My 4th day of Wacken, aka the last official day of Wacken. The depressive feeling of knowing it was going to be over soon was in my head when I woke up that day. It was not a good feeling, but as the old saying goes, all good things must come to an end, and this day was the perfect example of that saying. I saw Testament, Borknagar, In Extremo, and Korpiklaani and there was some unique personal moments for each band.
Watching Testament for the first time in my life was, as Beavis and/or Butt-head would put it, cool!
Here’s another pic of the Wacken Cow Skull that was set on fire during Motörhead's set. Now you know why Wacken fans set their camp sites on fire, it’s a homage to the burning Cow Skull.
Borknagar was another band I was looking forward to seeing for the first time, and as much as I hate to say this, their show could have been much better.
After Borknagar played, I walked around the festival grounds further just to entertain myself with the shenanigans of the festival attendees, as well as to get one final breath of the Wacken atmosphere.
The Wacken supermarkets had some important provisions for those who didn’t take the advice of picking it up at Hamburg. They had things like toothbrushes, booze, deodorant, booze, shaving blades, booze, bottles of water, booze, and so forth. Did I forget to mention that they had booze?
Speaking of the Wacken atmosphere, I went back to my camp site, and I noticed a fellow Metal Legion climbing the Camp “A” pole putting up a open umbrella, then he went back up to put the Australian flag upside down, not that he meant to do it, and he went back up to take down the Australian and replace it with the Flag of Denmark. Finally, he went back up to grab the Danish flag, and replaced it with the aforementioned open umbrella, came back down and started running with both flags in the air while a group of Metal fans chased him in the camp area. Afterwards, another group of Headbangers grabbed a long pole, lit the end of the pole on fire, and set the umbrella on fire, and left it like one of those Looney Tunes umbrellas after getting struck with lightning. The surprising part of the Pole Dudes epic saga is that he didn’t fall, because the Camp ”Insert Letter Here” poles were not staked to the ground.
There was also a Hot Air Balloon that flew above the festival grounds, and one can only imagine what the passengers were thinking when they saw the little town of Wacken overtaken by Satan’s minions.
In Extremo is another band I was seeing for the first time, and there’s a back-story about this band with the overall trip. After Wacken, I went to visit my friend in Emden, Stefan (of Radio Gehacktes fame), and he visited Miami some years ago, and that was the first time we met. He lent me In Extremo’s Sieben album, and it was my first time listening to Folk Metal and it opened a whole new world of Metal to me that I never knew existed. Thank you Czelle. When I went to the Black Stage to watch In Extremo perform, I could not believe how many people were there to see them.
One of the last Wacken moments I saw was the Metal fans walking around before sunset, and let me tell you, it was a beautiful site.
Seeing Korpiklaani in Wacken was a first for me, and like with Amon Amarths performance at Wacken, it was difficult trying to get a decent pic of the band playing, so unfortunately no pic for you.
After Korpiklaani played, I went back to my camp site, and there were people still awake trying to enjoy Wackens last day before hitting the sack. There was a particular dude who definitely became a "15 minute" celebrity. From the accounts of his friends, one moment, he walked away from the Canadian camp with his shirt on and one of the Oktoberfest style Wacken mugs with beer in it. He than proceeded to walk away from the camp site and came back without his shirt on, than he walked away again and came back with only the handlebar of the mug, and passed out on the remains of a canopy that was near my tent. I decided to take a pic of the dude in question and his buddies, since it was just one of the many little details that make Wacken the greatest Metal festival ever.
I forgot exactly what time the next picture was taken, but if you wanted to see who the Canadian couple were from the earlier posts, here they are. This was the last time I would see them before we all went our separate ways. The dude on the complete opposite to me was a kid from Switzerland who was really cool, so he got in the pic for the sake of being that cool. Thanks for the memories Eric/Tiffany and Dennis if your reading this.
One thing I felt before sleeping in my tent on Wackens last full day was a sense of accomplishment that overwhelmed me, because for those of you who have known me for a long time, this was a trip I have made several attempts for the last 3 to 4 years, and for every year that I tried, I couldn’t because of some incident that required my wallets attention, but I will say this, the feeling also had a heavy dose of a good experience that words can not describe, and as we come to the end of this post, the next blog is the last of my trip to Europe, and to all of you who were patient in reading my blog, I thank you, because one experience that I was not expecting out of my trip to Europe was the response from the readers of my Wacken Open Air 2009 Blog, and the responses have been very good from all of you I have spoken with, chatted with, emailed with, carrier pigeoned with and every other form of communication known to man.
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