It was already after midnight when the Party Stage in front of which already a quite impressive crowd had gathered was painted into a soft violet light. The gig of the Finnish metal band of Amorphis should have some features as an acoustic set was announced. And so they started with unknown soft sounds. Growling was relinquished and singer Tomi Joutsens was conscious about convincing with his clear voice.
The Canadian metalller of Anvil were guests for the last time at Wacken in 2010 rocking at nearly the same time the True Metal Stage, but this year they had to be satisfied by playing the much smaller W.E.T. stage inside the tent.
Already last year this unusual cooperation was made and on this year's Wacken it should be continued. When the concert started first the Düsseldorf Taiko drummers of Wadokyo entered the stage and that was already quite impressive what they presented. Shortly after the guys of the eastern German mid-age band Corvus Corax entered also the stage to the pipe sounds of Venestus Oleriaticus, Pan Peter, Vit and front men and singer Castus Rabensang. Supported they were by the percussionists Hatz, Harman der Drescher and Steve.
It was still very warm but due to the slowly setting sun not that hot anymore when the guys of Sabaton under deafening cheers entered the stage. With their power-metal singing about historic battles they are having success across the whole of Europe.
Driven by the heat I decided to flee into the tent after the Romanian (Saarland) evangelists of Powerwolf. There the sun was not that burning onto your head but an oppressive heat was there too althoug they tried to ventilate. Anyhow I tried to persevere as the German pagan metal heads of Black Messiah entered the stage. With lots of fur and dressed into vestments they tried to enthuse the crowd in front of the stage. It may be due to the high temperatures that this did not went very well. At least during "Söldnerschwein" the atmosphere got a little higher.
Back again at the Black Stage a quite high number of people were waiting there already agog for Powerwolf. The power metal band from the Saarland has turned their carreer in a fulminant one. 2004 founded in 2005 they released their first album "Return In Bloodred" which just as the following ones was not making a great stir. A first decent result was reached by the 2011 released longplayer "Blood Of The Saints" but the current album "Preachers Of The Night" is outclassing everything released before. Praised by the critics it was directly going to number one of the German album charts. This may also be the reason for the huge interest of the Wacken audience.
The sun was now high up in the sky and in front of the stages it was getting unendurable. Of course the band Eisbrecher could obviously score with their coolness factor in person of frontmen Alexx Wesselsky (known to many by broadcasts like "Der Checker" or "Fort Boyard"), but that did not help much in cooling down. Quite the contrary.
After a very good opening with Neaera I went over to the True Metal Stage, where the crowd was somehow manageable. The Norwegians Tristania were expected and had mainly songs from their acclaimed current album "Darkest White" with them.
At 11 o'clock in the morning the Münster melodic death metal combo neaera entered the Black Metal Stage. To that time it was quite agreable in front of the stage related to temperature although the sun was already quite burning. Inside the tenst it seemed to be already quite warm because in front of the stage it was unusually filled quite well to that time. During the day the main area should turn into a real furnace. So you should take advantage of the current situation and live it up before you are not able anymore lateron.
The main area was jammed, the sun already set and the exitement that high that you could bearly endure it. Finally at 22:15 the drum intro of "Ich tu dir weh" was sounding whilst firework rockets were fired from behind the stage in sync. A fulminant entrance into a great show becaus quite Rammstein sytle from that point in time nearly permanently something was burning on stage.