Report: Heavy Metal Lightens Hearts In Northern German Town

August 14, 2009

Sahil Nagpal of TopNews.in reports: As this year's festival starts in the northern German town of Wacken, Grandpa Willi is greeting out-of-town visitors with his trombone.

"What a day, what a wonderful day," he says, greeting the visitors between trombone blasts. On the side he sells homemade jams and juice. "It's a lot of work, but it's all natural," says the 89-year-old, who has been selling his wares here for seven summers to make sure the young concertgoers "get something healthy."

But one look at the small town's bank tower, decked out in black banners with a white bull's skull logo, or the average age of the visitors, and it quickly becomes clear that the out-of-towners are not in Wacken to hear Willi's trombone. Far from it.

Twenty years ago, this small town became the host of the Wacken Open Air (WOA),an annual heavy metal music festival that has hosted such acts as SAXON, MOTÖRHEAD and DORO. Somehow, this small town of 1,800 residents has had no problem with the annual audio assault, which has grown to attract 75,000 guests from around the world at the end of every July.

Read the entire report from TopNews.in.

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