Tag Archives: medieval

At the Festival: Wacken 2012

As this year’s Wacken is approaching fast – only about a month left – I’d like to look back at last years festival.
This is the third part of my festival reports about Wacken. You can find the one for 2008/2010 here: Wacken and for 2011 here: Wacken ’11. You might want to read them before you continue.

Ticket trouble and stuff…

Last year’s Wacken was again different from its predecessors. When I finally decided on going there I had no ticket at all, but as the Wacken forum has a sell-area as well, getting one wasn’t too hard. I just had to check in with the forum frequently.
I’m not sure if I decided to get the ticket before or after I knew the “pal” from the Hina Matsuri – who is not Iron Eve (check out the „Cast“ page for more information) – would want to go there too.
I remember us talking about it on our way to or back from the Japanese feast.

A fan of tickets.

A fan of tickets.


Anyway, I got a ticket for her and myself.
While DarkFairy and I were at the Metalfest we also started talking about Wacken and she decided to come as well. So the hunt for a ticket started anew, but in the end I went from no ticket at all to having five tickets. Two of which went to friends of my colleague and fellow student.
Though as I hadn’t heard anything from the pal until shortly before the festival I still had her ticket when she said she couldn’t come and I had to get rid of hers. Let me tell you: It’s no fun doing that two weeks before the festival.
Everyone I replied to did not reply back, so in the end I was stuck with the ticket and 150 Euro unpaid by her until now.
Regardless of all that nonsense above, Fairy and I planned our trip there and as I was staying at a room in Uetersen at that time Fairy decided to try out the new train that goes directly from Cologne to Hamburg and stayed a few days longer than just the festival.
Unfortunately the week she stayed was also my first week in the new accommodations and upon our introduction I forgot to mention Fairy to my landlady. (Funnily we got an addition to our contract about giving away the WLAN key and people staying longer than two weeks afterwards. I’m kind of sorry the other two who lived there with me had to sign theirs as well, but it is kind of understandable for a landlord to do something like that.)
Needless to stay Fairy could still stay when I explained it to the landlady, but before she arrived there I picked her up at the train station in Hamburg Altona. It wasn’t fun getting there the first time as I somehow managed to find a rout – or rather my satnav did – that involved a lot of traffic lights and construction sides.
A half an hour ride by car took me about an hour, so I got hopelessly late when her train arrived.
Shortly after we finally found each other I started talking funny, like misusing/-pronouncing words and so on. We had the same effect during the Metalfest days and more or less each time we Skype and we will probably also have it when I get to her place before Wacken this year…
If you ever meet both of us together somewhere: Don’t expect us to be able to talk properly (be it in German or English…)
Well, the week of Wacken was also my first week of semester, again,  so I had to leave Fairy alone for some hours each day to go there and see what they wanted from me/us. It was also the first semester I was officially in a different group than before, therefore not being there in my very first week was unfortunately not really an option…
I am still sorry that Fairy had to put up with all this, but I am still grateful that she did.
During her stay we did some exploring around town and Hamburg, but I won’t be covering that in this post. Maybe in a post of its own, but I’m not sure yet.
As I had to go to my lessons each day and nothing special was in the Running Order we stayed in Uetersen until Wednesday and used the time to work some more on „Warlords“ our book project (Find more about it on this Blog: dfppentertainment.wordpress.com).

A long and sunny day…

One of the Metall-creatures.

One of the Metal-creatures.


Thursday became our first day at the Open Air. We’ve been there pretty much the complete day – at least it felt like that, but we think we went there about noon.
As we weren’t staying in the Camping Area we had to use the Parking Area for a Day and we kind of drove in a circle around the village before we found it.
I think the first day it was already full, so we had to park in one of the streets nearby. We scribbled down a little note for the window, that said we were sorry that we had to use the parking spot.
It was a warm and dry day and it probably was the only day I could have worn my beautiful coat, but it was too warm for it. We used Thursday to explore the grounds to see the new attractions like the “Thrash of the Titans”-field and the „Bullhead City“ circus tent (which we never actually entered, as we found it weird to show the bracelets at the entrance). But also to have a look at the old stuff, as this was Fairy’s first Wacken. I think we even managed to get our festival-shirts that day.
Even though we did not really understand what the meaning of the Titans- field was, they did have some neat stuff there like the many robotic creatures in the form of a dragon, a horse and a spider. Seeing them move makes you want to know how they are controlled and programmed, at least if you’re a bit into IT-stuff as I am, for everyone else its a fancy show with robots and fire. For me too, but I still want to know how they did it…
Music-wise did we only fully listen to U.D.O., whom I wanted to see at one of the previous years, but didn’t because of the late schedule-spot. We just sat down in front of the Main Stage and enjoyed the concert. While we did so a random guy came up to us, to ask if we had a program and then continued to sit and talk with us for a moment.
I know U.D.O.s singer from his collaboration with Hammerfall on their cover of “Head over Heels”. I actually only discovered that it was this singer by coincidence as I heard an U.D.O. song in the Christmas calendar from the Metaltix-Homepage. The voice sounded familiar and I had to think of/remembered the song and then looked it up. So when that song was played I simply had to stop the conversation and actually listen for once.
Throughout it Fairy commented that the singer’s voice and appearance reminded her of a gremlin, I’m not sure he would like that comparison…
During this concert we by the way took the very first actual picture of both of us and we had met twice before this.
Afterwards we might have seen a bit of Saxon but we decided to get going anyway as we were somehow pretty tired and exhausted from all the wandering around.

The beginning of the end…

The crowd while entering the Stage Area for Hammerfall

The crowd while entering the Stage Area for Hammerfall


Friday was one of the days were we would have liked to get to the festival earlier, but couldn’t as I had to attend some lessons that went way longer than the concert we wanted to see, which was Oomph! around noon. We only managed to get there in time for Hammerfall and they had already started when we were at the entrance of the Stage Area.
It still was a great concert and the beginning of a muddy weekend…
During the night and the morning hours it had rained that much that the fields were so drenched that you couldn’t stand in one spot without moving your feet, without getting stuck,  every few seconds/minutes we had to lift a foot to free it again.
Fairy wanted to see Dimmu Borgir and Orchestra next, but somehow we seemed to only have seen a bit of it (as it was on my partly-list). We both can’t really remember why we went away. Might have been the sound, might have been hunger, might have been something entirely different…
What we did see, however, were In Flames with their school uniforms and Rock music and they were quite nice. As it was already late when their show ended we contemplated whether we should stay for In Extremo or call it a day. We decided for the former and we did not regret it. The show was the same they had at the Metalfest, but still great. It was streamed on television as well, so my colleague wrote me that she was watching it too.
We watched it from the sides where the Axe Festivalshowers stood and right beside us was this weird drunkard that, though he left us alone, was pretty annoying – especially towards the guards that stood there too. I can’t really believe that people would actually want to shower this publicly in those things…

Some decisions should better be made awake…

Anyway, when In Ex were done we made our way back to my car in the Parking Space for a Day. We had to walk through quite a bit of the Village for that – and this festival was the first time for me to see a bit more of it as we did not only park outside, but also had lunch or dinner in one of the many food places – and at some point we both – though completely sober – kind of started walking in wiggly lines, far too tired to walk straight…
When we finally got to my place after the concert it was about 4 o’clock Saturday morning, I think, and we had to get rid of the mud on our trousers.
Little did we know, that that was only the beginning….
So completely tired we hit the hay, keeping in mind that we wanted to buy groceries the next day before we went to see Gamma Ray or so was the plan…
When I woke up about 10 o’clock I went to Fairy’s room carefully waking her and asked what we should do. We had missed Oomph! on Friday, which she had wanted to see, and we were both far too tired to properly work. So we dismissed seeing Gamma Ray after we had made a very slow breakfast and went shopping afterwards. This actually led to one of the funniest experiences that weekend – except all the hilarious moments we had while editing our book:
We had invited some fellow students of mine for barbecue on Sunday, like some kind of closure for Fairy, so we went to buy the stuff to get the barbecue working and meat, Fairy also got herself a bread-thingy and we returned to the house.
One after the other had dropped out of the invitation, so only the guy from the MPS was left and we decided that we might as well have the barbecue at his place, with him and his flat-mate.
At that point we had the firm conviction, that we had everything we needed: Stuff for the barbecue and meat.
So we drove off to Wacken.
Well…it again had rained, so the mud was even deeper now and you had to be really careful with every step you took, unless you actually wanted to end up doing the splits.
We wanted to at least be there for Amon Amarth, but we came about an hour before it, so we started to listen to Cradle of Filth while struggling through the mud to flee from their pig-squeals towards the Wackinger Village. Yes, flee, as it sounded like they were slaughtering piglets on stage. Unfortunately Ingrimm were not able to drown out the entire squeaking…
So after a while we went back to the Video Wall to see Amon Amarth and we even found a more or less hard place to sit through it near the football field, which was still one of the rare spots of green. I think Fairy at that point read through the Metal Bible she had acquired. Just as I had done when I had watched Judas Priest like that the year before…
I’m pretty sure we even saw one of The Incredible Blood Brothers stalking through the mud. I had seen them in person – not in their show – on a Horror Convention (The Weekend of Horrors, about which I might add a post one day [Edit: Look at the bottom for the Pingback] )).
It was really interesting how everyone had different kind of techniques to advance. He had his shoes covered with a blue plastic bag. Others wore rubber boots – others none at all and we had our trusty boots to carry us through it; dirt in every gap of the shoe sole and mud nearly up to the knee.
When it was time for Schandmaul we wade our way towards the Party Stage. We had contemplated for a while if we should see them or The Scorpions that would be playing parallel on one of the Main Stages. As it was far more likely the concert of The Scorpions would be recorded and displayed, the decision was clear.
So when we found solid floor again we sat there until shortly before the concert. While we did so we took one of my favourite mud pictures, that even made it into the title-picture for our shared Facebook-Page (DFPPEntertainment), as well as my own (Poisonpainter) and my private one. I don’t really know why I like this picture, but it is somehow fun and the light in it is nice…

The best picture of muddy boots I've seen so far...

The best picture of muddy boots I’ve seen so far…


When the concert was about to start we moved on to find another spot to stand during the concert.
Two funny things occurred throughout it.
The first: While they played a thundery front was making its way towards the stage from the side. We watched the lightning and heard the thunder and when we had decided to put on our rain capes and had just finished doing that it poured down. Again.
The second is the final realization after our shopping earlier and went something like this:

“Um, [Fairy], we don’t have anything for lunch tomorrow…”
“Yeah, I know, but we didn’t buy anything that goes with the meat either.”
“We shouldn’t go shopping when tired…”
“Yup.”

So we stood there partly wet (as we tried to clap along and the rain poured into the capes…), exhausted from all the walking through the mud, with no prospect of lunch the next day.
But the show was great.
They even finished before The Scorpions, so that we could watch the finale of their show on our way out. It made us glad we had chosen Schandmaul, as the singer of the Scorpions seemed old and tired – it was their retirement show after all. So that was a good choice there.
As surprise act they had announced Edguy earlier that weekend, but as we had just seen them at the Loreley (Metalfest) as well, we decided to go and not wait until 2 o’clock for their performance, besides: It would be recorded.
On some occasion when we stayed in the Wackinger Village we shortly listened to Vogelfrey, but I can’t recall which of their many concerts it was.

Realizations…

Anyway, on her Blog Fairy had also made some realizations way back:

– Dixis (portable toilets) are unfriendly. Even if you greet them, they do not make a reply. XD
– “Knee deep in mud…” Sabaton must have found inspiration from Wacken.
– Wacken is like Rock am Ring. Just better.
Full Post here: Erkenntnisse by DarkFairy (German)

Let me tell you a little about them…
The Dixis
In the forum Fairy and I know each other from was a guy (Nebelkrähe, I spoke of him in my post about Concerts in 2012) that asked us to send his regards to the Dixis. Well, upon arriving at the Village on the first day and passing by the first loo Fairy greeted it, but it did not respond at all…
Luckily no one was in there to hear her greeting and say something – though that would have been funny.
The Mud
I think I’ve mentioned the mud to quite some extend already, but let me tell you it was muddy and it was awful getting all the mud out of our clothes.
We were really happy that we had decided to not camp there…
After one of the concerts we passed by a tent that was completely surrounded by mud. We have no idea how anyone was able to enter or leave that thing…
The “Knee deep in mud” comes from Sabaton’s The Price of a Mile and might be slightly exaggerated, but it was pretty close to that at times. Besides the mud splashes went up the whole trousers leg and sometimes even further…
Still, we had fun cleaning off everything, because it was ridiculous how much mud was on those clothes/shoes…
Have some pictures for it:


Oh, and we saw a guy standing in the middle of a puddle of mud, having lot’s of fun. No idea, if he ever managed to get out of there…
Rock am Ring vs. Wacken
Well, Fairy attended the Rock am Ring the last few years and it’s one of two major Rock-Festivals in Germany (The other being Rock im Park) and therefore she could pretty well compare these two festivals.
Her conclusion was: The booths and everything are pretty much the same, but the music and the people are way better – for a Metalhead at least. 😉
So in conclusion: We didn’t really saw that many concerts as we were way more comfortable with sitting in the dry and warm house and working on Warlords, but the once way did see were fun.
Besides: It was muddy.
Until the very last day, we had decided that we would not attend the next Wacken and focus on some minor festivals.
And then came the trailer…
Sabaton, Rage and some other good ones confirmed right from the start and more and more added to that throughout the end of last year.
When Rammstein – one of Fairy’s most favourite bands – were confirmed, we finally bought our tickets and now we are looking forward to all those amazing bands that will play this year. 🙂
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.

Warlords

As I occasionally mentioned in my posts I am working on a book together with DarkFairy.
The book is called „Warlords“ and is based on a RPG we started writing for fun in 2009.

For those who don’t know what RPG is: RPG stands for Role Play Game.
Most RPGs are on the basis of Pen&Paper (like The Dark Eye/Das Schwarze Auge, which is the one DarkFairy mostly playes) rules and settings, where you create a character according to those and play with other people in a given storyline.
Written RPG however do not always follow those rules.
You decide on your character(s) and an order of posting, but you create your own setting/storyline mostly along the way.

We started in a simply medieval setting, but added more and more Fantasy elements.
Originally it was a RPG to write when everyone else in the forum was busy at the weekend, but we soon couldn’t stop writing.
So we wrote more or less full-time; beginning about 10 in the morning and stopping close to 2 in the morning of the following day.
That way we managed to write a lot in a short amount of time.
But with our different studies starting we had to cut back, as it did not allow us to write that much throughout the last 3 years.
But we still haven’t lost our interest and our passion for our story and we want it to evolve even farther.
We want to turn our „little“ RPG into a book – or a book series even, as we have that much material by now.
Therefore we are editing what we have so far over and over again – and sometimes we ask ourself which „pills“ we popped while writing some of it.
Nevertheless we had and still have tons of fun with this project and want to share some of our thoughts and silly moments with an ever growing audience.
To do this we started this blog: dfppentertainment.wordpress.com
The story itself is centered around the young monk Coelestin, who loses everything when the King claims himself as god/divine king and his henchmen start to burn down all monasteries that would not accept this.
When he flees from the Capital City he meets Grace, one of the King’s hand maiden’s that had fled when she was supposed to become his mistress.
Together they set up to warn other monasteries of the King’s doings.
Later on they are  joined by Coelestin’s childhood friend Corwyn and Grace‘ long-lost brother Pride, but also by Isane, a young healer that wishes to help them in their course. Together they develop a plan to overthrow the King, even gaining help from rebels under the leadership of the charismatic Nero. But not everything goes according to plan.
Despite his vow of chastity Coelestin falls more and more in love with the woman at his side.
Unable to accept his feelings at first, he gives into them when Corwyn convinces him that not even god is against love.
After Coelestin had spent a night with Grace, all hell breaks loose – or rather Luzifer shows up for a visit.
The Lord of Hell makes him an offer: His very own help in their course against the King in exchange for the remaining soul of the monk – as he already has a part of it due to Coelestin committing the sin of Lust.
Once again the young man has to struggle with himself and becomes seriously ill.
And only one thing can help him: Acceptance for his situation – well and one of the arch angels telling him that it’s alright to love.
Beside that Michael gives him a task: He should continue his way as The Voice of God.
If you want to know how he does that, feel free to follow our blog for updates and more background and additional information.
PoiSonPaiNter

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

Mittelalterlich Phantasie Spectaculum 2012

I’m going medieval this time, as I’d like to introduce  a series of events that take place throughout Germany every year. Their known under the name of „Mittelalterlich Phantasie Spectaculum“ (Medieval Phantasy Spectacle, MPS for short). They’re events that do not wish to show an authentic version of the Middle Ages, but a phantastic one (According to their own advertisement). 😉

The phantastic Middle Ages

And that is basically it.
You see people in medieval-like clothings (in German I would say „Gewandung“, but I haven’t found an English-equivalent for that word so far…), Orcs, Elves, Pirates and other stuff that is pretty much unlikely to have existed in that period of time.
Besides that you have all kinds of artists: Ranging from simple Jesters and fire-eaters (and variations of that), over people in beautiful and phantastic costumes performing incredible shows, up to all kind of different medieval bands.
Next to all the entertainment you also have the chance to buy more-or-less authentic clothings and supplies, like drinking horns, armour and what not.
On the festival-side you can even see how people might have lived back then in the camps of LARPer or even reenactment people – not sure which group they belong to, so to not offend any of them I give you both terms. It is quite interesting, though a bit creepy if you stand there and look at their camp sides. It’s kind of like standing in front of someone’s living room window and watching them.
By the way: The booths aren’t allowed to use electric lights, which is somewhat ridiculous seeing as it would help them in the dark. Yet it would also kind of ruin the atmosphere at night, when all kind of bonfires are lightened, but they seem to manage without functioning light bulbs. 🙂

Spontaneous Camping

This year I’ve been at two „MPS“ – as it is commonly shortened.
The first one was in Sierhagen [Edit: As it is no longer a station for the MPS I had to take out the link], which is in the north-east of Schleswig-Holstein. Beside going to that place for the first time it also was my first time camping at such an event, ,hough it wasn’t the medieval camp, but the mere tent-camp. Well, it was supposed to be one. We kind of used our cars as tents…*cough*
Anyway, in Sierhagen the area includes an old manor/castle-complex that gave the whole thing a different atmosphere than what you experience at the other one I was at. The whole manor-complex is surrounded by a moat and even a small lake as more or less natural defences. Going from the outside into the court and out towards the lime tree park you have to cross bridges, where you can follow the stream. Within the court were booths and the fool’s-stage. In the lime tree park they had booths, the smaller stage and the medieval camp. It was kind of beautiful. Just to see that again I would return to that place. Regardless of whom I might have to drag with me. XD

A look into the Court in Sierhagen


The guys I’ve been with this time were rather funny company. For example: Two of them bought an Ocarina and while one was quite capable of playing it right away, the other failed at it, horribly. I’m kind of curious whether they have played ever since…(and if they’ve improved). Interesting was also that we had eggs for breakfast. I mean „grilled“ eggs, like in: Putting a pan on the grill and putting (scrambled) eggs into it and then waiting for them to be ready. Or…I don’t know…far too many things to remember, let alone explain.
Concert-wise we looked into Faun – and decided they were too creepy – and watched the night shows of Rapalje and Saltatio Mortis.
The funniest thing about Rapalje probably was how the guys danced or clapped to it. That was more entertainment than what the band itself created.
Previous to watching Saltatio Mortis I talked with one of the guys about the song „Prometheus“ – a song that DarkFairy and I were looking for its interpreter, but couldn’t decide/remember whom it was. Unfortunately he didn’t knew either, but in the middle of the concert, we both realized: It’s one of SaMo’s most brilliant songs and DarkFairy and I forgot it, shame on us.
Beside the realization that the song was by them, it also became clear to me, that they simply are a band for small stages. DarkFairy and I have seen them on the amphitheatre stage of the Metalfest Loreley and that was quite a bad/boring concert, if I might say so…
The atmosphere they created on that small stage in Sierhagen was way better than the whole thing in St. Goarshausen. Remember: If you ever have the chance to see Saltatio Mortis live, make sure they play on a small stage!

The lime tree park in Sierhagen


Still the best thing that happened in Sierhagen: The radio of my car got fixed! It now works like it should have from the beginning. It’s a good thing to have some capable people with you once in a while. 🙂
Oh and you can have a look at the official Gallery (click „Veranstaltungsrückblicke“, „2012“ and then „Sierhagen“).

So much green and many funny looking people…

The other MPS I was at this year was Hamburg – Öjendorf. That date had been in my schedule for almost a year beforehand. It was my second time there and a chance to see some people that I hadn’t seen for more than a month. It was great seeing them again, though I did not manage to meet all of them…
The area is within the Öjendorfer Park, so in difference to Sierhagen everything was on meadows instead of court-yards (Though Sierhagen includes meadows as well). And even if it isn’t too large, the thing you are doing the most, is calling each other to find the others location…
Surprisingly the first meeting I had went rather smoothly. My colleague told me were they sat and it didn’t take me too long to find them as I had parked pretty close to the entrance that was closest to their position. As I sat with them it didn’t take long till the next few people of the group walked by, coincidentally meeting us.
This MPS was funny and expensive….oh dear, it was…why, oh why did I listen to myself when I had the thought of finally getting my own „Gewandung“? I don’t regret it though and according to the people who saw it, it doesn’t look too shabby. (They used different words, but I’m more a friend of modesty. ;))

Some of the Elven-creatures in Öjendorf


Regardless of that Öjendorf is quite a bit larger then Sierhagen, so you had some more attractions there. Like fire-shows, acrobats, a knight-tournament, more bands and more stages (four instead of „just“ two). The tournament is most fascinating as night-knight-tournament (couldn’t resist that one, sorry…). I’ve seen that last year and it was great. This year we saw it by daylight and it seemed a bit slow and somewhat annoying – especially the herald, but his role probably was made that way. Ok, I admit, I like fire, so riders with fire is like way more interesting than a „simple“ tournament to me.

A Troll-thing from Öjendorf


Afterwards IronEve – whom had accompanied me on my quest for clothes – and I headed back to the fire-spectacle stage for the evening concert of „Feuerschwanz„. A horde of perverts, but totally hilarious ones at that. When we arrived they just started playing „Hurra Hurra die Pest ist da“ (Hurray Hurray the Plague is here). A song about a village that gets the diagnosis plague and just drinks and parties away everything they got and do some pretty kinky things, only to realize the chaos after the predicted three days had passed. Simply too ridiculous to be taken serious., but fun nevertheless.
After that we picked up Eve’s chain amour for her Gimli costume, which she will be wearing at the premiere of „The Hobbit„. I don’t want to swap with her wearing that thing. Together with the axe and the helmet she should better start working out before she gets struck down by the weight…
When she rejoined with her boyfriend and their part of the group I departed to watch the fire show with a common pal of us and another colleague of mine. After catching up during the rather uneventful show they left for the night-tournament. I stayed to see the first few songs of that SaMo-night concert on my own before they returned to watch the rest of the concert. And yet again they did not play the „Drunken Sailor„… I was looking forward to that, but they did not do me the favour in both of their concerts… 🙁
However, that concludes my most interesting MPS experiences for this year.
I’m not sure which one(s) and with whom I’ll be attending next year, but I’d like to include at least one in my schedule. It’s fun (and I still need the other half of my clothings…) and always a great time and atmosphere.
I wouldn’t mind seeing some more of those.
PoiSonPaiNter