After their amazing show at Metalcamp, I was all for letting Kreator finish off Wacken for me as well. They had definitely proved they were up to the task!

In many ways, this was the same deal all over again (not surprising considering the short time there was in between the two shows), with the same stage setup, the painted cloth walls and the video-canvas backdrop, and also the set was very similar; only a few songs were missing as they obviously had a shorter stage time here at Wacken.
Thus it was no surprise that Kreator began hard with Hordes Of Chaos (A Necrologue For The Elite), and the enormous German crowd was with them all the way with instant headbanging and moshing. The fact that this was nearing the end of the final day of the festival could not be seen in the crowd as the thrash-band dictated the break-neck speed of the action.
Now, I did write German crowd, but anyone who has visited Wacken knows that at this very festival there are almost, or maybe even more, foreign metalheads visiting. Or so one would think, but a surprisingly large amount of the domestic bands did not take this into consideration as they spoke German to the crowd between songs; ’Mille’ Petrozza was thankfully the one shining exception to this otherwise very annoying rule as he spoke English from start to finish, what little he chose to say that is.

As Kreator was pressed for time, most of the songs came more or less back to back, but Petrozza get a good shout-out between the ladies and the gentlemen of the crowd in Voices Of The Dead, and it was almost unnecessary of him to ask people to go amok to Reconquering The Throne – the crowd was already wild as hell!
Petrozza did get a lot of positive feedback when stating that Kreator was to release a new album in 2012 though, which of course means that we’ll soon enough will have some new ripping material to destroy our already sore neck-muscles with, maybe even in time for the next festival season if we’re lucky!
What was left out of talking, Kreator tried to make up for in effects though; I have already mentioned the video-screen backdrop which either showed a promo-video or some specially made video-production, depending on what song it was, but this night saw the triumphant return of another Kreator classic – smoke.
Already in Warcurse there were several puffs of smoke gracing the stage, and at the end of Enemy Of God the entire stage was hidden away behind an impenetrable curtain of thick, gray smoke, and something similar happened at the end of the show, after Tormentor, where there once again billowed with smoke from the smoke-cannons on stage...

In the end though, Kreator never really managed to surpass their excellent Metalcamp show from a few weeks earlier, but don’t let this fool you. This was still one of the best Kreator shows I have witnessed in my career as a metal-reviewer (and before that), so even though these guys have almost 30 years of history as a band, they are still as alive and kicking as they ever were! Well, more actually...

Setlist:

Hordes Of Chaos (A Necrologue For The Elite)
Warcurse
Endless Pain
Pleasure To Kill
Destroy What Destroys You
Voices Of The Dead
Enemy Of God
Phobia
Reconquering The Throne
The Patriarch
Violent Revolution
Betrayer
Flag Of Hate
Tormentor