As Norwegian representant the men of Faanefjell entered the stage on Thursday noon. It was a somehow bizarre view: The guys on strings wearing Norwegian sweaters and the singer only dressed with medieval trousers but instead veeeryyy maascuuline :-).
Actually I did not plan to watch the Flensburg shanty choir but as nearly all of my group did want to go there I also stayed there on my way from Bullhead tent back to the camping ground. First it did not seem like the band being able to play as in the beginning the technics crapped out. With a delay of 15 minutes Santiano finally began and quickly really gathered pace.
On Wednesday evening to a late hour (at least it was already 21:30) I opened for me the Wacken Open Air 2012. Traditionally on the first inofficial day only the Metal Battle bands as well as some medieval bands on Wackinger Stage are playing but this year due to the huge number of newcomer contest competitors they already started around noon.
The day before the Dutch band Delain finally released after long worries their new album and now a not very small amount of people were waiting for them at the Atak Enschede to also hear these songs. Unfortunately the venue was not sold out but that did not do any harm to the atmosphere. Unfortunately this was realted to a happening right to the beginning of the show which brought sweat to the artists brows.
Already for a longer period of time I was taking a look whether the Dutch band Nemesea would have a gig around and now finally it was the day. At the quite well filled Atak there was first an unusual picture presented related to a rock band: with regards to the stage setting there would be not less than 3 keyboarder on stage. The music situated at the rock area is making use of many sythie effects but that was somehow strange to me.
Already at last years Wacken edition I was able to watch the South Tyrolean on the large Black Metal Stage but what happened on 31.03. at the Grugahalle Essen was outclassing that gig by far. It was the final concert of their short "Alleine Nach Vorne" tour and formed the culmination. Originally that concert should take place at Hamm but then it was moved to the Grugahalle at Essen. Additionally the tour was planned as club tour but that was somehow interpreted in a different way at the large venue in front of roughly 4500 visitors.
Last concert of the Germany tour and due to that the crew had imagined many funny things for the four guys of BRDigung. First the band banner was hanging upside-down on stage and in the beginning they had to use bananas instead of microphones. Also the playing was first really hard as on the stage monitors xxx-rated films were shown. At some point in the middle of the gig two members of the crew appeared on stage and threw red hearts into the audience.
After 2.5 years it finally was the day that the latest opus of Epica should see the light of the world. That of course should be celebrated by a true release concert and so the 013 at Tilburg was completely filled when at 21:15 the first drum sounds came out of the speakers. The stage was covered with a black cloth and a simply not ending intro opened the gig. finally the drums went over into the intro of their new album "Requiem For The Indifferent" "Karma". After that passed with a loud band the cloth was removed and opened the view onto the new stage setting whilst the band intonated "Monopoly On Truth".
Not even half a year ago that I watched Stream Of Passion live for the last time. It was at the Belgian Wieze on Metal Female Voices Fest to that time and now as support acto of Epica during their release show for the new album "Requiem For The Indifferent". For singer Marcela Bovio it was quasi a "home game" as she is momentarily living at Tilburg.
Shortly after 21:00 the light at the Ahoy went out and several spotlights were targeting to the sideentrance of the infield. From there the musicians of Rammstein were cutting their way through the crowd towards side stage. Lead by the bassist and torchbearer Oliver Riedel first keyboarder Christian "Flake" Lorenz was following with the Dutch flag whilst drummer Christoph Schneider was waving one from Rammstein. Shortly before from the roof of the venue a bridge had been lowered connecting the small side stage with the big main stage. After the musicians found their formation on the big stage the bridge rose and with the opener "Sonne" it was directly going from 0% to 100%.