The first band on the second day for us at Wacken was Suicidal Tendencies who were playing on the True Metal stage, and I was hoping they’d be able to give me just the kind of energy boost I needed to get the day going.

“This ain’t no fucking sing-along ‘cause you feel like it, this is when it comes from the fucking heart and soul!”
- Mike Muir (vocals)

Mr. Muir wasn’t about to let us off easy just because we were tired and several of us probably suffered from hangovers, he was taking this seriously and so should we. Seriousness was very important to him, in finding out what you want and having the guts to go all the way for it; this was what being suicidal was all about he explained (I’m guessing here that he was thinking of suicidal as the band name, other ways he seriously need a better dictionary!)
But if you work hard you also need to play hard, and the Suicidal Tendencies gig certainly had room for a lot of fun and games as well! For one thing, the entire band was on fire (not literally) on the stage; I myself am a big fan of drummer Eric Moore and his extremely cool attitude and performance behind the skins, but the rest of the band-members weren’t far behind either. Muir himself was basically all over the stage with his personalized hip hop like moves, and he led us into some quite impressive sing-along’s during the concert, like in War Inside My Head and of course the ending song of the day, Pledge Your Allegiance. During this song, Muir also went out for a crowdsurf, and when he was out there he sang the “Suicidal” part of the song together with the people carrying him.
Muir wasn’t the only one to have fun however, after Possessed To Skate it was Moore’s time to shine as he played a drum solo which consisted of equal parts show-off and good old fun; this guy seems to have a good sense of humour and it shines through in his performance!

Even though it was still pretty early in the day, Suicidal Tendencies was the second band of the day and they played between 13:15-14:15, the crowd was still pretty impressive in size and just like the band, the crowd kept incredibly active throughout the show. Even though they ought to be worn from the day before, they still moshed and jumped around to the music; I have already mentioned the singing, and Muir wasn’t the only one crowdsurfing, that’s for sure! I was especially impressed as I hadn’t believed that the Wacken crowd would be very much into a band like Suicidal Tendencies, what with their musical direction and all, but I was proven wrong in the best of ways.

I certainly enjoyed myself at the gig as well, but this much I guess you have already gathered. Ok, so this may not go down as the best concert at the festival, or even the day for that matter (they had some pretty strong competition I must admit), but I got just what I was hoping for; a good time and an energetic show.

Setlist:

You Can’t Bring Me Down
Join The Army
War Inside My Head
Subliminal
Come Alive
Possessed To Skate
Solo (Eric Moore)
Suicidal Failure
How Will I Laugh Tomorrow
Pledge Your Allegiance