Back in the 90ies I really digged Kyuss, they were my favourite stoner band, one of the few I found worth listening to in that genre, but I never got around to seeing them live.
Now, 16 years later it would seem like I had my chance at the next big thing; a ¾ reunited band under the moniker Kyuss Lives!. Sadly, the first show I was to see with them was cancelled (this was at the Copenhell festival in Copenhagen), but I had one more chance, and this was Wacken. Actually, the day had been pretty long and rough and I was in dire need of a rest, but that wasn’t going to stop me seeing these guys play, it just meant it wasn’t going to be from the front row...

Not that I really had a choice in the matter anyway; when I arrived at the Party Stage the field before it was already completely filled with people eagerly awaiting the same thing as me.
Ok, so I must admit that even though I was a happy listener in my youth, I have become a bit rusty with the titles over time, hence I can’t present you with a full setlist, but some of them have stuck with me, and others I recognised and could seek out the titles later on.
So, I was in place, the screaming fans were in place, and as the band came on they too were in place and the show could begin. A special thing about this particular show was that bassist Nick Oliveri was out, and in his place they had brought in Scott Reeder; Oliveri had been out for a couple of shows actually, but this was the last show Reeder would be performing with the band before his return (for those of you who don’t know or don’t remember, Oliveri was originally a guitarist for the band while they were still known as Katzenjammer but later switched to bass, while Reeder was the bassist at the time of the break-up).
Now, I don’t know how Oliveri is on stage, but I was happy to see Reeder as he was the most performing member of the band this night. His bare feet walked all over the stage, and he wasn’t one to stay away from going out in front of the speakers on the side to get closer to the audience. Guitarist Bruno Fevery (the only one who has never actually been in Kyuss) swung a bit back and forth over on his side, but there wasn’t much going on, and John Garcia was basically leaning on the microphone stand the entire time. A word of advice, you don’t need to wear sunglasses at midnight man...

So, the performance was lacking, and Garcia wasn’t one to speak between songs either, but hell it was a delight to hear the old songs again, and in a live setting at that!
Early on we got Thumb, which was the first one where I really got to sing along, and after that came One Inch Man, another great classic of the band. The best was kept for much later though, when towards the end of the show Kyuss Lives! played El Rodeo, also from their final album ...And The Circus Leaves Town. This song is quite possibly my all time favourite Kyuss song, and that intro is pure genius!
It didn’t quite stop there though, the mighty Green Machine was then played and perfectly rounded off the show. Heck, we even got a little smile on the lips of Garcia as the audience sang loudly along to the lyrics.

It’s hard to say if this show lived up to my expectations as I didn’t really know what to expect.
Basically, I would say that I was generally disappointed by the lack of performance by the musicians, Reeder being the one good exception, but the joy of hearing the songs weighed up a lot of it; especially that magical ending kept me smiling for the rest of the night.

Setlist (incomplete):

Thumb
One Inch Man
Asteroid
Freedom Run
Allen’s Wrench
El Rodeo
Green Machine