Elderly Men Escape Nursing Home To Attend Heavy Metal Music Festival, Found ‘Disoriented And Dazed’ At 3 A.M.
Two elderly German men proved that you’re never too old to rock.
The pair escaped from their nursing home so they could attend the Wacken Open Air festival, the world’s largest heavy metal music festival. According to a report from The Age, the pair managed to sneak out of their home undetected, but staff soon found that the pair were missing and contacted police.
They were later found “disoriented and dazed” on the grounds of the music festival at 3 a.m. The nursing home arranged a ride home for the men.
“They obviously liked the metal festival,” police spokeswoman Merle Neufeld told German public broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk.
The story of the elderly men who escaped to the Wacken Open Air festival garnered quite a bit of attention, with stories in news outlets across the globe and praise from heavy metal fans for their dedication.
The heavy metal genre has always appealed to the older generations. Back in 2013, actor Christopher Lee released a heavy metal album called The Omens of Death for his 91st birthday. The Star Wars actor said he wanted to put out the album after deciding that his freshman metal effort wasn’t hard enough.
“The first Charlemagne album is metal, of course, but what I sang was more symphonic,” the actor said, per MSN. “Now on the second one, The Omens Of Death, it is one hundred percent heavy metal. I’ve done my bits and pieces, and they are heavy metal. I’m not screaming or anything like that, but it is definitely heavy metal.”
Lee said he fell in love with heavy metal listening to Black Sabbath in the 1970s but later learned from Black Sabbath drummer Tommy Iommi that Lee was something of an inspiration himself. In a 2013 promotional video for Lee’s album, the actor told Iommi that he was the “father of metal.”
“But you’re the one that started it, really, because we used to go watch Dracula and the horror films you did and that’s what influenced us,” Iommi replied (via Rolling Stone).
They were off their rockers https://t.co/AViqGy0c1o
— New York Post (@nypost) August 6, 2018
The elderly men were among plenty of other heavy metal fans at the Wacken Open Air festival. This was the 29th edition of the festival, with 75,000 people in attendance. Festivalgoers saw acts like Danzig and Judas Priest, and were mostly on their best behavior, DW.com reported.
“Police praised revelers this year for good behavior with little interference needed from police beside a few minor drug seizures,” the report noted.
It was not clear if the elderly men who broke out of the nursing home to attend the heavy metal music festival plan to return next year.
