Two faceless monks brutally shove Powerwolf keyboardist Falk Maria Schlegel to the centre of the stage, and tie him to a wooden stake. He wails and struggles, but the band play on, watching impassively as another monk steps out with a burning torch and lights the pyre at Falk’s feet. Whoosh!
“I feel like I’m going to die every night – it’s very strange,” he tells Hammer later, perhaps a little singed, and certainly sweating buckets, of the Rammstein-like stunt. Hammer has flown to Stuttgart to catch Powerwolf’s Wolfsnächte Tour 2024. It sees the Germans playing to upwards of 10,000 fans a night in arenas around Europe following the release of their 10th album, Wake Up The Wicked, in July, which topped the national charts. With support from Swedish stalwarts Hammerfall and rising Italian ‘dwarf metallers’ Wind Rose, it’s the hottest – and we’ll whisper this, for reasons we’ll get to later – power metal ticket of the year.
