Morbid Angel at Wacken was a tough choice for us. There weren’t many clashes in the running order for us this year, but this was one of the harder ones, as they played at the same time as Van Canto.
In the end, Morbid Angel won the battle for the one reason that they had impressed the hell out of us when we saw them at Copenhell earlier in the summer…

So, in the heat and light of the early afternoon, we had as so many others gathered before the Black Stage to get a dose of good old death metal from the time your granddad was still worshipping Satan with the family goat out among the trees in the backyard. Or when it comes to the lyrical themes of Morbid Angel, it would probably be more correct to say that he was worshipping the Old Ones, but we’ll let that lay for now…
Anyway, after a thundering intro played over the speakers, the band came on and threw themselves as well as us directly into the Immortal Rites. A group of people standing right in front of me who had just seconds ago laughed hard while making fun of the band’s newest album and songs like Destructos Vs. The Earth and Radikult, were now happily breaking their backs as they furiously headbanged away as they had been reminded of why it was that they bothered, even loved, the band to begin with. Looking around me, I could see many who seemed to share that same sentiment with them; all over, people were going near primal and they threw themselves back and forth in the fray…

The band was pleased, which was easy to see and hear on the smiling and talkative David Vincent who, among other things, remembered to say that they (Morbid Angel) were glad to be back. If my memory serves me, we have to go all the way back to 2006 to find their last visit, so I’m sure many agreed with them.
This return had a few special features to offer as well; one quite fun detail was the airplane which circled the festival area overhead, trailing a large banner behind it stating the words I Am Morbid!
Apart from this one thing though, I am sad to say that I was far from impressed by Morbid Angel this day; this was not at all what I expected after the Copenhell gig, and I must confess that I found the performance more than a little dull. I can’t put my finger on exactly what it was, it just didn’t work for some reason. Heck, even Lunah (Lauridsen, our photographer) who is much more of a Morbid Angel fan than I am agreed with me on this!
So, after painstakingly sticking with them all the way to Existo Vulgoré, we finally decided to call it a day and headed over to the Party Stage instead to see if we would have more fun over there…

Setlist (incomplete):

Immortal Rites
Fall From Grace
Rapture
Maze Of Torment
Existo Vulgoré