--
Day 14
7 August 2009
Bad Berka - Thüringen - Germany
As mentioned, this fest is Death Metal Date Night, and that pays off for some people. When I woke up with the dawn today, I was prevented from going back to sleep by the sounds of not one but two couples going at it. I'm in a densely tented area, but that meme of extreme metal fans as sexually frustrated losers is in serious trouble.
Today's highlights are mostly in the block Swallow The Sun - Hate Eternal - Thyrfing - Misery Index, but Unleashed and Satyricon are potentially worth staying up for, and I also want to catch Solstafir. If you're playing along at home, award yourself 10 extra scene points if you associated the band's name with Agalloch's "Not Unlike The Waves".
It is uniformly Wicked Fucking Hot here. The good news is that I can keep my promise to ceaselessly advertise Bone Ritual, but the bad news is that the kutte is staying in the tent absent significant rain. It's not worth magnifying the atrocious heat of the day to avoid the chilldown walking back from the last band. Fifty-degree (Fahrenheit, obviously) temperature swings (from low-nineties in the afternoon to low-forties at night, due to the complete absence of cloud cover) are tough, but I can hack it for that limited time.
574. An old license plate from before Europeanization.
575. Playing at bowls with METAL! \m/ balls and a 1L Faxe can. I didn't ask about the rules, but this may be descended from the same game that turned into horseshoes on the US frontier.
Evocation shirts are confusing when they don't have the band's logo. I keep seeing people in them, going "wait, they have gear out here already?" and being unnecessarily disappointed to find that it's not a fold in the cloth hiding the first letter.
576. Empty infield while Summers Dying sets up.
577. From the foot of the stage up into the hills. The next settlement is well over the other side of the ridge; the actual town of Bad Berka is out of frame about 3 miles to the right, colinear with the back of the stage.
578. An innovative way to beat the heat. There's some wind, so it isn't as bad as yesterday, but such measures are still justified.
Summer's Dying [5/7]
Don't let the pics fool you - this isn't a black metal band, it's a melodic death metal band with Music/Image Reconciliation Disorder, aka Stormwarrior Syndrome. They had some black parts, but never got much blacker than Dissection there, in the main laying out a solid set of melodic death metal mostly echoing mid-period Dark Tranquillity. They did ok, but proved their character by finishing strong despite badly fucking up the intro of their last song no fewer than four times. That's the sort of thing that breaks bands, especially a local band on a big stage like this. We'll see if they ever go anywhere, but they've definitely got the stones to do so.
579. Summers Dying hits the stage.
580. Crushing Thuringian death.
581. Event symbolfoto: single-minded neck wreckage.
(bonus note: my girlfriend was not impressed with the blood paint on this guitarist's arm, and was disappointed that it wasn't a tattoo or something equally permanent.)
A prodigious memory has its uses, especially with a little luck. I wasn't sure where I'd seen Nice To Eat You Records before, whether it was Dysentery or Deconformity or both or some other local band, but they had a booth, so I wandered over, and some random dude was, I kid you not, buying From Past Suffering Comes New Flesh. Quick as a whistle, I slapped one of my few remaining Dysentery stickers down and ended up chatting a bit with the label dude, who took my remaining Dysentery sticker off me along with about half of the Parasitic Extirpation ones I had left, then allowed me to shove some Composted promo cards in the end of the box containing them as a sort of endcap. In return I bought some Katalepsy and Haemorrhage off him; good stuff.
The only regret from this transaction was that I didn't tell him why Parasitic never got back to him about stocking Knee Deep In Disease - that they were practically out themselves due to high local demand and the five that I took over to give away were probably the only ones not in "private" hands by that time as a consequence of the simultaneous Dysentery tour.
Grabak [5/7]
Glorior Belli cancelled, leaving this Saxon horde, who either came down special from Leipzig in the morning, or were already here and borrowed up some gear. The sound was pretty typical violent German black metal, but the sourcing wasn't.
582. Grabak make a last-minute fill-in.
583. Wait, they have how many bassists? Even if they sucked, this would make their appearance worthy.
584. Heavy Metal Picnicweise. The grass is soft and non-destroyed, and the ground slopes down to the stage, so there's a lot of sitting down (and lying down, come the night time).
585. Some representative fauna (foreground, bullet belts) and flora (background, leopard bikini) of the festival. I wans't going to do fanservice because it tends to objectify the subjects, but these dudes were looking to be snapped and the chica happened to be in frame, making it equal-opportunity.
Inhume [6/7]
Just a flat hammering grind-death outing. These guys need to come to the States; they got a little frustrated with the lack of moshing, which would not be a problem on, say, NEDF a year or two down the line. They also continued the brief run of odd instrumentation; if a grind band has two vocalists, one is usually the guttural guy, and the other is the shouty guy. In this case, there was no shouty guy: the vocalist in the red Dead Infection shirt did death gutturals, and the long-haired dude did even more brutal gore gutturals. S00PER Brutal.
586. Inhume storm the stage.
587. The two vocalists let fly.
588. Guttural dude bellowing.
589. Death vox and a rake of untrimmed guitar strings.
590. Action shot; I was trying to get the singers doing simultaneous high-kicks, but failed.
591. Gore dude rocking a shirt from some friends in the crowd.
Solstafir [5.5/7]
Pelican must be huge in Iceland. Solstafir have been around for a while, but this set of predominantly new material brought a definite doomy, post-rock, cosmic sound to the proceedings. It was still black metal, if in the way that Agalloch and Wolves In The Throne Room are; something different, to be sure, no matter how it's received.
592. The drummer prepares....
593. Slate of their banner.
594. The bassist and his girl braids enter. Yes, they're also Viking braids, but he's short about 50 pounds and three deadly weapons of being taken seriously in that regard.
595. The singer hypes the crowd.
596. Full band behind a boom.
597. As above; stay out of my shots, DVD guy!
598. This Bosshoss-looking motherfucker was hiding stage left for most of their set.
599. Full band (for real, even the shy guitarist) through the smoke.
600. Wailing on a solo at the end of "Ritual of Fire". This song took up easily half of their 45-minute set, if not more. Epic.
Den Saakaldte [4.5/7]
Well-delivered but ultimately replacement-level modern black metal, I saw this set from the beergarden/cocktailbar after reprovisioning for the second half of the bill. If there was a time to take off Friday, this was it. Not so easy tomorrow; Shining is in this "dinner" slot.
601. The band at a great distance.
602. A little closer up. Still replacement-level.
While researching something else I found out that Kvarforth from Shining allegedly does the vocals here, which matches up with what I saw from the band, but that doesn't magically improve the music.
Swallow The Sun [6/7]
Swapping places with their neighbors to the west (Evocation had some difficulties getting in, so STS went on one slot early), these guys brought a killer set of harder Katatonia that reset the tone after the Norskies and probably about did up the day's quota of melody. This also included a new song that the rest of the world won't get to hear until November...unless you stop by one of their gigs in the meantime, that is. As expected, raw, evocative, doomy, awesome.
603. Swallow The Sun enter.
604. The band, enshrouded.
605. Tearing into the first song.
606. Stage right crew.
607. Band, stage left.
608. And now the guitarist finishes tuning and rips it.
609. Full band again.
610. Wailing on a tap solo.
611. The full band in the falling light.
I checked as I went past the Nice To Eat You stand heading back for a drink - Composted, sold out; promo cards, gone. I did something useful after all.
Evocation [6/7]
Nice crunchy first-wave Swedish death; it's not for nothing that their logo recalls Entombed's. Another band that would do well in the States; this style generally does well wherever you take it, and this was no exception. Fun times with pounding death metal.
612. Evocation fill the stage and the frame.
613. Crunching out "Angel of Torment".
614. Yells and biting guitar.
615. Digging in, face to face.
616. Close formation.
617. Mid-bang.
618. Thomas takes to the stacks.
619. Teamed up.
620. A little closer on "The Ancient Gate".
621. Bass and guitar, close in.
622. Bonded by crushing death.
I'm running out of light, but I should be ok through Hate Eternal at least.
Hate Eternal [7/7]
A Hate Eternal set where you can hear Erik's guitar correctly right from the start, for a decent length of time? Why so I have to go to Europe for this again? The actual music was as uniformly killer as expected, and the crowd was gut drauf enough to make a decent pit for most of the set, a rarity in this part of the world. Full fuckin marks - first time for this band, first time that there wasn't any technical bullshit in the way.
623. Erik storms out.
624. Outfield lineup.
625. New bassist thrashing. Pretty sure this isn't Makoto; if anyone knows otherwise, go ahead and dopeslap me.
626. Erik Rutan, full roar.
627. Lost in the cavern of the stage.
628. Ripping out pure fuckin' death.
629. Erik takes a solo midstage, and I take a two-shot.
630. Hell boils behind Erik for "Behold Judas".
631. The sun sets over the western hills at the end of the set.
Thyrfing [6/7]
Their material was never the best the viking scene had to offer, but this was the pure old viking metal of the old school, well delivered, though the singer could use a couple more viewings of "Chocolate Rain". I MOVE AWAY FROM THE MIC TO BREATHE, srsly! Good stuff, though, and well appreciated by the still-filling crowd.
632. Thyrfing's shit is apparently wicked complicated.
633. The band struts out in the last of the sun.
634. Lost in the fog.
635. The band, benefitting from stage smoke.
636. Through the haze of battle.
637. Bassist, guitarist, and some light amplifiers.
638. The rest of the band outruns the shutter.
639. Full hammering attack.
640. Thrashing away.
641. Guitarist and a blast of fog.
642. The keyboardist stands in a pillar of light.
643. The whole band catches the spots.
644. These five to eight thousand are pretty pumped.
645. Everything goes up for the start of the Black Plague song.
646. More thrashing action.
647. The security, out of focus.
648. Smoke fills the stage again.
649. Stagefront, no fire, though I was anticipating it.
650. The band receives the audience's acclaim.
651. Jens hits the deck to slap hands with doods.
Misery Index [5.5/7]
I heard this from the back rather than seeing it from the front, but the impression holds: precisely milled grind-death, not exactly to my taste, but expertly smashed out and provided. I'll see them indoors one of these days; I can take a break before I take a look at Unleashed and decide if it's worth staying out for Satyricon.
652. Misery Index stirs shit.
653. A little closer...
654. NOW we get fire...
655. You can almost see the band with all the lights up.
Bump the score up to the next full point if you like; they closed strong and I did have stuff between me and the stage most of the set.
656. A perfect blackmetal fullmoon. Suitable for background use.
Unleashed [6/7]
A partial setlist:
Passion of the Christ
Never Ending Hate
Your Children Will Burn
This World Is Ours Now
Winterland
Victory or Defeat
Into Glory Ride
Hammer Battalions Unleashed
Death Metal Victory
There was some other stuff in there as well, but this is a fair summation: a good old Unleashed set with a lot of punch and fire. I'm pretty sure that nobody was really expecting anything else. Originality is kind of unlooked-for at this point in the band's career; we got some good Unleashed, and that's what matters.
657. Unleashed enters like something out of a Bathory cover painting.
658. The stage glows like a 19th-century nightscape.
659. More like "Thrashin" of the Christ, but that's a Municipal Waste song.
660. Unleashed through the smoke.
661. Pounding away.
662. Jonny roars up the crowd.
663. Jonny gathering the crowd's never-ending hate.
664. YOUR CHILDREN WILL BURN!
665. ....and so they did.
666. More fireblasts.
667. The flames continue.
668. The pyro smoke from "Winterland" mushrooms into the night air.
Satyricon [5/7]
I heard this from the tent, and what I heard vindicated that decision. It's ok if Satyr doesn't want to play his band's good music any more; just means I don't have to stand around listening and waiting in vain. New Satyricon is still Satyricon, and still decent, but given where my campsite was located, nothing that needed staying in the infield for.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
European Tour 2009 part 9: Party.San buildup
--
Day 12
5 August 2009
Berlin - Berlin-Brandenburg - Germany
Looking at how the running order is, I could probably have taken another day and gone down tomorrow...but the itinerary is what it is, so down the tent I go; hope I find some cool peeps or a place to buy a case of local beer while inbound - best both.
I've still got large chunks of Schleswig-Holstein stuck to my boots, despite all the hiking yesterday. It's looking more and more like I'll explicitly have to hose them off to get back through US customs.
561. The cursed (?) track 13 at Potsdamer Platz. I had to go through this station quite a bit when I was going around in Berlin, and got stuck there a while on a couple occasions. Despite the time spent, I never saw a train slated for this track. Spooooky.
Bad Berka - Thüringen - Germany
Party.San
562. Noch bequem. This festival is capped at 10,000; nice and small and quiet.
563. Over to the main part of the campground.
Some nice views of Thuringia on the way in; got to come back here sometime. The ground's harder here than in Wacken, probably due to the drier climate as much as the lack of immediate rainfall, but the tent went up without a hitch; let's hope it stays so.
No bands today, and nothing in the festival area open; after exploring around the site a bit, I tried despite the suffocating heat to get some daytime sleep. Once the bands start, there'll be little opportunity for such.
564. Tower on a distant hill.
565. Bone Ritual shirt with the sleeves cut off. Because I promised the band, and because there isn't shit else to do. The beerwagon (conveniently located less than 100 yards from my tent) isn't even open yet.
566. A full moon over British dudes helping Spanish girls with their tent.
567. Are metalheads perched like ravens on these distant hay bales? This area did get camped up later, after more people arrived, but this just looked spooky in the dusk lighting. I have no idea if anyone was really out there.
The lack of anything to do meant that I probably could have taken another day in Berlin and gone down earlier in the day Thursday without difficulty. However, this would mean tighter train connections as well as having to set up at the ass end of the campground. Sweating buckets and boredom is an acceptable tradeoff for a 2-minute stumble to beer and breakfast, and a five minute hike to either the festival entrance or the shuttle bus.
--
Day 13
6 August 2009
Bad Berka - Thüringen - Germany
568. Dawn through mosquito netting.
The ticket says something about cameras being forbidden; we'll see tonight if this is actually enforced before trying to lug this through and potentially losing everything I've piled up so far.
569. Mexican flag. Mostly Germans here, but people will come from all over; this is the biggest all-extreme all-metal fest there is.
570. Pfandmarke and Schwarzbier. Good: 0.4 liter of Köstriker black for 2 euros. Bad: ridiculous deposit system. There was a 1e deposit on each weak plastic cup redeemable only with a cup and chip together. This caused no end of confusion, and by the end of the weekend, I (along with other regulars) was no longer getting charged the deposit at the local beerwagon because we were going to drink standing there, then give over our last cup, and go to bed or go watch bands.
Five good beers and breakfast for 15 euro; this is the good life.
571. Down the hill to the stage; about six hours left to kill.
This is very much death metal date night; while Wacken in places is a family affair, this is a lot of young couples - and quite a few women on their own. Extreme metal is usually like this, but here more so than most places. To sum up: if you like extreme music, loads of hot metal chicks (or, in fairness as well as PC-balance, fit dudes with their shirts off), and good, cheap, beer, Party.San is your festival. You do have to get pretty deep into interior Germany to get here, which may be tough for non-German speakers, but it's worth it. A guide will follow at some point.
572. Lunch/dinner in progress. I told you this festival was wicked interior German. If you have a grill or, hell, a can opener, you will not have to eat sausages cold with your hands, or potato salad like it was poi. However, you'll be a lot more comfortable here, in a general sense, if you can.
If it's not raining, the dust from the road covers everything. Bands are about to start, and none too soon.
573. The official injunction against cameras. It wasn't enforced, but my wariness kept me from trying off the bat and this unfortunately means no pics from Thursday night.
Postmortem [4.5/7]
Pretty nice thrash with touches of deathcore, but they went on a little longer than probably was necessary. This is a feature, not a bug; every band up to the headliners gets 45 minutes, with 15 minute set changes, allowing the schedule to be wicked, wicked simple and easy to keep track of.
As will be seen in later pics, the infield, ringed with merch stands and food vendors with a bar and a single PA tower in the middle, is basically equivalent to the 2007 Wacken Party Stage, giving plenty of room for the up-to 10,000.
Azarath [5/7]
Though I can legit claim that I've been following this band since their demo, nobody here cares, so it doesn't matter. There were some problems with the sound at the start, but the band persevered and laid out a nice set of slightly blackened blasting death metal. Hells yes.
Psycroptic [6/7]
This was the first band to not feel like they went on too long, but this is probably because Psycroptic is awesome and I, like most death metal fans, could happily hear them play forever. They did a nice mixture of new and old, and dues were pumped throughout. This was, according to the band, the first Euro festival run for these Tasmanian Devils, and one expects that they'll be back again in the future.
Still mindful of my pack capacity, I limited the merch run I did before these guys to a festival shirt and a handful of bootleg patches featuring Dark Angel and Master's Hammer. We'll see how this self-limiting bit holds up.
Destroyer 666 [6/7]
Those seeing this band at Club Hell, or any of their other US club dates, are in for a treat. They brought a great intensity live, and even without the fire effects, a full headlining show indoors is going to be the balls. Absolute total black thrash devastation.
Protip: the "666" in the name is silent, like all those xs in xhardxcorexbandxnamesx. If you don't pronounce it, you may be able to fool others into believing you've seen them live too.
Marduk [6/7]
As always, all-dominant christraping black metal, and in a much more appropriate setting than the last time I saw them, at Wacken in '05 with the sun still out. I saw a little bit, then heard the rest from my tent, conveniently located (as a result of when I got in) a mere 400 yards away from the stage and right on the stage right PA's axis of fire. I got a smashing Marduk set while relaxing, and the knowledge that if the Saturday bands after Brujeria don't suck, I'll be able to hear them just fine.
Hell of a festival, hell of a first day.
Day 12
5 August 2009
Berlin - Berlin-Brandenburg - Germany
Looking at how the running order is, I could probably have taken another day and gone down tomorrow...but the itinerary is what it is, so down the tent I go; hope I find some cool peeps or a place to buy a case of local beer while inbound - best both.
I've still got large chunks of Schleswig-Holstein stuck to my boots, despite all the hiking yesterday. It's looking more and more like I'll explicitly have to hose them off to get back through US customs.
561. The cursed (?) track 13 at Potsdamer Platz. I had to go through this station quite a bit when I was going around in Berlin, and got stuck there a while on a couple occasions. Despite the time spent, I never saw a train slated for this track. Spooooky.
Bad Berka - Thüringen - Germany
Party.San
562. Noch bequem. This festival is capped at 10,000; nice and small and quiet.
563. Over to the main part of the campground.
Some nice views of Thuringia on the way in; got to come back here sometime. The ground's harder here than in Wacken, probably due to the drier climate as much as the lack of immediate rainfall, but the tent went up without a hitch; let's hope it stays so.
No bands today, and nothing in the festival area open; after exploring around the site a bit, I tried despite the suffocating heat to get some daytime sleep. Once the bands start, there'll be little opportunity for such.
564. Tower on a distant hill.
565. Bone Ritual shirt with the sleeves cut off. Because I promised the band, and because there isn't shit else to do. The beerwagon (conveniently located less than 100 yards from my tent) isn't even open yet.
566. A full moon over British dudes helping Spanish girls with their tent.
567. Are metalheads perched like ravens on these distant hay bales? This area did get camped up later, after more people arrived, but this just looked spooky in the dusk lighting. I have no idea if anyone was really out there.
The lack of anything to do meant that I probably could have taken another day in Berlin and gone down earlier in the day Thursday without difficulty. However, this would mean tighter train connections as well as having to set up at the ass end of the campground. Sweating buckets and boredom is an acceptable tradeoff for a 2-minute stumble to beer and breakfast, and a five minute hike to either the festival entrance or the shuttle bus.
--
Day 13
6 August 2009
Bad Berka - Thüringen - Germany
568. Dawn through mosquito netting.
The ticket says something about cameras being forbidden; we'll see tonight if this is actually enforced before trying to lug this through and potentially losing everything I've piled up so far.
569. Mexican flag. Mostly Germans here, but people will come from all over; this is the biggest all-extreme all-metal fest there is.
570. Pfandmarke and Schwarzbier. Good: 0.4 liter of Köstriker black for 2 euros. Bad: ridiculous deposit system. There was a 1e deposit on each weak plastic cup redeemable only with a cup and chip together. This caused no end of confusion, and by the end of the weekend, I (along with other regulars) was no longer getting charged the deposit at the local beerwagon because we were going to drink standing there, then give over our last cup, and go to bed or go watch bands.
Five good beers and breakfast for 15 euro; this is the good life.
571. Down the hill to the stage; about six hours left to kill.
This is very much death metal date night; while Wacken in places is a family affair, this is a lot of young couples - and quite a few women on their own. Extreme metal is usually like this, but here more so than most places. To sum up: if you like extreme music, loads of hot metal chicks (or, in fairness as well as PC-balance, fit dudes with their shirts off), and good, cheap, beer, Party.San is your festival. You do have to get pretty deep into interior Germany to get here, which may be tough for non-German speakers, but it's worth it. A guide will follow at some point.
572. Lunch/dinner in progress. I told you this festival was wicked interior German. If you have a grill or, hell, a can opener, you will not have to eat sausages cold with your hands, or potato salad like it was poi. However, you'll be a lot more comfortable here, in a general sense, if you can.
If it's not raining, the dust from the road covers everything. Bands are about to start, and none too soon.
573. The official injunction against cameras. It wasn't enforced, but my wariness kept me from trying off the bat and this unfortunately means no pics from Thursday night.
Postmortem [4.5/7]
Pretty nice thrash with touches of deathcore, but they went on a little longer than probably was necessary. This is a feature, not a bug; every band up to the headliners gets 45 minutes, with 15 minute set changes, allowing the schedule to be wicked, wicked simple and easy to keep track of.
As will be seen in later pics, the infield, ringed with merch stands and food vendors with a bar and a single PA tower in the middle, is basically equivalent to the 2007 Wacken Party Stage, giving plenty of room for the up-to 10,000.
Azarath [5/7]
Though I can legit claim that I've been following this band since their demo, nobody here cares, so it doesn't matter. There were some problems with the sound at the start, but the band persevered and laid out a nice set of slightly blackened blasting death metal. Hells yes.
Psycroptic [6/7]
This was the first band to not feel like they went on too long, but this is probably because Psycroptic is awesome and I, like most death metal fans, could happily hear them play forever. They did a nice mixture of new and old, and dues were pumped throughout. This was, according to the band, the first Euro festival run for these Tasmanian Devils, and one expects that they'll be back again in the future.
Still mindful of my pack capacity, I limited the merch run I did before these guys to a festival shirt and a handful of bootleg patches featuring Dark Angel and Master's Hammer. We'll see how this self-limiting bit holds up.
Destroyer 666 [6/7]
Those seeing this band at Club Hell, or any of their other US club dates, are in for a treat. They brought a great intensity live, and even without the fire effects, a full headlining show indoors is going to be the balls. Absolute total black thrash devastation.
Protip: the "666" in the name is silent, like all those xs in xhardxcorexbandxnamesx. If you don't pronounce it, you may be able to fool others into believing you've seen them live too.
Marduk [6/7]
As always, all-dominant christraping black metal, and in a much more appropriate setting than the last time I saw them, at Wacken in '05 with the sun still out. I saw a little bit, then heard the rest from my tent, conveniently located (as a result of when I got in) a mere 400 yards away from the stage and right on the stage right PA's axis of fire. I got a smashing Marduk set while relaxing, and the knowledge that if the Saturday bands after Brujeria don't suck, I'll be able to hear them just fine.
Hell of a festival, hell of a first day.
Friday, August 21, 2009
European Tour 2009 part 8: Berlin
--
Day 10
3 August 2009
Hamburg - Hamburg-Hesse - Germany
Repacking right now to head over to the station. I can't believe these fucking Wessis don't know what a Waschsalon is. I blame Siemens, personally.
Friedenau - Berlin - Germany
I'm currently racing the clock to get my laundry done before the markets close so I can get some breakfast foods in. Until then, arriving pictures.
443. Ironwork at the Berlin Hbf.
444. Ad for a porn store in the train station. Not just the ad's in the station, the porn store also.
445. Out-of-focus mural in the Oranienburgerstrasse U-bahn stop after getting lost.
446. Yeah, you know we chill when...
447. Schönebergerbrücke. Two construction years, one in the late '40s or early '50s, is probably kind of common in this town.
448. View northish over said bridge. Nice and peaceful.
449. Gleisdreieck subway stop building.
450. Badass mural on the side of my hotel.
451. Church in Friedrich-Wilhelm-platz. There were probably closer laundromats, but this one (off the same subway stop as this church) got a good rec from Google, and I could actually find it.
452. Use this in your German class - with care. "Aber auch die Deutschen missbrauchen die Fälle!" - "Aber auch die Deutschen solche Misse korregieren!"
453. A memorial to victims of another age. A reminder to the huffers and puffers that the antisocial will always be with us, but who and why they unleash their hate and frustration against will change.
--
Day 11
4 August 2009
Berlin - Berlin-Brandenburg - Germany
454. Potsdamer Platz, crossing from U to S. Berlin has two complementary light rail systems that both do above- and below-ground, but very rarely share the same terminal when they meet up. I was heading to Unter den Linden, so I had to change from the U2 to the S1.
455. Brandenburg gate in the morning light.
456. Statue inside the gate.
457. Ampelmann series nr. 1: Bleib Stehen, Du Deppe.
458. Ampelmann series nr. 2: Sofort Ab Schon, Zecke.
459. Memorial on 17. Juni-Strasse.
460. Another clock, same place as the last....but I came prepared.
461. Soviet war memorial, and the final resting place of 2500 soldiers killed in the process of taking Berlin.
462. Military hardware flanks each side.
463. Caption for us non-Cyrillic-readers.
464. Memorial urns behind the monument.
465. An old view; the new memorial and the incompletely-destroyed Reichstag dominate a moonscape.
466. Back of the monument; all branches of the Soviet military are represented.
467. They apparently put lights in since I was last here, which must be quite impressive at night. I, however, had to keep going.
468. Red flower beds maintained by the city. For those who know Berlin geography and remember the old days, yes, the Soviets inadvertently built their main memorial in what turned into the Western sector. The British Army maintained it for them from 1949 until 1990, when it was turned over to the city/state of Berlin after reunification; the Russians built several other large cemeteries/memorials in their parts of Berlin and nearby areas of Brandenburg.
469. Modernistic building by the Reichstag.
470. "Dedicated to the German People". Flags here indicate government property; nobody else feels the compulsion to slap the schwarz-rot-gold on everything possible.
471. Memorial to Weimar-era representatives (many from the KPD and SPD) murdered by the Nazis.
472. Down Unter den Linden to the Fernsehturm. When I arrived yesterday, everything above the ball of the tower was lost in the clouds.
473. Life is a clay urn on the mantle. Time rolls on in Berlin, too.
474. Living statues getting made up for the day.
475. Fernsehturm again.
476. The police form up and get ready for another long day of chasing pickpockets and listening patiently to tourists whinge on in foreign languages.
477. Street to the UK consulate, permanently closed to traffic by vehicles much larger than a bicycle or pedicab.
478. Russian legation, Unter den Linden.
479. Flag up on the roof.
480. Statue of Frederick the Great, near Schlossplatz.
481. From Schlossplatz towards Alexanderplatz.
482. Humbolt University.
483. St. Hedwig's' dome, with horrible backlighting.
484. The front of the National Opera.
485. Statues (possibly both of Frederick the Great at different stages of his career, I didn't check too close) by a small park.
486. There's a museum for everything in this city....
487. Interesting brick church while crossing the Spree.
488. Onto this arm of the river.
489. The enormously impressive Berliner Dom.
490. In Schlossplatz. Mostly a slate, but a nice skyline too.
491. Museum of Antiquities.
492. While crossing Unter den Linden at Schlossplatz. As befits the national Lutheran cathedral of Prussia, this church really jumps out at you and proceeds to beat you to the ground.
493. Historical museum - impressions of the Wall.
German Historical Museum
494. An I.M. Pei staircase. I take so many architecture pictures, I might think I'd missed my calling, except for the part where I can't draw a straight line, period.
495. Roll of photo prints from the "Monday demonstrations" in Leipzig.
496. Statues of Marx and Engels photographed at the Wende with appropriate graffiti that didn't come out. Front: "It wasn't our fault." Back: "Next time it will be better."
497. Communist industrial enviro-devastation. This is near Lauchhammer in southern Brandenburg, not in Montana or Kazakhstan.
498. Klose's boots from the 2006 Germany-Poland game. This was at the end of a long exhibit on German-Polish relations, but the rest is better seen in person.
German Historical Museum - permanent exhibits
499. A reminder of the good old days - before the Huns.
500. Roman altar. The opportunities for Euro-Americans to reach out and touch their heathen past at home are somewhat limited.
501. History erased; a Roman altar to Victoria, with effacements.
502. Medieval swords.
503. A hand-copy of Bosch's Last Judgement that didn't come out as well as I thought it was going to.
504. Weapons from the farmers' revolt that caused Luther to write his best-titled work, Against the Thieving, Murderous Hordes of Peasants.
505. Ornate shutters. This building was originally built by the Prussian kings as a treasure and trophy house (hence the name Zeughaus, closely translated as "house for important stuff") and later used as an armory, but the original shutters have stuck through the transition back to a (now public) museum.
506. Royal dwarf of the Hapsburg court.
507. Caption for the above, explaining how it was a necessary part of Baroque princely culture to pay an official court midget to hang out at your place.
508. The Vincennes flag, awarded to the city of the same name for capturing Louis XVI as he tried to flee from the French Revolution. What is this doing here instead of in Paris?
509. An abortive early attempt at a machine gun. As with others, the "rapid fire" part works, but the "rapid loading" still eludes the designers.
510. Original iron-cross emblems from the Landwehr who drove out the French in 1813.
511. Napoleonic amputation manual. Br00tal.
512. Heavy arms of the first World War.
513. Not a horror movie poster, anti-Spartacist propaganda. "The Spartacists are horrible devil-monsters, not normal German soldiers who want a government based on social justice! Join the Freikorps and shoot them in the face!"
514. Not all Germans were anti-Semitic, as these leaflets show: "72,000 Jews died at the front! German women, don't mock the suffering of your countrywomen!"
515. ...but there's also this... ("Your current rulers...if you want change, vote German National!")
516. ...and this.
517. Hyperinflation: stamps go from 5 pfennigs (0.05 mark, for the bad at math) to 10 billion marks in 4 years. A nice keep-your-damn-hair-on to our current right.
518. Court transcript from Hitler's judgement/sentencing in the Beer Hall Putsch. Note that his profession is listed as "Schriftsteller", a freelance writer, neither gainfully employed nor doing anything as macho as his later mythology and hagiography would like to pretend.
519. Anti-Nazi poster from '32 - "End the Nazi murder plague!"
520. More anti-Nazi literature from the end of Weimar.
521. And of course also Nazi crap from the same period.
522. Once in power, they took over everything, even the traditional socialist May Day celebrations. This is NATIONAL labor day, not international labor day now.
523. Just who were the Nazis and how did they set themselves up? This poster shows.
524. Der Stürmer - "the Jews are our misfortune" special issue. Special issue? I thought that was kind of the whole point behind this stupid rag - did they ever put out an issue whining about someone besides the Jews as the root of Germany's problems?
525. Official Nazi race-classification chart. First you try to make sense of it, then you start laughing at the absurdity of it, and then you stop laughing because about 11 million people were murdered because too many idiots took this bullshit seriously, and where you came out on a chart like this might mean the difference between survival and a bullet in the back of the head in some forest in Poland or the Ukraine.
526. Genius Loci - the spirit of the place. Powerful even as it is, and more so in situ in the museum.
527. Ribbentrop's globe, symbolically damaged by the liberators.
528. German air-defense maps.
529. Halifax motor assembly, recovered from one of the lakes around Berlin. Note the splintering of the wooden propeller blade.
At this point, I was asked to stop shooting flash, so I did.
530. One of the famous 88mm FlAK guns. (yes, it's an abbreviation; FliegerAbwehrKanone)
531. "For shame, you hamstress!" Best. anti-hoarding. slogan. evar. Unfortunately, it didn't come out as well as I'd've liked due to the flash ban.
532. "Das Letzte Gesicht" - "The Last Face", secretly carved out of a block of oak by a concentration camp inmate and hidden to preserve the record.
533. A corroded V2 engine.
534. Half mosaic, half sculpture: "Trümmerfrau". This piece has a special resonance for anyone who's spent significant time in Dresden.
535. Postwar drama: a set model for Mutter Courage and the sleeve of a costume from Nathan der Weise. Because I am an unrepentant and slightly anorakish Brechtian.
536. Divided Germany: the West, the Wirtschaftswunder,....
537. ....the East, not so much.
538. NVA (National VolksArmee, not the Cong's uniformed buddies) field jacket and AK-47. When I was in Dresden, most of the Ossis I worked with were, like me, too young to have put this uniform on. Only their boss, pushing 50, had done his "Bundeswehr" in this gear.
539. Ok, they have a Trabi to complement the VW on the western side, but it's kind of hidden. (To prevent younger visitors from going "Woot Trabi!" and getting the wrong impression? People didn't like these cars before they became cult.)
540. What's wrong with this map? It's full of those nice happy 1950s-children's-encyclopedia symbols, and then you notice that the goddamned Wessis still haven't gotten used to the Oder-Neisse border.
541. This part of the Wall hasn't been broken up to be put into tourist paperweights yet.
542. Original protest banners from the days of reunification.
I can highly recommend this museum, but be prepared for a lot of hiking.
Berlin, outside again.
543. Rotes Rathaus from a little closer.
544. Spreeblick.
545. Church in the shadow of the Fernsehturm.
546. Rotes Rathaus, full on.
547. Dudes blowing giant bubbles.
548. Fountain below the TV tower.
549. ...and straight up.
There were a lot of goths hanging around here, but not shot, because goths are not animals to be stared at. Hippies on the other hand....
550. Look across to Alexanderplatz; same as ever.
551. Leopold von Dessau statue, right by the Mohrenstrasse (yes, Carrot Street, I'm not making this up) U-bahn stop.
552. Weird architecture, Mohrenstrasse.
553. Bundesrat building across a vacant lot.
554. Holocaust memorial. The pattern of stones at different heights recalls, probably intentionally, Jewish cemeteries in Israel.
555. A look into the depths.
556. At the bottom.
The get-lostness of this is overrated, but it still gets some Americans, as I overheard. "Where's the exit, where's the exit?" IT'S A FUCKING GRID HOW DO YOU GET LOST IN A GRID. "Getting lost" isn't the point; the point is the depths in the middle that you don't see moving among the stones at the edge. And then you're in too deep, and if you have claustrophobia at all, you feel buried beneath these giant masses of stone. You also don't see other visitors in the depths from the outside, not until you're all in the bottom together.
557. Potsdamer Platz, looking a different way.
558. What the hell? I thought he was from Gelsenkirchen? The name of the station, translated, is Uncle Tom's Cabin, which has a lot more to do with Stowe than Sodom. Still, I had to go collect this, though it's out on the ass end of the U3 line in Grunewald.
559. Nice architecture in the Neidstrasse, Friedenau.
560. Church at the end of the street that I missed the first time through.
Day 10
3 August 2009
Hamburg - Hamburg-Hesse - Germany
Repacking right now to head over to the station. I can't believe these fucking Wessis don't know what a Waschsalon is. I blame Siemens, personally.
Friedenau - Berlin - Germany
I'm currently racing the clock to get my laundry done before the markets close so I can get some breakfast foods in. Until then, arriving pictures.
443. Ironwork at the Berlin Hbf.
444. Ad for a porn store in the train station. Not just the ad's in the station, the porn store also.
445. Out-of-focus mural in the Oranienburgerstrasse U-bahn stop after getting lost.
446. Yeah, you know we chill when...
447. Schönebergerbrücke. Two construction years, one in the late '40s or early '50s, is probably kind of common in this town.
448. View northish over said bridge. Nice and peaceful.
449. Gleisdreieck subway stop building.
450. Badass mural on the side of my hotel.
451. Church in Friedrich-Wilhelm-platz. There were probably closer laundromats, but this one (off the same subway stop as this church) got a good rec from Google, and I could actually find it.
452. Use this in your German class - with care. "Aber auch die Deutschen missbrauchen die Fälle!" - "Aber auch die Deutschen solche Misse korregieren!"
453. A memorial to victims of another age. A reminder to the huffers and puffers that the antisocial will always be with us, but who and why they unleash their hate and frustration against will change.
--
Day 11
4 August 2009
Berlin - Berlin-Brandenburg - Germany
454. Potsdamer Platz, crossing from U to S. Berlin has two complementary light rail systems that both do above- and below-ground, but very rarely share the same terminal when they meet up. I was heading to Unter den Linden, so I had to change from the U2 to the S1.
455. Brandenburg gate in the morning light.
456. Statue inside the gate.
457. Ampelmann series nr. 1: Bleib Stehen, Du Deppe.
458. Ampelmann series nr. 2: Sofort Ab Schon, Zecke.
459. Memorial on 17. Juni-Strasse.
460. Another clock, same place as the last....but I came prepared.
461. Soviet war memorial, and the final resting place of 2500 soldiers killed in the process of taking Berlin.
462. Military hardware flanks each side.
463. Caption for us non-Cyrillic-readers.
464. Memorial urns behind the monument.
465. An old view; the new memorial and the incompletely-destroyed Reichstag dominate a moonscape.
466. Back of the monument; all branches of the Soviet military are represented.
467. They apparently put lights in since I was last here, which must be quite impressive at night. I, however, had to keep going.
468. Red flower beds maintained by the city. For those who know Berlin geography and remember the old days, yes, the Soviets inadvertently built their main memorial in what turned into the Western sector. The British Army maintained it for them from 1949 until 1990, when it was turned over to the city/state of Berlin after reunification; the Russians built several other large cemeteries/memorials in their parts of Berlin and nearby areas of Brandenburg.
469. Modernistic building by the Reichstag.
470. "Dedicated to the German People". Flags here indicate government property; nobody else feels the compulsion to slap the schwarz-rot-gold on everything possible.
471. Memorial to Weimar-era representatives (many from the KPD and SPD) murdered by the Nazis.
472. Down Unter den Linden to the Fernsehturm. When I arrived yesterday, everything above the ball of the tower was lost in the clouds.
473. Life is a clay urn on the mantle. Time rolls on in Berlin, too.
474. Living statues getting made up for the day.
475. Fernsehturm again.
476. The police form up and get ready for another long day of chasing pickpockets and listening patiently to tourists whinge on in foreign languages.
477. Street to the UK consulate, permanently closed to traffic by vehicles much larger than a bicycle or pedicab.
478. Russian legation, Unter den Linden.
479. Flag up on the roof.
480. Statue of Frederick the Great, near Schlossplatz.
481. From Schlossplatz towards Alexanderplatz.
482. Humbolt University.
483. St. Hedwig's' dome, with horrible backlighting.
484. The front of the National Opera.
485. Statues (possibly both of Frederick the Great at different stages of his career, I didn't check too close) by a small park.
486. There's a museum for everything in this city....
487. Interesting brick church while crossing the Spree.
488. Onto this arm of the river.
489. The enormously impressive Berliner Dom.
490. In Schlossplatz. Mostly a slate, but a nice skyline too.
491. Museum of Antiquities.
492. While crossing Unter den Linden at Schlossplatz. As befits the national Lutheran cathedral of Prussia, this church really jumps out at you and proceeds to beat you to the ground.
493. Historical museum - impressions of the Wall.
German Historical Museum
494. An I.M. Pei staircase. I take so many architecture pictures, I might think I'd missed my calling, except for the part where I can't draw a straight line, period.
495. Roll of photo prints from the "Monday demonstrations" in Leipzig.
496. Statues of Marx and Engels photographed at the Wende with appropriate graffiti that didn't come out. Front: "It wasn't our fault." Back: "Next time it will be better."
497. Communist industrial enviro-devastation. This is near Lauchhammer in southern Brandenburg, not in Montana or Kazakhstan.
498. Klose's boots from the 2006 Germany-Poland game. This was at the end of a long exhibit on German-Polish relations, but the rest is better seen in person.
German Historical Museum - permanent exhibits
499. A reminder of the good old days - before the Huns.
500. Roman altar. The opportunities for Euro-Americans to reach out and touch their heathen past at home are somewhat limited.
501. History erased; a Roman altar to Victoria, with effacements.
502. Medieval swords.
503. A hand-copy of Bosch's Last Judgement that didn't come out as well as I thought it was going to.
504. Weapons from the farmers' revolt that caused Luther to write his best-titled work, Against the Thieving, Murderous Hordes of Peasants.
505. Ornate shutters. This building was originally built by the Prussian kings as a treasure and trophy house (hence the name Zeughaus, closely translated as "house for important stuff") and later used as an armory, but the original shutters have stuck through the transition back to a (now public) museum.
506. Royal dwarf of the Hapsburg court.
507. Caption for the above, explaining how it was a necessary part of Baroque princely culture to pay an official court midget to hang out at your place.
508. The Vincennes flag, awarded to the city of the same name for capturing Louis XVI as he tried to flee from the French Revolution. What is this doing here instead of in Paris?
509. An abortive early attempt at a machine gun. As with others, the "rapid fire" part works, but the "rapid loading" still eludes the designers.
510. Original iron-cross emblems from the Landwehr who drove out the French in 1813.
511. Napoleonic amputation manual. Br00tal.
512. Heavy arms of the first World War.
513. Not a horror movie poster, anti-Spartacist propaganda. "The Spartacists are horrible devil-monsters, not normal German soldiers who want a government based on social justice! Join the Freikorps and shoot them in the face!"
514. Not all Germans were anti-Semitic, as these leaflets show: "72,000 Jews died at the front! German women, don't mock the suffering of your countrywomen!"
515. ...but there's also this... ("Your current rulers...if you want change, vote German National!")
516. ...and this.
517. Hyperinflation: stamps go from 5 pfennigs (0.05 mark, for the bad at math) to 10 billion marks in 4 years. A nice keep-your-damn-hair-on to our current right.
518. Court transcript from Hitler's judgement/sentencing in the Beer Hall Putsch. Note that his profession is listed as "Schriftsteller", a freelance writer, neither gainfully employed nor doing anything as macho as his later mythology and hagiography would like to pretend.
519. Anti-Nazi poster from '32 - "End the Nazi murder plague!"
520. More anti-Nazi literature from the end of Weimar.
521. And of course also Nazi crap from the same period.
522. Once in power, they took over everything, even the traditional socialist May Day celebrations. This is NATIONAL labor day, not international labor day now.
523. Just who were the Nazis and how did they set themselves up? This poster shows.
524. Der Stürmer - "the Jews are our misfortune" special issue. Special issue? I thought that was kind of the whole point behind this stupid rag - did they ever put out an issue whining about someone besides the Jews as the root of Germany's problems?
525. Official Nazi race-classification chart. First you try to make sense of it, then you start laughing at the absurdity of it, and then you stop laughing because about 11 million people were murdered because too many idiots took this bullshit seriously, and where you came out on a chart like this might mean the difference between survival and a bullet in the back of the head in some forest in Poland or the Ukraine.
526. Genius Loci - the spirit of the place. Powerful even as it is, and more so in situ in the museum.
527. Ribbentrop's globe, symbolically damaged by the liberators.
528. German air-defense maps.
529. Halifax motor assembly, recovered from one of the lakes around Berlin. Note the splintering of the wooden propeller blade.
At this point, I was asked to stop shooting flash, so I did.
530. One of the famous 88mm FlAK guns. (yes, it's an abbreviation; FliegerAbwehrKanone)
531. "For shame, you hamstress!" Best. anti-hoarding. slogan. evar. Unfortunately, it didn't come out as well as I'd've liked due to the flash ban.
532. "Das Letzte Gesicht" - "The Last Face", secretly carved out of a block of oak by a concentration camp inmate and hidden to preserve the record.
533. A corroded V2 engine.
534. Half mosaic, half sculpture: "Trümmerfrau". This piece has a special resonance for anyone who's spent significant time in Dresden.
535. Postwar drama: a set model for Mutter Courage and the sleeve of a costume from Nathan der Weise. Because I am an unrepentant and slightly anorakish Brechtian.
536. Divided Germany: the West, the Wirtschaftswunder,....
537. ....the East, not so much.
538. NVA (National VolksArmee, not the Cong's uniformed buddies) field jacket and AK-47. When I was in Dresden, most of the Ossis I worked with were, like me, too young to have put this uniform on. Only their boss, pushing 50, had done his "Bundeswehr" in this gear.
539. Ok, they have a Trabi to complement the VW on the western side, but it's kind of hidden. (To prevent younger visitors from going "Woot Trabi!" and getting the wrong impression? People didn't like these cars before they became cult.)
540. What's wrong with this map? It's full of those nice happy 1950s-children's-encyclopedia symbols, and then you notice that the goddamned Wessis still haven't gotten used to the Oder-Neisse border.
541. This part of the Wall hasn't been broken up to be put into tourist paperweights yet.
542. Original protest banners from the days of reunification.
I can highly recommend this museum, but be prepared for a lot of hiking.
Berlin, outside again.
543. Rotes Rathaus from a little closer.
544. Spreeblick.
545. Church in the shadow of the Fernsehturm.
546. Rotes Rathaus, full on.
547. Dudes blowing giant bubbles.
548. Fountain below the TV tower.
549. ...and straight up.
There were a lot of goths hanging around here, but not shot, because goths are not animals to be stared at. Hippies on the other hand....
550. Look across to Alexanderplatz; same as ever.
551. Leopold von Dessau statue, right by the Mohrenstrasse (yes, Carrot Street, I'm not making this up) U-bahn stop.
552. Weird architecture, Mohrenstrasse.
553. Bundesrat building across a vacant lot.
554. Holocaust memorial. The pattern of stones at different heights recalls, probably intentionally, Jewish cemeteries in Israel.
555. A look into the depths.
556. At the bottom.
The get-lostness of this is overrated, but it still gets some Americans, as I overheard. "Where's the exit, where's the exit?" IT'S A FUCKING GRID HOW DO YOU GET LOST IN A GRID. "Getting lost" isn't the point; the point is the depths in the middle that you don't see moving among the stones at the edge. And then you're in too deep, and if you have claustrophobia at all, you feel buried beneath these giant masses of stone. You also don't see other visitors in the depths from the outside, not until you're all in the bottom together.
557. Potsdamer Platz, looking a different way.
558. What the hell? I thought he was from Gelsenkirchen? The name of the station, translated, is Uncle Tom's Cabin, which has a lot more to do with Stowe than Sodom. Still, I had to go collect this, though it's out on the ass end of the U3 line in Grunewald.
559. Nice architecture in the Neidstrasse, Friedenau.
560. Church at the end of the street that I missed the first time through.
European Tour 2009 part 7: Wacken wrapup
--
Day 8
1 August 2009
Wacken - Schleswig-Holstein - Germany
This morning's been cool, hanging out with another under-30 "alter kuttenträger" (from Chörnyj Woron) also concerned about the lack of us-headliners and the future of the festival. It's convenient that I don't really have to go forward after dark, but at the same time troubling, too. (This was also the conversation where we went through the Running Wild setlist from Thursday and came up with nearly as many songs omitted that should have been played as there were actual songs in that list.)
Einherjer [5.5/7]
They took a while to get cooking, but they laid out a worthy opening set covering "De Sorte Sjoers Land", "Crimson Rain", "Dragons of the North", "Ironbound", a few others, and of course FAR FAR FUCKING NARTH! They seemed to have their keys on playback, but the live portion was indisputably killer.
401. Emobusters, seen while buying my Borknagar shirt.
402. Viking attack!
403. Einherjer chunking through "Sjoers".
404. Maybe past their moment, but the Dragons of the North are still fierce.
405. Jamming a folkic lock-in riff.
406. Doing the chorals on "Far Far North".
After this, I got cash, got hydration, and went to go hit up the Bullshirt stand via a rec from earlier. I landed the only Pantera shirt I can see myself in (a Power Metal-era bootleg) and then across the way about 20e of bootleg patches. Looks like I can finally finish that other vest - right after I get a new shirt from Revocation to hack into a DIY backpatch.
Shit apparently got fucked up; I want Kampfar (cancelled the day before, apparently), but Onkel Tom's flag is out on the Party Stage. What the hell ever; I'm not missing front for Borknagar.
nochma Onkel Tom [nochma 5/7]
Basically a longer version of the set from Thursday, this takeover of Kampfar's slot was dedicated to proving the proposition that punk bands are always awesome when covering someone else's melody, and not so uniformly so otherwise. We already knew this, though, and in this slot we really should have got some skullcracking Norsk black metal. Nothing against Angelripper, and he got a great crowd response, but this wasn't what I trekked over to this stage for.
407. Beerthrash!
408. BIER HER BIER HER.
You've got to wonder if they get cultural grants from the government for keeping traditional Kneipenkultur alive.
And now, missing Testament to sit on the rail. Shit sucks. After this, though, I'm quite comfortable with going back to stick. Festival mode or not, this loss of sleep takes a lot out of you; I'm not getting any younger, and the bands I came to see will be done.
It's for these reasons that I'm uncertain about coming back. We'll see how Party.San goes regarding self-destruction; maybe Headbangers Open Air and Wacken next year - if I do festivals rather than that Russia trip that's been postponed too long. I may be done with this kind of extended adventure for external reasons after this; if so, as long as I survive, this will be a hell of a way to go out, with fairly few regrets.
409. Drum checks.
410. Yes, that's an 8, and the front looks even more badass. And of course, it's a true 8, not just a doubled 4. Jan-Erik doesn't fuck around.
411. Øystein tries to hide, but sharp-eyed fanboys with zoom lenses are everywhere.
412. If I had seen this ten years ago, I might have had a heart attack. Messrs Brun and Tägtgren (Pain was on this stage next after Borknagar), just hanging out and shooting the shit.
On a different note, somebody finally got Peter a damn sammich. It's nice to see him looking a little less like a walking cadaver.
413. Actually checking tone and function.
Ruins of Future
Gods of My World
Oceans Rise
Universal
Inherit the Earth
The Black Token
Future Reminiscence
Ad Noctem
Colossus
The Genuine Pulse
The Dawn of the End
Borknagar [6.5/7]
Perhaps my expectations were set too high, but this simply great set didn't cross over and become wicked epic. As can be seen on the setlist, there's a lot of good stuff from most of the band's history, but a little too much Archaic Course for my liking, and nothing from the self-titled. (Put that one up to language differences and Vintersorg not wanting to learn Norwegian just to sing "Dauden" or "Fandens Allheim" maybe once every other show.) No "Winterway", but there's a time limit on these things after all. I'm satisfied; not flattened, but this was still a Borknagar set worth crossing the seas for.
414. Auftritt!
415. Vintersorg hypes up the crowd.
416. Lars, Øystein, and Mr. V.
417. Ø. Brun slashing out the riffs.
418. Jan-Erik and Jens teaming up.
419. The bandleaders deliver the imprecation.
420. Not a huge crowd, as this fest goes, but passionate.
421. Jan-Erik caught mid-bang.
422. Øystein forging ahead.
423. Vintersorg locks in with Jan-Erik.
424. Mostly a one-shot of Øystein, at least as the focus allows.
425. Jan-Erik, Jens, the logo, and a preoccupied cameraman.
426. Vintersorg looking out over the ruins.
427. The vocals get some backup from eight strings of subsonic devastation.
428. United.
429. Jan-Erik and Jens, in another two-shot with the poor hidden drummer.
430. The other half of the band.
431. Øystein digs in as Vintersorg screams over his guitar.
432. Jan-Erik being generally awesome.
433. The forgotten guitar genius of his generation.
Now, in this section - exclusive to this report (probably) - I completely nerd out about Øystein's guitar technique, and demonstrate why to never send a fanboy to do a job for general audiences.
If you're an old-time Borknagar fan, you probably heard the music, were struck by how radically different the guitar sounded, and researched/asked around about the band until you found out that Øystein never had any lessons, and effectively reinvented playing guitar from scratch for himself. Ok, that explains some of the weird chords, but not really. There's more to the big Ø's sound than that, and you're likely to only notice it seeing the band live.
What stands out about Øystein's style, first? In a phrase that would be picked off the cuff by a lot of musicians (not actually tested), that might be "weird chords with a lot of sustain". The weird chords come from making up your own guitar vocabulary from scratch, but the sustain has a simple reason: for the most part, Øystein Brun does not palm-mute. Yes, you read that right. Øystein Brun does not palm-mute, and that right there is in itself a substantial reinvention of metal guitar technique. When he does, it looks forced and unnatural: Øystein may be the one metal guitarist in the world who doesn't habitually keep the heel of his hand on the low string and riff off that.
Why is this, you ask? Because Øystein may have the loosest wrist in metal. Any other guitarist, the picking motion is primarily in their hand; with Øystein, his wrist is moving, and his forearm with it on the back hump of the guitar. This is a natural motion for hitting all 6 strings at a strum, but there may be a chicken-and-egg effect at play here.
In general, Øystein plays up near the neck pickup rather than anywhere near the bridge, which is of course a lot more conducive to this kind of open sound. However, looking at where the pick lands riff to riff, he's not deliberately trying to play on the neck; this is just where his hand naturally sits on the axe if his forearm's fulcruming over the top.
This comes to the crux of the issue. This position is natural, sitting or standing, for Øystein because he happens to be a very big man. Here's a size comparison with the infamously gigantic Jan-Erik:
434. For scale; Jan-Erik's about a step behind relative to the camera.
Øystein probably doesn't clear 2m, but he's close, and he has the powerful build needed to have his whole arm pumping on every strum. It slows him down, but his technique has never been about speed, just all the unique sound that these quirks create together.
No wonder Molested broke up. A death metal band where the main songwriter is a slow arm-strummer who doesn't palm-mute? How did that even happen to start with? (That said, all reports are that the one Molested record out there is pretty good and pretty unorthodox death metal, so it'll be worth trying to dig up.)
This concludes this ridiculous nerd break. I hope you learned something, because I certainly did: I think about this band a lot more than is either normal or natural.
Axel Rudi Pell [4/7]
"Strong As A Rock" and "Rock The Nation", and then I stopped listening. Does this band actually have any other songs, or do they just jam random '80s riffs together?
I'm in the beergarden, and everyone's dead. I've got no desire to go forward; half of this is being old, and half of it is kind of "no headliners".
The giants are dying, but the festivals won't die, because the giants growing are not ones that we (the grumpy old ones dividing everything into Sounds Like Kreator or Garbage, and those younger ones who are accelerating their development toward this point) care about. Children of Bodom, In Extremo, Nightwish; these are the headliners that will replace Motorhead, Iron Maiden, and Doro in the run of ages. What we forget is that it was an accident of birth|history that Maiden and Motorhead survived; Def Leppard and Whitesnake made it out of that era too. Amon Amarth has another 10-20 years left in them, and they are in that headliner class already. So is In Flames, no matter how dead to us they are. Metal will be fine. And us hardcore kuttenträger may not have any headliners to back, but in some ways, we were never meant to.
Headliners need to draw. To draw, they need to either be mainstream or change the mainstream. The first is easier, but only the second will bring in us kvlter-than-thous. We'll see who can; I suspect Heaven Shall Burn may, forging on after the metalcore tide goes out and forging their own paradigm, but history may have other ideas. Wait ten years and laugh at the naivette.
435. Best. Idea. Evar. A chilled tank of Jäger roving around kicking out 2e shots. It's like we're in some platformer video game that just has powerups sitting around the screen for no reason.
In Extremo [5/7]
Sure, this was from the beergarden, but everything but the impact and flame of the pyro carried this far back. Good music, but from the point of view of one like me, their mainstream success is showing. Still a fine time though.
436. The Smack Ballz jamming some AC/DC with an unconventional setup.
Achtung! Besoffene Cougar - Angriffsmöglichkeit hoch.
Volbeat [6/7]
If this is the metier of rock'n'roll vended in the future, things are looking bright. There's a lot of Misfits, but also deeper, crunchier elements similar to Calmsite (if you've ever been near an Oak Knoll distro table), and the result is fuckin killer...as you'd know if you have any of their records, as that's the sound delivered - and well - live. Seriously, if you don't have Rock the Rebel/Metal the Devil yet, I don't know what more I can say....other than, well, you're WRONG, and need to get said disc posthaste.
437. The boneyard - emptied kegs piled high in the back of the bar area.
Seen but not shot: dude in a CFC shirt. First so far; a lot of Werder and St. Pauli and Barcelona gear, but you know you're not going to see anyone supporting TFOD at a proper metal show.
438. Machine Head and the burning skull. It's just as well that you can't see anything.
Machine Head [3/7, was 4/7]
I was trying to avoid this band, but was unable to. Maybe I'm older, differently chemtwisted, or just paying better attention, but they seemed to be more actively crap and annoying than last time, and I don't think they're put out a new record in the meantime.
HOLY CHRIST WILL THEY EVER FUCKING STOP?
The worst part of this, and the cause of the point deduction above, is that Rob Flynn was in Vio-Lence, and knows what kind of riffs you need to start a circle pit and keep one going. And yet his brain-dead band keep writing brain-dead nu-metal bullshit, and he keeps yelling for circle pits like the Ape King of the Idiots. YOU WILL NEVER BEAT HEAVEN SHALL BURN'S EPIC 2007 PIT. STOP TRYING. STOP PLAYING.
Saxon [6/7]
As expected, a lot of good songs....and a lot of title songs, because people are in the main ignorant of large stretches of Saxon's back catalog, and with a vote for some song on each album being compulsory (the set was a one-from-each-record selected by internet voting), people had to click some button. Hence "Dogs of War" and "Unleash The Beast" in favor of respectively, say, "Walking Through Tokyo" and "Ministry of Fools", but fortunately also "Solid Ball of Rock" (ahead of [shudder] "Crash Dive", even if it's not "Requiem (We Will Remember)") and "Crusader" (ok, people know that song for real too). Not my optimal set, but the internets picked this one, not the band, and Saxon had the sense to pretend to be pressed for time (presumably) and drop whatever steaming pile got picked from Destiny.
439. Saxon Unleashes The Beast.
440. Campgrounds; harvest moon and insufficient light.
--
Day 9
2 August 2009
Wacken - Schleswig-Holstein - Germany
441. Dawn breaks; time to break camp.
Thus ends another Wacken; it remains to be seen how many more of these I have in me. However, this is only the end of the second stage of the current adventure. Tomorrow is on to Berlin, and after, to Bad Berka; now, though, just to pack up and make for the HH.
442. Schlangen in Stangen: the line to get on the bus back to Itzehoe.
Day 8
1 August 2009
Wacken - Schleswig-Holstein - Germany
This morning's been cool, hanging out with another under-30 "alter kuttenträger" (from Chörnyj Woron) also concerned about the lack of us-headliners and the future of the festival. It's convenient that I don't really have to go forward after dark, but at the same time troubling, too. (This was also the conversation where we went through the Running Wild setlist from Thursday and came up with nearly as many songs omitted that should have been played as there were actual songs in that list.)
Einherjer [5.5/7]
They took a while to get cooking, but they laid out a worthy opening set covering "De Sorte Sjoers Land", "Crimson Rain", "Dragons of the North", "Ironbound", a few others, and of course FAR FAR FUCKING NARTH! They seemed to have their keys on playback, but the live portion was indisputably killer.
401. Emobusters, seen while buying my Borknagar shirt.
402. Viking attack!
403. Einherjer chunking through "Sjoers".
404. Maybe past their moment, but the Dragons of the North are still fierce.
405. Jamming a folkic lock-in riff.
406. Doing the chorals on "Far Far North".
After this, I got cash, got hydration, and went to go hit up the Bullshirt stand via a rec from earlier. I landed the only Pantera shirt I can see myself in (a Power Metal-era bootleg) and then across the way about 20e of bootleg patches. Looks like I can finally finish that other vest - right after I get a new shirt from Revocation to hack into a DIY backpatch.
Shit apparently got fucked up; I want Kampfar (cancelled the day before, apparently), but Onkel Tom's flag is out on the Party Stage. What the hell ever; I'm not missing front for Borknagar.
nochma Onkel Tom [nochma 5/7]
Basically a longer version of the set from Thursday, this takeover of Kampfar's slot was dedicated to proving the proposition that punk bands are always awesome when covering someone else's melody, and not so uniformly so otherwise. We already knew this, though, and in this slot we really should have got some skullcracking Norsk black metal. Nothing against Angelripper, and he got a great crowd response, but this wasn't what I trekked over to this stage for.
407. Beerthrash!
408. BIER HER BIER HER.
You've got to wonder if they get cultural grants from the government for keeping traditional Kneipenkultur alive.
And now, missing Testament to sit on the rail. Shit sucks. After this, though, I'm quite comfortable with going back to stick. Festival mode or not, this loss of sleep takes a lot out of you; I'm not getting any younger, and the bands I came to see will be done.
It's for these reasons that I'm uncertain about coming back. We'll see how Party.San goes regarding self-destruction; maybe Headbangers Open Air and Wacken next year - if I do festivals rather than that Russia trip that's been postponed too long. I may be done with this kind of extended adventure for external reasons after this; if so, as long as I survive, this will be a hell of a way to go out, with fairly few regrets.
409. Drum checks.
410. Yes, that's an 8, and the front looks even more badass. And of course, it's a true 8, not just a doubled 4. Jan-Erik doesn't fuck around.
411. Øystein tries to hide, but sharp-eyed fanboys with zoom lenses are everywhere.
412. If I had seen this ten years ago, I might have had a heart attack. Messrs Brun and Tägtgren (Pain was on this stage next after Borknagar), just hanging out and shooting the shit.
On a different note, somebody finally got Peter a damn sammich. It's nice to see him looking a little less like a walking cadaver.
413. Actually checking tone and function.
Ruins of Future
Gods of My World
Oceans Rise
Universal
Inherit the Earth
The Black Token
Future Reminiscence
Ad Noctem
Colossus
The Genuine Pulse
The Dawn of the End
Borknagar [6.5/7]
Perhaps my expectations were set too high, but this simply great set didn't cross over and become wicked epic. As can be seen on the setlist, there's a lot of good stuff from most of the band's history, but a little too much Archaic Course for my liking, and nothing from the self-titled. (Put that one up to language differences and Vintersorg not wanting to learn Norwegian just to sing "Dauden" or "Fandens Allheim" maybe once every other show.) No "Winterway", but there's a time limit on these things after all. I'm satisfied; not flattened, but this was still a Borknagar set worth crossing the seas for.
414. Auftritt!
415. Vintersorg hypes up the crowd.
416. Lars, Øystein, and Mr. V.
417. Ø. Brun slashing out the riffs.
418. Jan-Erik and Jens teaming up.
419. The bandleaders deliver the imprecation.
420. Not a huge crowd, as this fest goes, but passionate.
421. Jan-Erik caught mid-bang.
422. Øystein forging ahead.
423. Vintersorg locks in with Jan-Erik.
424. Mostly a one-shot of Øystein, at least as the focus allows.
425. Jan-Erik, Jens, the logo, and a preoccupied cameraman.
426. Vintersorg looking out over the ruins.
427. The vocals get some backup from eight strings of subsonic devastation.
428. United.
429. Jan-Erik and Jens, in another two-shot with the poor hidden drummer.
430. The other half of the band.
431. Øystein digs in as Vintersorg screams over his guitar.
432. Jan-Erik being generally awesome.
433. The forgotten guitar genius of his generation.
Now, in this section - exclusive to this report (probably) - I completely nerd out about Øystein's guitar technique, and demonstrate why to never send a fanboy to do a job for general audiences.
If you're an old-time Borknagar fan, you probably heard the music, were struck by how radically different the guitar sounded, and researched/asked around about the band until you found out that Øystein never had any lessons, and effectively reinvented playing guitar from scratch for himself. Ok, that explains some of the weird chords, but not really. There's more to the big Ø's sound than that, and you're likely to only notice it seeing the band live.
What stands out about Øystein's style, first? In a phrase that would be picked off the cuff by a lot of musicians (not actually tested), that might be "weird chords with a lot of sustain". The weird chords come from making up your own guitar vocabulary from scratch, but the sustain has a simple reason: for the most part, Øystein Brun does not palm-mute. Yes, you read that right. Øystein Brun does not palm-mute, and that right there is in itself a substantial reinvention of metal guitar technique. When he does, it looks forced and unnatural: Øystein may be the one metal guitarist in the world who doesn't habitually keep the heel of his hand on the low string and riff off that.
Why is this, you ask? Because Øystein may have the loosest wrist in metal. Any other guitarist, the picking motion is primarily in their hand; with Øystein, his wrist is moving, and his forearm with it on the back hump of the guitar. This is a natural motion for hitting all 6 strings at a strum, but there may be a chicken-and-egg effect at play here.
In general, Øystein plays up near the neck pickup rather than anywhere near the bridge, which is of course a lot more conducive to this kind of open sound. However, looking at where the pick lands riff to riff, he's not deliberately trying to play on the neck; this is just where his hand naturally sits on the axe if his forearm's fulcruming over the top.
This comes to the crux of the issue. This position is natural, sitting or standing, for Øystein because he happens to be a very big man. Here's a size comparison with the infamously gigantic Jan-Erik:
434. For scale; Jan-Erik's about a step behind relative to the camera.
Øystein probably doesn't clear 2m, but he's close, and he has the powerful build needed to have his whole arm pumping on every strum. It slows him down, but his technique has never been about speed, just all the unique sound that these quirks create together.
No wonder Molested broke up. A death metal band where the main songwriter is a slow arm-strummer who doesn't palm-mute? How did that even happen to start with? (That said, all reports are that the one Molested record out there is pretty good and pretty unorthodox death metal, so it'll be worth trying to dig up.)
This concludes this ridiculous nerd break. I hope you learned something, because I certainly did: I think about this band a lot more than is either normal or natural.
Axel Rudi Pell [4/7]
"Strong As A Rock" and "Rock The Nation", and then I stopped listening. Does this band actually have any other songs, or do they just jam random '80s riffs together?
I'm in the beergarden, and everyone's dead. I've got no desire to go forward; half of this is being old, and half of it is kind of "no headliners".
The giants are dying, but the festivals won't die, because the giants growing are not ones that we (the grumpy old ones dividing everything into Sounds Like Kreator or Garbage, and those younger ones who are accelerating their development toward this point) care about. Children of Bodom, In Extremo, Nightwish; these are the headliners that will replace Motorhead, Iron Maiden, and Doro in the run of ages. What we forget is that it was an accident of birth|history that Maiden and Motorhead survived; Def Leppard and Whitesnake made it out of that era too. Amon Amarth has another 10-20 years left in them, and they are in that headliner class already. So is In Flames, no matter how dead to us they are. Metal will be fine. And us hardcore kuttenträger may not have any headliners to back, but in some ways, we were never meant to.
Headliners need to draw. To draw, they need to either be mainstream or change the mainstream. The first is easier, but only the second will bring in us kvlter-than-thous. We'll see who can; I suspect Heaven Shall Burn may, forging on after the metalcore tide goes out and forging their own paradigm, but history may have other ideas. Wait ten years and laugh at the naivette.
435. Best. Idea. Evar. A chilled tank of Jäger roving around kicking out 2e shots. It's like we're in some platformer video game that just has powerups sitting around the screen for no reason.
In Extremo [5/7]
Sure, this was from the beergarden, but everything but the impact and flame of the pyro carried this far back. Good music, but from the point of view of one like me, their mainstream success is showing. Still a fine time though.
436. The Smack Ballz jamming some AC/DC with an unconventional setup.
Achtung! Besoffene Cougar - Angriffsmöglichkeit hoch.
Volbeat [6/7]
If this is the metier of rock'n'roll vended in the future, things are looking bright. There's a lot of Misfits, but also deeper, crunchier elements similar to Calmsite (if you've ever been near an Oak Knoll distro table), and the result is fuckin killer...as you'd know if you have any of their records, as that's the sound delivered - and well - live. Seriously, if you don't have Rock the Rebel/Metal the Devil yet, I don't know what more I can say....other than, well, you're WRONG, and need to get said disc posthaste.
437. The boneyard - emptied kegs piled high in the back of the bar area.
Seen but not shot: dude in a CFC shirt. First so far; a lot of Werder and St. Pauli and Barcelona gear, but you know you're not going to see anyone supporting TFOD at a proper metal show.
438. Machine Head and the burning skull. It's just as well that you can't see anything.
Machine Head [3/7, was 4/7]
I was trying to avoid this band, but was unable to. Maybe I'm older, differently chemtwisted, or just paying better attention, but they seemed to be more actively crap and annoying than last time, and I don't think they're put out a new record in the meantime.
HOLY CHRIST WILL THEY EVER FUCKING STOP?
The worst part of this, and the cause of the point deduction above, is that Rob Flynn was in Vio-Lence, and knows what kind of riffs you need to start a circle pit and keep one going. And yet his brain-dead band keep writing brain-dead nu-metal bullshit, and he keeps yelling for circle pits like the Ape King of the Idiots. YOU WILL NEVER BEAT HEAVEN SHALL BURN'S EPIC 2007 PIT. STOP TRYING. STOP PLAYING.
Saxon [6/7]
As expected, a lot of good songs....and a lot of title songs, because people are in the main ignorant of large stretches of Saxon's back catalog, and with a vote for some song on each album being compulsory (the set was a one-from-each-record selected by internet voting), people had to click some button. Hence "Dogs of War" and "Unleash The Beast" in favor of respectively, say, "Walking Through Tokyo" and "Ministry of Fools", but fortunately also "Solid Ball of Rock" (ahead of [shudder] "Crash Dive", even if it's not "Requiem (We Will Remember)") and "Crusader" (ok, people know that song for real too). Not my optimal set, but the internets picked this one, not the band, and Saxon had the sense to pretend to be pressed for time (presumably) and drop whatever steaming pile got picked from Destiny.
439. Saxon Unleashes The Beast.
440. Campgrounds; harvest moon and insufficient light.
--
Day 9
2 August 2009
Wacken - Schleswig-Holstein - Germany
441. Dawn breaks; time to break camp.
Thus ends another Wacken; it remains to be seen how many more of these I have in me. However, this is only the end of the second stage of the current adventure. Tomorrow is on to Berlin, and after, to Bad Berka; now, though, just to pack up and make for the HH.
442. Schlangen in Stangen: the line to get on the bus back to Itzehoe.
European Tour 2009 part 6a: Swashbuckle in Germany - a photo essay
This is not in the main part of part 6 of this series because it's too fucking long to spend on one band in the middle of a general review post.
Swashbuckle [7/7]
There's always a few sets that define a festival every year. This, coupled with Running Wild's farewell outing last night, was one of them. And this isn't just an old fan glorying by extension in his pals' pals' success; in my five years here I have never seen a non-headliner have the staff have to fucking play their fans out with the PA to get the stage clear. It was a hellacious set with an equally hellacious response that gets its own photo essay.
Because there wasn't going to be any other fucking photog shooting this band (actually, a few did show up after a while), I did my best Aaron impression...while standing in one place and trying not to block anyone's first exposure to the band, and kind of went hog wild on pics. Follows:
324. All these people...
325. Showed up to see this band...
326. But the inflataship died. ;_;
327. Lame excuses were vended and not accepted....
328. ...but doods were still fucking pumped.
329. Wait, they have WHO on wench duty? That's Sabina Classen motherfuckers!
330. Hooks up!
331. The Jersey Devilfish hit the stage!
332. Nobeard fixing his amp.
333. Tuning up.
334. "Yarr, ye scurvy dogs!"
335. Coming out swinging.
336. Full blast pirate thrash.
337. Line of battle formed.
338. Wacken is wicked pumped.
339. Waist-deep in cannon smoke.
340. Laying out the riffs.
341. Some dude puts his hook in the frame.
342. Thrash speed beats shutter speed.
343. Fucking roaring; back to the noose!
344. Dug in, thrashing out.
345. The crowd is going more nuts than Alestorm last year and with fewer lame plastic toys.
346. Ripping into "Walk The Plank".
347. Bellowing for a circle pit.
348. Hooks and horns to the sky.
349. Through the haze.
350. Dudes still going nuts.
351. And this is on the puny Medieval Stage?
352. Prospective crew hail the captain.
353. A forest of arms.
354. The bodies go flying.
355. Admiral Nobeard parts the seas for the Wave of Death.
356. ....And the seas opened....
357. Breakers crashing with ultimate violence.
358. Dudes still flipping out.
359. Sack'n'pillage melee!
360. "Splash'n'Thrash" is a huge success.
361. ...and now there's THIS many, all going nuts.
362. Gimmick peeps come out in costume for "Party Boat".
363. The security finally shows up, eight or ten songs in, and immediately calls for backup.
364. Nobeard jamming the fuck out.
365. Washing in with the tide.
366. WHIRLPIT!!
367. Leo's younger brother dives into the waves.
368. Driving the storm.
369. Deserved appreesh.
370. IT CAME FROM THE DEEP!
371. Mutual hails go out.
372. Commodore Redrum sprays the first row with beer.
373. Locked in.
374. A new age of piracy dawning...
375. Hey, there's some fuckin epic parts too.
376. Almost backstage...
377. Crewed By The Damned!
378. Banging to the finale.
379. In the smoke - "X Marks The Spot"!
380. High kicks and absent picks.
381. The Admiral goes down with the "Battleship".
382. Hundreds scream for a further encore...
383. ....and get a drumkit teardown. They played every goddamned real song they've recorded! They're all fucking out!
384. Nobeard hails the crowd again.
385. ....and gives me the finger for not shutting up about they boyz.
386. And with no more music, the crowd dances on regardless, until the festival staff blast Schläger music over the PA to get them to go away.
Let's reiterate: 500 to 1000 people showed up to this stage, some not knowing what to expect and some singing Alestorm tunes. This band played aggressive moshing thrash metal owing heavily to Exodus, and by the end, after raucous encore demand that resulted in the band playing every original song they are even capable of playing live, the 1500 remaining were not worn out from an hour of vicious moshing and thrashing, and continued singing pirate songs and doing dances in the hope that the band would come out again, and eventually had to be shooed away. I'm not going to award the title on this basis, but Alestorm, a challenger has fucking appeared. (They always do.) Who will become the Pirate King?
It's ok to go back to part 6 now, you didn't miss anything.
Swashbuckle [7/7]
There's always a few sets that define a festival every year. This, coupled with Running Wild's farewell outing last night, was one of them. And this isn't just an old fan glorying by extension in his pals' pals' success; in my five years here I have never seen a non-headliner have the staff have to fucking play their fans out with the PA to get the stage clear. It was a hellacious set with an equally hellacious response that gets its own photo essay.
Because there wasn't going to be any other fucking photog shooting this band (actually, a few did show up after a while), I did my best Aaron impression...while standing in one place and trying not to block anyone's first exposure to the band, and kind of went hog wild on pics. Follows:
324. All these people...
325. Showed up to see this band...
326. But the inflataship died. ;_;
327. Lame excuses were vended and not accepted....
328. ...but doods were still fucking pumped.
329. Wait, they have WHO on wench duty? That's Sabina Classen motherfuckers!
330. Hooks up!
331. The Jersey Devilfish hit the stage!
332. Nobeard fixing his amp.
333. Tuning up.
334. "Yarr, ye scurvy dogs!"
335. Coming out swinging.
336. Full blast pirate thrash.
337. Line of battle formed.
338. Wacken is wicked pumped.
339. Waist-deep in cannon smoke.
340. Laying out the riffs.
341. Some dude puts his hook in the frame.
342. Thrash speed beats shutter speed.
343. Fucking roaring; back to the noose!
344. Dug in, thrashing out.
345. The crowd is going more nuts than Alestorm last year and with fewer lame plastic toys.
346. Ripping into "Walk The Plank".
347. Bellowing for a circle pit.
348. Hooks and horns to the sky.
349. Through the haze.
350. Dudes still going nuts.
351. And this is on the puny Medieval Stage?
352. Prospective crew hail the captain.
353. A forest of arms.
354. The bodies go flying.
355. Admiral Nobeard parts the seas for the Wave of Death.
356. ....And the seas opened....
357. Breakers crashing with ultimate violence.
358. Dudes still flipping out.
359. Sack'n'pillage melee!
360. "Splash'n'Thrash" is a huge success.
361. ...and now there's THIS many, all going nuts.
362. Gimmick peeps come out in costume for "Party Boat".
363. The security finally shows up, eight or ten songs in, and immediately calls for backup.
364. Nobeard jamming the fuck out.
365. Washing in with the tide.
366. WHIRLPIT!!
367. Leo's younger brother dives into the waves.
368. Driving the storm.
369. Deserved appreesh.
370. IT CAME FROM THE DEEP!
371. Mutual hails go out.
372. Commodore Redrum sprays the first row with beer.
373. Locked in.
374. A new age of piracy dawning...
375. Hey, there's some fuckin epic parts too.
376. Almost backstage...
377. Crewed By The Damned!
378. Banging to the finale.
379. In the smoke - "X Marks The Spot"!
380. High kicks and absent picks.
381. The Admiral goes down with the "Battleship".
382. Hundreds scream for a further encore...
383. ....and get a drumkit teardown. They played every goddamned real song they've recorded! They're all fucking out!
384. Nobeard hails the crowd again.
385. ....and gives me the finger for not shutting up about they boyz.
386. And with no more music, the crowd dances on regardless, until the festival staff blast Schläger music over the PA to get them to go away.
Let's reiterate: 500 to 1000 people showed up to this stage, some not knowing what to expect and some singing Alestorm tunes. This band played aggressive moshing thrash metal owing heavily to Exodus, and by the end, after raucous encore demand that resulted in the band playing every original song they are even capable of playing live, the 1500 remaining were not worn out from an hour of vicious moshing and thrashing, and continued singing pirate songs and doing dances in the hope that the band would come out again, and eventually had to be shooed away. I'm not going to award the title on this basis, but Alestorm, a challenger has fucking appeared. (They always do.) Who will become the Pirate King?
It's ok to go back to part 6 now, you didn't miss anything.
European Tour 2009 part 6: Wacken day 2
This covers all of day 2 except that part which is broken out as a special photo essay on Swashbuckle's set, because I took too many fucking pictures of them.
--
Day 7
31 July 2009
Wacken - Schleswig-Holstein - Germany
274. Perimeter of "Area 666", a self-proclaimed independent enclave entirely surrounded by the Federal Republic of Germany.
275. The Van of Death. Note the license plate as well as the stencil graphic.
This morning my tent was actually rained through, as in water dripping in through the rain fly and then through the ceiling. Fortunately, the information I got from the drunks in the breakfast tent was accurate, and the weather improved markedly the rest of the festival.
After taking the two pics above, I wrung out my socks - which had soaked up the water that I wasn't able to pour out of my boots - and got some breakfast. There I met and hung out with the above-alluded-to drunken German dudes; what else is new?
276. WTF?! Yeah, Germany? I'm here on behalf of the Italian-American community. We just want to let you know that your pizza privileges have been revoked. I'm sorry, but if you think tuna fish is an appropriate pizza topping, we have to pull your cert. It's for everyone's good, you know.
There was also some more alleged pizza in the breakfast tent. People were complaining that it more resembled flooring tiles and probably tasted worse. I don't know why anyone would want pizza at a German festival; there's enough not-godawful food - like sausages and doner and beer - to go around for everyone.
Neat: Vried soundchecking their guitars by jamming on "I Am The Black Wizards".
277. Outer infield, still holding up pretty well.
278. For tech fans: the back of one of the video walls. All together now: NEEE~RD.
279. Vried setting up.
280. This security dude's pants are SET THE FUCK UP. Seriously, where do I get a pair of these things?
Vried [6/7]
Nice hammer-to-the-face opener, like Zyklon back in '05. If Vried didn't invent black'n'roll, they've at least perfected it; now we've just got to get them to the States so that they and Hirudinea and/or Witch Tomb can demolish the Middle East.
281. Vried hit the stage.
282. Laying down some "Discipline".
283. Ese rips on a solo.
284. Continuing to tear it up.
285. More devastation.
286. Through pyro smoke.
287. "Svart" - hero shot.
288. Camera service.
289. Guitar Hero time!
290. The Pitch Black Brigade in close formation.
291. The line of battle.
292. "Speak, Goddamnit!" - and the crowd roars back.
293. The "Blücher" burns as it goes down off Oslo.
It's interesting to see this band here; a lot of their lyrics, as a Norge band with a military complex kind of have to, deal with the World War II resistance movement, and they're not apologetic at all: "We're happy that our peeps killed your peeps whenever they could." But Germany's pretty antifa these days as well - and hey, in the abstract, Nazis are up there with aliens and zombies as preferred grist for general slaughter.
UFO [5/7]
Break time! Rock'n'roll hair metal; is there even a Schenker still in this band? They're decent enough to hear while drinking and writing notes, but....
294. UFO doing some '80s-sounding song about drinking tequila and fucking Mexican chicas....from their latest record.
295. More stuff to whine about - you can't sit on the bars anymore thanks to this fucking fencing. This was always fun as shit in the past; made a lot of friends sitting on the bars in the infield rather than the benches in the beer garden late in festivals.
As always, dudes are just pissing wherever. I have no idea how Europe isn't constantly gripped with cholera epidemics in the summer. Then again, there's so little blood in many of the offenders' alcoholstreams that stuff probably comes out being completely sterilized.
296. Dudes are pumped for Endstille.
297. Endstille summons a warblast from the weather.
Endstille [5/7]
I know next to nothng about this band, but they provided a good set of satisfactory German black/war metal mostly following Burzum and early Satyricon while I was waiting for Gamma Ray to go on. More interest? Go see them yourself, man.
298. Yes, it's a dude in a rabbit suit. Are you seriously surprised by anything from this fest any more?
Gamma Ray [7/7]
A set full of classics? A new song that isn't even recorded yet? A full take of "I Want Out", and nearly all of "Rebellion In Dreamland"? What could spoil this? Well, maybe the fest only selling shit batteries that can't push a flash charge without dying, but aside from that, nothing. As noted, an incredible set list, from the first row, and if the fucking camera was dead, all the more time to thrash.
299. Gamma Ray attacks the stage.
300. Heavy Metal Universe!
301. Jamming out.
302. Doing the neck-swing-in-unison thing.
303. Henjo tearing it up.
304. Action shot.
Now, skipping Walls of Jericho and Tristania (how fortunate, zero bands missed) to try and go find some camera batteries that don't suck before Nevermore and Swashbuckle.
305. The Frisis in town. I met this dude on the train up; he's still got the megaphone and the relentless prankster attitude, bringing improv comedy and lunacy to amuse residents and festivalgoers alike.
306. "Last Gas Before Exit". It's funny because the German drunk driving laws are a lot stricter than in the US, and here Astra goes anyway.
I once wrote a character who had a bit of a complex about pistol ammo, always loading dozens of magazines and strapping them onto all parts of his body. This fest - and shitty festival batteries - have made me that guy, at least for camera "ammunition"; I've got the equivalent of five "clips" in the jacket, and one more "in the chamber". Another day and a half; not gonna fucking run out.
Nevermore [7/7]
I got back in time to get rail, and of course it was complete ruleage. The band was in high form, and the crowd was as brutal as expected. They played, oddly enough, the title cuts of the last three records - including the everlasting "This Godless Endeavor" and the mostly apocryphal "Dead Heart In A Dead World" - and closed with "Born", and... well, take a look at the pictures.
307. Jeff taucht auf.
308. Thrashing through the opener.
309. Warrel and Jim crush the crowd.
310. Jeff and Jim behind the smoke front.
311. Jeff and Jim bent double mid-headbang.
312. In close formation.
313. Jeff and some running stage divers.
314. Warrel agitates on "The Heart Collector".
315. Jeff and Jim banging their necks off.
316. Jeff taking a solo.
317. Warrel preaches it - "IS THIS JUSTICE? IS THIS THE AMERICAN WAY??!"
318. The bodies go up for "Born".
319. The melee on the stagefront.
320. "More bodies!"
321. "Bodies on fucking bodies!"
322. Van comes out to chuck his sticks.
323. DragonForce, frozen in time.
DragonForce [5/7]
They're doing a better job of staying in tune than the last time I saw them here, but the new stuff sounds pretty much exactly like the old. So DragonForce is DragonForce, but more than that, they have done effectively NOTHING in the TEN YEARS since their Valley of the Damned demo. Nothing except woodshed, never innovate. A band that treads water gets a water-treader score; even Amon Amarth and AC/DC will show some manifest change in the span of a decade.
Airbourne [4/7]
Speaking of AC/DC... when did they start letting coverbands play the "real" days again? Nostalgia, I guess, but everything this band has was written by the Youngs 30 years ago.
HammerFall [5/7]
Speaking of treading water.... This was a beergarden set, waiting for Swashbuckle to start, so I missed most of the carnage. They're still decent, still silly, still HammerFail.
-------------------
Go to the Swashbuckle post here, then come back. We'll wait for you.
-------------------
That's a total of about 60 pics on one band. Epic.
387. And then we get back to the festival ground proper and find this guy sticking beer glasses to his gut. W O Fuckin A.
Motorhead [6/7]
I organized these pics and hung out with some cool doods while keeping an ear on the Road Crew; a proper banging set, even half a klick back. Good shit, as always, and Mickey's drum solo was legendary-class.
Following this, I killed more time with new friends (Dutch lesbians with big black whiskey dicks ftw) and waited for Pentagram. In Flames and Doro went on during this time frame but are not rated here, and in some senses, didn't rate.
Pentagram [6/7]
First, I was gonna stick for four songs (2 in the morning, I'd been up since seven previous, did a lot of hiking and saw a lot of bands). Then five. Then, fuck it, I'll watch the whole goddamned set. Good call; this was 45 minutes of all-ruling sorreño thrashing death metal. Worth the drinking ban I'd put myself under to stay awake for it, and worth the Jäger powerups used to supplement such; worth it every second.
388. Pentagram's stage setup.
389. It's a Chilean flag....in bad lighting.
390. The crowd is pumped as the band steps out.
391. Pentagram in the shadows.
392. Anton on full thrashing power.
393. Backlit, kvlt, as it was.
394. About to get "Demented".
395. Wrecking frets and necks.
396. KVLT.
397. Juan-Pablo ripping a solo.
398. The intro to "Pigs". (Powerviolence bands, cover this!)
399. After the set; so brutal the lens flares are bouncing back weird.
400. Later; a light in the dark. Campground A.
--
Day 7
31 July 2009
Wacken - Schleswig-Holstein - Germany
274. Perimeter of "Area 666", a self-proclaimed independent enclave entirely surrounded by the Federal Republic of Germany.
275. The Van of Death. Note the license plate as well as the stencil graphic.
This morning my tent was actually rained through, as in water dripping in through the rain fly and then through the ceiling. Fortunately, the information I got from the drunks in the breakfast tent was accurate, and the weather improved markedly the rest of the festival.
After taking the two pics above, I wrung out my socks - which had soaked up the water that I wasn't able to pour out of my boots - and got some breakfast. There I met and hung out with the above-alluded-to drunken German dudes; what else is new?
276. WTF?! Yeah, Germany? I'm here on behalf of the Italian-American community. We just want to let you know that your pizza privileges have been revoked. I'm sorry, but if you think tuna fish is an appropriate pizza topping, we have to pull your cert. It's for everyone's good, you know.
There was also some more alleged pizza in the breakfast tent. People were complaining that it more resembled flooring tiles and probably tasted worse. I don't know why anyone would want pizza at a German festival; there's enough not-godawful food - like sausages and doner and beer - to go around for everyone.
Neat: Vried soundchecking their guitars by jamming on "I Am The Black Wizards".
277. Outer infield, still holding up pretty well.
278. For tech fans: the back of one of the video walls. All together now: NEEE~RD.
279. Vried setting up.
280. This security dude's pants are SET THE FUCK UP. Seriously, where do I get a pair of these things?
Vried [6/7]
Nice hammer-to-the-face opener, like Zyklon back in '05. If Vried didn't invent black'n'roll, they've at least perfected it; now we've just got to get them to the States so that they and Hirudinea and/or Witch Tomb can demolish the Middle East.
281. Vried hit the stage.
282. Laying down some "Discipline".
283. Ese rips on a solo.
284. Continuing to tear it up.
285. More devastation.
286. Through pyro smoke.
287. "Svart" - hero shot.
288. Camera service.
289. Guitar Hero time!
290. The Pitch Black Brigade in close formation.
291. The line of battle.
292. "Speak, Goddamnit!" - and the crowd roars back.
293. The "Blücher" burns as it goes down off Oslo.
It's interesting to see this band here; a lot of their lyrics, as a Norge band with a military complex kind of have to, deal with the World War II resistance movement, and they're not apologetic at all: "We're happy that our peeps killed your peeps whenever they could." But Germany's pretty antifa these days as well - and hey, in the abstract, Nazis are up there with aliens and zombies as preferred grist for general slaughter.
UFO [5/7]
Break time! Rock'n'roll hair metal; is there even a Schenker still in this band? They're decent enough to hear while drinking and writing notes, but....
294. UFO doing some '80s-sounding song about drinking tequila and fucking Mexican chicas....from their latest record.
295. More stuff to whine about - you can't sit on the bars anymore thanks to this fucking fencing. This was always fun as shit in the past; made a lot of friends sitting on the bars in the infield rather than the benches in the beer garden late in festivals.
As always, dudes are just pissing wherever. I have no idea how Europe isn't constantly gripped with cholera epidemics in the summer. Then again, there's so little blood in many of the offenders' alcoholstreams that stuff probably comes out being completely sterilized.
296. Dudes are pumped for Endstille.
297. Endstille summons a warblast from the weather.
Endstille [5/7]
I know next to nothng about this band, but they provided a good set of satisfactory German black/war metal mostly following Burzum and early Satyricon while I was waiting for Gamma Ray to go on. More interest? Go see them yourself, man.
298. Yes, it's a dude in a rabbit suit. Are you seriously surprised by anything from this fest any more?
Gamma Ray [7/7]
A set full of classics? A new song that isn't even recorded yet? A full take of "I Want Out", and nearly all of "Rebellion In Dreamland"? What could spoil this? Well, maybe the fest only selling shit batteries that can't push a flash charge without dying, but aside from that, nothing. As noted, an incredible set list, from the first row, and if the fucking camera was dead, all the more time to thrash.
299. Gamma Ray attacks the stage.
300. Heavy Metal Universe!
301. Jamming out.
302. Doing the neck-swing-in-unison thing.
303. Henjo tearing it up.
304. Action shot.
Now, skipping Walls of Jericho and Tristania (how fortunate, zero bands missed) to try and go find some camera batteries that don't suck before Nevermore and Swashbuckle.
305. The Frisis in town. I met this dude on the train up; he's still got the megaphone and the relentless prankster attitude, bringing improv comedy and lunacy to amuse residents and festivalgoers alike.
306. "Last Gas Before Exit". It's funny because the German drunk driving laws are a lot stricter than in the US, and here Astra goes anyway.
I once wrote a character who had a bit of a complex about pistol ammo, always loading dozens of magazines and strapping them onto all parts of his body. This fest - and shitty festival batteries - have made me that guy, at least for camera "ammunition"; I've got the equivalent of five "clips" in the jacket, and one more "in the chamber". Another day and a half; not gonna fucking run out.
Nevermore [7/7]
I got back in time to get rail, and of course it was complete ruleage. The band was in high form, and the crowd was as brutal as expected. They played, oddly enough, the title cuts of the last three records - including the everlasting "This Godless Endeavor" and the mostly apocryphal "Dead Heart In A Dead World" - and closed with "Born", and... well, take a look at the pictures.
307. Jeff taucht auf.
308. Thrashing through the opener.
309. Warrel and Jim crush the crowd.
310. Jeff and Jim behind the smoke front.
311. Jeff and Jim bent double mid-headbang.
312. In close formation.
313. Jeff and some running stage divers.
314. Warrel agitates on "The Heart Collector".
315. Jeff and Jim banging their necks off.
316. Jeff taking a solo.
317. Warrel preaches it - "IS THIS JUSTICE? IS THIS THE AMERICAN WAY??!"
318. The bodies go up for "Born".
319. The melee on the stagefront.
320. "More bodies!"
321. "Bodies on fucking bodies!"
322. Van comes out to chuck his sticks.
323. DragonForce, frozen in time.
DragonForce [5/7]
They're doing a better job of staying in tune than the last time I saw them here, but the new stuff sounds pretty much exactly like the old. So DragonForce is DragonForce, but more than that, they have done effectively NOTHING in the TEN YEARS since their Valley of the Damned demo. Nothing except woodshed, never innovate. A band that treads water gets a water-treader score; even Amon Amarth and AC/DC will show some manifest change in the span of a decade.
Airbourne [4/7]
Speaking of AC/DC... when did they start letting coverbands play the "real" days again? Nostalgia, I guess, but everything this band has was written by the Youngs 30 years ago.
HammerFall [5/7]
Speaking of treading water.... This was a beergarden set, waiting for Swashbuckle to start, so I missed most of the carnage. They're still decent, still silly, still HammerFail.
-------------------
Go to the Swashbuckle post here, then come back. We'll wait for you.
-------------------
That's a total of about 60 pics on one band. Epic.
387. And then we get back to the festival ground proper and find this guy sticking beer glasses to his gut. W O Fuckin A.
Motorhead [6/7]
I organized these pics and hung out with some cool doods while keeping an ear on the Road Crew; a proper banging set, even half a klick back. Good shit, as always, and Mickey's drum solo was legendary-class.
Following this, I killed more time with new friends (Dutch lesbians with big black whiskey dicks ftw) and waited for Pentagram. In Flames and Doro went on during this time frame but are not rated here, and in some senses, didn't rate.
Pentagram [6/7]
First, I was gonna stick for four songs (2 in the morning, I'd been up since seven previous, did a lot of hiking and saw a lot of bands). Then five. Then, fuck it, I'll watch the whole goddamned set. Good call; this was 45 minutes of all-ruling sorreño thrashing death metal. Worth the drinking ban I'd put myself under to stay awake for it, and worth the Jäger powerups used to supplement such; worth it every second.
388. Pentagram's stage setup.
389. It's a Chilean flag....in bad lighting.
390. The crowd is pumped as the band steps out.
391. Pentagram in the shadows.
392. Anton on full thrashing power.
393. Backlit, kvlt, as it was.
394. About to get "Demented".
395. Wrecking frets and necks.
396. KVLT.
397. Juan-Pablo ripping a solo.
398. The intro to "Pigs". (Powerviolence bands, cover this!)
399. After the set; so brutal the lens flares are bouncing back weird.
400. Later; a light in the dark. Campground A.
European Tour 2009 part 5: Wacken warmup
--
Day 5
29 July 2009
København - Hovedstaden - Denmark to Hamburg - Hamburg-Hesse - Germany
241. Wait, water? I thought this was a train stage? It is -- as later pics will show, the train drove into the ferry to cross between Rødby and Puttgarden.
242. Some distant ships at full zoom.
243. Windmills coming into the German side.
244. Train inside the ferry. Awesome.
On the ride in to Wacken, I fell in with locals as usual, and gave out my first Parasitic Extirpation CD. It didn't work in the dude's radio, though; if cosmic rays fucked it up, I'll be pissed.
Wacken - Schleswig-Holstein - Germany
With my tent up and crap in, it's time to go get some dinner and a beer or so, hang with some peeps, strew some merch, and then get back and rest up. Dunno if Onkel Tom is worth staying up till 11 tonight for.
Is it me or are there more chicks here than previously? Weird; one wonders if such was a consideration in when the fest sold out....
Victims of Madness [4/7]
Maybe the higher profile this year convinced them to rehearse more; maybe better technology allowed it; maybe they just played easier covers while I was listening. Whatever the reason, they did generally better with their covers, and the original "Wacken Song" wasn't half bad. We'll see how it goes with Doro fronting Skyline tomorrow.
245. A better VoM lineup doing "Ace of Spades".
246. VoM doing the Wacken song.
247. Borat-Abteilung in the beergarden. If you're not comfortable with dudes' junk hanging out, this may not be your festival. Wacken, man.
--
Day 6
30 July 2009
Wacken - Schleswig-Holstein - Germany
My favorite part of Victorian novels is whent he protagonist(s) inevitably fall in with bad company. Falling in with bad company is fun shit.
After the above notes on Victims of Madness, I got rolled into the international table; Norwegians, Dutch, Swedes, Danes, French, etc, and me, translating occasionally. This led to heavy drinking and going back to the Norskies' buscamp to drink some more. The party started before seven and wound down well after midnight; I did get some real sleep, though, before waking up to pull my boots in from the morning rainstorm.
248. Morgengrauen in Wacken.
Yesterday was Ipsissimus and moderate distro success; hopefully the Dysentery shirt will help me clear the rest of my pocket loads before the close of the day.
249. Jägermeister, taking bad decisions to literally new heights. This is the Jäger hanging bar discussed earlier.
250. Hier kommt die Sonne. The morning's rain was pushed away by strong winds; we'll see if there's more moisture trailing. (There was.)
Last year's A-line setup has taken a bit of a hit that can be described in two words: No Water. As I ambled lightheaded through the campground this morning, I noticed a complete absence of the water tanks of the previous couple years. Were they really such vandalism magnets? I can't see any other reason for them to get pulled. Unless, of course, they figured on 69,999 others, like me, buying a 2e iced-tea box instead of pouring themselves a hat or Masskrug of free, clear, delicious, water.
The beergarden staff is currently hauling out what seems to be a ton of broken benches and tables. It doesn't feel like the aftermath of a riot, though; my money's on the usual combination of heavy people and heavy drinking.
251. From the original '92 shirt to Fape hoodies; 17 years, how much culture. Since no earlier festival shirts exist, maybe I should whine less about NEDF not doing festival shirts in their first year either.
252. "Wind 1, Jägermeister 0!" Their tents got fucking jacked up over the wall from the infield into the midway. Hope my stakes held.....
They didn't. Tent got flipped. All contents ok, under-sail removed, tent re-staked, where it would stay the rest of the weekend.
I eventually bailed on the merch line and hit the Metal Market. Picked up a couple of patches, including a ~parody one for Composted, and also a couple black metal demos on tape. After picking these out, I got to peek at the dude's secret stash of NSBM; nothing especially interesting, so I didn't bite. Still, the almost literal under-the-table aspect was kinda cool.
253. Wacken, rain or....well, mostly rain.
After reviving my tent and tossing my merch in, I ambled back through a rainshower to the beergarden through a mostly empty midway. Dudes were scattering and ponchoing up, but my all-weather kutte saw me through. Thick and rain-repellent! Insulating! Cools easily in case of sweat!
Unfortunately, all this extra time-to-live bought me was more standing in line. Weatherpussies had crowded into every inch of space under every available awning, making it impossible to get a goddamned beer. Soon, though, enough of them manned up and left that I was able to get to the bar, grab a beer, and go back out under the drying sun. Bands start in about 2 hours.
254. Let's see how long this holds up.
255. The new infield.
Skyline [4/7]
A few originals, a lot of help; a nice look into the past, but you can kind of see why they weren't able to get an open-air slot anywhere else and had to make their own fest.
256. Skyline jamming out.
257. Doro leading Skyline.
258. Doro & Sabina on "We Are The Metalheads".
259. The piper from Subway to Sally makes an appearance.
Onkel Tom [5/7]
A surprise 2-song outing at the end of Skyline's set, this was a nice Zugabe for those (like me) who missed his set the night before.
260. It's everyone's favorite drunken German uncle!
261. Onkel Tom & band thrashing.
262. Herr Angelripper auf brüllen.
Schandmaul [5/7]
Another good performance, and a fucking amazing response. However, it's still not completely clear how they separate themselves from other mittel-alter bands. No Subway to Sally or In Extremo yet (though both are on the bill), so good stuff.
263. Schandmaul demonstrates that there is "Kein Weg zu weit".
Der W [5.5/7]
Good stuff, of which some I'm a fan of (yay "Heiss", "Geschichtenhasser", and "Gewinnen Kann Jeder"), but for all the quality, it's doubtful that he'd get this slot, being such a pure rock band, if he hadn't been in the Onkelz and helped save the festival so long ago.
264. Der W - Weidner takes command of the mic.
Shut up, dumb awards show, moar Running Wild!
The good things about this dumb awards show:
1) Slipknot getting booed after winning Best Website.
2) Heaven Shall Burn coming out after winning song of the year and simultaneously dissing the award, talking their own music down, and fanboying for Running Wild to the exclusion of all other activities. This is why they will survive after the wave that has put them to the top of the charts starts cutting their hair differently.
265. Stage set for Running Wild.
266. The set opened with a pirate skit (probably stumping for the Hamburg Dungeon that Rolf's involved with now) that ran on about a minute and a half longer than optimal.
267. Pirates continue fucking around.
268. Chick with some dude on a chain.
269. Finally, Cap'n Rolf!
Port Royal
Bad To The Bone
Riding The Storm
Soulless
Prisoner of our Time
Black Hand Inn
Condemned
Battle of Waterloo
(drum solo)
Raging Fire
The Privateer
Draw The Line
Whirlwind
Tortuga Bay
Branded and Exiled
Raise Your Fist
--
Conquistadores
Under Jolly Roger
That's it. Running Wild will never play another show as a full band again. Note: I ran into another under-30 "alter kuttenträger" on Saturday morning, and we had about a 45-minute discussion of how this set could have been improved, mostly by adding in several of the dozen or two classic songs we identified as missing, and by removing the pirate skit and the bogus wait before the encore. This is how real fans roll.
Running Wild [7/7]
No "Little Big Horn". No "Ballad of William Kidd" or "Treasure Island" -- not even "Chains And Leather" or "Victim of State's Power". But yes, 17 Running Wild songs, front row, and that at least will last. With my personal history as a metalhead, I had to see this; I did, and it made the trip worth it, even adjusting for the weather.
270. The band rips through "Port Royal".
271. Rolf Kasparek, front and center.
272. Same song, running low on light.
273. Throw some sand on the decks, mateys, we'll ride out this squall yet! And we did.
Heaven & Hell [5/7]
Really good for an old band heard from a quarter mile away. I was more watching a live concert feed than seeing the set, courtesy of the video walls, but I heard it live, which is what counts.
Day 5
29 July 2009
København - Hovedstaden - Denmark to Hamburg - Hamburg-Hesse - Germany
241. Wait, water? I thought this was a train stage? It is -- as later pics will show, the train drove into the ferry to cross between Rødby and Puttgarden.
242. Some distant ships at full zoom.
243. Windmills coming into the German side.
244. Train inside the ferry. Awesome.
On the ride in to Wacken, I fell in with locals as usual, and gave out my first Parasitic Extirpation CD. It didn't work in the dude's radio, though; if cosmic rays fucked it up, I'll be pissed.
Wacken - Schleswig-Holstein - Germany
With my tent up and crap in, it's time to go get some dinner and a beer or so, hang with some peeps, strew some merch, and then get back and rest up. Dunno if Onkel Tom is worth staying up till 11 tonight for.
Is it me or are there more chicks here than previously? Weird; one wonders if such was a consideration in when the fest sold out....
Victims of Madness [4/7]
Maybe the higher profile this year convinced them to rehearse more; maybe better technology allowed it; maybe they just played easier covers while I was listening. Whatever the reason, they did generally better with their covers, and the original "Wacken Song" wasn't half bad. We'll see how it goes with Doro fronting Skyline tomorrow.
245. A better VoM lineup doing "Ace of Spades".
246. VoM doing the Wacken song.
247. Borat-Abteilung in the beergarden. If you're not comfortable with dudes' junk hanging out, this may not be your festival. Wacken, man.
--
Day 6
30 July 2009
Wacken - Schleswig-Holstein - Germany
My favorite part of Victorian novels is whent he protagonist(s) inevitably fall in with bad company. Falling in with bad company is fun shit.
After the above notes on Victims of Madness, I got rolled into the international table; Norwegians, Dutch, Swedes, Danes, French, etc, and me, translating occasionally. This led to heavy drinking and going back to the Norskies' buscamp to drink some more. The party started before seven and wound down well after midnight; I did get some real sleep, though, before waking up to pull my boots in from the morning rainstorm.
248. Morgengrauen in Wacken.
Yesterday was Ipsissimus and moderate distro success; hopefully the Dysentery shirt will help me clear the rest of my pocket loads before the close of the day.
249. Jägermeister, taking bad decisions to literally new heights. This is the Jäger hanging bar discussed earlier.
250. Hier kommt die Sonne. The morning's rain was pushed away by strong winds; we'll see if there's more moisture trailing. (There was.)
Last year's A-line setup has taken a bit of a hit that can be described in two words: No Water. As I ambled lightheaded through the campground this morning, I noticed a complete absence of the water tanks of the previous couple years. Were they really such vandalism magnets? I can't see any other reason for them to get pulled. Unless, of course, they figured on 69,999 others, like me, buying a 2e iced-tea box instead of pouring themselves a hat or Masskrug of free, clear, delicious, water.
The beergarden staff is currently hauling out what seems to be a ton of broken benches and tables. It doesn't feel like the aftermath of a riot, though; my money's on the usual combination of heavy people and heavy drinking.
251. From the original '92 shirt to Fape hoodies; 17 years, how much culture. Since no earlier festival shirts exist, maybe I should whine less about NEDF not doing festival shirts in their first year either.
252. "Wind 1, Jägermeister 0!" Their tents got fucking jacked up over the wall from the infield into the midway. Hope my stakes held.....
They didn't. Tent got flipped. All contents ok, under-sail removed, tent re-staked, where it would stay the rest of the weekend.
I eventually bailed on the merch line and hit the Metal Market. Picked up a couple of patches, including a ~parody one for Composted, and also a couple black metal demos on tape. After picking these out, I got to peek at the dude's secret stash of NSBM; nothing especially interesting, so I didn't bite. Still, the almost literal under-the-table aspect was kinda cool.
253. Wacken, rain or....well, mostly rain.
After reviving my tent and tossing my merch in, I ambled back through a rainshower to the beergarden through a mostly empty midway. Dudes were scattering and ponchoing up, but my all-weather kutte saw me through. Thick and rain-repellent! Insulating! Cools easily in case of sweat!
Unfortunately, all this extra time-to-live bought me was more standing in line. Weatherpussies had crowded into every inch of space under every available awning, making it impossible to get a goddamned beer. Soon, though, enough of them manned up and left that I was able to get to the bar, grab a beer, and go back out under the drying sun. Bands start in about 2 hours.
254. Let's see how long this holds up.
255. The new infield.
Skyline [4/7]
A few originals, a lot of help; a nice look into the past, but you can kind of see why they weren't able to get an open-air slot anywhere else and had to make their own fest.
256. Skyline jamming out.
257. Doro leading Skyline.
258. Doro & Sabina on "We Are The Metalheads".
259. The piper from Subway to Sally makes an appearance.
Onkel Tom [5/7]
A surprise 2-song outing at the end of Skyline's set, this was a nice Zugabe for those (like me) who missed his set the night before.
260. It's everyone's favorite drunken German uncle!
261. Onkel Tom & band thrashing.
262. Herr Angelripper auf brüllen.
Schandmaul [5/7]
Another good performance, and a fucking amazing response. However, it's still not completely clear how they separate themselves from other mittel-alter bands. No Subway to Sally or In Extremo yet (though both are on the bill), so good stuff.
263. Schandmaul demonstrates that there is "Kein Weg zu weit".
Der W [5.5/7]
Good stuff, of which some I'm a fan of (yay "Heiss", "Geschichtenhasser", and "Gewinnen Kann Jeder"), but for all the quality, it's doubtful that he'd get this slot, being such a pure rock band, if he hadn't been in the Onkelz and helped save the festival so long ago.
264. Der W - Weidner takes command of the mic.
Shut up, dumb awards show, moar Running Wild!
The good things about this dumb awards show:
1) Slipknot getting booed after winning Best Website.
2) Heaven Shall Burn coming out after winning song of the year and simultaneously dissing the award, talking their own music down, and fanboying for Running Wild to the exclusion of all other activities. This is why they will survive after the wave that has put them to the top of the charts starts cutting their hair differently.
265. Stage set for Running Wild.
266. The set opened with a pirate skit (probably stumping for the Hamburg Dungeon that Rolf's involved with now) that ran on about a minute and a half longer than optimal.
267. Pirates continue fucking around.
268. Chick with some dude on a chain.
269. Finally, Cap'n Rolf!
Port Royal
Bad To The Bone
Riding The Storm
Soulless
Prisoner of our Time
Black Hand Inn
Condemned
Battle of Waterloo
(drum solo)
Raging Fire
The Privateer
Draw The Line
Whirlwind
Tortuga Bay
Branded and Exiled
Raise Your Fist
--
Conquistadores
Under Jolly Roger
That's it. Running Wild will never play another show as a full band again. Note: I ran into another under-30 "alter kuttenträger" on Saturday morning, and we had about a 45-minute discussion of how this set could have been improved, mostly by adding in several of the dozen or two classic songs we identified as missing, and by removing the pirate skit and the bogus wait before the encore. This is how real fans roll.
Running Wild [7/7]
No "Little Big Horn". No "Ballad of William Kidd" or "Treasure Island" -- not even "Chains And Leather" or "Victim of State's Power". But yes, 17 Running Wild songs, front row, and that at least will last. With my personal history as a metalhead, I had to see this; I did, and it made the trip worth it, even adjusting for the weather.
270. The band rips through "Port Royal".
271. Rolf Kasparek, front and center.
272. Same song, running low on light.
273. Throw some sand on the decks, mateys, we'll ride out this squall yet! And we did.
Heaven & Hell [5/7]
Really good for an old band heard from a quarter mile away. I was more watching a live concert feed than seeing the set, courtesy of the video walls, but I heard it live, which is what counts.
European Tour 2009 part 4: København
--
Day 4
28 July 2009
København - Hovedstaden - Denmark
I ended up too bushed from hiking around to go find and then flyer the Metallica gig that went down last night, so I went back to the hotel and rested up. One more day left.
156. Carlsberg brewery; if it wasn't for those time constraints, I'd look into a tour.
157. The comfy accomodations of the metro.
158. Tivoli sign at the end of the park.
159. Central post office front end.
160. Central post office backend.
161. Ampelmann lives!
162. A van...down...by...the river! Actually, this isn't a river, but the west arm of the strait that contains the island of Christiana. But still.
163. Southward view, new buildings.
164. Looking north, classic architecture.
165. And across into Christiana, horribly backlit.
166. One of a row of similar sculptures, interesting because it happens to be juxtaposed with a construction dumpster.
167. Weird steelwork on a construction site. I have no idea what this is going to end up being.
168. Back along Hans-Christian Andersen Boulevard towards the central city.
169. Building with the street sign referenced above. Edited to show detail.
170. A nice postcard shot if you happen to be a weirdo.
171. Modernistic buildings north of the bridge.
172. Ohnoes, teh gais r stopping traffic! This street is scheduled to be temporarily closed for some World Outgames events.
173. Bridge out to a mysterious island....
174. ...and what induced me to explore.
175. An oddly-trimmed bole. Mysterious....
And just like that, I was in Christianshavn. Even shortcuts can be an adventure - actually, no, they usually are.
176. A normal block of flats painted yellow.
177. ....and right opposite, Exhibit A in rent inflation.
The plan was to go up this tower, but it didn't open till 11. That left half an hour. I get bored sitting in one place for too long, and I can cover a lot of ground in half an hour.
178. A history in plaster. Every major renovation, a new crest; pretty cool.
179. Canal view featuring some kayakers.
180. Old-style stone buildings down by the waterfront.
181. Memorial plaque to a polar explorer by the marina.
182. Boats built in the old lapped-plank style that goes back to the Vikings.
183. Another church in this part of Christianshavn.
184. One of the command centers of the WWII Danish Resistance.
THE ALP!
185. Room holding some artwork; the main part of the church is under renovation and not open to the public. The tower's still open, though, as it's an excellent source of renovation funds.
186. Carillion console behind a gate.
187. Roof beams in the last bit before the big climb starts in earnest.
188. More architecture from the same point, about 85 steps up of the estimated 400.
189. View from the observation deck part 1, city.
190. Part 2, south towards the Øresund.
191. "Put out my hand, and touched the face of God." Well no, not really, just the base supporting the globe at the top of the tower.
The tourist guides make this sound more impressive and demanding than it actually is. The 400-step count given at the bottom is pretty accurate, but if you make it up the narrow spiral staircase to the ladder to the observation deck around step 235, the outside piece - yes, the last 150 steps of this climb are outside, making this really, really, really bad for acrophobes - is pretty much cake.
Due to congestion, I couldn't get all the pics I wanted of the various stages of the climb, and especially the graffiti dating back most of a century. I was especially struck by the new custom of scribbling email addresses advertising for cross-cultural penpals; you'll have to see it on your own, and it's worth the trip.
192. Warning sign on the Door of No Return, shot on the way down. Speaking of the descent, anyone with any acrophobia at all will really not like it -- the standard advice is "don't look down", but here you have to look down, through the railings out into the city impossibly far below you, in order to keep your feet on the worn metal steps and avoid falling down.
193. A neat wall mural - and it's a frickin EISNER!
194. A closer view of the signature. I'm not making this up.
195. An old mile post.
196. Memorial to the citizens of Christianshavn killed fighting the Nazis. What's really interesting is that the last guy on this monument is dated +17.7.1945, which for the history-impaired is more than 2 months after V-E Day. What's his story? Did he die of wounds suffered in April? Was he assassinated by collaborators afraid he'd give evidence against them? Did he join up with the British and die fighting the Japanese? More questions than answers; much of the time, that's how history works.
197. Shorter sign: jumping off the bridge isn't just stupid, it's illegal, and if you survive, you'll be arrested.
198. An older-style building on the way towards Slotsholm.
199. Come fly the friendly skies - full of friendly anti-air munitions that just want to drop in and see wassup.
200. Everyone's favorite society-with-secrets has made it here as well.
201. Half-timbered house; it pays to go off the path.
202. Aaaaw maaaaan..... There were other tourists around that I didn't want to set a bad example for (or be ratted out by), but otherwise I would have gone right on in. This sign might as well say HAY ADVENTURERS COME IN HERE, which is a good indication that they aren't expecting any to drop by.
203. Internals of the palace, opposite the arms museum that I couldn't get into.
204. Front of the royal library and courtyard.
205. Kierkegaard statue. If you have your picture taken with it - and I saw several people doing so - you are officially overeducated.
206. Weird twisty dragon-parts spire on top of the old stock exchange.
207. The imposing front of the royal palace.
208. Equestrian statue of Christian IV in front of the palace.
209. Mural on the side of the palace, from the other side of the water.
About the time that the last pic was taken, a light rain started to fall; being hungry I hit a sidewalk restaurant and wrote this up while waiting for a Thai beef salad.
Lazy-Ass Canal Boat Tourism
210. Old church tower and Bishop Absalom, the city founder. I don't care what they put on the statue, clerics still can't use axes.
211. Warnings of an underwater statue. If it wasn't for all the canal boats, this would be neat to check out swimming or in a smaller craft.
212. Old stock exchange.
213. One of many bridges with low head clearance.
214. Golden spire again, from the water. You can see the tourist congestion near the top.
215. Customs House restaurant.
216. New opera house, gift of Maersk Lines.
217. Looking back into Nyhavn.
218. Cannon boat sheds. As a penalty for being on the wrong side in the Napoleonic Wars, the British impounded most of the Danish Navy's ships and sunk everything that they didn't want. The city still needed defending, though, so while new capital ships were being laid down, the Danes took cannons from the army and fitted them onto rowboats to patrol the approaches to the harbor. These sheds are where these singularly awesome innovations in naval warfare were based; those on the left are unrestored, waiting to be made into a museum.
219. The sky darkens....
220. Naval area; mostly museum ships now.
221. Old naval pumping station with the opera house in the background.
222. Frigate and PT boat.
223. Battery Sixtus and the official Danish flag, which all other Danish flags have to conform to.
224. Cannons on the Battery.
225. Sculptures by ex-Yugoslav artists in exile, left over from København's time as the EU cultural capital and since put out here in the harbor.
226. Out to sea.
227. The Little Mermaid, and a Chinese tour group.
228. Amalienborg, the current royal residence.
229. A better angle on the foregoing.
230. Stormclouds over the opera house.
231. Hippie camp near the Out Games main area.
232. Entry to the old palace.
233. Short bridge, part 1.
234. Short bridge, part 2.
235. Souvenir of that last bridge: concrete scrapes on the hat.
"O Krušovice, o Krušovice
You truly are the fucking shit
Not only found
In Elbe bars
But also Ko
penhagen far
O Krušovice, o Krušovice
You truly are the fucking shit"
(Sung to "O Tannenbaum", obviously)
Yes, I found some Krušo Ćerné in a liquor store by the Gammel Strand. Then I drank half of it sitting on a bench and went home to rest my feet for Wacken. Then I wrote up these notes and drank the rest.
236. ((not germane))
237. Municipal building towards the city center.
238. A cool looking dome east of the Tivoli garden.
239. Awesome graffiti on a building east of Tivoli.
240. I think Dong Energy (cue Beavis, heh heh heh heh) has this building opposite the post office now, but that's no clue as to who had this weird architecture done or why.
Day 4
28 July 2009
København - Hovedstaden - Denmark
I ended up too bushed from hiking around to go find and then flyer the Metallica gig that went down last night, so I went back to the hotel and rested up. One more day left.
156. Carlsberg brewery; if it wasn't for those time constraints, I'd look into a tour.
157. The comfy accomodations of the metro.
158. Tivoli sign at the end of the park.
159. Central post office front end.
160. Central post office backend.
161. Ampelmann lives!
162. A van...down...by...the river! Actually, this isn't a river, but the west arm of the strait that contains the island of Christiana. But still.
163. Southward view, new buildings.
164. Looking north, classic architecture.
165. And across into Christiana, horribly backlit.
166. One of a row of similar sculptures, interesting because it happens to be juxtaposed with a construction dumpster.
167. Weird steelwork on a construction site. I have no idea what this is going to end up being.
168. Back along Hans-Christian Andersen Boulevard towards the central city.
169. Building with the street sign referenced above. Edited to show detail.
170. A nice postcard shot if you happen to be a weirdo.
171. Modernistic buildings north of the bridge.
172. Ohnoes, teh gais r stopping traffic! This street is scheduled to be temporarily closed for some World Outgames events.
173. Bridge out to a mysterious island....
174. ...and what induced me to explore.
175. An oddly-trimmed bole. Mysterious....
And just like that, I was in Christianshavn. Even shortcuts can be an adventure - actually, no, they usually are.
176. A normal block of flats painted yellow.
177. ....and right opposite, Exhibit A in rent inflation.
The plan was to go up this tower, but it didn't open till 11. That left half an hour. I get bored sitting in one place for too long, and I can cover a lot of ground in half an hour.
178. A history in plaster. Every major renovation, a new crest; pretty cool.
179. Canal view featuring some kayakers.
180. Old-style stone buildings down by the waterfront.
181. Memorial plaque to a polar explorer by the marina.
182. Boats built in the old lapped-plank style that goes back to the Vikings.
183. Another church in this part of Christianshavn.
184. One of the command centers of the WWII Danish Resistance.
THE ALP!
185. Room holding some artwork; the main part of the church is under renovation and not open to the public. The tower's still open, though, as it's an excellent source of renovation funds.
186. Carillion console behind a gate.
187. Roof beams in the last bit before the big climb starts in earnest.
188. More architecture from the same point, about 85 steps up of the estimated 400.
189. View from the observation deck part 1, city.
190. Part 2, south towards the Øresund.
191. "Put out my hand, and touched the face of God." Well no, not really, just the base supporting the globe at the top of the tower.
The tourist guides make this sound more impressive and demanding than it actually is. The 400-step count given at the bottom is pretty accurate, but if you make it up the narrow spiral staircase to the ladder to the observation deck around step 235, the outside piece - yes, the last 150 steps of this climb are outside, making this really, really, really bad for acrophobes - is pretty much cake.
Due to congestion, I couldn't get all the pics I wanted of the various stages of the climb, and especially the graffiti dating back most of a century. I was especially struck by the new custom of scribbling email addresses advertising for cross-cultural penpals; you'll have to see it on your own, and it's worth the trip.
192. Warning sign on the Door of No Return, shot on the way down. Speaking of the descent, anyone with any acrophobia at all will really not like it -- the standard advice is "don't look down", but here you have to look down, through the railings out into the city impossibly far below you, in order to keep your feet on the worn metal steps and avoid falling down.
193. A neat wall mural - and it's a frickin EISNER!
194. A closer view of the signature. I'm not making this up.
195. An old mile post.
196. Memorial to the citizens of Christianshavn killed fighting the Nazis. What's really interesting is that the last guy on this monument is dated +17.7.1945, which for the history-impaired is more than 2 months after V-E Day. What's his story? Did he die of wounds suffered in April? Was he assassinated by collaborators afraid he'd give evidence against them? Did he join up with the British and die fighting the Japanese? More questions than answers; much of the time, that's how history works.
197. Shorter sign: jumping off the bridge isn't just stupid, it's illegal, and if you survive, you'll be arrested.
198. An older-style building on the way towards Slotsholm.
199. Come fly the friendly skies - full of friendly anti-air munitions that just want to drop in and see wassup.
200. Everyone's favorite society-with-secrets has made it here as well.
201. Half-timbered house; it pays to go off the path.
202. Aaaaw maaaaan..... There were other tourists around that I didn't want to set a bad example for (or be ratted out by), but otherwise I would have gone right on in. This sign might as well say HAY ADVENTURERS COME IN HERE, which is a good indication that they aren't expecting any to drop by.
203. Internals of the palace, opposite the arms museum that I couldn't get into.
204. Front of the royal library and courtyard.
205. Kierkegaard statue. If you have your picture taken with it - and I saw several people doing so - you are officially overeducated.
206. Weird twisty dragon-parts spire on top of the old stock exchange.
207. The imposing front of the royal palace.
208. Equestrian statue of Christian IV in front of the palace.
209. Mural on the side of the palace, from the other side of the water.
About the time that the last pic was taken, a light rain started to fall; being hungry I hit a sidewalk restaurant and wrote this up while waiting for a Thai beef salad.
Lazy-Ass Canal Boat Tourism
210. Old church tower and Bishop Absalom, the city founder. I don't care what they put on the statue, clerics still can't use axes.
211. Warnings of an underwater statue. If it wasn't for all the canal boats, this would be neat to check out swimming or in a smaller craft.
212. Old stock exchange.
213. One of many bridges with low head clearance.
214. Golden spire again, from the water. You can see the tourist congestion near the top.
215. Customs House restaurant.
216. New opera house, gift of Maersk Lines.
217. Looking back into Nyhavn.
218. Cannon boat sheds. As a penalty for being on the wrong side in the Napoleonic Wars, the British impounded most of the Danish Navy's ships and sunk everything that they didn't want. The city still needed defending, though, so while new capital ships were being laid down, the Danes took cannons from the army and fitted them onto rowboats to patrol the approaches to the harbor. These sheds are where these singularly awesome innovations in naval warfare were based; those on the left are unrestored, waiting to be made into a museum.
219. The sky darkens....
220. Naval area; mostly museum ships now.
221. Old naval pumping station with the opera house in the background.
222. Frigate and PT boat.
223. Battery Sixtus and the official Danish flag, which all other Danish flags have to conform to.
224. Cannons on the Battery.
225. Sculptures by ex-Yugoslav artists in exile, left over from København's time as the EU cultural capital and since put out here in the harbor.
226. Out to sea.
227. The Little Mermaid, and a Chinese tour group.
228. Amalienborg, the current royal residence.
229. A better angle on the foregoing.
230. Stormclouds over the opera house.
231. Hippie camp near the Out Games main area.
232. Entry to the old palace.
233. Short bridge, part 1.
234. Short bridge, part 2.
235. Souvenir of that last bridge: concrete scrapes on the hat.
"O Krušovice, o Krušovice
You truly are the fucking shit
Not only found
In Elbe bars
But also Ko
penhagen far
O Krušovice, o Krušovice
You truly are the fucking shit"
(Sung to "O Tannenbaum", obviously)
Yes, I found some Krušo Ćerné in a liquor store by the Gammel Strand. Then I drank half of it sitting on a bench and went home to rest my feet for Wacken. Then I wrote up these notes and drank the rest.
236. ((not germane))
237. Municipal building towards the city center.
238. A cool looking dome east of the Tivoli garden.
239. Awesome graffiti on a building east of Tivoli.
240. I think Dong Energy (cue Beavis, heh heh heh heh) has this building opposite the post office now, but that's no clue as to who had this weird architecture done or why.
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