Kommen sie, bitte, und listen to metal: Architects, Amon Amarth, Jesus Piece, Korn, Scorpions and tons more descend on Europe’s heaviest par

It’s impossible to truly understand what Wacken is if you’ve never been there. So says Amon Amarth frontman Johan Hegg in one of the daily ‘Bullhead’ newspapers the festival print and distribute onsite, and we can’t help but agree.

There are other European metal megafests – Download, Graspop, Hellfest – but none have quite the same history, atmosphere or willingness to have put niche bands front and centre that organisers Thomas Jensen and Holger Hübner are utterly dedicated to. Despite running a week-long festival that draws 85,000 denim-and-leather clad metalheads to northwestern Germany, now on edition number 33, both men are buzzing around backstage, absolutely evangelical about the importance of the continuing enterprise – and constantly vindicated by the roars of “WACKEN!” from a frenzied fanbase that echo non-stop.

Because Wacken isn’t just about the bands. It’s about the experience. With events having spilled well beyond the boundaries of the festival grounds and its nine stages, fringe events this year include performances in the local church, and the laying first blocks of a new rock and metal walk of fame, with Scorpions, Doro and Anthrax’s Joey Belladonna laying their handprints in fresh cement.

The ‘Metal Market’ remains unparalleled, full of oddities you’d struggle to find anywhere else. There is official festival merch for the ‘metal’ swimming pool that sits at the other side of town. Art installations are everywhere. A troupe of Mad Max-alike ‘Wasteland Warriors’ have their own compound. The first bands for next year’s UFO-themed edition are announced via a spectacular drone show. It’s an event with more to do and see than you could possibly manage even if you hang around for the full seven days of programmed entertainment. Wacken has always felt like a heaven for metalheads, but it’s now grown into something utterly awesome.

With battle jackets on, beer in hand and precious little sleep, we present the highlights from heavy metal’s ‘Holy Ground’ in 2024

Temperatures are spiking and beer is flowing freely as the main ‘infield’ at Wacken is opened on Wednesday afternoon: an involved ceremony, with fans flooding the area en masse, many kissing the hallowed turf. And there’s no better band to get the party started than The Darkness. Laying on the crowd pleasing hits (Growing On Me, Get Your Hands Off My Woman), frontman/unlikely YouTube personality Justin Hawkins is on feisty form, basking in the cheesier elements of life in this corner of Schleswig-Holstein. But any hint they’re taking the piss is blown away by a brilliant parting salvo of I Believe In A Thing Called Love and Love On The Rocks With No Ice – along with a little of Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song thrown in for good measure. That’s just refreshing. (SL)

Wacken is a long way from Huddersfield, but West Yorkshire’s fastest, Evile, are welcomed like local heroes in the Wasteland’s late slot. The one-two punch of Killer From The Deep and Head Of The Demon are a hell of a way to say ‘Guten Abend’! And from there Wacken gets a career retrospective all the way back to the classic Enter The Grave. Through triumph and tragedy, there have been line-up changes aplenty over the years, but this seems like confirmation, following a couple of rock solid latter day releases, that after two decades doing it, Evile are here to stay. (JS)

Blind Channel owe a hell of a lot to Wacken. Having won the Finnish leg of the festival’s ‘Metal Battle’ new band competition back in 2014, played the show, and signed their first record deal the following year, they’ve clearly got a real love for the Holy Ground and its tattered inhabitants. A decade on, they’re closing the Headbanger Stage as one of the most exciting rising acts in Europe. And although this crowd are absolutely knackered, the Oulu heroes refuse to accept less than a deafening response, blasting all within hearing distance off their feet with the impressively munchy sounds of DEADZONE and WHERE’S THE EXIT, as well as some crowd-pleasingly ridiculous covers of Backstreet Boys and Scooter. Who knows where they’ll be in another 10 years time? We could see it scraping the top of the Wacken bill… (SL)

Two Judas Priests are better than one. Rob Halford and Glen Tipton might be having a little downtime after selling out the biggest shows of their career over the last year and a bit, but K.K. Downing and Tim “Ripper” Owens are ready to go over on the Harder stage come Thursday afternoon. And with well north of 50,000 metalheads roaring along with original compositions Hellfire Thunderbolt and One More Shot At Glory, as well as well-worn Priest classics Night Crawler and Breaking The Law, it’s hard to believe that anyone here would trade this band for anyone else. Even wrapping up with with less well known K.K.’s Priest bangers Sermons Of The Sinner and Raise Your Fists, they’re still in the territory of the Metal Gods. (SL)