You can go pretty far with this simulated-festival thing. Fan photos showed headbangers watching Wacken from canvas chairs on the beach, and pitching tents in their living rooms to tap that communal overnight vibe. Several of the bands rocked on soundstages with changeable greenscreen backdrops and digital pyrotechnics. The German countryside site was represented via fake helicoptered zooms highlighting a 50-foot armored gauntlet raised in a devil-horns salute. The "crowd" looked like 50,000 blank beach balls packed together, riding the digital waves and roaring their pre-recorded approval at appropriate moments. Midplague, metal met Major League Baseball at last. Where'd the fest get the money? Ads for Bitcasino.
The sound shook the walls clear & strong on my nonvirtual speakers; impeccable German camerawork did justice to the flatscreen. Horizontally, I got into it -- maybe too much, to hear the neighbors' complaints. When the guitarist from Rage yelled "More beer!" I hurled a cup of Helles lager at my Mac, an unnecessary act of spontaneity. Then I had to watch the rest of the fest on my phone, the way the kids do everything now. No problem, you just have to hold the screen real close to your eyes.
Somewhere in the mix, I found a Wacken replay of Motorhead performing "Killed by Death," with a weakened Lemmy Kilmister plainly nearing his own 2015 demise. Seems like the theme song for our times, though it came out in . . . 1984.
Some fest highlights.
In Extremo. Twin bagpipes blazing, these Berliners made quite an impression with their anthemic/melodic folk-metal. Middle-aged, short-haired frontman "The Last Unicorn" stripped off his '70s Vegas spread-collared shirt to reveal a shark-tooth necklace and tatted biceps. The wildly smiling drummer looked as if he was im Himmel. Unsecret weapon: "Der Doktor," a huge bald dude shaped like Earth, wearing pagan attack gear and playing lute, flute and war drums. As with most Wacken bands, my college German (thankfully) did not permit absorption of more than every fourth word. Gross! (In the positive Deutsch sense.)
Rage. Batcave backdrop. Nagging crow noises. Then came Rage, veteran Westphalians fronted by another enormous guy with a beard and pointy shoulder pads. Melodic power metal, twin-guitar twiddle -- these entertaining bruisers even cranked up some heavy boogie like "Load"-era Metallica.
Sabaton. Maybe the fest's biggest headliner, this folk-metal quintet pounded simple anthems and twirled drumsticks with requisite martial grandeur. But the Swedes came off flabbier than their studio records, maybe because when a metal band pogos, it looks even worse without thousands of drunks hopping along.
Blind Guardian. Video setup: Dead soldiers lying on a medieval battlefield rose to fight again. So why did singer Hansi Kürsch look like an insurance agent sipping happy-hour margaritas at El Torito? He called the long-running Krefelders' music speed metal; some have called it prog; I called witchy-haired André Olbrich a damn good guitarist with an extensive repertoire of interesting scales.
Hämatom. From Franconia, these chug & chant metalmen in funny makeup and masks Kept It Simple and flag-wavingly visual, while sporting good titles such as "We Are Not a Band" and "F*ck Corona." Favorite moment: The singer made a long speech, in the middle of which the lead guitarist hit a quick chord, turned around and stomped away in disgust. Probably likes Ace Frehley.
Beyond the Black. The best things about these Mannheim recentcomers were their virtual backdrops (beginning with an oddly inappropriate warehouse interior) and the spiderwebbed shoulders of their leather-fox female singer. The worst things were her competent but colorless voice and the band's empty bombast.
Heaven Shall Burn. Can't watch a short-haired metal singer in a bowling shirt.
Body Count. After 30 years with his metal band, Ice-T still had something new to report about the continuing state of the streets for African-Americans. Live from the Whisky sans crowd, Body Count began with a pointed Civil War backdrop and followed that relevant carnage with Slayer's "Reign in Blood." Blistering contemporary attacks on police and discrimination included "Point the Finger" and "No Lives Matter" -- plus, lest we forget 1990, "Cop Killer." Lefty guitarist Ernie C shredded on the wah; T spat contempt with vintage authority. Never more potent, Body Count was one of the few Wacken bands with any black faces, and one of the few that did not glorify European swordfights of yore -- a theme that one could interpret as nostalgia for a powerful Aryan past. Vatch it, Wacken. Vatch it, Welt.
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Access Wacken performances from this year and past years here.