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Greybeard greebos do runner from care home to attend world's largest heavy metal fest Wacken

'Disoriented and dazed' pair had to be dragged back

Anyone ever told they're "too old for this shit" can take heart in this tale from Germany, where two elderly gents skipped out on nurses, apparently to rock out at Wacken Open Air – the world's largest heavy metal festival.

The old folks' home raised the alarm on Friday when the senior citizens were found missing, according to English-language news outfit Deutsche Welle.

Polizei were called and officers reportedly tracked the pair down at 3am among the 75,000 unwashed long-hairs enjoying the event, held annually in the village of Wacken, Schleswig-Holstein.

Though said to be "disoriented and dazed", the rockin' retirees dug their heels in and had to be hauled back to the nursing home by cop car and taxi. Not cool, man.

A police spokeswoman told broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk that the mature metalheads "obviously liked" what was going down, but the care home "quickly organized a return transport after police picked them up" anyway.

So let us suspend our disbelief momentarily and ask what the greying greebos were doing out there – aside from the poor dears getting a bit confused and simply wandering wherever there were people and loud noise.

The 29th edition of Wacken had British heavy metal mainstays Judas Priest headlining, and at 66 years young perhaps our intrepid infirm saw a peer in leather-lunged frontman Rob Halford.

Then there's Glenn Danzig, formerly of US horror punks the Misfits, whose eponymous metal band was also a top-billed act. He just turned 63.

Members of Germany's own Destruction – one of the "big Teutonic 4" thrash bands alongside Sodom, Kreator and Tankard – are well into their 50s so among the festival line-up itself are plentiful examples that you're never too old to rock 'n' roll.

Perhaps the home should have booked a minibus trip for its residents.

Or maybe they just wanted to crush skulls to Cannibal Corpse's "Hammer Smashed Face" or get hosed with pigs' blood during Watain's "Reaping Death". We salute you, old dudes. ®

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