Live Report - Wacken Open Air 2008 - Day 2
???

Release year: 0
Reviewed by Chris

Friday was actually a much more full day than the first day. There were many bands we were interested to see, as my brother and decided we would only see bands we like, unlike the first time we went were we were basically watching any bands even besides our favorites, being completly amazed by the size and unique mood of the festival, back in 1999 for the 10th anniversary. In a way our trip to Wacken Open Air 1999 was the catalyst into the creation of this website, after this festival we talked about making a website and later in january 2000, MetalReviews was borned !

The first band we saw that day was Ensiferum, that allowed us to sleep well at the Hotel (I can't camp, I learned that in 2001 and it did impede greatly on my fun of the festival and took me a full week to recover since I had barely slept 5 hours in 3 days) and therefor arrive really in shape for all the bands of the day. Ensiferum was awesome, since Jari left from the band to create Wintersun I didn't manage to get that interested into the new albums (I got completly addicted to Wintersun though, which is taking their sweet time to release anything new unfortunately) but I must admit that they had such chemistry and awesome sound that it got me really really interested, even though I didn't knew any of the new songs from the last two albums. Still, overall Ensiferum was an awesome way to start the day for us.

Next we saw Kamelot, a band that never ever managed to impress me live, its a band which I adore on CDs, but never thought they had enough power and good sound to deliver the powerful emotions behind the music through the arrangements. The band played many classics including my favorite of their songs, Forever. I remember in 2001 I also saw Kamelot in Wacken and it was a lackbuster show, to a point that I left the stage after only 3 songs. Not this time, we stayed and enjoyed the show much more this time, it had more energy and was quite enjoyable. But still, Kamelot seems to not be able to reproduce the thrills of their CDs on stage, at least not to my satisfaction.

Next came Sabaton on the Party Stage, and that show was definitely one of the best show of the entire festival and one of my favorite live performance of all-time. The band made us headbang like crazy and sing along emptying my lungs with such force I could bearly speak for an hour after the show. The public, even though lower in number than with other bands like Kamelot or Ensiferum were so into the show that they sounded much louder than many other shows. It was clear to me that Sabaton fans are all very passionate about the band and I was surprised by it a little. I remember having the time of my life and would advice any fan of this band to make sure you catch them live, the energy and power of their show will blow your minds !

Then came Sonata Arctica. An old favourite band of mine, but which latest album made me lose complete interest in them, still, with so many classics in their repertoire, we watched the show (can't remember if we saw the integrality of it though). Overall I wasn't much into that show but the public and fans seemed to have a really good time.

Next we watched Children Of Bodom, and oh my god, does this band has fallen from grace in my humble opinion that is. I watched them live before and was completly amazed and tentalized by their performance, but that night they felt soft and uninspired. I think Alexi has lost his way and thinks too high of himself to a point where the performance reminded me of 1999's Wacken Axel Rudi Pell show where I was so sad I didn't have any food to throw at him (especially when he did a 10+ minutes solo while everyone is boo-ing the guy after just 2 minutes). Of course it wasn't the case with Alexi but I found the band lacked heaviness and majesty they once had. The more time passes, the less the bands impresses me (Let's face it they peaked too early with Hatebreeder), both on their records and the live performances. So a pretty forgettable experience overall.

Next we saw some of Corvus Corvax, a band that is not really metal, but it was a nice break with their breed of fantasy folk music, which was soothing and a perfect timing for us to grab a bite. The food was also a highlight of the show if like me you like junk food, the sheer volume and variety of meals was great and the prices were quite honnest compared to the prices of drinks. Its mind boggling to see how fast drinks are sold, at 3 to 5 Euros a pop, with always almost lines to get your drinks (count 3 to 5 minutes), my mind started going lightspeed and trying to imagine the money counter that just drinks were generating. Another thing I wasn't very happy about is how quickly the washing of the glass were made... really, it looked like it took 3 seconds to wash glasses into a poodle of water that didn't seemed to be changed (unless it was being done automatically like a pool) and I started to wonder what kind of bugs one could get this way... hopefully the washing was enough to get rid of most stuff, but I have a hard time believing that it cleans everything. Sorry for the little paranoiac parenthesis but this crossed my mind and I thought that the healthy conscious or hypocondriacs would have a hard time at the festival drink wise :), though there is options to buy bottled water or energy drinks here and there, but most of the time you have to cross the entire festival to find the one stand that did that, and let's face it, its not fun doing that.

Then, around midnight was time for the most amazing show of the festival for me sound-wise. Avantasia ! Avantasia's sound was the best sound I've EVER experienced live in my entire life, with a few light years of advance on anything else I've heard ever. The sound was crytal clear and the energy on stage was palpable and infectious. To avoid the previous' day crowd madness we went to the side of the Black Metal Stage and since all speakers were used, the sound was still awesome, and we could follow the show on the giant screens. Now the show wasn't without its flaws, like the first two songs where Jorn Lande's microphones didn't register and we couldn't hear his voice at all until the the end of the second track. This was quite annoying when you think of the professionalism that should have been there for such an event (the only German show from Avantasia). Sound-wise it was the only problem, and fortunately it didn't last too long and soon it was just a bad memory fading while the show and the songs were kicking our asses one after the other. Even though there wasn't enough songs from the first two Avantasia albums, the overall show was simply amazing. Again I cannot but stress the point that the sound was just perfect, it sounded just like a CD !!! Another technical issue was the camera on the giant screens, It seemed to be stuck on Tobias for 95% of the time, EVEN when another singer was singing... which made the image not match the sound at all ! Then it got stuck to the same framing for a while, and it got to an all-time low when the camera zoomed to the nose of the keyboard player to such a point that you could count the numbers of pore on his nose... and even if that was for like 2-3 seconds, it was incredibly (unprofessionnaly) funny. I couldn 't understand what was going on in the regie and wondered if a monkey got lose and started playing with the buttons and sliders or something, that's HOW BAD it was sometimes ! Fortunately the incredible vocal performance of all the singers, with the exception of Jorn who while ok was not having his best day performance wise. He wasn't bad but lacked some energy and power. Tobias was majestic all the way, the vocal performance was the best of the entire festival hands down. The other singers like Bob Catley and André Matos was great as well. On Guitar Uli Jon Roth was also quite impressive and the overall setlist was very power metal oriented with such classics like Serpents in Paradise or Sign of the Cross from the first Avantasia albums. From the new one there were almost all the power metal songs except my favorite one (Devil in the Belfry) and also from the new album The Scarecrow and an impressive rendering of the The Toy Master, where Toby, dressed a la Alice Cooper managed to sing a convincing imitation of Alice, and hats down for such an impressive performance, as the show wouldn't have been complete without this song, definitely the most original song of the last album. I left that show feeling completly fulfilled like never before from any live performance, even with all the glitches (mostly visuals on the giant screens) this show was one of the most memorable moment of Wacken 2008 and a show I will never ever forget. That was the best way of finishing day 2.

Killing Songs :
Chris quoted
Other albums by Live Report that we have reviewed:
Live Report - Marduk / Vader - United Titans Tour 2022 - 17th March 2022 - Rebellion, Manchester, UK reviewed by Goat and quoted
Live Report - Genesis - The Last Domino? Tour - 25 September 2021 - AO Arena, Manchester, UK reviewed by Goat and quoted
Live Report - Mgla, Lvcifyre, Wode - 15th March 2019 - Rebellion, Manchester, UK reviewed by Goat and quoted
Live Report - Pestilence, Grimaze, Damim, Cryptic Shift - 23rd February 2019 - Rebellion, Manchester, UK reviewed by Goat and quoted
Live Report - King Crimson - Uncertain Times Tour - 9th November 2018 - Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, UK reviewed by Goat and quoted
To see all 89 reviews click here
0 readers voted
Average:
 0
You did not vote yet.
Vote now

There are 5 replies to this review. Last one on Fri Dec 05, 2008 11:32 am
View and Post comments