Our first steps led to the camp ... sure enough it was raining .... it was raining for all of Friday and part of Saturday. In this regards it is interesting to note that i did actually consult several servers for weather forecasts and each of them came up with almost totally different view on the matter. The probability guess of mine was that it would be entirely fucked up weather and to some extend i was right. At least for Friday.
The tents were up and we went for the gates. On the way there these were actually the only kind of shots i took on Friday ... btw. our tent stations were behind that Brazilian flag ... quite a good signpost when dark.
Now ... when at the gates, i got searched, the lady took out my camera and checked for megapixels .... said 6.1 are too much ma'am ... only 2.5 megapixels are allowed in !!!!
JfC ... i never heard this shit before : I mean, if i had a normal film camera with high speed film like 800 ASA or more, she would know shit and I would take much better shots than with any non-professional digi cam plus even in dark if I got those film rolls over-exposed, i would get brilliant shots .... yet she had the order : 2.6 megapixels max ... and on that day (perhaps weakened by too few toilet breaks on the way) i just gave up and wasnt cool enough to go to the other gates and try to smuggle it in there ....
Oh well ... it was raining, relatively dark anyway ... so i just hanged arpund the fest area, camera-less, and enjoyed music ... which wasnt that bad after all.
SPAWN (Germ)
www.spawn666.de German death metal from Berlin ... I came late to their gig due to the camera issue and i couldnt concentrate properly on them so my memory is kinda faint when it comes to Spawn .... the only thing i can remember is that i actually wasnt upset about hat i heard from the stage. ;D
EXTREME NOISE TERROR (England)
Grindcore ... they were really good ... it was not exactly extreme noise terror to me given the state of mind i had for the afternoon ... but then i may not have been objective ... but from what i remember i have to check out some of their releases. ... actually amazon announces re-release of their 2 albums on one CD "Holocaust in Your Head/in It for Life" in a couple of days ...
CATARACT (Switzerland)
www.cataract.cc Metalcore / Now they played in the tent stage, i just went there in the break ... and these swiss guys were fucking excellent !!!!!! I was really taken by what i heard and in the breaks i was crusing the markets trying to get hold of some of their CDs which I finally managed and got With Triumph Comes Loss
I will gladly see them any time again !!!
From their gig i ran back to the main stage to check out
MASTODON (USA)
www.mastodonrocks.com Thrash/HC from Atlanta .... very good show, but lets say I liked Cataract better ... but again, if they play nearby / at a similar gig, i will go and see them again !
OBITUARY (USA)
www.obituary.cc Death/thrash ... whatever ... they were great !!!!
they really made the field dancing and headbanging ... and actually I may see them one more time this summer ! ;D
ANTI FLAG (USA)
www.anti-flag.com Yeah right ... punk's not dead ! ... anarcho / polit. punk .... music wise not bad, content-wise acceptable. ;D I actually wanted to see them live so I did.
Another band I wanted to see were
KILLSWITCH ENGAGE (USA)
www.killswitchengage.com Thrash /HC ... again, not bad and i am glad i checked them out. The same applies to :
IN FLAMES (Sweden)
www.inflames.com Btw: all those bands i listed i saw for the first time, in some cases i obviously knew them from CDs and stuff (like DVDs / Roadrunner video samples etc.) ... but to see them live is quite a different matter and i may actually venture to say that they were more fun to see live than to listen to from the "cans" as it were ....
There is however one more point .... i was dead tired (no sleep on the bus and little sleep the night before / Soulfly-VR-Black Sabbath concert in Prague) and i could hardly stand on my feet .... also the pressure started to be a bit unbearable (the fest is said to have had something between
35 and 40.000 people) so i did wait for
SLAYER (
www.slayer.net ) but to be honest with you, I was slowly leaving towards the camp before they actually finished. There is also one more thing : the sound for Slayer was not all that great for some reason ... they sounded like from some playback and I had a feeling i saw better Slayer gigs than this one plus Slayer shall play venue in Prague this summer .... and thus i just retreated to my tent.
I do regret i didnt find the strength to see the tent past-midnight gigs, but i simply was not able to .... age was perhaps getting on me on that night.
Well, perhaps next time somewhere else.
Be it as it may, I had some good sleep regardless of the wet tent ... and yes, some distant neighbours played old Sepultura very loud, which was actually nice ...
For some reason though the camp repertoir changed a bit during the next two days into something more ... erm .... German. ;D You know that kind of music from Bavaria / Tyrol ?
;D
To be cont.