01.08.2018 Nazareth

Wacken Open Air XXIX

Wacken (Germany)

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

Fish could already look back onto a long musical history but the now following Nazareth were already founded in the year 1968. The only founding member that was still part of it was Bassist Pete Agnew. All the other band members were exchanged across the years and the other allies were therefore Carl Sentance being responsible for the singing, Jimmy Murrison on guitar and Lee Agnew, the son of the bassist, on drums.
During 50 years there is a lot of material being generated. However, they also had only roughly one hour time available to present a cross section across their whole oeuvre. Nice and crisp hard rock songs that were awesome sung by Carl Sentence (in-between he also picked up the tambourine). Of course also a ballad may not be missing whereas the band went back to a cover version of The Everly Brothers hit “Love Hurts”. That did not matter at all, the arms were up in the air waving around and also the lighters did not stay very long inside the pockets. For this band the increase of the tent directly turned into account as the huge tent was nearly completely filled. Due to that the mood on and in front of the stage was accordingly brilliant and nobody was put on hold for a long time when the band members encouraged people to clap or sing along with them.
Originally I expected this to be the highlight of Wednesday and undoubtedly this gig confirmed this assumption. But afterwards one band should enter the stage that on the one hand surprised me and upped the ante.