CHILDREN OF BODOM shines in Wacken

CHILDREN OF BODOM fansite SCYTHES-OF-BODOM has issued the following update:

"It's not easy to name just one gig when you think what's Children Of Bodom's most important concert of their career so far, but the prime-time appearance at the True Metal Stage of Wacken Open Air 2008 in front of a, according to the official ticket sales, 65-thousand-strong Hate Crew crowd - the biggest audience for a full COB set ever - was a test of strength in its own class.
 

We all have heard how Wacken is the biggest, the best and just simply THE festival there is and it can't be only the hype that brings thousands of metal lovers all the way to Germany from every possible corner of the world. On Tuesday, already two days before the festival's kick-off at the Hamburg railway station 50+ kilometres South of Wacken, a flock of long-haired Japanese fellows in their COB shirts confirmed with their mere presence that in Wacken it takes way more to be hardcore than to fly to the Mecca of Metal just over the Gulf of Finland.

Wacken is a small town of just two thousand people that transforms every year into a full metal village for a week. With the help of local volunteers, the festival has made it to the respectable age of 19 and has grown its ticket sales from 800 to 65,000 per year. The festival grounds have now reached its maximum capacity, and it's been said that Wacken can't grow any more. There is a serious demand for more tickets, as this year's festival was sold out already in March and the first batch of 10,000 tickets for Wacken 2009 was already sold in just 24 hours.

Just like many other festivals, Wacken is known almost as well for its atmosphere as its bands. It's been ten years since COB played Wacken for the first time and the band was this year already on their fifth WOA, so they know what it's all about and it was no surprise that the whole band was already present one day before their show to catch that magical atmosphere, some taking it easy and some, well, not so easy. But little did they know that their crowd the next day would be close to as big as Iron Maiden's, who were the headlining act on the opening day of Wacken 2008.

The band's Friday started with a signing session at the Meet & Greet tent three hours prior to the show. Despite the fact that there had been very little announcements anywhere about the whole thing, the line of faithful Hate Crew members serpentined on the festival grounds well before the whole band showed up.

It turned out that due to Wacken's tight signing schedule and delays, the fans didn't really seem to have a clue which band's signing session they were queuing for. Unfortunately this caused some disappointments and COB couldn't sign even for the mere 45 minutes they were given. This was a shame as a large number of the enthusiastic fans had brought items like their own precious guitars all the way to the muddy festival grounds of Wacken for signatures.

By the time COB's show was about to kick off, the amount of people on the festival grounds was starting to get out of hands. Metalheads packed like sardines in a can further than eye can see, all there just to see some punk band from the youth clubs of Espoo.. wow! The whole show was also streamed live on the Internet via the Wacken online stream.

The band's current intro from Evil Dead II, modified for Wacken with additional quotes from the Finnish comedy show Studio Julmahuvi's "

Ratkaisijat - die Kühe

" sketch, pumped up the massive crowd for the opening cut Sixpounder. COB made some sort of an (un?)official crowd surfer record on their WOA appearance back in 2004, and after this year's show the word was that they had made yet another record after thousands of fans were carried, lifted and thrown over the security fence.

That was the intensity level of the hurricane that the band caused with their setlist identical to the one from the previous gigs this Summer. During the first few songs, singing looked really painful for Alexi as he missed a few lines spitting his guts out and was slightly off-beat in the beginning of Hellhounds On My Trail. However, the professional he is, the Wildchild pulled himself together by the fourth song of the night, as he climbed up on the elevated metal platform above the carwreck to start Follow The Reaper where an additional microphone had been set up.

© Michael Wiesner

Crowd surfing proceeded to get even more intense after the stunning view of tens of thousands of hands clapping together to the intro of Living Dead Beat. The ending notes of Living Dead Beat literally exploded straight into In Your Face, introducing one of the many impressive pyrotechnics the band's Finnish pyroteam showcased throughout the set.

© Michael Wiesner

The band has had to re-arrange some of their new songs quite a bit for the live setting. On some previous reports I already mentioned how Banned From Heaven's studio version's multiple guitar tracks adds its own challenge to play it with two guitars, but also in One Day You Will Cry Alexi plays Janne's parts due to overlapping keyboard parts in the album version (3:05 ->, Alexi plays the main melody live).

After One Day You Will Cry, the band continued to the Mask Of Sanity / Deadnight Warrior medley and Alexi's introduction of the whole band after a brief Knight Rider theme jam and Alexi's important reminder: David Hasselhoff is the man! Before the band went behind the stage to catch a breath after performing "Blooddrunk", Henkka was suffering from some technical problems. To kill some time, Alexi showed the crowd a big, Blooddrunk themed cloth, dated for the very day, painted by a Japanese hardcore fan, Takako. It's not the first one he has done, as you can find another one in the cobhc.com gallery he did already seven years ago for the Japanese Follow The Reaper Tour. Before Henkka's gear got fixed again, Roope grabbed the mic for an important announcement: "Bass, it's a good thing in a band!".

© Michael Wiesner

© Michael Wiesner

After Blooddrunk Janne was the first one to return on the stage as they were about to start Hate Crew Deathroll. He wasn't too happy with the atmospheric lighting the band's trustee lightdude Lassi "Lamppu" Seppä had chosen for this specific moment, and so he kindly informed Lamppu from the stage - in Finnish of course - that if there won't be more lights and real quick, there's a boat waiting for Lassi in the harbour of Hamburg. The German Hate Crew - and all the foreign fans - sure knew the chorus of Hate Crew Deathroll by heart and didn't let the band down in the breakdown of the song. Then it was time to get warmed up for Downfall and Janne to put a pink bra on himself. The slightly rainy weather was a good excuse to play again a bit of Rihanna's "Umbrella", but that wasn't enough for Janne who also started a jam of Van Halen's "Jump" before the band finished the show with "Downfall" and left the stage to Beastie Boys' "Fight For Your Right" outro.

© Michael Wiesner

Apart from the fragments of Mask Of Sanity in its respective medley with Deadnight Warrior, the band didn't play even a single non-Blooddrunk song they hadn't played on their previous Wacken appearance in 2006. Here are the setlists for both shows you can draw your own conclusions from:

COB @ WOA 2008 Sixpounder Hellhounds On My Trail Silent Night, Bodom Night Follow The Reaper Living Dead Beat In Your Face Banned From Heaven Needled 24/7 One Day You Will Cry Mask Of Sanity / Deadnight Warrior medley Hate Me! Angels Don't Kill Blooddrunk Hate Crew Deathroll Downfall

COB @ WOA 2006 Silent Night, Bodom Night Hate Crew Deathroll Living Dead Beat Sixpounder Angels Don't Kill Towards Dead End Chokehold Hate Me! Needled 24/7 Deadnight Warrior Are You Dead Yet? Everytime I Die Follow The Reaper In Your Face Downfall

Many fans found Alexi's "Guitar players finger better" -shirt really funny, but if you're looking for a real chick magnet, you should check out Jaska's aftershow shirt:

After Wacken, before heading for a well-earned summer vacation until the US tour in September, the band had some business to take care of that you will hear of very soon..

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