Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Rieden-Kreuth / Germany
Concert date: August 29, 2009
Attendance: 6,000
Ticket price: €80.00
The third day of Wacken Rocks South served up a weaker lineup than day two, which wrapped up with the big old masters of thrash metal, Slayer. Still, with names like Edguy, Stratovarius, Grave Digger, Girlschool… a person can only sit there grinning. Especially if home is far from those corners of Europe that are sprinkled with great rock or metal gigs every single day. And that sprinkling, of course, goes for all of Germany!
It’s precisely because gigs keep rolling in right on their own doorstep that Germans treat bands like Edguy, Stratovarius, Grave Digger and Girlschool like the air they breathe, so plenty of people didn’t have big illusions about the third day. Slayer’s set on day two was the definite peak of the festival, the winner of the whole thing, and many visitors decided the third day just wasn’t interesting enough anymore, so they hit the road and slowly trickled out of the festival as the day went on.
| AGATHODAIMON: 12.35-13.20 |
We turned up at the main stage around one in the afternoon. German black metallers Agathodaimon were just sinking their teeth into the final 20 minutes of their set. The getup was just as it should be: sado-maso leather, studs, the obligatory corpse paint on their faces. Barely 400 curious souls in front of the stage. The weather was clear but not scorching, so you could breathe normally even in the sun. The band, who aptly named their new album from this spring “Phoenix”, which fits with the big upheavals and alleged lineup changes, now consists of Sathonys (guitar, clean vocals), Jan Jansohn (guitar), Felix Ü. Walzer (keyboards), Till Ottiger (bass), newcomer Manuel Steitz (drums) and singer Ashtrael. It was especially interesting to hear how Ashtrael clicked with the rest of the crew, above all in the interplay with Sathonys’ clean vocals. Even in broad daylight, Agathodaimon proved they can paint the clearest, sunniest day in its blackest shade, seasoned with their own take on black metal. A six-piece, pompously melodic and extreme metal assault with the songs Cellos For The Insatiable, Ne Cheama Pamintul, Ghost Of A Soul, Tongue of Thorns, An Angel’s Funeral, Banner of Blasphemy, Alone In The Dark. The symphonic black metal odyssey really caught fire in the closing stretch, when the guys tackled Banner Of Blasphemy from the cult debut “Blacken The Angel” (1998) and ended the set with a brand-new song, Alone In The Dark.
| THE NEW BLACK: 13.55-14.40 |
The New Black are German again. They were originally supposed to play before Agathodaimon, but a twist of circumstances got the two bands to swap slots. These guys play a mourning-draped brand of rock, marked by a massive wall of sound from down-tuned guitars, with the singer’s trademark raspy, embellished falsetto laid over the top. We skipped this less interesting set.
| DEZPERADOZ: 15.15-16.00 |
Back at the stage after Dezperadoz showed up on it. Another German band. These lovers of desert dunes and prairie, these cactus collectors, like to stage a gunslinger showdown at the O.K. Corral. So there are four guys up there, richly tattooed, thoroughly draped in jangling chains, singer Alex with a repeating rifle strapped to his mic stand and the bassist with a cow skull. A polished look, which is a hugely important element and gives any band extra credibility on top of its creativity. Still, Dezperadoz couldn’t stir up as much excitement as the arrogant rock n’ rollers 9mm the day before on the Wet Stage. Mostly because of the less charismatic vocals of Alex, who also can’t boast the kind of charisma a leader of a band peddling dirty Southern-flavored rock would need. The band of course included the song O.K. Corral in the set, and took on a (pretty worn-out) cover of The Doors, Riders On The Storm. A much, much more static and less interesting set than that of their successors Warpath, but with more people in front of the stage, since as Germans, Dezperadoz naturally have more sympathizers on home turf. But with all that decorative western “poison,” you’d have expected a lot more bite and a lot fewer compromises.
| WARPATH: 16.45-17.45 |
Then the young rosy-cheeked Warpath took over the main stage. Coming from the United Kingdom, they brought along an approach that combines old-school thrash metal elements of Megadeth, Testament, Forbidden! Finally! Still with a baby tooth or two, but convincing in plenty of ways. Their look isn’t some foreign imitation of a Dave Mustaine in ripped jeans, which isn’t usual in the metal genre anyway. With his blond mane, the singer and rhythm guitarist Richard Goss, on a swallowtail-shaped guitar, reminded you of that hero most of all. The band is very young, which showed in a less polished set, some unnecessary and superfluous stage moves and wandering around, giving the impression that the band isn’t exactly used to big stages. Still, they grinned on purpose and played their own material in a way that confirmed they’re having the time of their lives up there. About 300 people in front of the stage, and Goss addressed the crowd shyly and not exactly confidently. The band’s inexperience showed most when they tried to leave the stage twice, only to come back with the news that they still had some time, and the “overly honest” question of whether the crowd even wanted them to keep playing. Warpath have a fresh debut out, “Warpath”. It holds material for less than 40 minutes. The band played all eight songs at the show, so the entire record live, and repeated the superiorly fast, rowdy Damnation once more as an encore. Warpath showed they know how to build a song, how to put a riff front and center, back it up with an ultra dangerous undercarriage of double bass drum rolling, and that they have a big, big creative fire. A young and highly talented quartet we’ll surely be hearing much more from in the future. Thrash revitalism, but in a different sphere, if you want to compare them to, say, their British brothers Evile.
| CRIPPER: 17.50.18.25 |
Shortly before half past five in the afternoon, German death/thrash metallers Cripper took the Wet Stage in the hall. We were interested mostly because of singer Britta. The biggest shock was that the band actually builds its identity on old-school German thrash riffs wrapped in Britta’s growling. It reminded us most of the vocal chops of Holy Moses singer Sabina Klassen. Britta is a stage “grubby girl” who stirs up spirits like crazy when you watch her perform. She doesn’t hold back much, and so she quickly tears down the supposed barrier that extreme vocals just don’t suit women. The girl held her own with the growl style with total confidence! Cripper had just released their second studio album, “Devil Reveals”, which they presented to a thinned-out but in very good spirits crowd, in which the front rows headbanged properly around their spinal axes. An excellent band with an old-school Kreator, Destruction riff foundation and the confident onslaught of Britta’s extreme vocals, worth every bit of the try!
| GIRLSCHOOL: 18.30-19.30 |
Girlschool, the legendary British outfit, a quartet of gals, “mature” gals by today’s standards, made up of Enid Williams (bass, vocals), Kim McAuliffe (rhythm guitar, vocals), Denise Dufort (drums), close collaborators since 1978, and, in place of the (late) Kelly Johnson, who last year lost a six-year battle with spinal cancer, permanent guitarist Jackie Chambers, on board since 2000, were of course a special attraction of Wacken Rocks South. Old school, an authentic pioneering approach from the days when rock n’ roll was still young. They kicked off the show with a drum intro from Denise, who wore a peaked cap and sunglasses and peeked out from behind her kit like a little turtle from its shell. The afternoon sun hit the front few meters of the stage during Girlschool’s set, so even Jackie Chambers wasn’t shy about wearing shades. Girlschool built most of their set from their first two records, “Demolition” and “Hit And Run”, which count as cult classics. No joking, they fired off their hellish rock n’ roll, with the famous single-chord but hugely invasive and subcutaneously seductive riffs, the way they were made in the best rock days. Of the four, bassist Enid impressed the most, and the songs work even better with her on vocals than when Kim handles lead. The gals hid their years successfully with the familiar aids found in every well-stocked drugstore and crowned their stage presence with a great-looking outfit. Enid took the outright victory here, a meticulously turned-out leather filly who eagerly kneaded her five-string bass and ran the longest mileage of all three guitarists on stage. The band delighted with an energetic set that included the classics Future Flash, C’mon Let’s Go, Not For Sale, Hit And Run, Coming At You, I Spy, Race With The Devil, Demolition Boys. The only minus was that Emergency was missing. During Demolition Boys the curtains behind Denise went up and the roadies started setting up the stage for Grave Digger. Was there really no time left for Emergency? That will remain an enigma. The way a legendary band was shoved off the stage by organizers obsessed with sticking to the schedule down to the minute does not exactly befit the reputation of what are traditionally the best venues for rock and metal festivals in Europe!
| GRAVE DIGGER: 20.25-21.25 |
The main stage was slowly starting to wrap itself in darkness. A little past eight in the evening, Teutonic heavy metal lumberjacks Grave Digger took it. We had the honor of catching this band on their February tour, when they also played Ljubljana and then Zagreb the day after. They’re 100% oddballs on the European heavy metal scene and their show is always worth a listen. For the first time ever, I also got to see keyboardist H.P. Katzenburg, traditionally dressed as the Grim Reaper, for the whole show. Until now he’d always been hidden somewhere behind monitor boxes at Grave Digger gigs. The other noteworthy oddity was that the band had dismissed guitarist Thilo Hermann, who was part of the band in 2008 and through the end of the 2009 “Ballads Of A Hangman” tour. Though everything looked convincing and even strengthened Grave Digger’s stage presence, something was clearly creaking in the band, and the real reason for Thilo’s dismissal is known only to boss Chris Boltendhal. The band hit with the title track of the new album, “Ballads Of A Hangman”. Nothing special, Grave Digger came, saw and took the stage throne. Chris was in great spirits, and by talking to the crowd often he thoroughly shook them out of the numbness caused by the fierce and abnormal evening cold for this time of year. The classic Excalibur especially pulled a good crowd out of its sleep in front of the stage, and Grave Digger also delighted by including the gem Wedding Day from “Reaper” (1993). It was a pleasure once again to watch Manni Schmidt, who fascinated yet again with how much sonic space a single guitar can fill in heavy metal. Boltendhal had a great day. He sang even the hardest parts of his lines without major trouble, especially the chorus of the cult, obligatory classic Knights Of The Cross. After that song came a festive moment, when Chris announced the birthday boy of August 29, 2009, the band’s drummer Stefan Arnold, who on the day of the band’s show at Wacken Rocks South added one more year to his tally, and the crowd, together with the band, accompanied by keyboards, sang Stefan a birthday toast. As expected, Grave Digger finished their latest excellent show with a classic from the self-titled debut, “Heavy Metal Breakdown”, which they routinely stretched into a classic metal exit from the show. That was exactly the moment when the get-together with Grave Digger reached its spectacular finale.
| FATAL SMILE: 21.20-21.55 |
After Grave Digger, I bolted like a madman to the hall where the Wet Stage stood, because fantastic Swedish hard rockers from Stockholm, Fatal Smile, were already strumming away on it. These guys were supposed to play in Cerknica, Slovenia this March too, as the opening act for Finland’s Lordi. But their show got canceled. Why? You’re asking too much, I don’t know! Anyway, this was my chance to make up for the miss. And I had plenty to see. It’s a ride through the fundamentals of sleaze rock. An admiral’s jacket on singer “Blade”, a thick curly blond mane, plenty of makeup around the eyes, unmatched showmanship, with shameless left-and-right hip thrusts. This singer is an exceptional new addition to the band, which also features guitarist “Y”, drummer “Zteff” and bassist “Alx”. Swinging the mic stand high in the air, inherited from Europe singer Joey Tempest, outstanding gesticulation and witty banter with the crowd in English. The rather cold and absent Germans still managed to pull a bold surprise on the band. Right in the front row stood a couple dressed up as members of Kiss. The man wore a full Gene Simmons outfit from head to toe, and the woman a Paul Stanley getup. You die laughing when you see it. The fake Gene stood motionless through the show, staring at the stage and only now and then stuck out his tongue, like his original. The things people do! And thank goodness they do. Rock n’ roll is basically, from head to toe, meant as a joke and a party first, and only then comes everything else. Fatal Smile are an excellently tight quartet with outstanding vocals, outstanding charisma, outstanding stage play. They belong to the circle of new-wave Scandinavian hard rock bands like H.E.A.T., Wig-Wam, Chrash Diet, Hardcore Superstar,… Maybe you caught the band this June before Queensryche in Munich. The band fired off a few songs from the new album “World Domination”, like S.O.B., with which they ended the show, plus Run For Your Life and Out Of My Head, and from the album “Neo Natural Freaks” Learn-Love-Hate, Crash & Burn, and they especially surprised with a performance of Hip M.F., which came out as their first single, even before any studio album. One of the few real moments in which true sleaze hard rockers got to enjoy themselves at this year’s Wacken Rocks South. A fantastic performance by the band, with a heavy erotic charge! Bite the bullet!
| STRATOVARIUS: 22.10-23.25 |
Stratovarius is the band with the big comeback to the scene, and personally it stirred up the most questions in me about how new guitarist Matias Kupiainen would fill the giant shoes of former guitarist Timo Tolkki. Stratovarius released a new album, “Polaris”, this May, which left me with mixed feelings. There are a few interesting songs, especially the first three, and a few watered-down clichés that too much recall what the band has already said. The band had the wind in its sails, and the seasoned stallions led by singer Timo Kotipelto, drummer Joerg Michael and keyboardist Jens Johanson know that after the apocalypse with Timo Tolkki and the band’s resurrection, they need to win fans and the crowd back over to their side. To point out that you’re alive again and kicking around harder than ever before. And that’s how they built the set! From the classics. First they surprised everyone in front of the stage by opening with the mini epic suite Destiny. The opener alone answered all the questions and speculation. Matias works great in the lineup. He’s a damn fast, hair-splittingly precise, neo-classically schooled guitarist who successfully walks in Timo Tolkki’s hard-to-follow footsteps. Besides the bravura soloing, he further confirmed the well-known occasional cross-fire of solos between Jens’ keyboards and Matias’ guitar, which is one of the band’s trademarks from the most important Tolkki-era times. And Kotipelto? In excellent vocal form. Not a bit of his voice has frayed over the years of singing. In his characteristic stage manner he confidently commanded the quintet throughout and kept the crowd in front of the stage close. For many, Stratovarius were the peak of the day, as the number of visitors from other countries swelled, especially in the front rows. A Slovak flag was hung on the front-row barrier, for instance, and you could also spot a few Asian visitors who particularly appreciate European symphonic melodicism (from the Deep Purple days upward, of course) in rock and metal music. Stratovarius truly fascinated with the setlist, where the obligatory classics Speed Of Light, Kiss Of Judas, Visions, Hunting High And Low,… weren’t missing. The band ran into a similar mishap as Girlschool before them. At the end of the show, as the band was playing the evergreen of their career, Black Diamond, which absolutely can’t be missing from a Stratovarius set, the techs once again raised the backdrop curtain behind drummer Joerg Michael and were already tearing down the set. So the band barely finished that song and didn’t even have time to properly say goodbye to the crowd of some 4,000 visitors, to whom they’d shown themselves in a really strong light. The guys are heading off on a world tour, first covering all the overseas continents and then returning to the old continent in 2010. Stratovarius, even without Tolkki in the lineup, keep all their well-known charm on stage!
| EDGUY: 00.20-01.35 |
And to close the festival, here come Edguy! Just three years ago at the 2006 Gods Of Metal festival, the schedule dictated that Edguy went on first and then, somewhere higher up the bill, Stratovarius. But times change. Edguy are an extremely popular and respected heavy metal band that has been writing music with a strong taste of melodic hard rock for most of the last decade. The lineup of Tobias Sammet (vocals), Jens Ludwig (lead guitar), Dirk Sauer (rhythm guitar), Tobias “Eggi” Exxel (bass) and Felix Bohnke (drums) has been working together for a good ten years. This well-oiled machine is occasionally forced into priority negotiations over musical priorities whenever Tobias fires up his side project Avantasia. Edguy, who had an hour and twenty minutes to play, immediately set about reviving the album “Tinnitus Sanctus” (2008), through the sequence Dead Or Rock and Speedhoven. It’s interesting to watch how the members are positioned. On the far right as you look at the stage stands lone lead guitarist Jens Ludwig, and on the opposite side, right next to each other, bassist Tobias Exxel and rhythm guitarist Dirk Sauer. That frees up an enormous amount of space for the incredibly lively stage imp, singer Tobias Sammet, who runs around with his wireless mic for most of the show. What’s more. The band moved the front monitors back from the edge of the stage at least two meters, so Sammet could run freely from one end to the other right in front of the crowd. In fact, the dynamics and liveliness of an Edguy show depend almost entirely on Sammet’s mood that day. Despite the biting cold that had numbed the crowd, Tobias with his warm sense of humor thawed every last bit of ice and kept people in a great mood through the entire set. Genuine, unpretentious communication between crowd and singer is one of Edguy’s most important trademarks, and it tells us right away why this band is so popular. Between the songs from the new album, Edguy slipped in highlights from older albums, especially Vain Glory Opera, Babylon and Tears Of A Mandrake, and a special moment of the show came when the band, together with the crowd, sang a toast to guitarist Jens for his 32nd birthday. So, rewinding quickly, on the last day of the festival we had two birthday boys (the other being Stefan Arnold, Grave Digger’s drummer).
Tobias Sammet used a few breaks for some blistering jabs. He definitely wasn’t happy with the crowd’s relative reserve. When he asked how many of us knew the band’s new album, the crowd gave a very pale answer. Tobias couldn’t help but admit that there were nothing but Slayer fans in front of the stage. He quickly came up with a lifeline and pointed at Sauer, saying that Edguy have their own Kerry King too (Sauer is known for his high forehead), and at the same time took a dig at his own increasingly wilting hairline, saying he’d catch up with King in a couple of years. With addresses like these, Tobias truly helped the crowd get through the unbearable cold of that concert night. At one point he asked if there were any girls in the audience. Again, a limp response. Tobias didn’t sweetly dedicate one of the songs to the girls, he just snarked: “No wonder heavy metal is going down the drain!”
Edguy rightfully got the role of festival headliners, even though they’re a mid-sized band that could easily have been followed on stage by the bands that shaped the look of the eighties, like Scorpions, Quennsryche, Def Leppard, etc… The organizer obviously decided to be more careful with financial investments this year, organizing Wacken Rocks South. The band showed up in outstanding form and promised we’d meet again next year. Edguy got through the first part of the Tinnitus Sanctus tour in January this year, a visit to North America follows in September, and they return to European stages in December 2009. If fortune smiles on us, there’s no reason they wouldn’t visit again!
As soon as Edguy finished the obligatory encore with the song King Of Fools, security started shooing the crowd away from the stage. The festival went dark. Most of the stalls were already closed, and the last ones were wrapping up too. The area with the official merch of the performing bands had long since been carefully tidied up. The partying carried on in the hall and on the “wet” stage, but we, pretty worn out by nature, pointed our signposts toward the tent and the sleeping bags. Tomorrow a long road to Slovenia awaits us.
And so the real festival season of concert performances for 2009 came to a close. Full of positive vibes, feelings and recharged batteries, the experience in Rieden-Kreuth confirmed that the German nation breathes and lives rock/metal culture, because it values and respects music and bands. From international to local acts. True, the number of 8,000 visitors doesn’t say much, but by tradition Germans know the rules of the game, the rules of behavior. They respect the boundaries that apply to everyone. When they drink, they drink as much as they can, but they still keep a healthy limit that tells them to step away when they’ve had enough and not do stupid things, which is more the specialty of Slovenian metalheads and rockers. Slovenia can only learn from experiences like these and will go on learning for a long time. We’re simply a different nation, one that never had these elements of rock and metal culture in its blood. If we ever catch them, great, and if not, we, a handful of Slovenian music fanatics, will gladly keep visiting and enjoying other European festivals.
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist
PERFORMERS: MAIN STAGE 11:15 – 12:00 BELOVED ENEMY 12:35 – 13:20 AGATHODAIMON 13:55 – 14:40 THE NEW BLACK 15:15 – 16:00 DEZPERADOZ 16:45 – 17:45 WARPATH 18:30 – 19:30 GIRLSCHOOL 20:25 – 21:25 GRAVE DIGGER 22:10 – 23:25 STRATOVARIUS 00:20 – 01:35 EDGUY WET STAGE 10:45 – 11:10 TRIBE 12:05 – 12:30 PUSSY SISTER 13:25 – 13:50 HÄMATOM 14:45 – 15:10 EMERGENCY GATE 16:05 – 16:40 GRAND MASSIVE 17:50 – 18:25 CRIPPER 19:35 – 20:10 FIVE AND THE RED ONE 21:20 – 22:55 FATAL SMILE 23:20 – 23:55 FEUERSCHWANZ 01:20 – 01:50 DEFY THE LAWS OF TRADITION 02:10 – 2:40 ELA 03:00 – 3:30 BULLET MONKS GRAVE DIGGER setlist: 1. The Gallows Pole (intro) 2. Ballads Of A Hangman 3. Excalibur 4. Hell Of Disillusion 5. Wedding Day 6. In The Dark Of The Sun 7. Knights Of The Cross 8. The Roundtable 9. Valhalla 10. The Last Supper 11. Rebellion (The Clans Are Marching) 12. Heavy Metal Breakdown STRATOVARIUS setlist: 1. Destiny 2. Hunting High And Low 3. Kiss Of Judas 4. Deep Unknown 5. Million Light Years Away 6. Will The Sun Rise 7. Winter Skies 8. Phoenix 9. Higher We Go 10. Eagleheart 11. Visions 12. Black Diamond EDGUY setlist: 1. Dead Or Rock 2. Speedhoven 3. Tears Of A Mandrake 4. Lavatory Love Machine 5. Vain Glory Opera 6. Ministry Of Saints 7. Save Me 8. Mysteria 9. Superheroes 10. Babylon —encore— 11. King Of Fools
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