31.07.2013 Santiano

Wacken Open Air XXIV

Wacken (Germany)

(Pentax K-5 with Sigma AF 70-200mm 2.8 EX DC APO HSM II)

Last year the men from northern Germany were the biggest surprise of the festival. All shows were more then well attended and so it was only consequent to invite them also for this year especially as there is a successor with "Mit den Gezeiten" to the extremely successful debut "Bis ans Ende der Welt".
Unfortunately not one of the larger stages was chosen so that again they had to play on the very small stage at the Wackinger Village. However the promoters should have thoght different about it due to the experiences from last year as roughly 10,000 people were populating the Wackinger Village and filling the whole area around the stage. In each case it was quite cosy. Whereas cosy is not fitting very well to the music. Already after the intro when the drums were intonating the song "Alle die mit uns auf Kaperfahrt fahren" the atmosphere is already at the climax. Nearly all sang loudly along all tracks so that the quite small equipment already had large issues in resisting. That of course was not changing very much during the concert so that the last rows normally should not have heared much of the instruments.
Anyhow, the mood was not harmed by that and so one after the other the first crowd surfer were flying across the corwd, it was sang along and as far as possible from time to time a little dance was tried. Again it was fascinating that so may were knowing the lyrics also of the new album. A very nice moment was the visit of Subway To Sally front men Erik Fish together with Frau Schmidt. Out of a cooperation of the two bands due to a beneficial concert for the victims of the Oder flood at the beginning of the year they brought the song "Auf Kiel" together on stage which was well received by the impressive audience.On Sonday this spectaculum was repeated when due to the show of Subway To Sally Hans-Timm Hinrichsen and Peter David Sage were making the return visit.
Again it was a really awesome performance with tremendous atmosphere. No matter if it was "Whiskey In The Jar", "Frei wie der Wind" or "Es gibt nur Wasser". One song after the other was simply celebrated by the people. It showed that shantys and metal harmonize and in case that Santiano is laying down the keel at Wacken again the promoters should think of letting them play on one of the larger stages instead (although from their sphere they are of course better situated at the Wackinger Village).