The 21st installment of Wacken Open Air (WOA), probably the biggest open air metal festival in the world, took place from August 5-7, 2010 at Wacken, Germany.
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Once again, the small village (less than 1,900 inhabitants) turned into the Mecca of metal as 80,000 headbangers from all around the globe gathered for acts like Alice Cooper, Mötley Crüe, Iron Maiden, Slayer, Immortal, Fear Factory and Candlemass. Below's a review of some of the highlights of WOA day 1.
Over the last couple of years, the festival has branched out with the medieval Wackinger Village, the Bullhead City Wrestling Arena, the Moviefield, the bullriding tent and some other attractions that, as some visitors put it, have made Wacken Open Air the metal equivalent of Disneyland. Besides the loyal metal fans, it attracts an increasing number of tourists, made curious by the overwhelming mass-media coverage. Nothing wrong with that of course, since there's still plenty of agressive, loud and fast music to enjoy.
Apocalyptica Prior to the official start-off of the festival program Apocalyptica, featuring Mikko Sirén on drums since 2005, gave a surprise performance on top of the Red Bull bus.
Skyline Next was Skyline, Wacken organiser Thomas Jensen’s former band who played at Wacken’s first edition. Skyline, featuring Wacken-founder Andreas "Gösy" Schlüter on Tama drums, officially kicked off the festival's black stage. They played some cover songs and special Wacken songs featuring Doro and Onkel Tom (Angelripper of Sodom) as guest vocalists.
Skyline was followed up by the celebration of the Metal Hammer Awards, hosted by Destruction frontman Marcel "Schmier" Schirmer.
Alice Cooper The first artist to perform on the true metal stage was shockrock veteran Alice Cooper, now in his early sixties. His band featured Jimmy DeGrasso on Pearl drums and Sabian cymbals. As you may recall, Jimmy and Alice were teamed up starting back in 1995 and Jimmy remained a permanent fixture with Alice Cooper up until he parted ways and joined up with Megadeth in 1999.
Alice Cooper's show was the usual mixture of music and theatricality. The most surprising thing of his show was probably the song School's Out: they started their performance with it and played it again to finish.
Mötley Crüe Drummer Tommy Lee and Mötley Crüe got the crowd into a party mood from the very first start. The band's positive energy and fun on stage was quite infectious and they delivered well. Tommy Lee, solid as always, played on a custom DW drumset with a gigantic bassdrum and Zildjian cymbals.
Iron Maiden The mighty Iron Maiden, as usual with Nick McBrain hidden behind a huge Premier drum and Paiste cymbal set-up, were energetic and skillful like we've grown to expect from them. Still, they lacked some magic this time. They plugged their upcoming album 'Final Frontier' loud and clear, and only played some classics like Number of the Beast and Fear of the Dark during the second half of their set.
Gojira We tried to finish the first day by watching drum virtuoso Mario Duplantier and his band Gojira, but they were clearly too popular for the headbangers ballroom stage, with audience massively standing in line outside the tent. So drummerszone was forced to miss them.
The 21st installment of Wacken Open Air (WOA), probably the biggest open air metal festival in the world, took place from August 5-7, 2010 at Wacken, Germany.
