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At the Festival: Wacken 2013

I don’t know why I put it off so long, but I finally forced myself to properly finish this post.
For reasons unknown to me do I seemingly have a thing for posting stuff at least a year after they have happened and so far I only managed to post an in-time review for one concert

Anyway, back to 2013ths Wacken, which for me was currently the fifth and last one I attended.

Part of a Journey

Last years Wacken soon became a part of my Journey through Germany as I went there with DarkFairy again and had to pick her up at her parents place. The days before it we spent preparing the car we borrowed from her parents, that we would not just use for driving, but for sleeping as well. You can find more about this part of the journey in the post above and on DFPP Entertainment.
Short version: With little actual talent for it, we cut cardboards to fit into the windows for shading.

For Fairy’s view on this Wacken you can also look at these posts:

Wacken 2013 or a Week of Chaos with the Co-Authoress Pt.1

Wacken 2013 or a Week of Chaos with the Co-Authoress Pt.2

We noted done where the pieces needed to be placed, can you guess where this is?

We noted down where the pieces needed to be placed, can you guess where „Hi Bei“ is?

Anyway, previous to the trip we made arrangements to meet up and camp with Laupi (the student two years below me, with whom I attended a Sabaton concert some years ago) and his friends, so they kept some space for us. Which was quite necessary, because even though we arrived on Wednesday, it was already quite full.

Still, it took us a while to get there and after six hours of driving, we finally arrived in the traffic jam close to the motorway exit for the festival. We already stood for about fifteen minutes when Fairy’s satnav announced:

„The route contains traffic congestions“
Which Fairy and I commented with: „Oh, Really?!“

Two hours later we entered the camp ground and called Laupi to know where we had to head. So we asked a staff where we were and where we had to go. The Map hasn’t changed that much over the years, so we were quite confused when he told us that „P was right next to X“ – which it wasn’t.
After a bit of driving around we then found Laupi and one of his friends at the spot we had agreed to meet. Though when we arrived at the camp, there wasn’t really space for us.
So the cars that were already there had to be re-parked and one of Laupi’s friends then manoeuvred our car into the slim open space.

That day we wanted to see Harpyie’s first concert and a special concert by Faun in the church of the village, but the only thing we did, was get our bracelets and call it a day.
The 8 hours drive had been just far too exhausting.

Kitties and a Pony with Horn

As a slow start into the concerts we had a look at Mysterious Priestess, a Japanese Melodic Death Metal band that Fairy discovered in the program. The concert was in the quite new Bullhead City Circus that we had skipped the year before. It was interesting and just like Dir En Grey fascinating to see how such, well, small people are capable of creating such strong music.

Next stop was the Wackinger Village for Feuerschwanz, the medieval band that I have mentioned one or the other time before. Throughout and after their show several funny things transpired that I’d like to share with you.
Feuerschwanz usually enter their stage with two dancers, their so-called „Mietzen“ (Kitties). At the Metalfest (2012) these Mietzen supported Powerwolf during their performance of „Ressurection by Erection“ (and yes, the song is as perverted as the title suggests…) to put emphasis on the rising with the help of lances. Back then I told Fairy that they belong to Feuerschwanz.
When Feuerschwanz entered the stage in Wacken Fairy told me:

„I was just about to say: Hey the Mietzen of Feuerschwanz are also with…Feuerschwanz…“

At least she noticed that they indeed are with them. 😀
Beside that their clothings were quite a topic between us.
Their violinist wore a short dress with a cape and looked pretty much like a super heroine and whenever she lifted one of her arms I mumbled „Up, up and away…“
It is not nice to make fun of people because of their way to dress, but I couldn’t – and still can’t – refrain from saying that…
Fairy, however, got a liking to their bassists vertically striped pants, that looked like those a (medieval) fool would wear. She has a thing for fools and buskers, even having her own fool robes and giving one of her characters in our book this profession.
Anyway, the concert was fun – as all their concerts are – and we continued to sit there for the Rabenschrey concert that followed.

When they had started Fairy noticed a pair of vertically striped pants and exclaimed while pointing at them:

„Look he has the same pants as…“ before she looked up and closed with an „Ooh…“ as it was the bassist himself that was walking past us. 😀

Only to be followed by the guitarist with the not-as-funny-and-memorable-as-the-others name and the supergirl. 😀

As we only watched half of Rabenschrey’s show, as it wasn’t really our thing, I am able to digress a little into what I just wrote.
The musicians of Feuerschwanz each use an intentionally ambiguous nickname. They are for example the Hauptmann Feuerschwanz (Captain, well Firetail would be the more literal translation, but meaning wise it would be Firedick) and the Prinz Hodenherz (Prince Testicleheart) and the not-as-funny Hans der Aufrechte (Hans the Uprightly or more fittingly and the only one that sounds more funny in English than in German: the Erected). I didn’t really think that the names sounded that awful in English…therefore I’ll leave out the translations for Johanna von der Vögelweide (supergirl) and the Knappe Latte (the pants-dude).
Afterwards we went back to the camp, which – as I haven’t mentioned it yet – was placed perfectly close to the stage areas: Right beside the Wackinger Village and just five minutes to the Main Stages. We joked that this was the reason it got the letter „P“: Perfect.

Our DF.PP Shirts and the far too short front Cardboard

This way it was easy for us to hear concerts while enjoying the comforts of the mattress we had in the car. We heard a bit of Thunder, before we left again to see Deep Purple on the Main Stage.
I don’t really remember if we watched via the Video Walls or actually sat inside to see them. It was nice, but Smoke on the Water was definitely the highlight as I don’t think they played Hallelujah.

What I remember, however, is that we then sat on a patch of grass to wait for Rammstein to start, when the Pony with Horn was born and accompanied us throughout the remaining weekend.
The band itself had a great show (pyrotechnics flying shortly above the audience, etc.) and played many of their well known songs, but it was still a bit unsatisfying, because they are well known for not interacting with the audience that much.
A nice experience: Definitely. Worth, to spend nearly a hundred Euros for a solo concert: Not really.
Fairy was even surprised to hear Till (the singer) talk to the audience at all.
Though it was mostly only to announce that they had a special guest for their song Sonne (Sun): The Volksmusik singer Heino, that had covered the song on his album Mit freundlichen Grüßen (With best regards).
It was an unusual and much discussed topic, but still quite interesting.
Due to the fact that that years Wacken was sold out as soon as Rammstein were announced, many people were there to see them and it took us a while to return, but less than the others thanks to our perfectly positioned parking place. 😀

In the Heat of the concerts

Where last years Wacken was muddy and wet, this one was dry and hot. Very hot. On Thursday we had acquired headbands, to not get too much sun onto our skulls, but on Friday even that wasn’t enough. That day we drank about five litres of water and talked a lot of ridiculous stuff. For example did we had a late lunch somewhere along the day and it felt like the Spaghetti we had, swam in a sea of water and thus we created the Spaghetti Fish in it’s natural habitat the tomato sauce…

Anyway, our first stop on Friday was at a Harpyie concert with our newly acquired DF.PP Entertainment shirts around noon. It was a fun concert and we even ended up in the recording for one of their songs.
Afterwards we had quite some time until the next concert and I do believe we had lunch first, either way did we by then know that we should always cook with a pot, which I exclaimed instead of saying we should do just that with a lid the day before.

As the majority of us wanted to see them we went to Powerwolf together and some of the guys of the camp turned their bare upper bodies into bandshirts by writing the name of the band on their chests – needless to say in the evening the shirts still remained.
That concert was my third time seeing them, but it was still fun and I do believe we surprised the guys that didn’t knew us, with our knowledge of the lyrics. Though I did re-interpret their song Kreuzfeuer when I wasn’t able to sleep on Wednesday, somewhat like this:

Original: My version:
Kreuzfeuer, brenne in der Nacht Kreuzfeuer, penne in der Nacht
(Crossfire, burn in the night) (Crossfire, snooze in the night)
Kreuzfeuer, sei entfacht Kreuzfeuer, sei erwacht
(Crossfire, be ignited) (Crossfire, be awoken)
Gott hat uns den Wahn gebracht Gott hat uns den Schlaf gebracht
(God had brought us the delusion) (God had brought us the sleep)

Anyway, after enjoying the Metal Mass, we parted from the others to have a look into Pretty Maids, where I knew the singer, Ronnie Atkins, from his cooperation with Avantasia. It was quite nice, but then they played a song that sounded really familiar. At first I thought it was by Avantasia, but then I recognized it as Back to Back from Hammerfall. Until that moment I didn’t even know it was a cover.

Later we wanted to see Sabaton with the others again, but somehow they interpreted „wait a moment“ as „go ahead“ and we enjoyed it by ourselves.
Before the concert started Fairy kind of vowed she will not jump, regardless of what they say on stage. It has been a long and hot day and both of us were exhausted.
But then Joakim asked the audience if they will sing and, most importantly, jump with them for their final song: Primo Victoria.
The song started playing, Fairy started jumping and loudly yelled: „You asshole!“
Luckily(?) as of this day he does not know about this. 😀

To occupy the waiting fans they sent in giant beach balls that are soon ripped to shreds...

To occupy the waiting fans they sent in giant beach balls that were soon ripped to shreds…

With our main acts done, we had a bit time on our hand to watch Corvus Corax meets Wadokyo while sitting comfortably at the back of the Stage Area. This band has too little vocals for my taste, but their version of Amon Amarth’s  Twilight of the Thundergod was still fun.

Afterwards we departed for the camp again. As I was too tired/lazy to return for the ASP concert during the night and we had already managed to hear quite a bit of Doro from where we were, I wanted to hear them from afar as well, but my plans were destroyed by Megabosh that played in the Village at the same time. Though played is too good a word for what that guy did on that stage. It was just awful and every last one of us just wanted it to stop. Even leading to an exclamation that someone should just do him the favour and shoot him, when he was loudly repeating the words „Shoot. Shoot. Shoot“ (or „Schieß. Schieß. Schieß.“ as I’m not entirely sure whether he sung English or German).
We didn’t like him, but we would have to suffer from him a littler more over the days.
The parking place was perfect for reaching the stages fast, but this was definitely a down point.

Though it was interesting to fall asleep to Grave Diggers night concert, only to wake up during Rebellion as that one featured Van Canto again.

One last pit

Because we could, we went to the Wackinger Village on Saturday again to see Harpyie one last time. Just like the day before it was fun, even though we were still exhausted.

Though that did not keep us from attending more concerts. This time the others waited for us and together we went to see Alestorm at the Party Stage.
At some point people around us decided to sit down and create a rowing pit and the guys thought this funny so we were quite literally pushed into the pit. Grabbing the shoulders of the person before you, you were then pushed back and forth by the one behind you – at least Fairy and I were because we did not have the strength to do any rowing ourselves.

Even more exhausted than before we just went to get something to drink during their last songs, while trying not to get involved in any more pits. On the way to the bar, we even passed one of my former fellow students (the one from the MPS) and had a very long conversation that pretty much consisted of the words „Hi“ and „Water“.

Refreshed we then contemplated to either participate in the signing session of Harpyie or listen to Die Apokalyptischen Reiter. We decided for the first and had some interesting discussions with a couple of people.
At first we wanted to know which row was the right one to enter. The guy from the staff looked at us and wondered out loud how much we had drunken that day and suggested we might start doing that when we told him that we didn’t had any alcohol during the whole festival.
Our next quest was then to find pen and paper to write down a note for Harpyie singer Aello, regarding their song Blutsbrüder and the Soundtrack of Warlords. Just when we found one and had already scribbled the note we remembered that Fairy had business cards with her and we changed it to that (The whole encounter can be read in link from above with the recording).

As it looked like rain we brought our newly acquired autographs to the car, thus missing out on Sonata Arctica, but instead we did not get wet when the rain poured down shortly afterwards.

This little rain caused some of our camp-mates to leave early. It was nothing compared to what we went through the year before and they lived far closer to the Festival than we did, still they went home and our group shrunk significantly. Though through this we had some time to get to know the remaining people.

Watching Wacken in Wacken...

Watching Wacken in Wacken…

When the rain was gone we returned to the Stage Area with our camping chairs. We did not feel like entering so we sat outside watching Alice Cooper, Nightwish and Lingua Mortis feat. Rage through the Video Walls.

The concerts were great and I have to say, that I quite enjoyed the then new singer of Nightwish, as she was better at singing the songs of their original singer Tarja than the one before her. Alice of course gave us a great show again, with his many on-stage deaths and also some new costume choices for our dear Lord of Hell.

Fairy really wanted to see Rage, but by the time they started it had gotten quite cold, so after their first (fifteen minutes long) song we decided to call it a day and hear their songs from afar, which wasn’t easy thanks to Megabosh, but later on we heard Subway to Sally while drifting off to sleep.

I choose you, Right Foot!

On Sunday it was time to leave again, but not without having a few last adventures.

A fitting symbol for the filthiest festival I've been at---

A fitting symbol for the filthiest Festival I’ve been at…

From all the Festivals I’ve been at, is Wacken the filthiest one and you can see that by simply walking across the Camping Area.

And if you have hours to wait until your car is able to leave the ground you can enjoy the view even more. Though I do have to admit that we later realized that we forgot to pack in the small gas bottles for our camping cooker we had stored beneath the car. Otherwise our camp was one of the cleanest.

Much unlike the chaos in our car, as you can see in the two pictures below. Everything was neatly stacked when we first arrived and everything was in utter chaos when we had to re-organize the car towards the end.

The inside of the car on the first or second day of Wacken

The inside of the car on the first or second day of Wacken

The inside of the car on pretty much the last day of Wacken

The inside of the car on pretty much the last day of Wacken

The traffic on our way back was not really better than on our way up.
The satnav said something about traffic congestions close to Itzhö – which we then realised to mean Itzehoe, the town close to Wacken – and everyone drove quite slowly, myself included.One of those slow drivers was infuriation Fairy. He seemed to simply be unable to find his gas pedal and just when she was about to pass him, he did indeed discover it.
And as we had spent our first drive with listening to the old Pokémon Soundtrack the following fight occurred:

PP: „A wild Gas Pedal appears. It wants to fight“
DF: „I choose you, Right Foot! Kick Attack!“
PP: „The attack was very effective.
The wild Gas Pedal uses Acceleration.
The attack was very effective.“
DF: „Ra..Pöng..pöpö…pöng… *rumble jangle getting slower*
The wild Gas Pedal fainted.“

After ten hours we then finally made it to Fairy’s home and told everyone who wanted and did not want to hear it our tales of the Festival.

Last year and this years Wacken was sold out quite fast (14: 48h; 15: 18h) so I didn’t went last year and don’t think I will this year either. Thanks to that I managed to have a look at some other Festivals that were quite nice and I know, I still need to give you a review about them.
Well, I don’t know when I will attend this Festival again, but I guess some day I might.

PoiSonPaiNter

The Soundtrack of my life – excerpt

Instead of the 20th Weekend Guess, I wanted to finally cover something Fairy posted over at Darkfairy’s Senf a couple of months ago:

Which song stands for which chapter of your life and why?
(translated from the post)

As I already contemplated the different chapters of my life in a couple of posts and am able to think of a few songs, I guess I might as well do her the favour and write about it – instead of so many other things that are still unfinished, again.

Though instead of choosing a song that would best describe that part of my life in retrospective I chose the songs that have affected me at at those times, which is also why this is only an excerpt as I can’t remember all of them.

Live, PoiSonPaiNter

During my time in the Secondary School (Realschule) I was one of the most avoided people around, but as I described here, was there one song in particular that made me rethink my behaviour: Leb (Live) by Schandmaul.
In particular the lines were they describe a person barely straying away from the flock, unable to lift their head from the road before them and not seeing the nice things that life provides for them. I rarely looked up or went out on my own during that time as the few people I considered friends back then usually had to ask me out. It’s probably not a surprise that I know more about cartoons and anime from that time than about parties and celebrities.

When I changed to Grammar School (Fachgymnasium) my soundtrack changed as well. The defining songs that created my alias (see: link) became more and more important to me. Edguy’s Wash away the Poison and Painting on the Wall became synonyms for how I felt when nearly no one around even thought of interacting with me. During this time the interest for Metal that was spurred shortly before I learned about Leb was broadened to new bands, including Avantasia. This resulted into one of my favourite concerts at the Wacken 2008, my very first festival.

With Avantasia came new songs, most prominent amoungst them Memories. This song accompanied me into the beginning of my studying years, just as the instrumental song Reqiuem for a Dream and Invasion, Treachery and other songs from the Bleach soundtrack frequented my player. The epic-like scoring of the songs just made me re-listen to them over and over again. It just felt like with this „background“ music I could accomplish anything. Even though, in Invasions case, it is still misspelled in the play-list and I still mishear the lyrics …

Fear, Anger, Mighty Canines and Knight Shoes

Towards the end of studying more Metal came into my focus due to me attending a couple of more Wacken (2010, 2011, 2012) and the Metalfest. Through this I re-learned about Powerwolf and Sabaton, but also about Letzte Instanz that would provide me with a song that I can no longer listen to while thinking. For many people their studying years become the best years of their life, I can’t say the same for several reasons. One of which is the fear of losing my mum when she was diagnosed with cancer in 2011, which made Ohne Dich (Without You) such an emotional song for me.

On the opposite emotional scale did Alestorm’s Keelhauled provide me with the needed stress-/anger-relief whenever I turned up the volume while driving and sang along just as loudly.

Powerwolf and Sabaton on the other hand gave me songs that just grabbed me and took me along with so much energy that I do not grow tired of hearing them, even after seeing each band live for several times (six and four times respectively).
Prayer in the Dark and Saturday Satan also managed to get into the Soundtrack for the book project of Fairy and me: Warlords (its own Blog: dfppentertainment.wordpress.com), but the most defining one is Sabaton’s Carolus Rex. It not just perfectly portrays our Nameless King, the whole album reminded me of something I had forgotten for some time: My home town used to be Swedish during the reign of Karl XII. (aka Carolus Rex). 😀 Regardless of that do the songs of both bands, like Ruina Imperi and Amen & Attack, still hold enough power without additional (personal) meaning to them.

Currently my new soundtrack is still in progress, but To Hell and Back and Resist and Bite are some of the songs I currently can’t skip when they start playing.
In a way did my Soundtrack change from moody and relatively slow to fast power numbers with strong lyrics and rhythms. This is also portrayed in the way I am now, as I became more outgoing than I used to be a couple of years ago. I am no longer bound to a flock, I travel or attend concerts on my own and pretty much do things the way I want to do them. And I am fairly certain that music played a major role in this development.

PoiSonPaiNter

P.S. If you are interested to have a go at this again, feel free to use my translation, but don’t forget to mention Fairy as original Blogger.

May Madness

For some reason this May keeps getting in the way of me writing anything proper for this Blog, not to mention my lack of muse and energy to do so.
In the first week of May there was in addition to my dad’s birthday also the Walpurgis Night (both still in April) and also May 1st and my last rant-post. All this talk about change and new beginnings didn’t really pay off as I was too busy being distracted by all kind of other things.
As I mentioned in that post above was I on a Bela B. concert in the second week of May, but that wasn’t everything I’ve done that week.
It also included my mom’s birthday and the Free Comic Book Day.
I will be covering the concert and probably also the FCBD in separate posts, if I find the necessary ingredients to do so.
Speaking of ToDo’s: I have added a list  of posts I am going to finish one of these days in the menu on the right, but I guess the possibility of more being added is higher than one of them being written…
Well, I guess I at least managed to get my May post for The Extremis Review done, though I vastly exceeded my word count and wasn’t completely satisfied with it for quite some time.
What I wasn’t completely satisfied with either, was the organ recital I spontaneously attended last week. It was interesting to hear what notes the organ could create, but the songs the organist had chosen weren’t the best ones to actually bring about a proper atmosphere. I have heard way more impressive organ melodies than what he had played, but at least I got some more ideas for my dwarve storie/s.
Speaking of impressive: Remember my post on the Doctor Who Edition of the 2048 game? More than 1.000 (!) people have  viewed the post by now and if you google „Doctor Who 2048“ my post is above the semi-official post from Kasterborous, which is a bit creepy.
On the other hand is the attention nearly completely focused on that post and the other Fandom related ones (*click*, *click*) – I by the way am thinking about adding a new Category „Fandom“ for these kind of posts – and my normal posts are mostly being ignored; not that there are that many „normal“ posts to begin with…
As we already are talking about Fandoms: Four of the Series I’m watching had their season finale this month and the third one from the Tumblr Trinity (SuperWhoLock) – that I haven’t watched since Season 1(?) – provides a fifth today I guess. This, however, gives me time to catch up with other series and I’ve already started doing that with nearly the first two seasons of „Being Human„, though the things I remember most about it are „Alonso’s“/“Henry’s“/“George“s'(Russel Tovey’s) butt and screeches, that man reaches frighteningly high notes…
Anyway, what I’m actually trying to bring across with this post is:
I doubt I’ll manage to write anything else beside The Weekend Guess during May, as I still need to do a couple of things until I drive off to the Out&Loud-Festival next Tuesday.
I’m pretty sure the festival is going to be quite interesting, as the whole thing starts by me picking up DarkFairy in Bamberg in a monastery, where she is visiting a befriended monk, but it gets even more  absurd:
Two black clad Metalheads with different beliefs, that are co-writing a book containing religious elements, meet up at a catholic monastery and then drive off to a Metal festival in a truck stop  area in the mostly catholic Bavaria in a car with the Number of the Beast on the licence plate to camp in the Fanclub area of a band that has such lovely songs as „Catholic in the Morning, Satanist at Night“, „Saturday Satan“ and „Cardinal Sin“ and refers to itself alternatively as „The Holy Wolf Brigade“ or „The Preachers of the Night„.
Yeah, I think that festival is going to be interesting…
Guess I’ll be seeing you in June, shortly before I’m then off to the Metalfest.
PoiSonPaiNter
 
 
 
 
 

At the Festival: Metalfest 2012

One day, when I skimmed through a magazine I saw an advertisement for the Metalfest festivals – a series of festivals throughout Europe (Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, etc.). When I saw the billing I knew I would like to go there. 2012 the Metalfest was twice in Germany: One in Dessau (Metalfest East) and one in St. Goarshausen (Metalfest West) and according to the billing Blind Guardian – a brilliant band that I had last seen in Wacken 2011 – would only play in the western version of it.
Long story short: I asked around who would like to accompany me to the Metalfest West/Loreley – even though it would be farther away from home than East. Luckily it isn’t that far from DarkFairy’s place, so she volunteered and we managed to finally meet again after three years.

As you might remember Fairy and I are working on a book project called „Warlords“ and this meeting proved to be really productive in meanings of planning and editing. So when we had decided to go for it we also decided that I would stay a bit longer so we could work on it and also have a look around Koblenz. And we worked a lot on it. We even constantly carried around a little black notebook to write down whatever ideas we had. and that occurred mostly during any songs that somehow fit our characters/stories, so we even sat down in the Festival Area and scribbled those notes done. We even made sketches on a serviette, but we will cover that separately on our blog: dfppentertainment.wordpress.com.

High above the Rhine Valley…

The Rhine Valley close to the Lorelei

A Castle in the Rhine Valley close to the Lorelei

The first day of the festival was a strange one.
It kind of put us in a roller coaster of experiences. It all started with Fairy’s satnav that calculated an interesting route to the festival area: The amphitheatre at the Lorelei (Loreley in German). Our route lead us straight through the Rhine, well basically it let us to a ferry to cross it. While figuring out what to do, we saw some other Metalheads and asked them if we were really at the right place and they told us, that we just had to take the next ferry as there were no bridges anywhere close by.
As we waited we had a chance to look at the amazingness that is the Rhine Valley…simply breathtaking beauty of nature and former craftsmanship of the wine-people. When we drove back that night, we found the way we wanted to go the first time on the other side of the Rhine, were we would cross the bridge in Koblenz. Really nice scenery on either side of the Rhine …

Crossing the river we then had to drive up serpentine like roads to reach the top of the Valley were the festival would take place. It was funny seeing as Fairy was used to it  – thanks to growing up in the Eifel – while others failed horribly and caused us to go as slow as them. When we finally reached the top, the next question became apparent: Where do we park?

A tractor mowing the remaining parking area.

We first asked some guy, that looked like he worked there and he sent us a bit further down to park there. But when we got down, another guy or girl told us, that we should park back were we just came from, so it was back up again…seemingly no one knew what the other did and unfortunately this was something that continued through this three days as the organization wasn’t the best one …

When we had finally parked and gotten ready, we saw something funny again: A tractor was still mowing the field for more cars to park.
The next thing was: Finding the way to the Festival Area. As we had seen something while we were mislead we tried that direction first and after some trial even found the bracelet booth.
And the queue, the awfully long queue, we might as well could have moved along the field you see in the photo to reach the end.

Standing in line …

Luckily for us we found one of Fairy’s fellow students in the line and after some contemplation joined them and managed to end up in about the middle of the queue and somehow it was the part where there was a nest of teachers or former teachers or those who aim to become teachers…all in all a weird bunch of people. When we didn’t move or at least only barely for quite a while, Fairy became restless and what did she do? She asked all those long haired males around us whether one would like her to braid his hair…and she indeed found a volunteer. 😀 Occupying ourself with our newly found companions in misfortune, we slowly moved down to the booth again. We talked about all kind of stuff, like school – teachers remember? – bands/music and the fact, that Fairy and I had bottles of water with us instead of beer or any other alcohol. Well, we wouldn’t be staying there over night so at least one of us would have to stay sober and it was pretty warm and sunny …
They wanted us to be their drivers whenever we came to their place, we kind of agreed if we managed to meet up again. Not much surprise here, that we didn’t. 😉
Anyway, originally we had planned to see Alestorm that day and even though we got there about two hours before their show: We made it into the area when they had just finished their set…
I think I complained quite a while about the organization of the booth – and still do – that had caused us to miss them …

Our local new friend =)

Well, this way we had enough time to look around the pretty small area. I mean, I am used to festivals like Wacken, but this was kind of „cute“ compared to it, even somewhat familial …
Above the theatre you have a lawn with trees were you can simply sit down and enjoy the view. The theatre itself consists of stone benches that lead down to the stage. Each bench had enough space to stand between or on top of them – and for the majority of people they became steps instead of benches. Just a brilliant and amazing setting for such a festival and some of the bands that we would get to see.

Some time during the day we just sat on the lawn and listened to whatever was on stage that time and we got a little company from one of the local residents. 😉 It seemed that he did not want to leave us after we had discovered him, but than he was just gone. Hopefully no one trampled or otherwise killed him by accident or on purpose …

Front row!

Besides this new friend we also found another of Fairy’s fellow students –  a former one this time – who was also at the festival and thanks to him, we kind of ended up in the first few rows of the Blind Guardian concert that day. As I mentioned in the beginning they were the main reason why I wanted to come to the Western Metalfest and I am more than grateful that he simple threw Fairy over his shoulder and jumped down the steps – except the fact that I had to rescue her from being strangled by her backpack, but it kind of was worth it. While the atmosphere in Wacken was amazing due to the masses of people, here it was awesome because of the setting (and our position to the stage) and come on: Who wouldn’t get goosebumps in a setting like in the video, when everyone is singing along (for what felt like about 5 minute s… we were kind of annoyed in a good way when we could finally stop).

This was one of several great experiences those days. Meeting up with her companion again we also were in the front rows for the Powerwolf concert the next day. As I told you in my concert review for last year, I had seen them in April in Berlin and now wanted to introduce Fairy to them and what can I say? They easily won her over, after the keyboarder had entered the stage. We both greatly enjoyed the concert and the companion again said something interesting about lead singers and the crowd: They are like dictators, they dictate what the people should do and then the people do it willingly without thinking twice. Well, there is some truth to that, but as long as this is just about clapping, jumping and/or singing along, who could blame any of them?
After their concert we noticed that Powerwolf would be signing autographs and again we stood in a queue…
Fairy got a picture of herself and her new-found favourite – the keyboarder, and I got an autograph for me and one I later sent Liathano as a memento for the concert we’ve been on together.

We’re sitting in the rain, just sitting in the rain…

The Side of the Stage between Rain and Sunshine

Shortly after that session the weather started to change. Luckily we had a large poncho with us to secure us from the rain. Weirdly there was this guy that first looked at us and than sat himself between us under the poncho starting a conversation. We felt kind of relieved when he was finally gone. Though we saw him again after that, but he wasn’t as intrusive as that time above. It stopped raining right before Edguy started their show. Causing a double rainbow to spread across the side of the Stage Area and also bathing the buildings in sunlight while the dark clouds still hung in the sky. It was a most impressive view and a good concert. Even though I would have liked them to play some more old songs and the singer not to make such bad jokes about their concert on the Metalfest East in Dessau. I have nothing against bad jokes – I make a lot of them myself, but I’ve simply had enough of jokes regarding the former GDR and so forth. Germany is reunited for more than 20 years now and people still judge the Eastern parts – and its people – the way it used to be. And that’s just childish and dumb and as good as the music is that Tobias Sammet creates, I can’t stand it when anyone makes jokes like that …

Anyway, the next day we hadn’t really had that many bands to look forward to. Only Ensiferum and In Extremo, but InEx where totally worth it. It was a brilliant concert, probably again thanks to the setting and a worthy ending for the festival. The bag pipes of this band are just great – so are the bag pipers, but that’s beside the point. 😀
As I with Edguy, Fairy had hoped to hear some other songs of Ensiferum, but instead we were met with the creepy sight of one of the guitarist shirtless and bearded. Seriously that dude has a beard that reaches nearly down to his belly and is cut like a rectangle. o.O
Weirder than that only were the dreadlocks of Equilibriums singer … and that dude that kick-danced to Fear Factory 

But that’s not yours!

Well, we had some fun encounters throughout the weekend – beside the rain-guy.
The first day we were able to bring water bottles into the Stage Area, the next day we had to take them away, so we went to look for a place to put our bottles without having to walk all the way to the car.
Well, luckily for us, we found an aged couple – we called them „The J.B.O. people“ – not far away from the entrance and asked them whether we could place our bottles in their tent, which we could and that let to a fun discussion later on.
When we returned the next day their neighbors were present and watched us and when we were done drinking one of them actually dared to say:
„That’s bold.“ As we asked him what was, he said: „The water. Just taking the water out of the tent.“
As we told them that it is ours he replied: „No that’s our neighbors.“
To which we then told him: „No it’s our water, they allowed us to put it there.“
Where they only awkwardly looked at us and said they were sorry.

The Rhine from the Side of the amphitheatre

The Rhine from the Side of the amphitheatre

Another encounter was with one of the guards at the side. We just sat near the autograph booth and listened to the band that was just playing and saw that he was taking some photos of the Rhine from his position.
So we looked at each other and knew we had to ask him too. and thus the photo you can see on the side here came to existence.
Isn’t it just nice?

Oh, and before I forget it: We encountered Metal Tigger. A Winnie the Pooh plushy with Metal-vest that was appropriately decorated with badges. The mascot was on several festivals and managed to get pictures taken with tons of Metal fans and musician and now there is a picture of him and Fairy in the Gallery for the Metalfest Loreley. 🙂

Music-wise we listened to quite a bit while on the compound, some of it only partly as it didn’t fit us, like Tranquility, Legion of the Damned, Hypocrisy, Megadeth, Kreator or Moonspell – mostly because they are Death and/or Black Metal bands.
Some others, like Epica, we had to leave because the sound was not appropriate for the band or – Saltatio Mortis – where we discovered that they were much better suited for smaller stages.
Behemoth were we only saw the end of their set were especially funny, as they blasted black plastic shredding into the audience. Well, it was more fun to see all those helpers and their broomsticks trying to get rid of them before the next concert – we secretly called them: The Evil Shred Band („Böse Schnipsel Band“). 😀

When we waited for In Extremo we listened in on Kyuss Lives!, which are not bad, while having a hot dog and trying to figure out if Alea from SaMo had a secret side-job as hot dog vendor and watching some dudes playing with a Footbag. Yeah that was a nice evening.

And now for something entirely different …

Well, not just a nice evening, but also a great week(end). After a bit relaxing on Sunday Fairy showed me around in the pretty green Koblenz. We went sightseeing in the city and an old former fort as well as an area that had held a gardening show some years before, high above the city.
We also were at the „Deutsches Eck“ were the Moselle joins the Rhine. When we approached the large statue Fairy told me that it was for some kind of „Karl“, well as we came closer we could make out the letters and it started with a „W“, so it wasn’t that much of a Karl … 😀
We also waited for a watch-face to poke out its tongue, but not all of this in that order.

Still, this was a great week and if the billing would have been better this year, I guess we would have returned to the Metalfest.

We’ll see what next year brings. 🙂

PoiSonPaiNter

© The rights of the video lay with Metalfest that has provided this over their Youtube-page.

In Concert: 2012

This year had been a great one regarding the concerts and festivals I’ve been at.
And I’d like to look back onto the stand-alone concerts, simply because the festivals deserve their own posts. 😉

Rising Storm – Neubrandenburg

It started with a small concert in March: Rising Storm, supported by The Outside and Godskill. One of the rare Metal concerts in my part of Germany. Seeing the advertisement I asked some of my colleagues if they’d like to give it a try. As more or less all of these bands are no names in regions other than their home bases we didn’t expect too much of them. And that was – frankly – not too far fetched…
We had a good time, but somehow one of the support acts (The Outside) was more capable of capturing the audience than the main act, but they seemed to have quite some more experience as well.
It was an acceptable start into a year of – literally – breathtaking concerts.

Powerwolf – Berlin

The next one I noticed thanks to the Metalfest’s advertisement for their acts. Though it was more of a re-notice of Powerwolf -“ the holy wolf brigade“ ( according to their song: „Wolves against the World„) as I had l already noticed – and noted – them as interesting band when I had looked through the billing of Wacken 2008, but I had kind of put them aside back then.
Little did I know how awesome they would become …
They play a combination of Powermetal and Speedmetal with a religious influence or rather toy with Christian, satanistic and mythical motives and themes, but they aren’t religious in the „normal“ sense, the only religion they believe in is Metal ( as described in their song: „Catholic in the Morning…Satanist at Night„). Quite a bunch of their songs also deal with topics like – unexpected thanks to their self-given title/name – Werwolf’s („Werwolfs of Armenia„, „Night of the Werwolfs„,…), Vampires („Vampires don’t die„), Satan or Satan-like persons („St. Satan„, „Saturday Satan„) and all kind of different stuff.

When I started to listen to their songs I simply knew, I would have to be at this concert.
But as it was in Berlin this proofed difficulty. It would either mean driving there and back again on the same day/night or finding a place to stay for the night.
Good thing I know some people throughout Germany. At first I asked „Conan“ (again nicknames), whom I’ve personally met 2009 on a Christmas market. He would have given me a place to stay, but it was the weekend of his birthday, so he had quite a bunch of people already occupying his home.
Looking for alternatives I remembered another person from the forum I know Conan from, who also lives in Berlin: Liathano (you might remember her from my travelogue: Through a bit of Germany ).
Well, and what can I tell: She had a couch for me. 🙂
Planning the weekend we decided that I would arrive on Friday, so we would be able to have some time to talk – and for me to persuade her to accompanying me to the concert. We spend the evening with some mead and and a drink called „Paar Inne Fresse“ (a vulgar and dialectal way of threatening you to hit you in the face), which both were quite tasty. It was a fun evening full of interesting conversations.
The next day was spend throughout Berlin. She showed me some of the tourists places like the Neptune Fountain, a really impressive fountain I couldn’t really stop starring at. It was more fascinating than the Fernsehturm right beside it. I’m kind of a fan of fountains …

The Neptun Fountain in Berlin

Afterwards we strolled over an art market and alongside the cathedral and we – or rather I – tried Bubble Tea 
I do not understand what people like about it. Well, I could understand it if it was for the tea itself, but not for the bubbles. They are quite disgusting in my opinion and I probably won’t try it again that soon. At least not with those bubble-bubbles …

Oh and we had a fun encounter with a saleswoman of Dussmann: She sat there with a face as long as a fiddle and a T-Shirt saying: „Smile and the world smiles back at you„, which makes you somewhat want to give her a dictionary …

Anyway during the day I finally managed to convince Liathano, that attending the concert would be a lot of fun – and I wouldn’t be able to find my way there alone. 🙂
When we got ready for departing she found out that some of her friends would attend the concert as well so we met up with them in front of the C Club (former Columbia Club). While Mystic Prophecy, Lonewolf, Stormwarrior played their sets, we had time to engage in quite interesting conversations, before the wolves finally entered the stage.

And what can say? The concert was brilliant.

They – especially their singer – have such a presence on stage, it’s unbelievable. It’s not everyday you have chubby guy in a black preachers robe running over a stage, filling the room with his voice and taking everyone with him.
Besides, singing along with one of Liathano’s friends was so much fun. It is always great if there is someone else sharing your „passion“ for a certain song. 🙂
I can’t really describe the whole atmosphere, I just can advise you to go to a Powerwolf concert yourself, you will enjoy it! Liathano didn’t regret it either. 😉

Crematory – Berlin

While planning everything for Powerwolf another colleague of mine asked me, whether I’d like to accompany her to a concert of Crematory. A great band, which mixes growls with amazing clear vocals (Melodic Black/Gothic Metal I’d say).
Of course I agreed.

The concert itself was just one week after previous one, so it’s been two weekends spend in Berlin.
Unlike the previous time I only stayed for the evening and returned back home with my colleague after the concert.
But before the concert I accompanied Liathano to a medieval market where we met up with „Seppel„, „Artok“ and „Nebelkrähe„, who are also part of the forum-community.
It was just a small market with some booths, a medieval camp and a stage for artists.
There also was a weasel show. I really pitied those poor creatures, though they looked just as bored as their „trainer“.
Right when I was about to leave for the concert Nebelkrähe – who is a member of one of those medieval groups – had a fight show which was rather funny.
But unfortunately I had to leave before they were finished. Though I found out that I could have stayed longer, because when I arrived at the K17, where the concert was to take place, my colleague called me that she would be late.

When she finally arrived the majority of people were still outside and only some were already in the building.
But it filled up quite fast when they realized the support bands had started.
This time they were: Deadend Venice and Longed for Fusion. The latter being a band I’ve seen at a cafeteria party in our local college – a no-name band again, where one of the colleagues from the first concert even knew some of the members and described them in a way I will not repeat publicly. 😉

We soon noticed that we were among the youngest people there as everyone else seemed to be 30+.
But that’s not that surprising as Crematory are quite an old band themselves.
We still had a great time, especially when they played some of my favourite songs of theirs like Left the Ground (awesome combination of growls and clear vocals) and of course the encore song Perils of the Wind. It’s such a beautiful song, and the clear vocals singer has such a great voice…
You should listen to the live version from Wacken 2008 which gives you nearly the same amount of goosebumps the „real“ one does.
Well, after this the only concerts I’ve been on were concerts that were part of festivals, which I’ll cover in independent posts (or have already covered, like the ones from the MPS).
And it was a long way until my last concert this year – or so is the plan currently.

Sabaton – Hamburg

When we had our Summers Feast at our „University“ I’ve met a guy two years below me who already had tickets for this concert. I was undecided at that time whether I should go – as I hadn’t had someone to accompany me and going to a concert on your own is still fun but not as much fun as if you have other people with you.
Well, that evening we not just decided that I would buy my ticket as well, but also that we would take a fellow student of his with us whose music experiences were as far away from Metal as…your average Pop Music can be away from F*cking Heavy Metal. XD But as it was Sabaton we thought this would be a good way to introduce her to better music. 😉

Sabaton is again a band I re-discovered from the Wacken mentioned twice already – unfortunately I didn’t see any of those three bands that year. When DarkFairy send me a message with a link to their song „Carolus Rex“ (and the words: „When I listened to the refrain I inevitably had to think: „hmm we should call our king Carolus““ – which refers to the novel we are writing and the still nameless king) I started to listen to them again. Even though I thought for a long time, that they are just a band that sings a lot about wars and military I soon realized they are so much more (Beside the creepy reminder to our king). They manage to combine historical events and persons with so much passion-filled music that it is just incredible. And (almost) every time you’re listening to a new song you look for the background of it, learning more about history. And like Attila, the singer of Powerwolf, Joacim has a great way of singing a rolled „R“ – causing me to adept this while speaking English every once in a while …

The concert was in the „Große Freiheit 36“ in Hamburg and was my second concert at that place.
Last year I’ve been there on Halloween for a concert of HammerFall. Another great Swedish band – like Sabaton – that sings more about the glories of ancient (fictional) battles and also have some really great ballads. They had three support acts Deathdestruction, Amaranthe and Vicious Rumors. If I remember correctly the latter where a rather creepy band with 50+ dudes that still wore tongue piercings, but the music wasn’t too bad, Amaranthe sounded pretty good and the last was weird too I think …

Anyway, after much persuasion the other student finally agreed and we even managed to get a ticket for her in time. When the schedule for our trains was set we met up in Eidelstedt and then went on to the Reeperbahn.
If you remember the beginning of my post I mentioned literally breathtaking concerts.
Well, this one was the one that took our breaths away.
The Große Freiheit is an indoor concert area and if there is a lot of artificial fog in the room air is like not existent, but regardless of all the fog and the grogginess after the performance if Wisdom and Eluveitie (I still think they’re weird, as their singer has dread locks, but their music isn’t too bad) when they started to play Primo Victoria as encore song the whole room started to jump … even our dear non-Metalhead 😉
It was great and brilliant and far too short as good things always tend to be.
I am so looking forward to Wacken next year, where I’ll be seeing them again. 🙂

As I said before, this was probably the last concert for this year – it is highly unlikely there will be another.
Though Sabaton (who had an additional show in Hamburg), Edguy (who are currently touring with Deep Purple and had/have some concerts not too far away) and Iced Earth (who unfortunately only play in Bochum in the middle of the week) were quite tempting …
And even though this year hasn’t even ended there are at least three concerts that sound promising and that I’d really like to attend in 2013:

  • Avantasia are returning to the stage for up to three hours of performance. I always wanted to see them alone and not „just“ at Wacken.
  • Letzte Instanz play a concert in a small club in Rostock – far too close to resist.
  • Stratovarius (and Amaranthe) play in Hamburg, they’ve been great in Wacken (and Hamburg) that seeing them alone would be great.
  • Die Ärzte also play in Rostock and one cannot resist ones roots, especially if the concert is that close …

But I’ll see what the next year brings and which of those concerts I will really attend – and who’ll accompany me.

PoiSonPaiNter