A major tribute to late Motörhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister took place this week at the Wacken Open Air music festival in Germany. The festivities featured a parade, communal toasts, and an enshrinement of the rock icon’s ashes at Lemmy’s Bar in the village of Wacken, along with a surprise performance from surviving Motörhead members Phil Campbell and Mikkey Dee.
Campbell and Dee first participated in a parade featuring floats carrying hundreds of diehard Motörhead fans. The parade began at the festival site and went through the village of Wacken to Lemmy’s Bar. At the tavern, fans witnessed Campbell and Dee put Lemmy’s ashes — which are housed in a mini version of his custom urn — in a glass display next to his hat, boots, bass guitar, and Marshall stack.
The bar also featured a re-creation of Lemmy’s “Dressing Room,” which included all of Lemmy’s “favorite things,” according to a press release, such as books, newspapers, whiskey, and his Kinder Eggs. They also dressed up the venue with Motörhead-themed murals. Watch video footage of the tribute below.
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Onstage at the festival, metal veteran Doro, a personal friend of Lemmy’s, invited Campbell and Dee onstage for rousing performances of Motörhead classics “Love Me Forever” and “Ace of Spades,” which made the crowd go wild.
“Lemmy loved playing Wacken; there was a long relationship as we played for the first time in 1997 and returned many, many times,” Dee stated. “It is quite natural that he is returning now and has another place forever.”
Campbell added, “It’s great that Lemmy will be at Wacken forever among such good friends. And I’m glad there’s another home where people can raise a toast to him.”
The “Lemmy Forever at Wacken” celebration follows another tribute at last year’s Hellfest, which hosted a massive statue of the rock legend. It’s part of a series of events in which Lemmy will be “enshrined and celebrated at select spots around the world, which he loved and allowing fans a place to gather, remember, and honor him.”
Watch footage of the Lemmy festivities, as well as Phil Campbell and Mikkey Dee performing with Doro, in the clips below.
