‘Welcome home, where’s the beer’? The first line you hear when you get to Wacken. Then you know you’re in for a good time. Unfortunately, time flies by very fast when you are heaving fun. Rain or shine. This year, Wacken was definitely a shine edition. With temperatures above 30 degrees, the free ice cold water was more than welcome. Luckily there were enough places to get water, you just had to find the right one where there was no waiting line. But enough of these random facts. Lets get to the point.

Thursday, August 2. 

The infield had been opened! That awesome feeling that you walk through the security gates that lead to the infield. On the background epic music is playing. Wow, yet again a feeling that you won’t forget.

The first band to play on the Harder Stage was Skyline (***), a cover band. They played ‘2 Minutes to Midnight’ by Iron Maiden, ‘Asche’ from Rammstein, and also some Van Halen and Dio. Songs that everybody knows and everybody can sing along with.

Next up was Vince Neil (**). He came to play Mötley Crue songs, but with other band mates of course. I’ve personally never seen Mötley Crue live, so I was exited to hear their songs played live. Mötley Crue always had a big show, which is an understatement and of course this was going to be different. To be honest, I don’t really know what to think of their show. They played some classic songs like ‘Looks That Kill’, ‘Shout at the Devil’, ‘Wild Side’, ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’ and ‘Kickstart My Heart’ to name a few. And of course everybody sang along. But the whole excitement value is gone. Their Drummer, Zoltan Chaney, was very energetic and was doing al sorts of tricks with his drums and drumsticks in the background. He was standing on it, jumping on it, smashing his sticks on to the drums, … But Vince Neil him self forgot how to pronounce the words, or it sounded like that. Anyway, it was hard to make out the words he was saying. You know that moment when you don’t know all the words to a song but you know the melody, but you do sing the words that you do know? Well, it sounded like that. Nevertheless, I’m sure everybody had a great time. Sometimes you need to put certain people together to make it work. Vince Neil with Mötley Crue songs is definitely not Mötley Crue.

Behemoth (****) gave quite the spectacle of a show. The sun going down in the background just gave it that extra touch. We also got the luck to hear the world premier of the song ‘God = Dog’ form their upcoming album ‘I Loved You at Your Darkest’ which is going to be released on October 5, 2018. Behemoth just never falls out of character. Their clothes, make-up, props, fire, … stuff like that. It just makes it a beautiful show to watch.

Judas Priest (****) blasted on stage with ‘Firepower’, the first song of their latest album ‘Firepower’ that was released on March 9, 2018. Of course classics like ‘Turbo Lover’ and ‘Breaking the Law’ couldn’t be missed from the set. Also, the legendary song ‘Painkiller’ in combination with lead singer Rob Halford riding a motor bike on stage couldn’t be left out. After ‘Painkiller’, 3 encore songs followed with a special guest. Glenn Tipton, the guitarist who as played with Priest since 1974, but recently retired due to his fight with disease. Together they played ‘Metal Gods’, ’Breaking the Law’, and to finish the show ‘Living After Midnight’.

For more pictures go check out our photo coverage here.