Wacken round 1

We really didn't know what to expect as we yesterday drove the van into the vip area of Wacken open air - the biggest heavy metal festival in the world. The only thing we were pretty sure of was that the audience would experience something they hadn't seen before.

The Wacken 2014 poster with bands like Slayer, Megadeth, Motörhead, Apocalyptica, Children of Bodom and Fork.

The festival is in the middle of nowhere on a field. Last year it had been raining all festival so the place was one big mud pool. This year it is dry which means the air is thick of dust and it sticks to everything. Your ears, mouth, nose, eyes, clothes, microphones, sound desk, shoes, you name it. The festival has around 80 000 visitors and on this pre-festival day the place was already packed. And everybody seemed to be happy to be here.

The arrangements and security around a festival this big are enormous. Everything seemed to be working very smoothly, we got our festival passes and were shown to our backstage.

 The catering was great and neat! Chili con carne with a salad. So heavy metalish.

There was a Jägermeister cask. A little bit more heavy metal.

In our backstage tent there was this sign on the wall: Wacken says no to the wall of death. We agree totally!
There was of course no time for a soundcheck so we did a short line check behind the stage. Or at least we tried to do, while another band was performing. There are no breaks in the line up, band after band goes on and after spending some hours on the festival area you can't remember what silence sounds like. I have a feeling that the decibel of the festival wouldn't be accepted by the Finnish law…

Getting in the mood!
Our gig wasn't until midnight so we had some time to see other bands. Great stuff!

The festival tent at night.

Here we are on stage. Tobias was doing a great light show and Greg had been working for five hours with headphones on to get our sound right! They are the best!! And we had a great time -  sweaty, dusty, loud but good time!

Today we are performing at 17.30 - looking forward!
And tomorrow we are going home.
Deutschland - it has been fantastic once again. See you soon!