were EXTREME NOISE TERROR on the True Metal Stage - what their brand of grindcore was doing there is beyond me, and I'm not a fan of their über-vegan tendencies either. So, the next band worth taking note was THE CROWN. I'd previously only seen them supporting The Haunted and didn't pay much attention then... what a mistake that was, as they battered their way through a set of proper SDM with a fair few nods to old-school thrash. Tracks like "Total Satan" and "Blitzkrieg Witchcraft" might sound a bit cheesy, but that drops into insignificance compared to the undiluted thrash attack that backs it up. And I'm sure there was a shout in there somewhere of "Do you want some more Satanic Death Metaaaaaal?!" Marvellous.
Next was a choice between NWOBHM "legends" DIAMOND HEAD or a bit of lunch and a visit to the Metal-Markt. Remembering their disappointing performance at last year's Bloodstock, the Metal-Markt won... and I spent about half an hour in the tent where the temperature was approaching the Amazonian jungle. After spending something like €70 or so on CDs (which I will list later), I headed back out into the sun to catch Diamond Head playing their last couple of old classics - so I guess I must have missed the spaff in the middle of the set.
Dumping the CDs back in my tent (guarded with a small padlock!), the next band on the Black Stage was DISMEMBER. A blindingly good performance from Graspop in '01 was followed by another one here - and though I only recognise one track (the notorious "Skin Her Alive"), it was a still a fabulous set of old-school SDM with that patented growly SDM guitar sound from one of the original SDM bands, so had it not been for the sun's best efforts to fry us all alive, we could all have been in a dark, many club somewhere in Gothenburg. I really must buy a few Dismember albums, and would have done in the Metal-Markt had Baz been their to tell me which ones were the best...
Dismember were folloed on the True Metal stage by the Euro-metal fretwankery of FREEDOM CALL, which had me retreating back to the campsite in no time. I'm sure I heard a small sample of PSYCHOPUNCH in the Wet Stage but can't for the life of me remember what it was like. I also chose to jump SENTENCED, ORATORY and LOTTO KING KARL - don't know if anyone saw them, but the name gives me dreaded images of J.B.O. at last year's Wacken. A couple of burgers, a ton of sausages and other assorted chunks of meat from Phil's barbecue made a fine dinner, before I headed back to the festival site to grab a decent place up the front of the Black Stage. During the long wait I was kept reasonably entertained by PRIMAL FEAR. Not only do they look like Judas Priest (right down to the singer's Halfordesque shaved head) and sound like Judas Priest, they've now got a swooping eagle with claws agape as the backdrop for their set. At this rate, I fully expect their next album to be titled "Painkiller". Their set was most notable for some pyrotechnics where a ball of flame shot into the air, only to fall back the the stage and very nearly cause a raging inferno...
And now, the reason for grabbing the place at the front of the Black Stage: the mighty TESTAMENT! They're back to full strength and clearly enjoying life on the road again after Chuck Billy's victory against cancer. And in front of a crowd where practically all of them will own all their albums, they changed tack from their usual set and opened with "Eerie Inhabitants", followed by the recently-ignored (why?) "Practice What You Preach", and the even-longer ignored "Sins Of Omission", then the usual opener, and one of my all-time favourites, "D.N.R.". The set also contained, in no particular order: (becuase I can't remember it!) "Alone In The Dark", "Low", "True Believer", "Burnt Offerings", "Into The Pit", "Electric Crown", "The Haunting", "Over The Wall" - and the closer, "Disciples Of The Watch". I could complain that the sound was slightly mangled, but then again it's out in the open... besides, I'm really not going to argue with a set as strong as this. Chris was going to see DIE APOKALYPTISCHEN REITER instead, but decided against it, and on this evidence, made the right choice by a very long way.
For some reason, which was probably a Bay Area Thrash band with a gigantic frontman who plays air guitar with his microphone stand, I didn't bother to see ROTTING CHRIST on the Wet Stage. Nor did I pay any lasting attention to the True Metal Stage's next inhabitants, GAMMA RAY - or as Baz refers to them, Ramma Gay. Needless to say, they wanked their way through their allotted 75 excruciating minutes.
Next up, a band which divided opinions in our camp right down the middle - IN FLAMES. I'd never seen them before and was mightily impressed - granted, the set was heavily weighted to the newer stuff, but although I'd like to hear some "Jester Race" or "Lunar Strain" tracks (mainly so I can hear what they sound like!), what I know best is the "Clayman" and "Whoracle" albums... and even the much-derided "Reroute To Remain" tracks don't sound that bad. So, we had "Cloud Connected" (probably comparable to Paradise Lost's "One Second" era, if you ask me...), "Clayman", "Episode 666", "Gyroscope", "Bullet Ride", "Pinball Map", one each off the two early albums, "Only For The Weak", "Drifter" and another "RTR" track (what was it?), "Colony", and probably a fair few others I've forgotten or didn't know... All this was delivered with the help of enough fireworks and flameballs to set the whole of Belgium alight. Argue all you like about the setlist - Chris and Oli spent most of the night competing to see which one could slag off the set the most - the show was spectacular, and the band were, quite literally, In Flames. Setlist-wise, though, Testament were the winners.
And onto the headliners: the original line-up of TWISTED SISTER. I didn't stay for long - the intention was to get a few shots of Dee Snider's horrifically ugly and over-made-up mug... half an hour was more than enough, but all the Germans around me thought it was great, and the band were very appreciative they still had so many fans after being away for 20 years...
Only two bands were left - SUBWAY TO SALLY on the Black Stage, who were supposed to be a strange cross of metal, industrial and folk - but from what I heard from the campsite, Nine Inch Skyclads they ain't! The other option was LORDI - a GWAR clone, and therefore equally unappealing.
Friday ended strangely as a drunk German girl called Laura staggered up to our campsite, and then jumped on Chris, knocking him clean off his chair, and pinning him down. The same treatment was dished out to Oli and then yours truly... on seeing Chris next morning she ran away and hid...
PART FOUR: SATURDAY 02.08.2003
Saturday morning brought the first instance where the vastly improved on-screen messaging systems were of use - telling us Sinister had pulled out and were replaced on the Black stage by HOLY MOSES. Not that I cared, though, as I figured the Trøø Nørdiik Blak Metel attack of GRAVEWORM was a far better idea. Even though they're Belgian. And not just for the female keyboard player, you understand. I'm not going to say I recognised a lot (bar that track that Stumpy regularly plays at Full Metal Racket...), but it did at least wake me up. And the screamer's Soulfly skate trousers didn't go unnoticed, either.
Immediately afterwards, on advice from Chris, I headed to the True Metal stage to see THYRFING. All I'd heard was that they were "Viking Metal", leaving me no closer to knowing what they actually sounded like. And so they appeared, with the vocalist's face covered in blood and the rest of the band equally covered in mud. What followed was a set of marvellously stompy melodic SDM-meets-NWOBHM with a fair amount of twiddly keyboards over the top, which was hugely enjoyable. I now know the opening track, "Mjölner", as the one which convinced me to buy the "Urkraft" album, and "The Voyager" was dedicated to anyone who had travelled a long way to be at Wacken... "and I hope you don't end up like he did." Overall, a marvellous early-morning discovery. Later on, I found Bonzo outside the Wet Stage, who described Thyrfing as a slower version of Skyclad, and it's hard to disagree.
Next up were MALEVOLENT CREATION on the Black Stage. They come highly recommended by Baz, and recently delivered a storming set at No Mercy Fest, but today they didn't do it for me - their brand of Yank noise didn't hold up to- the all-conquering Scandinavian pillage-and-plunder-fest that had preceded them. Half way through the set, with many Germans beating the shit out of each other in the pit, I left for another wander round the Metal-Markt. I did catch a quick sample of TWISTED TOWER DIRE on the Party Stage, whose power metal was exactly what the third word of their name would suggest. Slightly later on, listening from the campsite, METALIUM suffered the same fate.
The next stop was my first proper visit to the Wet Stage. To this day, my only experience of CALLENISH CIRCLE had been one track off a Terrorizer CD that Stumpy had played at a previous Euro-Metal night. I knew it was good, but I was in no way prepared for exactly how good the set was going to be. Callenish Circle are Dutch, but the sound is pure Sweden - a hyper-energetic blend of SDM and fast thrash. When not trying to take pictures, I found myself indulging in the kind of jackhammer headbanging usually reserved for "Slaughter Of The Soul", even in the tropical heat created by the greenhouse-like marquee. There was also a Pestilence cover included for good measure. Every last second of Callenish Circle's set was utterly marvellous, they were serious contenders for band of the festival, and in my book they're more than worthy successors to the mighty At The Gates.
There wasn't much that could have followed that, so not being a huge Black Metal fan, I gave CARPATHIAN FOREST a wide berth. I did see some of their set from a long way off, and it did have as much of a nod in the direction of Venom that I'd been told. During their set, I managed to find Bonzo to get her opinion on Thyrfing (see earlier), and also randomly encountered Mulch drummer Pete Aplin... while wearing my Mulch t-shirt. He couldn't believe what he was seeing...
Another wanky power metal band passed by - MASTERPLAN. I've got another chance to see them at Bloodstock, but I doubt I will bother. The next band I saw was SOILWORK, mainly to convince myself whether or not they are any good - so far, even the presence of Saint Devin Townsend as producer on "Natural Born Chaos" has not won me over. And having seen this set, composed entirely of tracks from the last two albums (bar one), I'm now even less convinced. The set reminded me mainly of latter-day In Flames with the good bits taken out. Who knows, maybe the earlier stuff is better... but this was a huge disappointment.
So now to a decision: more clichéd German metal, courtesy of RAGE, or more Trøø NørdiikCOUGHbelgian Blak Metel with ANCIENT RITES? Unsurprisingly, given the number of times Chris has been playing "Dim Carcosa" at me recently, I chose Ancient Rites, playing the Wet Stage. Though the only one I recognised was the opener, "The Return", it certainly made me realise what I'd missed at Graspop a couple of years ago. And it certainly helps that Ancient Rites are far more listenable than the ooh-aren't-we-evil stylings of Suffolk's "finest", Cradle Of Filth. Very enjoyable, despite the still-scorching heat under the marquee.
DARK FUNERAL, on the Black Stage, were competing against KATAKLYSM on the Party Stage next, and not being massively interested in either, I headed back to the tent for a round of free roadside pasta with tomato cup-a-soup sauce and a couple of cans of Flensburger Pilsener. Having refuelled, the next choice was between the Finnish power metal wankery of STRATOVARIUS or the SDM attack of DARKANE. Unsurprisingly, Darkane won. As with their set at No Mercy Fest, their SDM-with-cleaner-vocals took a while to get me interested, but once I was I'd have preferred it not to stop... more furious headbanging followed, and better still, as it was getting dark, the heat in the marquee was starting to subside. Not quite in the same league as The Crown or Callenish Circle, but still very good. All good things must come to an end, however, and as Darkane blasted out their final chords, Stratovarius still had half an hour left. So I watched them wank their way through a couple of tracks, unfortunately "Hunting High And Low", the Euro-Metal favourite, had been and gone. I'm also annoyed that I missed the keyboard player dropping an essential part of his keyboard; Chris saw it, though, and he says the keyboardist was still trying to fix his equipment as a squiddly keyboard solo started... whereupon a hand emerged from under the keyboard and played the solo...
For 15 minutes after the end of Stratovarius' set, the only band playing was BREED 77, and if anyone can tell me what their brand of nu-metal is doing at Wacken, answers on a postcard to the usual address because I'm buggered if I know. Anyway, next on the Black Stage were NILE. I'd previously seen them at the former LA2, in attempt to like what they were doing. It didn't work then, as the way their entire set, even the between-track ramblings, were conducted in the ultra-death grrg-grrg style. And it didn't work today either. So there's no denying they research their Egyptian history - one look at the inside cover of "In Their Darkened Shrines" will tell you that... but (I'm probably going to get killed for this...) Nile bore me. It seems they're trying far too hard to be the most death metal band that ever existed, with more bass and less treble and lower growly voices and faster blastbeats and... the list goes on. The result is just boring. There isn't even any semblance of a riff, just very fast, seeingly random strings of low notes. And the fact that the frontman decided to talk "normally" to the crowd between tracks instead of growling his way through it, still couldn't do anything to overturn my view that Nile are just too death metal for their own good. Sweden should have nothing to fear.
Following Nile on the True Metal Stage... the band that everyone on the festival site, bar a few heathens who should burn at the stake, had come to see - who else but SLAYER. Do I really need to say anything? The set started rather predictably but improved: "Disciple" (good!), "Threshold" (bad! We're not in a crowd of youngsters!), "War Ensemble", "Mandatory Suicide", "The Antichrist", "God Send Death", "Stain Of Mind" (oh no...), "Hell Awaits" and "South Of Heaven". And then, what followed would have gone down in history as the greatest ever moment in rock, had they not just done the same thing at the Astoria: the whole of "Reign In Blood", in its entirety! "Angel Of Death", "Piece By Piece", "Necrophobic", "Altar Of Sacrifice", "Jesus Saves"... followed by a short break for "Dead Skin Mask", then the rest: "Criminally Insane", "Reborn", "Epidemic", "Postmortem", and the set closer, "Raining Blood". Fucking unbelievable. The crowd screamed long and loud for more, and, would you believe it, booed even louder when the roadies headed on stage to clear the equipment without an encore. Then again, I don't remember Slayer ever playing an encore... maybe they have done in Germany, who knows? Either way, I'm not inclined to complain, even if there was no "Chemical Warfare", and I hear the sound was shit from further back in the arena... and Tom Araya really should change his intro to "Dead Skin Mask"... OK, I'll shut up now.
And so, onto the final straight. Heading back to the campsite for a much-needed break after the hour and a half of metallic madness, the overall effect coming from the festival area was of VADER and SONATA ARCTICA battling it out for sonic supremacy. And it shouldn't take a rocket scientist to work out who won. Vader's loud Polish noise made such an excellent job of drowning out Sonata Arctica's power metal wankery that the only time the Finnish squiddlers could be heard was when Vader took a break between tracks. Better still, I couldn't hear a single note of the utterly abysmal "Letter To Dana..." And so, there remains one last band... a reprise of last year's riotous set from Germany's favourite angel-ripping metalhead, ONKEL TOM. Before the set kicked off we were shown a guitar shaped like the Wacken goat skull, which was to be raffled in the Metal-Markt the next day. From what I remember it was pretty much the same set of German beer drinking songs as last year, in a different order, and just as much, if not more, riotous behaviour from a few thousand drunk Germans singing along to every word. Annoyingly, no exposed tits this year, I was hoping to get a few photos... though I later found my camera had packed up at the end of Slayer's set, so no photos of the Wacken guitar, or the on-stage rampage, including an impromptu conga during "Es Gibt Kein Bier Auf Hawaii". Still, a fine way to wrap up a fine festival!
PART FIVE: THE WAY BACK
SUN-MON 03-04.08.2003
And on Sunday morning, in the blazing heat, with all our tents packed, and with Chris minus his only-just-stolen space blanket, we headed immediately for the exit and surged past all the crowds sitting there waiting for the shuttle bus, being fried alive by the near-midday sun. Ha! Filling up the tank just outside Itzehoe brought us another chance encounter with the Danes, who really should have been heading north! So throughout the trip, comments were made at regular intervals about Tommy still not finding his way out of Itzehoe, Hamburg, Moscow or wherever they'd got to by that point. Progress from then on was relatively smooth, only the scorching heat causing us to have to stop at every available chance was a minor inconvenience. Shortly before crossing the border into the Netherlands, a stop at a roadside car park brought us a chance encounter with a 50-something Dutch couple towing a glider on the back of their car. So we had a chance to watch the sun further sink below the horizon as Chris nattered to the gliding people for half an hour or so...
After driving right through the night, we reached Calais at 4am on Monday morning, more than 20 hours before our ferry was due to set sail. 17 quid was handed over and we took the 4:30am ferry instead... another misty crossing followed, though this time Phil was too knackered to think about throwing up. Much celebrations ensued as we headed back into Britatin, back to crap weather, proper tea and driving on the correct side of the road. There were further celebrations as Deathtank hit the neck-breaking speed of 70mph on the M20... unfortunately it was not to last as a lengthy stop outside Maidstone took us to 8am, and rising temperatures as the sun rose up to wreak its revenge on us. Fron then on, regular stops at the side of the M25 were followed by the return of the roundabout nightmare, dropping off Oli in Tring and Chris in Aston Clinton, then some nasty twisty back roads for a while before we finally found the M1. Bar a few more stops, it was plain sailing from there...
I finally arrived in Nottingham round about 4pm, and had my first shower in a week.
THE AWARDS
BAND OF THE FESTIVAL: Testament. *throws horns and gurns*
HONOURABLE MENTIONS: Slayer, Callenish Circle, The Crown, Thyrfing, the DJ on the first night playing "Spinning Jenny", Hallo Doner in Duisburg, and most of all Phil for driving 1800 miles there and back.
DISHONOURABLE MENTIONS: THE HEAT, Duck Toy, roundabouts in Hertfordshire, tunnels in Brussels, missing Saxon's surprise set, Spar's trolley guards, lost wheel nuts, space blanket thieves, £1.10 on the ferry for a blueberry muffin, my camera not taking pictures of Onkel Tom and the wonderful guitar.
BIGGEST SURPRISE: Thyrfing.
BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT: Soilwork.
CDS I BOUGHT AT THE METAL-MARKT:
- Callenish Circle - Flesh_Power_Dominion
- Entombed - Inferno
- In Flames - Colony
- In Flames - Lunar Strain & Subterranean
- Skyclad - Irrational Anthems
- Skyclad - Oui Avant Garde A Chance
- Skyclad - Folkémon
- Sodom - Agent Orange
- The Crown - Deathrace King
- Thyrfing - Urkraft
- Wacken Metal Overdrive DVD
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