Revistalamaga.com MAGA ZINE MARZO 2017 | Page 70

Every year since it’s inauguration in 1990, the Wac-
ken Open Air Festival (W:O:A for short) regularly
sells out. This might seem unremarkable given the
fact that many festivals sell out in many places, ex-
cept Wacken sells out virtually as soon as the tickets
go on sale, which is the day after the current year’s
event has ended. And with only a few of the bands
formally announced. Or even rumored.
Wacken sells out because of the name Wacken. In this
sense, it is the closest festival on earth to the annual
American Burning Man event, which takes place in
Nevada’s Black Rock desert at the end of August. It
has been hailed as a convergence of communities
committed to the spirit of freedom, creativity and
self-expression. This could actually have been wri-
tten about Wacken. Because Wacken is exactly that,
only for fans of heavy metal and hard rock music. It
is a community which exists year-round, in various
places worldwide, a tribe which sleeps and eats and
breathes and works and raises families like every-
body else. A tribe which for most of the year has to
perhaps curtail it’s full self-expression and it’s un-
bridled enjoyment of all things metal, a tribe which
thus once a year gets to come together in a friendly
space, set-up it’s community and get lost in itself for
a week.
Brain surgeons, postmen, office clerks, pilots, law-
yers, short-order cooks, mechanics, the over-em-
ployed, the un-employed, everyone downs their 51
week-a-year tools and comes together for a week of
tether-free living. People come to Wacken for each
other as much as anything else. Polish fans camp
next to Indian fans they might’ve met the year befo-
re, Dutch fans camp next to Japanese fans, German
fans camp next to English fans, indeed, if you were
to wander the fields of Wacken you would see the
globe represented. There are no rules of attendance
and there is no ‘silent snobbery’. If you love the lifes-
tyle, if you love the music, if you’re curious and want
to simply experience the community, then welcome
one and welcome all to Wacken.
People drink, people smoke and people dress up.
People laugh and people party. People mud-slam
and people slam-dance. People occasionally sleep.
People enjoy being with each other, weather be dam-
ned, and people will adorn themselves, their tents
and their vehicles with all sorts of decorative sta-
tements. People enjoy putting the clock away other
than to make sure they don’t miss a particular band,
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and people enjoy violently disrupting their
rhythms so gloriously.
Of course the bands that play Wacken a
tant, for their music has co-created the tr
exists so fervently. But the lifeblood of W
the people who go to Wacken every year.
as much the star as the stars themselves
the substance which gives Wacken it’s cred
they are the free-style-family who become
as much of the attraction as the ‘attractio
selves.
I have always found Wacken to be a d
overwhelming experience, a visual as mu
ral cacophony of colors and sounds and s
smells. I wanted to see that captured in a
ter Pep Bonet, a photographer who takes o
rra Leones and Haitis of this world, capturi
nity like no-one else I know. Bearded and
yet gentle and with a personality that flo
river, I wanted Pep to document this tribe.
would get in there, spend time, get his h
face and jeans and hair and cameras dirty
DNA, it’s the only way he knows. We’d repo
each other in the early AM, grab some brea
then Pep would amble off, not to be seen f
lly the whole day. I didn’t see anything Pep
a month after the festival. I didn’t need to
I knew he had it. And he had it, traipsing
being in the thick of it, mud splattered all
like it was many of his subjects, almost g
delight at the whole experience. He manag
to bottle the essence of Wacken’s glorious,
be, in all it’s multi-faceted dimensions.
So here you are.
THIS is Wacken.
THIS is the lifeblood.
But you know what else?
I believe there’s a little bit of this tribe in e
in you, in me, in all of us…so whether you
consciously contemplated moments like
you’ll see here in your life, or whether th
are mere reflections of your inner (and o
rit, let your freak flag fly proudly wheneve
the chance. Because we are all freaks at
all want a venue to cut loose and express
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