The 32nd edition of the legendary heavy metal music festival kicks off this week, a day longer and with a bigger crowd expected.For many fans, the Wacken Open Air festival — known as W:O:A — has already kicked off for this year. The little village of Wacken in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein is seeing its annual influx of black-clad music fans. They wear black Wacken festival t-shirts, black t-shirts with band logos, black shorts and skirts and heavy black boots. Many of them look pretty intimidating, with their long hair, tattoos and piercings. But in this case, looks really are deceiving. Metalheads, as fans of heavy metal music are known, have a reputation for being some of the friendliest and most peaceful people around.

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And although many of the bands on the festival lineup feature loud music with brutal guitar riffs and devilish vocals; fans headbang and romp around in the mosh pits in front of the stages; the beer flows in metaphorical rivers (and once via an actual beer pipeline); and black is the dominant clothing color — there's more peace, love and understanding to be felt at W:O:A than at the legendary Woodstock concert in 1969. The festival attendees see themselves as a big, global family that wants nothing more than to "let their hair down" together for a few days.

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That Wacken spirit

It's that spirit that makes Wacken so special. There are many festivals for metal and hard rock music in Europe, from Hellfest in France to Download in England or Graspop in Belgium. Some of them are larger than Wacken, with bigger names on the lineup. But none of them offers the atmosphere that has made Wacken so important to so many fans. Neither steep ticket prices nor a disappointing lineup nor bad weather can keep metalheads from traveling from all over the world to headbang together on what they call their "Holy Ground."

This year the festival takes place under the slogan "Louder than hell," and the main program lasts four days rather than three days like in previous years. The main program kicks off on the evening of Wednesday August 2, with a full-length set by German heavy metal queen Doro, celebrating 40 years of performing live. But early arrivals can enjoy live music starting on Monday, with bands playing at the local village pub. It's a showcase for new and lesser-known metal and hard rock artists — but Wacken veterans know that a visit there could be rewarded with an undisclosed set by a surprise big-name special guest. On the festival grounds themselves, the smaller "Welcome to the Jungle" stage will also offer live acts before the official program kicks off.

Women at Wacken

That kickoff traditionally takes place on Wednesday at midday, when the Wacken Firefighters, the brass band of the local volunteer fire department, play classic rock tunes to thousands of metalheads.

And before the first headliner, Doro, hits the Louder stage on Wednesday evening, a host of bands featuring women will be performing throughout the afternoon. They include the German symphonic metal band Beyond the Black, with vocalist Jenny, and the Brazilian all-woman band Nervosa. W:O:A is considered the metal festival with the highest percentage of women performers, whether as vocalists or instrumentalists.

Wednesday also sees the start of the Metal Battle, in which 30 unsigned acts from around the world compete for cash prizes and merchandise. The musicians come from such diverse places as the Caribbean, Australia, Japan, South Africa and Ukraine. The Metal Battle is especially dear to festival co-founder Thomas Jensen's heart. In 2019, he told DW, "The Metal Battle shows where metal music is played, and that includes areas of conflict and war, where making music is a very different statement than it is here in Germany. It is awesome if we can offer them a stage."

Storming the Infield

On Thursday afternoon, the public will have access to what's known as the Infield — the area in front of the two main stages, called Faster and Harder. The area is traditionally opened with thousands of waiting fans running onto it, raising their hands in a "devil horns" salute and yelling "Wacken!" at the top of their lungs.

That evening, fans can rock out to heavy metal heavy hitters Hammerfall, Helloween and Kreator, as well as rock legends Uriah Heep.

Lord of the Lost on the lineup

Metal legends Megadeth and Iron Maiden are scheduled for Friday evening. And at the end of the night, a band will perform that became known outside of the metal scene thanks to the Eurovision Song Contest: German goth-metal act Lord of the Lost, notable for coming in last in the competition this year. But they didn't let that get to them, calling it a great experience and then heading off on tour supporting Iron Maiden. They may have lost Eurovision, but the exposure won them thousands of new fans and increased their record sales.

Now Lord of the Lost have the chance to follow in the footsteps of Finland's Lordi (who won Eurovision in 2006) and Hungary's AWS (who landed in 21st place in 2018) and prove that participating in Eurovision and appearing at Wacken are not fundamentally contradictory.

Saturday, the fourth day of the festival, will see sets by German metalcore act Heaven Shall Burn and Celtic punk band Dropkick Murphys, making their Wacken debut. Not to be missed is Ukrainian band Jinjer, whose singer, Tatiana Shmailyuk, has attracted attention beyond Ukraine and Europe thanks to her unique vocal style.

A surprise act is also expected, with fans speculating that it might be Metallica, who have yet to play at the Wacken festival.

Diverse side events

If the main program doesn't have attendees wondering how they're possibly going to catch all the acts they want to see, a look at the side shows will surely overwhelm them. There's plenty for fans of Viking culture, reflected in the overall appearance at the festival as well as in the artistic performances, program content and other offerings on the grounds.

The artists' group Wasteland Warriors will celebrate its tenth anniversary in the Wasteland, a fixture of the Wacken world featuring fire, metal, roaring engines and everything you might imagine in a post-apocalyptic world.

And as usual, the Dutch marching band Blaas of Glory will be popping up all around the festival grounds, cheerfully playing famous metal hits in a style you've probably never heard before.

Anyone who wants to shift down a gear or two can attend the numerous spoken-word or panel discussion events taking place — or even go to metal yoga classes, sure to relax the neck and shoulders after a night of headbanging.

And that's just what the festivalgoers at Wacken will do: bang their heads, party, listen to music and drink lots of beer, no matter how the weather turns out. As diehard Wacken fans tell each other: "See you on the Holy Ground — rain or shine."

This article was originally written in German.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 30, 2023 02:20 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).