Wacken on vo.rs

Parkway Drive: The Pyro and the Aussie Rise

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 09:00:00 +0000

At Wacken in 2019 a band from a surf town in New South Wales stood on the biggest metal stage in Europe and set the horizon on fire. That band was Parkway Drive, and the distance between where they started and where they were standing is one of the strangest ascents in modern heavy music.

Wacken: How a Village of 1,800 Hosts 85,000 Metalheads

Wed, 09 Aug 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Sabaton: History Lessons at Maximum Volume

Tue, 28 Feb 2023 09:00:00 +0000

There is a band from a small Swedish mining town that has probably taught more people about the First World War than most secondary schools manage. That band is Sabaton, and the fact that they did it while wearing camouflage cargo trousers and standing next to a tank should not count against them.

Sabaton come from Falun, a modest town in Dalarna better known for its copper mine and its red paint than for heavy metal. They formed in 1999 around bassist Pär Sundström and vocalist Joakim Brodén, and for their first few years they were an unremarkable power-metal outfit trying to work out what they were for. Then they found the theme that would define everything: history, specifically military history, written as anthemic, fist-in-the-air metal. Once they committed to it, they never looked back, and it turned them into one of the biggest live draws in European metal.

Wacken 2019: The Rain Year

Sat, 03 Aug 2019 09:00:00 +0000

Wacken 2016: First Time in the Holy Mud

Sat, 06 Aug 2016 09:00:00 +0000