Review: Nikki Hallam 

Ahh, Saturday, the final day at Wacken Open Air for 2026. The day when you start strapping bandages around your ankles, slapping aloe vera gel onto your sunburn and generally licking your wounds before one final jaunt around the Holy Ground. There was still plenty to do, of course: a trip to the post office to send postcards home, complete with a very official Wacken stamp, buying whatever merch was still left after ignoring the queues for the previous three days and checking out the various festival sideshows to win random prizes.

We somehow ended up at a German insurance company’s stand for about an hour, because apparently this is what happens when you’re running on many days of festival brain. Eventually, I won myself a Wacken gingerbread heart. Was it worth an hour of my life? Absolutely. We also had the very important task of eating all our favourite festival food before it disappeared from our lives for another year. 

First up on Saturday’s list were Canadian metal icons Kittie on the Louder Stage. Thirty years after forming in 1996, seeing these women live was a teenage dream finally being ticked off the old bucket list. Their music had been part of many fans er… formative years and hearing Brackish and Spit live brought all those angst feelings straight back to the surface. 

But beyond the nostalgia, watching Kittie three decades into their career was genuinely brilliant. They have spent years navigating an industry that hasn’t always known what to do with women playing music that heavy and yet here they were, still standing their ground and sounding every bit as fierce. Morgan Lander‘s vocals were a particular highlight, shifting effortlessly between power, aggression and control. For every girl in the crowd who picked up a guitar, found her voice or simply felt at home in metal because of bands like Kittie, this one felt particularly special.

Then came Lamb of God on the Harder Stage and whatever energy we thought we had left suddenly came roaring back. Randy Blythe was in full power, encouraging the Wacken crowd to “go out, quit your job and bang a stranger” before dedicating the next song to us “sloppy motherfuckers”. Honestly, what more could you ask for?

The mosh pit was absolute dust-covered madness, with push-up contests breaking out and one enormous circle pit stretching all the way towards the sound desk. At one point we counted five separate circle pits happening simultaneously. By the time they reached Redneck, Wacken had completely lost its mind. Bodies were flying, people were running and the dust was thick enough to suggest we’d accidentally wandered into a desert rally.

And this is where the dry weather really came into its own. A muddy Wacken might ruin your boots, but a dry Wacken apparently encourages increasingly stupid behaviour in the pit.

Keeping the energy high, we raced towards the Bullhead stages knowing that after Municipal Waste tore the Headbangers Stage apart, a shower was no longer optional. There’s something about Municipal Waste that brings out the rascal in everyone, in the best possible way. They know exactly how to rile up a crowd and people flock to their shows because, for 45 or so minutes, you have a very good excuse to forget all sense of dignity and just let loose. It was no surprise they pulled the biggest crowd of the day across the Bullhead stages.

Frontman Tony Foresta encouraged pretty much everyone to crowdsurf and at some points there were more bodies in the air than on the ground. Sadistic Magician and The Art of Partying sent the place into another level of chaos, especially when Tony gave the crowd the opportunity to scream the immortal words, “Municipal Waste is gonna fuck you up!” They were never going to disappoint.

The circle pit was a lawless little ecosystem of its own. There was someone’s grandma being enthusiastically whipped around the pit, requiring a few rescue missions when she inevitably hit the deck, but each time she was hauled back up she went straight back in. Then there was a bloke in a Borat-style mankini, several sombreros and enough general chaos to make you question whether accidentally joined some sort of deranged travelling circus. That’s the what makes a Municipal Waste show so much fun, they don’t just play to the crowd, they give you permission to completely lose your fucking mind.

By the end, we looked like we’d been living in the desert for ten years, complete with dirt circles around our eyes and dust moustaches. The queues for the water fountains were therefore particularly entertaining. On the bright side, at least the dirt gave us a tan in the photos.

Over at the Wasteland Stage, Castle Rat brought something completely different to Wacken. Their sound feels fresh and new, yet there’s something wonderfully familiar about their retro image, drawing on that old-school fantasy and doom metal aesthetic while giving it a completely modern twist. Their theatrics are intriguing and it’s impossible not to get sucked into the strange little world they’ve created.

They played my personal favourite, Dagger Dagger and judging by the number of voices singing along, it definitely wasn’t just my favourite.The band moved through their doom-laden grooves with guitars synchronising as they bounced back and forth. At the centre of it all was Riley Pinkerton, better known as the Rat Queen, who stalked the stage in a chainmail bikini all the while wielding a huge sword. Riley somehow manages to be equal parts adorable and seductive and yet her vocals are completely commanding. There had been plenty of chatter about whether Castle Rat were an “industry plant”, but after seeing them live, I’m not sure anyone in that Wasteland crowd cared. When a band can create that much of a world around their music and pull you into it, the proof is really in the performance.

I also loved how seriously they committed to their bizarre little storyline. After surviving an attempted murder by the “Rat Reaperess”, the Rat Queen’s resurrection felt like a moment worth celebrating. Long live the Rat Queen!

Heading back towards the Louder stage, we grabbed some cocktails and settled in. Tonight, for the Celtic Frost faithful, Triptykon was the one. Frontman Tom Gabriel ‘Warrior’ Fischer has spent decades pushing his music into darker and stranger territory, from Hellhammer through Celtic Frost and now Triptykon. Seeing him perform these songs live felt like a genuine trip through metal history.

The set leaned heavily into Celtic Frost and Hellhammer material, including A Dying God Coming Into Human Flesh and Hellhammer’s Messiah, alongside the wonderfully unexpected Mexican Radio. Even as a cover, that song was always a wild card, so hearing it blasted out in the middle of this set was completely bonkers.

Fischer’s raspy, aggressive vocals still carry an incredible amount of weight and there was something almost surreal about hearing these songs performed decades after they first emerged. It was more than just a Triptykon set, it was a chance to hear some of the songs that helped lay the foundations for extreme metal, performed by the man who helped create them.

Then came the final big spectacle of Wacken 2026: Sabaton. And if you were expecting the Swedish power metal giants to simply walk onto a stage and play a few songs, you clearly haven’t been paying attention. A tank sat at the centre of the stage and mysterious figures appeared to light the beacons as the show unfolded. Their enigmatic frontman Joakim Brodén even made his way down into the crowd with his microphone, while the band’s theatrical production turned the infield into one giant metal playground.

Then came Primo Victoria, accompanied by enough firepower to set off my tinnitus for the foreseeable future. The choir added another huge layer to the performance, their harmonies swelling behind the band and giving the songs an almost cinematic scale.

Then Joakim grinned and announced, “My friends, it is now time for that special song.” We all knew exactly what was coming. Swedish Pagans. The entire infield erupted into the familiar “woo-eh-oh” chant, before Joakim split the crowd in two and started issuing instructions. “Don’t listen to Fat Axl Rose over there, you’re on my side!” he shouted towards guitarist Chris Rörland, because apparently even a giant Swedish power metal production needs a little sibling rivalry.

There were jokes, singalongs, Joakim demanding we make some noise and plenty more fire. And then, because apparently the tank hadn’t done enough already, it rose towards the roof with drummer Hannes Van Dahl still drumming in his kit on top, sparks and flames shooting from underneath. The crowd’s roar was deafening.

Fireworks lit up the sky as Sabaton closed with To Hell and Back– the perfect way to end one hell of a week.

But the night wasn’t quite over. The Limit, Bobby Liebling’s “other” band, were still tearing it up at the Headbangers Stage and despite the fact it was pushing 1am and our bodies were beginning to formally protest, we couldn’t resist one last look.

Bobby delivered his usual stage antics, including the dancing of a man who appears to have been permanently transported from a 1970s disco. We absolutely love his dance moves. The Limit are groovy, catchy and ridiculously fun and under different circumstances I would happily have stayed for the whole set. Unfortunately, Wacken had finally caught up with us.

As the final night wound down, we took one last look around the Holy Ground, watching the coloured lights from the Bullhead, beam into the night. There’s something strangely heartbreaking about having a ridiculous amount of alcohol still sitting in the camp, knowing full well you have absolutely no stamina left to drink it. The final drinks were shared with our friends and somewhere between the laughter and the exhaustion, we realised that another Wacken was coming to an end.

The next morning would bring packing, dismantling camps and the inevitable Tetris soundtrack as the Rendburgers somehow squeezed their entire festival setup back into their iconic trailer. We said our goodbyes to the people who had become our camp family for the week, already knowing that we’d be talking about these moments for years to come.

The tents will come down, the Holy Ground will empty and we’ll all head home, but the stories will be retold, until the line between what actually happened and what we think happened becomes wonderfully blurred. 

And so, another chapter of Wackenlore is written.

https://www.wacken.com/en/tickets-shop/ticket-overview-2027/

 – GALLERY –