OK, beforehand the website somehow scared me away but after Ax ‘N Sex I did not feel like walking over to the Wackinger Stage so that I thought: “Let’s take a look what this will be like. If I do not like it I will still be in the position to leave/p>
After I took it easy on Wednesday it finally was the time in the evening where I went to see the second band of this year’s Wacken Open Air at the large tent. In this case it was something special as Ax ‘n Sex from Kiel were already there on stage at the very first Wacken in 1990 playing only in front of a few hundred people.
To warm up I went to the tent to watch the South-African Metal-Battle winner. The five guys from Johannisburg took the long way to Schleswig-Holstein upon themselves and were now presenting their music.
After a short break for preparing the stage which I used for moving from the upper tier into the infield to be closer to the stage the intro movie began right on time at 21:00 after that the first chords of "Let Us Burn" were intonated. To that sounds the members of Within Temptation came onto the stage to really display the fireworks during the upcoming two hours.
Todays concerts of Delain and Within Temptation should be the last ones of Within Temptation's European tour to their current album "Hydra". For me it was only unpleasant that the beginning of the concert was preponed by one hour (on my tickets there was written that the opening of the doors would be 19:30). But that had one big advantage: I did not need to wait at the doors. Despite that I did not have the time to get some drinks before the show of Delain began and the venue was already completely filled (not very ususal that this is the case already when the support act starts playing).
The concert of Epica was announced as record release show of their latest album "The Quantum Enigma" an so they opened the show at nearly 20:45 in front of a sold out venue with the intro "Originum". This was followed by further five tracks of their new album which were very energetic (like the fast "The Essence Of Silence") and was shining with an appropriate support by fire and fog effects.
Towards 19:30 the guys of Insomnium entered the stage and opened the evening with "The Primeval Dark" of their recently released CD "Shadows Of The Dying Sun". With their epic melodic death metal they tried to enthuse the audience for them what was more or less successful (the 013 was not yet completely filled).
After a short break for modifying the stage the so called Monument Ensemble entered the stage at 22:00 and began with a furious intro. Some candlestands and a chandelier, nothing else was on stage what could distract from the artists and the music. The intro slowly faded over into "Nachtbringer" and under great cheer the singer Chris Pohl came onto the stage. Later he was supported by singer Ulrike Goldmann respectively she additionally had a solo part later on.
I was somehow a littly bit confused when arriving at the Turbinenhalle because of finding a queue reaching across the whole parking lot. This may have something to do with the irritating information printed onto the tickets. All owners of an original Blutengel ticket had written there that the doors would be opened at 19:00 and the concert will begin at 20:00. Meanwhile this had changed which could only be found on reseller tickets like from Eventim or at the internet. Right on time at 19:30 the doors were opened and slowly the crowd started moving.
At the end just like two years ago the German middle ages band Subway To Sally played. Even when the numbers were dwindling due to several people alread starting their trip home or going to their tents.