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Witnessed
Wacken Open Air 2010, Germany: Day 3
10/09/10 || Altmer
Who: A fuckload of bands.
Where: Wacken, Germany.
When: August 7, 2010.
The last day of Wacken. The last day of the Heavy Metal Mecca (with bad organising skills). The last day of witnessed reports. The day of exhaustion. The day you really don’t feel like doing much but sitting in the grass, munching some food, and watching some good music. This is of course exactly what I did. It was not as hectic as the previous day, and thankfully – pity some of the bands sucked more cock than 50 homo’s at their common friend’s bachelor party (because where I live, gays get married like real men do!). But as a reviewer, I shall drudge through ye olden bores to get to the gold.
Unleashed was first for me today. I’ve seen ‘em before, at Paganfest no less (they looked massively out of whack there, but they were all right), but a second revisit of their music reveals that, uh, this doesn’t get my penis erect. That is how it is. I… sort of dig Unleashed, but during a hot summer day where I’m tired and fuzzy and don’t really care about death metal… no thanks. They are all fine of course, they were the first time around. But after five songs, I had enough of it. Just because I zoned out on their music and would rather play with grass. And that’s just not good. Also, the loud sound didn’t help matters. Unleashed score a 5.
Delain was next after that. I may add this was not by choice, but by the sheer unavailability of anything good, so I preferred watching boobs. Unfortunately Delain suck and we already knew this. Catchy femme-metal deluxe with hooks aplenty, fuckloads of sugar/semen and Charlotte in a mini-skirt – I think the world knows what time it is. Time to read Hello Kitty to your four year old cousin, since that’s the musical intelligence of this stuff. The songs are decently catchy though, so if you are into that kind of thing, they don’t put on a bad show or anything. I am bored to insanity with it and I hope I don’t have to watch this nonsense again. But if you’re Lord K, then all is forgiven. You are allowed to see this. 4
Next up were Faroese metallers Tyr, I think – maybe I am mixing that stuff up with the next band. But I don’t think I am. Tyr play folk metal – but without any folk instruments. They just use guitar melodies that sound vaguely folkish. Thank fuck, because it decreases the cheese-factor by about 60%. I actually like where these guys are coming from, musically – sort of like a Dream Theater take on Nordland era Bathory – but it lacks the interesting songs. This means that even though the band should be good, I just don’t dig it. Nice try, though – I hope they end up perfecting their songwriting skills, that’d make this a pretty good band. 5
Edguy makes my brain split in two. One half says: this is gay as fuck. The other half says but it’s catchy and I like it!. The gay part won in my mind – they actually played “Save Me”. If you don’t know what that sounds like – take the entire annual cheese production of Switzerland, douse it in a billion gallons of combined monkey and turtle semen, and add a hundred simultaneous gangbanging Freddie Mercuries joined by another hundred Gaahls and Rob Halfords in a tub full of aforementioned mixture. That’s about how gay it is. Holy shit that is one gay song. When they stick to their old stuff they are listenable and I nod my head sometimes, but when they veer into their 80’s infused gayness – stay far away from this shit. Far, far away. 4
Candlemass rather saved the day for me. After a day full of bands which give the word “meh” an entirely new meaning, I needed something old-school and good to perk me up. Candlemass provided me with this. The “mysterious” Rob Lowe works very well on stage with the brooding music of the band, some of the faster tunes that have more rock and groove pleasantly vary the tempo of the gig, and basically, they all around plain rule. Plus Mappe wasn’t there, so our own J was filling in – and he did an excellent job bringing all those old Candlemass classics to life. A highlight was new song “If I Ever Die”, and of course we can’t forget the good old songs like “Mirror Mirror” and “Solitude”. I was never a big fan of the ‘Mass on CD, but this gig has motivated me to remind myself I must get more Candlemass in the future. Good fucken shit! 9
Setlist as follows:
Marche Funebre
Mirror Mirror
Dark are the Veils of Death
Samarithan
If I Ever Die
Hammer of Doom
Emperor of the Void
At the Gallows End
Bleeding Baroness
Solitude
Tiamat were the last band up for review. I was completely exhausted by now, and it had started to rain again – never a good sign, but it worked for me. In the haze of exhaustion, one or two beers, and the trickling drizzle, the darkness of the night suited Tiamat, who had conveniently decided to play all of “Wildhoney” in its entirety. They also had a weird backdrop with psychedelic images floating and changing with the lighting. The band even extended a lot of the psychedelic sections – basically, if you smoke weed, you should have been there. It was depressing and relaxing at the same time. The excellent mood that it set means I will probably remember this gig for a long time to come – perfect stoner music. Amazing. They definitely closed my festival on a high note and and left me with a satisfied feeling. The highlight? “Do you dream of me?”. That song is so amazing when you feel like falling asleep. The perfect timing.9
Setlist as follows:
Wildhoney
Whatever That Hurts
The Ar
25th Floor
Gaia
Visionaire
Kaleidoscope
Do You Dream of Me?
Planets
A Pocket Size Sun
(makes sense since they only played “Wildhoney” songs, and basically extended the jam sections to complete the hour-long set).
This was perhaps the least interesting day in terms of bands, but it was the most interesting day in terms of closing sets: Candlemass and Tiamat both showed how doom metal is done right, and the rest shows how melodic metal is done wrong (apart from Unleashed, that is). If you want to peruse the previous two days, however:
