Picture galore pt2

Today has been spent taking care of my kitchen! Sorting out what I shall keep and what needs to go. I have been throwing away a lot of things. Feels actually very good. Or maybe it's just so boring to pack it all so it's easier to throw it out. Then some laundry, packing for next week, getting a second battery for my camera and a new monitor for my parents computer. They have my old Compac and of course it wasn't the monitor that was the problem. Some board in the computer had given up. I called some guy who was on call and I'll be damn, he laughed a little before checking if he had a replacement. He had and then the computer worked fine again...

In between everything I've been editing more Getaway pictures, so here's another taste of what was cut out for Metal Temple.

TRIPTYKON

MAYHEM

THE HAUNTED

EUROPE

ENGEL

CRUCIFIED BARBARA

MOTÖRHEAD

DEVILDRIVER

So it's been a quite creative day in many ways! Perhaps only the picture editing was the only really fun thing to do. But at least it feels like I have control over the situation and will be done in time with the packing. It's also good that I'm done with the Getaway report, just a few adjustments left and then I'll kill Dimitris mailbox with all the pictures!

Cheers

E

NP: Warrel Dane - Praises To The War Machine

Picture galore

I really thought I would be fed up with Metal eventually but the more concerts I see, the more I write and the more pictures I take the more concerts I want to go to, the more I want to dig as deep down in the depths of all genres, do more interviews and so on... It's at these times I realize how much the music mean to me and that it would be possible to live without it. Sounds lika and addiction maybe but hey, it could be worse.
At the moment I'm editing the text and pictures from Getaway Festival which was an amazing Festival. The bright sunligt was hard though but when the pictures came out good they got REALLY good...
Just thought I'd share a few, and these are the ones I've taken out, the ones that will not go on Metal Temple!

We don't care what you say! Me & Bobby Blitz

Peter & Bobby Blitz

The report is mainly done! I so hoped it would have been done sooner and the interviews to be up as well but I haven't had the time. All my free time has been packing and cleaning. At least I'm done with the basement. Just a few more things there to throw away.

Overkill


Grand Magus

Exodus

Dark Tranquillity

After Getaway it's time to dig into the Bang Your Head report. Just the live report but next year I'll schedule interviews there as well. The only problem with that is to have time for all bands worth seeing, hang out and have a good time besides all the "work"...

Tonight = Firebird @ Club Monster

Cheers

E

NP - Virgin Steele - Age Of Consent

Welcome to the festival

Anoter week in the heat has passed. Before me and Peter went to Bang Your Head Festival in Balingen I got to pick up the keyes to the new flat. I also got the chance to do a better blueprint of it all. The first try I did had a big hole in the middle, couldn't really get the propotions right after the first quick look at it. The place still looked as nice as I remembered it and it acutally looked bigger now when it was complately empty. Won't last for long... I've packed another 5 boxes of CD's now and I'm still not done.

The first bedroom will be the musicroom, with the guitars, amps and a computer for recording. The CD's should fit in there as well I hope. There might be a Wall Of Fame in the hall, well see...

Homemade blueprint of the flat

The vinyl goes to the livingroom to start with! All of them should fit in there. Also Peter' collection of fancy books need to get a place and all my collectors edition music boxes, the Helloween Hat, Maiden chest, Slayer Apocalypse and so on... When I start thinking about it, these 85 sq meters start to sound small!

Then I went to Uffes for a BBQ, he was on vacation and in a really good mood. We ate and had a few beers. Watched some TV which was only crap. Uffe said he was going to watch all his Deep Purple DVD's (about 20) and drink beer all night. Luckily he decided to chose the Björler DVD disco instead which was only the At The Gates documentary and The Haunted - Rodmovie! really cool movies both of them. I really need to watch more music DVD's!
I fell asleep on his couch around 2am when he changed to regular films instead. The thing is, my taxi was booked for 04:30am to go to the airport and fly to BYH. Need I say I wasn't the most cheerful person in the world when the alarm sounded in the morning!

But the flights went really smooth. I met up with Peter in Copenhagen, from there we had the same flight. The trainride went equally smooth, just picked up the tickets, printed the itinerary. we even had time to pick up some brunch at Burger King before the train left. And about 2 hours later we arrived in Balingen. This was the first thing we saw getting of the train and I at least got supercharged for the pre-party.

A really nice pre-party I think

We checked in to the nice Hotel Hamann and decided to rest a little. Good idea since neither Peter nor me had gotten much sleep the night before. Then out for a Pizza dinner and a warm up beer and we both were fit for fight.

Beer-art?

The Pre-party and the Festival was great as usual. But more about the band will show up on Metal Temple later. The dangerous thing is that the beer they have slips down really easy and when it's hot, crowded and as amazing music as it was it tend to be a bit much of the good stuff. No real danger but it would have been great to sleep another hour or two the next morning.

First day of the Festival was AMAZING, what a line-up. Grand Magus, Forbidden, Loudness, Anvil, Jon Oliva's Pain, Doro, Krokus... A littl too much to be able to fit everything in. All gigs I saw were really good but no other band really stood chance towards Jon Oliva's Pain this night. Festival is the absolute best album this far this year! And that they played "Death Rides A Black Horse" was super, love that one. Anvil & Forbidden wasn't far behind though!

We got invited to hang out a little with Anvil also since Peter is a good friend of the band. Cool guys I have to say.

Anvil & Peter

And since Jon Oliva's Pain had the dressing room right next to Anvil I got a chance to say hello to those guys. I have to dig up the pics of the Backdrop on my wall again to show them what it looked like. It won't be the same in the new place though.

Jon & Me

I didn't force myself into their dressing room if that's what you think. Jon gave me an invite and something "you're everhwhere"... Could be worse!

We took the opportunity we had to sit in the shade and rest for a while in the real backstage area. Steve Smyth was hanging out there too! I got a little giggly for a while so Peter threatened he would go and talk to him for me and say I didn't dare to talk to him.

Me & Steve

I couldn't have that. It went fine, Steve thought I looked familiar and I said I've seen him tons of times with all his bands. I got to hear a little about his new BC Rich guitars before we headed back out for the rest of the bands.

The next day served and equally stron lineup with Fates Warning, Nevermore, Sacred Steel, Queensryche, The Haunted and Twisted Sister. Some rain also unfortunately so it was a very wet Fates Warning concert.

There's always a lot of people you see year after year at these events, Anita is an old friend of Peter's and last year was the first time I met them. Always happy, always having fun! Perhaps we'll meet up with them in Italy later this year for Play It Loud!

Peter with Anita and her sister Irene

The thing though, people don't seem to care. There's never mud at BYH, sure the beer gets little lighter but half the people drinks the horrible Radlers anyway an then it can't matter so much. The funniest thing happened when we gave up and headed back o the hotel. The average age is quite high at BYH so Twister Sister works extremely well there. The crowd was sining like crazy all the time. And yes, Twisted Sister were good as hell but... Back to the story, there were a bunch of dudes behid us, somewhere between 40 and 50 I guess and they sang "we're not gonna take it" LOUD! But then, for the next line in the lyrics.... "HELLO, we ain't gonna take it"! Hilaroius I must say!

And then, as they asked at the Hotel, will you be back next year! HELL YEAH!

NP: Demon - Night of the Demon

In union we stand

So, the Festival season continues. This time with Getaway Rock Festival at home... Yep, home in Gävle. It's pretty amazing that something happens as close that it's possible to walk home at the end of the night. I can highly recommend this Festival to any Metal Head next year. Everything was very close to perfect and this was the FIRST Year!!! The promoters shall have endless credits for a job well done.
But to build up for days of Metal and Party I had to make sure everyone got a really good breakast. The boys from Borås (Sandared really) came to visit, Uffe and Stefan stayed in my flat together with me and Peter and Tony and Daniel checked in to Scandic West. And what can be better than Yoghurt with a tiger on it. Peter was thrilled but the others looked skeptic, they looked exactly the same when I offered them Fjällyoghort too so I doubt it was the Milko Tiger stuff that tasted pear that as the problem. I think it tasted nice but perhaps better as desert than breakfast.

Tigerboost in the morning

Just look at the boxes, these are bound to cheer you up in the morning!!! Doubtless!

We checked in to the Press area and made it to the Festival just in time for Wolf. All of us thought it was quite bold to start the concerts at lunch-time the first day already. I doubt we were the only ones, the place could have been more crowded but it wasn't empty at least.

Uffe is getting charged

Sunny weather and great music makes the beer nerve itch. Luckily (or perhaps unlucky) the beertents were placed so we could watch everything while drinking beer! Another great thing with the festival. Places to sit, in the shade or in the sun to eat, drink or just hang out. And a lot of them.

Stefan, Björn, Uffe and Daniel enjoying Metal in the sun

But of course the main focus was on the bands. It was a great set up there as well. Perhaps the indoor stage could have had more lights because it was very hard to get any pictures at all in there. That place got hotter than hell too but that's just a minor issue.

Uffe and Tony is getting hotter

The thing with the indoor stage though was that I forgot several times that it actually existed. Ok, my main schedule was on the bigger stages. Plus that the nice people from Triada set me up with a few interviews so I was very busy all the time really rather than anything else.

The elk was blue almost all the time, Uffe & Peter

Even if it was walking distance home none of us were especially up for that after a full day at the Festival. The first day we got a cab with no meter in it. Don't care so much about that, what could that guy have done with me, Peter, Stefan and Uffe in the car. The trip was cheap and fast so all good there.

Happy days

The next day... I don't know... That was the party night, I mean, it's so easy to drink a lot of beer and listen to Motörhead but I doubt we were the drunk ones in the car. The guy babbled something about first day of vacation, got no control of the meter and had not one clue what so ever what was left and what was right. Need I say he didn't find his way to my flat? We got home safe then too and it was fairly cheap!

It got a little fuzzy in the end but this I can blame on the photographer at least!

The last night Stefan drove home, no beer for him that night and I must say it's crazy to sit in the backseat of my car. We had parked that one close to the festival to have some place to keep some extra clothers and beer. Tony really enjoyed his superhot Sofiero ones I can tell you!!!
There were a lot of great bands playing too of course but the report about that, together with the interviews will end up at Metal Temple in a week or two.

Teenage nostalgia?

But, the absolute highlight was Overkill. Their latest album "Ironbound" is absolutely one of the best released this year at this point and they seem to have gotten new inspiration to play because they're better than ever.

Motörhead was ok too! It's had to get supercharged after seeing a band over 30 times but I absolutely still enjoy to see them. It actually felt like it was ages ago now.

The biggest surprise came from Devildriver. I jut checked them out before the Festival and got quite stunned by their "Pray For Villains" so I did a short research and more by chance signed up for an interview. Perhaps not the smartest thing in the world but the cool thing about that was the impression I got about Dez, absolutely amazing guy. After meeting him you really can't do anything but love the band. They put on a great live show too!

Anyway, it was a very nice weekend. Great company, cool bands, sunny weather. Everything was just nice and easy. That's the way a Festival should be! So horns up for Getaway Rock Festival! No sleep till Getaway 2011????

Cheers

E

NP: Devildriver - Pray For Villains

Some Sanctuary

I've always wanted to go to Tokyo, that's for sure. The city has always seemed very fascinating and it's absolutely somehing on my to do list to go to a concet in the land of the rising sun. Just imagine the feeling of walking down the streets and sing "Midnight In Tokyo" or something! If things go my way now, this event might happen! I hold my thumbs for that!

The line up sure is a killer and who knows how long John Cyriis will stay this time. I don't know if I prefer him or Bruce Hall in the band though. (Still never got th opportunity to hear "Human Bullet" live) Of course that's one of the main reasons to go to this event, but the absolutely biggest is still Sancturay. I've been severely hooked since I first saw future tense on MTV and has followed Warrel ever since. Oh well, his music career at least.

And then, me and Peter went to his parents summer cabin at Hasslö. My trip started with an extremely hot trainride to Växjö where I changed to one of Sweden's worst busdrivers. Ok, it was a quite long ride but to miss three stops? For one of them he realized it just when he passed the sign and hit the breaks. The woman getting off wasn't on that at all and bounced forward on her ass in the bus. That's not ok!
But apart from that it was a lovely and sunny weekend. I managed to catch another very nice tan too... Arringin at the cabin we found Strumpan (who's been on vacation for a few weeks now) eating grass on the law, he wasn't interested at all to come and say hi to us.

The grass tastes very nice

Saturday was spent out on the sea. Or really a small island not too far from the coast. The water was really freezing. I've never felt the fingers getting numb and starting to hurt in an instance just by jump in the water. Refreshing yes but nice, I don't know...

Peter and his dad in the boat

The landscape down in Blekinge is really beautiful and gave a lot of photo opportunities. I realized that nature photography is my strong side. It's a really bad sign when the mobile camera beats the canon! And that has nothing to do with the cameras.

After the boat trip it was time for birthday party. Peter's dad turned 60 so his mom had arrange with som bubbly wine and a flowery wreth. Very pretty!

Birthday party

The rest of the days were spent lazy just roaming the island on bike, jump in the ocean when it got too hot or just watching the boats in the harbour.

Ok, it only took about 45 minutes in slow speed to cycle around the island. It was still nice and a lot of things to look at. And just to pass by the Fish smokery makes it all so real.

It sure is something special to get away from the city, get away from traffic, shops, bars and everything. To be able to just kill time without doing anything really. I think I would freak out after a few days but now it was all good.

Lazy days in the sun

.

I realized I might need a real vacation some day soon. Not going away for anything, not plan any concerts or festivals at all. Just time to relax...

One little black cat that really likes Icecream

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Strawberries sure is one of the best things with summer. And the ones we got our hands on was very dark red and really sweet. That togerth with some vanilla icecream. Mmmm!!! The days at Hasslö were really nice and I'm so glad Peter took the time to guide me around the island. It was really great to see and I really hope I get to go there more times.

Then it was time for another exciting trainride back to Borås. The first change for me was in Bredåsa, 15 minutes outside Ronneby. That's absolutely nothing, one track. Wasn't too much fun to realize the train out from there was very delayed. But it all worked out, I caught all the trains back to Borås and could check in to the hotel again.

I decided Monday dinner to be at Oliven, a very nice Greek Restaurant close to the hotel. My favorite this far is the grilled chicken!

Souvlaki Kotopoulo

But before dinner I made it to Hold On Records just to realize they had a final sale because they're closing down. Ok, I did get some really cheap reacords. Everything gtom teenage nostalgia (Krixhjälters) to some unexplored 80's Metal (Streetfighter) and christian US Metal (Barren Cross). I also bought some more safe stuff, (Entombed, Iron Savior, ADX) all cheap and nice. But I would gladly have paid full price for it if that would have kept the record store open.

Catch of the day

And now it's soon time to charge for FESTIVAL! I'm really looking forward to Getaway Rock Festival now!





NP - Motörhead - Rock'n'Roll