-- Special: K's Craft Tips For Festivals --
Hey leutz! Are you going to a festival, but can't find any good booze in plastic bottles? Are you sick of the usual distro-stand booze? Are you a wannabe Brutz & Brakel impresario? Or do you just want a neat conversation piece, to try to get into people's camps and/or pants? Whatever the reason, this special section will help you get from a glass bottle that will get taken at the gate to plastic-walled booze to get the party going.
189. First, get these together. From left to right, 750ml booze, 1L plastic (stuff in it for now), 2L empty plastic. You only need the last if you plan to save whatever's in the one-liter bottle.
190. Take a plastic bag -- like your spare max-compress shirt bag -- and cut off the corners. If you don't have a heavy-duty plastic bag like this, the one from the doner shop that your lunch came in will probably work, and likely already has a hole in it.
191. Shove the cut corner into the empty bottle. You now has a field funnel (inspired by Qingdao).
192. Pour the stuff from your 1L bottle slowly and carefully into the bag, and let it drain down.
193. When this process is done, wash out the bag.
194. Now, wash out the 1L bottle.
195. Take off the lame factory label and put a cool death metal sticker on it.
196. Stuff the bag into the 1L bottle.
197. Pour your booze slowly and carefully into the bag, and let it drain down.
198. Finished! Take a picture so you can prove what this even is, in case security asks. (They usually don't.)
199. Final finished article, with the pretty crimson and saffron ribbons from the original Mehkong bottle.
This ends the craft portion; next is the festival, and the drinking portion.
8/8 - Leipzig
The camera's fully charged, the leftover cheese from breakfast has been taped shut, and in nearly all respects, I'm ready to head off to Mühlhausen. The weather looks ok, and there's enough train time to wait that out as well if needed. A little longer to make sure the rush hour clears, and off we go.
Since I have both provisions and merch still loaded up, my pack is at about its high-water-mark for weight. I still have some quad damage from yesterday, but if I can handle this stretch, I can handle it on the hike. Losgehts.
After some uncertainty about what the fuck train I was actually supposed to get on, I headed out of Leipzig towards Erfurt, where I have then have to backtrack on the pokey Erfurter Bahn. Arrival in MHT is planned about 1pm or so. Probably. Enough time to catch the bus and get a decent campsite, then hide shit and go buy beer. We'll see who I can attach to, meet up with, or fall in with presently.
- Erfurt -
The damage to my left quad is more severe than anticipated, but due to a train-slotting screwup -- I could and should have gone on to Gotha with the IC -- I have some extra time to stretch it out here on the platform. Half an hour for the train, half an hour to Gotha, and then who knows how long with the RB up to Mühlhausen.
.....
8/9 - Schlotheim
There is really nothing like Party.San's ham'n'scram and a fresh brötchen on a cold morning. "When this is all over, I will miss this time very much -- I do not mean the touring." Once I finish the eats, a short recap that mostly covers yesterday.
.....
So I washed up at Mühlhausen, and while waiting for the shuttlebuses, traded Mehkong for some beers, did some distro, and made friends with an Aussie dude from Glasgow. I ended up introducing this guy, once we'd gotten on to the gelände, to the Erfurt crew from last year, which led to some free beer and brats after making camp, and then it was off into town for some cases of 29er to hold up our end. The Edeka was not out of beer, having learned from the previous year what it means to have a metalfest in your town (short version: cheap beer = big bucks), so Sam and I were able to get provisioned between buses, and I was able to kick out some Darkwor CDs to some French GBK fans I met while transferring my Tullamore into a plastic bottle. Sam wasn't able to do the same with his Nutella, but fortunately we met up with some guys from Cornwall with deep shopping bags, and made all our Bluff rolls to get through security. Back at the camp, it was drink, drink, drink, until I went to bed shortly after sundown (tough day)...and then woke up at sunup to the sounds of Demolition Hammer. The short version, basically, is that P.SOA remains the repository and center of all good things -- even if beers at the beer stand are now a less convenient 2,50e. I've got some more promo to so, and more folks to try and find, but for now, it's just good to be back.
200. Here we go again.
201. Empty landscapes, Thursday morning.
202. Dennis wearing the Helge mask to ambush Müller out of his tent.
Draw a line under 12:30, Thursday. At that point, I was completely out of CDs. Having a pro barker (Sam used to sell nightclubs in London) and a street festival helped a little, but this is mostly the insatiable P.SOA appetite for everything DIY.
video2: how it really is at festivals. You can see all the stage footage you like; this is the real shit behind the scenes.
203. Dennis and the Helge-Faß.
204. This is DIY -- right over the running order, a "drummer wanted" ad.
205. Dead Congregation kick things off.
Dead Congregation [5.5/7]
I missed about half the set due to delays getting in the gate, but this was still a kickass barrage of old-school death metal. Very good stuff, and if they and their country can hang around, they won't be playing this early much longer.
206. Poster on the rail.
In Solitude [5/7]
Not that much better than Worcester; at the time, I was hanging with the TerrorBlade folks, and the band wasn't doing a lot to hold the attention. Good enough, but kinda nachlässig -- and still GFM.
207. This looks like a reliable van.
208. Sara and Sam fucking around with the French porno bus.
209. On the way back in -- Revocation getting festival slots. As implied, this is the tour, with Dying Fetus, that Europeans should be looking out for, not just in fall festivals, but in halls near them.
210. Nifelheim smash the crowd.
211. Storm of Satan's Fire!
Nifelheim [5.5/7]
Again, difficulties getting in meant that I missed like half the set, but what was left was choice. Uniformly killer, and a set that built on itself steadily, song after song.
Solstafir [6.5/7]
Like a lot of third-wave, it isn't that far to hipsterism. Fortunately, the band still keeps it together to awesome, awesome effect. Third-wave is still third-wave, but when it's done well it can be amazing, and it does not get much better than Solstafir.
212. Moar liek Hipstarfir, lolololol.
213. Better light for the whole band.
214. Pan across the crowd, waiting for Sodom.
215. Lust auf Sodomie?
Sodom [6/7]
There's only so much Sodom you can pack into a 45-minute non-headlining set, but this was 45 pretty damn good minutes of Sodom. No "Bombenhagel", and nicht "Ausgebombt", but with classic shit like "Blasphemer", "Agent Orange", and "Sodomy And Lust", they bombed the hell out of the audience pretty damn well.
216. Little kids put the horns up for Onkel Tom.
217. Bolt Thrower blasting the night.
218. In actual light.
219. Karl banging.
Bolt Thrower [6/7]
The wait was worth it; I'd never seen Bolt Thrower live before, but this wasn't just a list checkoff. Despite being significantly the worse for wear at that point -- hit up Brutz und Brakel with Irish dudes and you'll also have trouble putting shit together -- this was a lethal, bulldozing set from first to last, over the whole of the hour. Just flat killer, and a class musical conclusion to a simply killer first day.
220. Good band, bad light.
221. More "Bolt Thrower out of focus".
222. Karl hails the crowd for the last time.
video3: Dennis dancing around to "Hauptschule" at like 1AM. This is echt Festival: weird weird weird shit happens in the middle of the night. Müller and I left the site shortly afterward, wandered around, met drunks and Irish dudes, sought and dispensed wisdom, and drank quite a bit of beer in the process. And then you go to sleep, you wake up, and you set up to do it all over again.
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