El Paso Bands Have a Chance Playing the Legendary Wacken Open Air

We're living in a time where El Paso artists are really making huge names for themselves. Last year it was announced that Estereomance would be representing El Paso at SXSW this year. Recently it revealed that another El Paso band has a chance to perform at a huge festival. Not SXSW, but the Wacken Open Air festival.

What IS Wacken Open Air?

For metalheads, it's the holy gathering of metal bands that happens every year (with the exception of 2020 & 2021 due to COVID) in the small village of Wacken, Germany. It has been going since 1990 & some of the biggest names in metal have played the Wacken Open Air: Slipknot, GWAR, Iron Maiden, Anthrax, among many others.

So who might be playing Wacken from El Paso?

This past weekend, there was a Battle of the Bands competition, held by Metal Battle, in El Paso for a bands to have a chance to advance into round 2 in Austin for a chance to make it onto the 2023 Wacken Open Air festival. One of the bands who advanced into the 2nd round is Steellake.

Fans of Q Connected might remember their songs My Demise or Without Warning being played on the show. If you haven't heard them, you can see the videos for the aforementioned songs down below.

After it was announced that they won, they posted on their official Facebook page their excitement & thanks to their fans. In addition to that, they also mentioned ANOTHER band who advanced into the 2nd round: Hellslain.

So to sum it up: there are, but two bands from El Paso have a chance to represent our city at the iconic Wacken Open Air festival on August 5. So far no band from El Paso have been able to play that festival. We'll see if this is the year that finally happens!

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