After starting with punk let's do a one-eighty over to pure trash metal. The guys of Sacred Reich are really old hands of that style as the band was already founded in 1985. In 2000 they actually dissolved but already in 2007 and another time this year they reunited for some concerts.
The first band of the day, the sun is shining, atmoshere is great, so is there anything you could want more? Betontod is a combo from Rheinberg that opened the morning with proper punk.
I already wanted to see the Danes of Volbeat live for a long time and today it finally should be ready. The area in front of the two main stages was densely packed and people were standing allover the place until the entrances. Very impressive, I have to admit. And then the band tarried. There was a huge Volbeat banner covering the stage and to the sounds of a long intro the lightshow started until finally the stage was released and with "The Human Instrument" the show decently got started.
For many years Saxon are already regular guests on Wacken Open Air and also this year there should again be a gig of them to marvel at. Biff and his guys are not getting younger though you cannot see that when they are on stage. Although I am not able to fully compare this gig to the one at the Metropool at Hengelo I have to say that they were in a way better mood than to that time.
As I had nothing better on my list I went in the early evening to Amaranthe. The Danish / Swedish combo played comparable to Dead By April relatively pop like metal with three singers: Andy Sovestrom for grunts whereas Jake E and Elize Ryd alternate with one another on clean sung parts.
The German power metal band Winterstorm got via the Metal Masters election to their gig at Wacken and were now able to prove their skills.
What entered the stage that early in the afternoon was a somehow unusual septet. The Danish band Kellermensch was on the one hand an ordinary rock band line-up which was added by a contrabass, violin and organ. With their progressive rock the very charismatic singer Christian Sindermann and his co-singer Sebastian Wolff were able within minutes to cast a spell over the people in front of the stage.
Traditionally of course together with my Belgium friends we went to their Metal Battle participant. This year it was the death metal band Exuviated. Normally not fully that what I like and also in front of the stage there were not so much people (that was the day before and also during the directly before playing Dead By April completely different). Anyhow on and in front of the stage everybody was giving everything one's got.
Dead By April are coming from Sweden and served fare that is not to every metal fan's liking made out of metal core with pop hooklines. Nevertheless the tent was very good filled during the afternoon and the mainly younger female audience was heating up the atmosphere just as much as the guys on stage.
Whilst Zandro Santiago was responsible for the growl and scream parts, Jimmie Strimmel could score with his extremely good clean voice.
As Norwegian representant the men of Faanefjell entered the stage on Thursday noon. It was a somehow bizarre view: The guys on strings wearing Norwegian sweaters and the singer only dressed with medieval trousers but instead veeeryyy maascuuline :-).