8/5
[Wacken]
The sky looks like crap, and I need to make a run into town to get batts and check the Celtic score. Also, for some reason I only traveled with three pairs of mountain socks, one of which is kind of beaten to crap from Norway. Who the fuck thought that was a smart idea?
Batts are in, and I think I've shaken off msot of the effect of the homebrew "Wodkaschnapps" I got off the Dutch dude from last night at our re-encounter this morning. So ist, sozusagen, Wacken. Some sprinkles, no rain. Five hours to gates. Hope it stays dry.
227. Biergarten aktuell.
Also, when I was in town, I saw an ad for something called Red Korea. Red wine and cola. This shoudl be enough to indicate the dumbness of the idea. It's a shit combination, so shit that associating it with the world's last Stalinist dictatorship is a positive. JUSTICE FOR AIJALON.
228. MTV newscrew, shooting a spot in a forcegiven kutte. This may be a Profifest, but the audience is still kvlt -- these guys were treated to a few rounds of "Kein Amnesty für MTV" from the German contingent and "You're shit/and you know you are" from the English-speakers, but they stuck through the kutte-draping, the mobbing, and the plastic forks broken into devilhorns being marched across the front of the camera, and got a good view of the true Wacken in.
229. ((not germane))
So there's this pink shirt you see at festivals with "schwarz war leider ausverkauft" (black was sold out) on the front. And now there's a complementary black shirt out with "fuck pink! schwarz ist wieder verfugbar" (they got black again) on it. Shirt meme is a shirt meme.
230. Table graffiti. "Mambo Kurt Huffs Glue!"....and some personal observations about Alexi Laiho and the Finnish dental system.
Random flyers/stickers ate on their expected hit rate, about, but it's always good to see them get vultured. The only problem is that in Germany, I probably have to put the Humanity Falls promo cards out face down....people are still kind of sensitive about images of KzLs.
So these Aussies sit down, ask where I'm from as normal, and the first question after that is do I know Sexcrement. Ho-ly fuckin shit. Half an hour later, we've traded a small book's worth of DIY tales (one of them being Mark Palfreyman from Alarum), including a concrete explanation of why Necrophagist was so late to Metalfest in 2006, and I'm damn near out of CDs. Small world, hellacious festival.
Prayers of Sanity [4/7]
Decent, but our thrash revivalists would wipe the floor with them. Maybe Portugal can do better as well, but with the format of this contest (these guys were national Metal Battle winners, the contest being sponsored by Metal Hammer), it's difficult to tell.
231. PA tower. We're in.
232. People getting an early front slot for Alice Cooper.
233. Party-mädels. Confetti and silly string to the unsuspecting is the price of glam.
234. Viking dude naked. Wacken, man.
Skyline [4/7]
Cool, but unlike last year an all-covers set. This is about their level, and the help, as shown, that they get by being the organizers' band definitely helps.
235. Skyline pumping up the crowd.
236. Doro fronting the orgaband.
237. Udo comes out to do "Balls To The Wall".
238. Official bodypaint girl, for some reason.
Now sitting through the Metal Hammer awards again; Steel Panther won best debut. This is why I put so much effort into DIY. DIY can occasionally be crap if dudes don't put effort into it, but the alternative is much, much worse.
239. Daaa~s iss de letzte. Seriously. Seriously. Maybe this is what Motley Crue does to a fest. TROTZDEM.
(I met some bikers the next day who had found an actual use for this stunt, but 10 euros to prank your buddy, as will be explained, is still a little steep.)
240. Curto getting a boost up from at least Paula and Maria, probably some others too.
241. "In the night/The fires are burning bright" -- Bruce and the cowskull.
242. Maiden crowd and the dying sun.
Iron Maiden [6/7]
It was a festival set (Curto (mentioned above, more later) was disappointed at the lack of MOAR, and more disappointed at the lack of "Run To The Hills"), but it was also a good Iron Maiden festival set, drawing mostly from the last three records. They didn't do anything off the new one, though, so I won't hear that till I get home.
On Curto. And Héctor, y Mária, y Carmen, y Pitu, y Paula y Sobo. Around the start of Alice Cooper, a Spanish guy sat down -- helped down -- by me with a wrecked knee. Despite the language barrier, we compared injuries, then hung out (translation assistance from several others of his friends, mentioned above), and I ended up seeing Iron Maiden con mis amigos nuevos, then hanging out at their camp. It was a grand old time of the sort you get only here, the ability to meet random people from random countries, connected only by metal, and stumble by accident into good times.
I'm hoping to see these guys again before the end of the fest, for various reasons, but not least among them (ok, not most either) that I want to hear the end of that shaggy-dog story of why Carlos Santana didn't want to play with Jaco Pastorius. Maybe I need to learn Spanish for that -- good enough reason to learn.
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