Hazy Dayz

It was a really nice morning today! I really like this time of the year when it still fairly warm outside but not as hot as it was down in Holland/Belgium or at Headbangers Open Air. +10 suites me really good but I don't approve of the rain very much. I want to go by bike to work when I can since I hate to take the bus and the adjusting of time etc that comes with it...

But since it was raining when I was going home from work yesterday I had to catch the bus anyway but took the chance to take a walk to the city center and skip one of the buses. Arriving at the South Square the image was really cool, foggy mornings are very nice and photographs really nice. Mobile camera isn't the best though of course but it still is ok at least.

Back to yesterday though, since I had to take the bus home... This evening there was a woman standing in the back door, trying to keep it open and screaming out on the Square. The driver started the bus and tried to close the doors. The woman started screaming at him instead. The rest of her group showed up eventually but before stepping on-board the bus they sure HAD to finish their cigarettes as well. The screaming continued on the bus and there seemed to be a problem with paying for the ticket also. Why scream? Ask instead. And perhaps, don't leave a full bus waiting just because you need to smoke...

This morning I woke up to this;

The landlord will be cleaning the building and change out the windows so I guess this week will be the last days until December (yey!!!!) with actual outside visual from my window, then it will be a covered working platform outside my window. Seems they will close off the bike cellar as well so I guess I need to squeeze the bike into the flat again. That's for my shoebox flat of course, but luckily I might not have to spend too much time here during the fall.

Last weekend there were a fair in Höör, with a Tivoli as well... We took a stroll down to check it out but there wasn't much. A guy selling 2:nd hand records and films but most everything was in rather poor shape it wasn't very interesting. Still bought two Treat LP's and one Gillan... Cheap and at least the record itself was in good shape even if the cover had some wear and tear. There also was a booth for some cat support or cat shelter and of course I had to support a bit. 

The Blue little fish with Cat Nip won't survive long, the black hooligan will eat it whole when he's back from Summer Camp. But it was a good cause at least!

Today was the only day when I don't had any late meetings so I decided to go home quite early and since, as a Swedish tradition, half Saturday, or Half week or so I took the opportunity to try out Trooper Ale which I got from a colleague just because he could buy my Iron Maiden tickets for Stockholm. Only sold them since we were playing with Void Moon at Metal Magic Festival!

 
The beer is really nice actually. A lot of character and taste! But that it is super is no surprise when it comes from Iron Maiden, right?

As always I've been shopping for records, I got a package from eBay the other day with some rather expensive versions of Sirens & Dungeons are Calling and one not so special Power of the Night. Got it for a bargain also, that's nice!!! Also, the Banzai version of Dungeons was out on eBay a while but that was too expensive for now... Still, what bugs me about it is that I found it once but then, regardless what I was searching for it never showed up. Can't figure out what the limitations are and why it wasn't possible to find it, it's not THAT many Savatage items listen at eBay.
But getting the package the urge to listen to Savatage came back and the records spun throughout the weekend. Also read the storyline for Streets which feels like a bit of a funny co-incident since this was posted on the web early this week.

 
earMUSIC has announced the long-awaited final chapter of the successful SAVATAGE reissues series. Previously unreleased and originally only intended for the Broadway rendition, "Streets: A Rock Opera" — the groundbreaking album by SAVATAGE — is now available including its original narration parts.
To complete this extraordinary release and to award the many fans who have shown dedication and love for SAVATAGE's legacy, the final chapter of this reissue series will feature the band's favorite videos. Released for the first time on DVD and restored from the original tapes, the video collection spans from SAVATAGE's 1987's video "Hall Of The Mountain King" until 1996's "One Child".
As on all previous chapters of the SAVATAGE reissues series, the album includes newly written liner notes by Jon Oliva, who is sharing his memories about all SAVATAGE videos.
Fans looking for unreleased and rare bonus tracks will be happy to discover a lot of extra audio content on the DVD: "Shotgun Innocence", "Forever After", one instrumental acoustic version of "Voyage", live versions of "Stare Into The Sun" and "Conversation Piece" recorded in Japan (but NOT included on the official live CD) and the piano version of "Sleep". The bonus track "Larry Elbows" deserves a special mention: this previously unreleased song didn't make it on the original "Streets: A Rock Opera" album due to time limits and is finally available to all the fans that never forgot the creativity and the energy of this extraordinary band.
"I'm really excited for this version of 'Streets' to finally be released," says Jon Oliva. "It was something different, an idea that Paul O'Neill had to take the progressive rock opera format to a bigger and better place than anything we had done, and anything I had heard anyone else doing before. This version of the album has only been floating around on bootlegs."
CD "Streets: A Rock Opera: Narrated Version"
01. Streets
02. Narration To "Jesus"
03. Jesus Saves (Original Version)
04. Narration To "Tonight He Grins Again"
05. Tonight He Grins Again
06. Narration To "Strange Reality"
07. Strange Reality
08. Narration To "A Little Too Far"
09. A Little Too Far
10. Narration To "You're Alive"
11. You're Alive
12. Narration To "Sammy And Tex"
13. Sammy And Tex
14. Narration To "St. Patrick's"
15. St. Patrick's
16. Narration To "Can You Hear Me Now"
17. Can You Hear Me Now
18. Narration To "New York City Don't Mean Nothing"
19. New York City Don't Mean Nothing
20. Narration To "Ghost In The Ruins"
21. Ghost In The Ruins
22. Narration To "If I Go Away"
23. If I Go Away
24. Narration To "Agony And Ecstasy"
25. Agony And Ecstasy
26. Narration To "Heal My Soul"
27. Heal My Soul
28. Narration To "Somewhere In Time
29. Somewhere In Time
30. Believe
Bonus Track
31. Larry Elbows (previously unreleased)
DVD The Video Collection
01. Hall Of The Mountain King
02. 24 Hrs. Ago
03. Gutter Ballet
04. When The Crowds Are Gone
05. Jesus Saves
06. Edge Of Thorns
07. Sleep
08. Handful Of Rain
09. One Child
Bonus Audio Tracks
01. Sleep (piano version)
02. Stare Into The Sun (Live In Japan)
03. Conversation Piece (Live In Japan)
04. Voyage (Al Pitrelli acoustic instrumental)
05. Shotgun Innocence
06. Forever After

Read more at http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/savatage-streets-a-rock-opera-narrated-version-reissue-detailed/#OAFdu737r8aRmMUf.99
A must have of course!!!! With the listening sessions the urge to go and see the Jon Oliva's Storytellers tour in US during December sure became strong! NC, NJ isn't that far and expensive... We'll see! Still have a lot of vacation to take out... (if not to get away from the flat)

Now what then? Perhaps try to get to bed early? 
Cheers
E


NP: SAVATAGE - "Handful of Rain"

 
 

Forged in Fire

Well, maybe not but it was a damn hot week down in Holland and Belgium. Absolutely worth the effort though since the two Anvil concerts were fantastic and how can Kind Diamond fail???

At least we had a few days at home sorting out everything from Headbangers Open Air, chill down a bit since that one was extremely hot as well. Also do some gardenwork and clean up the Void Mansion a bit. We also managed to get my birthday present out from the garage and on to the selected location in the garden. I know you shouldn't talk about weight around females (because it is a she) but she was damn heavy. Me, Peter and David worked hard to get it around the house. The few people passing by on the street looked at us like they'd seen a ghost or so...

There's still a few more things to sort out in the corner around the gargoyle, put a few things back in place and so but it sure looks cool!!! No comments from the neighbors yet though! 

Anyway, we went to Holland and Belgium for a few concerts after Headbangers Open Air. Since all shows were in the cities and rather close to the stations we decided to skip the car and travel by train this time. It's always a bit nervous beforehand, the uncertainty if we were going to make it to the location and so. But everything went fine and it was really good to relax on a train rather than sitting in a car. 

The route stretched from Schiphol to Haarlem to Sint-Niklaas to Lokeren, back to Sint-Niklaas, off to Tilburg before returning to Schiphol. It felt even better when Anvil told us they'd been stuck in traffic for over 3 hours driving from Wacken to Haarlem because they pained the lines on the road by hand in Germany closing three of four lanes in the freeway....

 
The Anvil show in Haarlem was really much fun. It was a very long time ago I last saw Anvil play in a club. Don't think I've ever seen them headline in a club either so 90 minutes worth of music sure was a treat! More about that on Metal Kaoz later though!

Then off to Lokeren and the Lokerse Fest. That was more of a town party than a Festival but since they had the good taste in booking Anvil together with Fear Factory, Danzig and Sabaton and a few more it was worth a visit. It was extremely hot to stand on the asphalt infront of the stage though. But again, a good day with good concerts.

Then we actually had a day off in Sint-Niklaas... What you do in Sint-Niklaas you ask? No clue, we couldn't find anything interesting (Free Recordstore had 10 Heavy Metal records in total) so we took the chance and catch up on some sleep and have the AC in the Hotelroom work hard.

But it is a quite cute town and we found a very nice place for dinner... Ironically it was called Copenhagen Tavern or something like that. Danish we can eat almost any time we like. But ok, it's not that much difference and I was certainly NOT up for more fried stuff with mayo at this point. The food was great and we took the opportunity to try some Belgian Beers... Peter stuck with his new favorite though... Mc Chouffe, the dark brother of sinister La Chouffe (who got Peter good on their first meet *s*).

So we had some time to relax as well. We actually took some more time to check out the church in Haarlem, simply because it was so massive. It kind of looked like they'd put one giant church on top of another giant church. Of course the city of Haarlem had realized the greatness of it too and charged an entrance fee to let us in... On particular impressive thing was the organ. The info-sheet said it had over 5000 (YES!!!) pipes and was about 30m high. It would be so awesome to get the chance to play something like that... Just imagine how cool a really doomy song would sound on a machine like that!

After Sint-Niklaas we took the train to Tilburg for the King Diamond show. Luckily the temperature had eased up a bit by this time. Still not enough to make the venue a place to breathe in though so it was a bit painful on occasion to look at the show... But more on that later as well!

First day back in the office after vacation today. Of course I could have taken a few more days of vacation but it's still rather calm which is a good start... That gives me a few days to regroup, start up and set a plan for the coming weeks. I think the pace will be the same as before the summer so it was really good to get a few extra days of vacation to relax now..

Cheers
E

NP: DRAGONSCLAW - Judgement Day