Wacken Stories: Björn Luig

Almost 30 years of W:O:A lead to many, many great stories – crazy, heart-warming, revealing, or just plain funny. To collect those stories, we have talked to the people that live, work or party around the „Wacken Holy Ground“. Their experience illustrate the festival’s extraordinary spirit, so have fun with special anecdotes which you won’t find everywhere else: Here are the „Wacken Stories“!

Björn Luig (Merch addict, cocoa drinker, camping pro)

„What we are doing here? We are breaking into this car. What does it look like?“

Metalhead Björn Luig from Gelsenkirchen, Germany tells us in his Wacken Story about flying beer cans, that not all from above is good and why it sometimes is a really smart idea to be really honest to the police.

„My first time rolling into Wacken on the main street was in 1999. My buddy was driving, I was sitting in the car’s window, with my feet inside, upper body outside and my arm resting casually on the roof. We both were smoking cigars because the first arrival on the Holy Ground must be celebrated. In one of the front gardens we saw two friendly looking old men and a woman. When I asked if they wanted a beer, the guys smiled and nodded excitedly. I threw them a can of Hansa (cheap, but effective German beer - Ed.), but unfortunately a little bit too forcefully. It hit the lady and bounced off of her, rolling under our car. But she just grinned, ran over to us quickly and just grabbed the can from under the vehicle. We offered two more, she said thanks and wished us a good time. Then she returned to the men, and all three proceeded to comfortably enjoy their beverages. That’s when I knew: Wacken is different.

That was 20 years ago, back then only 20.000 fans showed up. But since then I’m hooked. I must’ve spent thousands of Euros on Metal shirts and special editions of albums. And I must’ve heard as many comments about my consumption of breakfast cocoa. But I also collected countless precious memories: For example that one time, when I sprayed the – frankly embarrassing – name of my band on my tent with car paint. You can imagine the fumes. The next morning I actually saw a couple of ‚pink elephants‘! Another time I didn’t have the time to check out my new tent. After arriving in Wacken, I noticed that I barely fit in, and only sideways, but a friend needed to sleep in there, too. But we made it work. Somehow.

I really loved being in the VIP area in 2000 for the first time to meet Nightwish. Nobody told me though that my girlfriend had to go to the hospital in Itzehoe in the meantime, because a crowdsurfer had landed on her head. I picked her up, took a look at the x-ray and told her: ‚Now I’m your first boyfriend that knows you inside out.‘

One or two years later I was at the campground with a friend. We had a few beers and listened to music from the car radio. At some point we decided to go and check out some bands. So we grabbed our stuff and slammed the car door shut – with the keys inside and the radio still blaring. We were pretty buzzed, but still tried to get into the car or wiggle our fingers inside to grab the little knob to open the door. Right in that moment the police patrolled past us and naturally asked us what the hell we were doing. Of course, I answered: ‚What we are doing here? We are breaking into this car. What does it look like?’ Everywhere else this probably would’ve been a bad idea, but in Wacken it actually saved us. The police opened the car for us.“

Björn’s wish for the 30th W:O:A, if anything was possible:

„Pink Floyd with Roger Waters.“

Text: Katharina Metag

Do you want some more? All already released stories are available here!