Bang Your Head Picture Galore 1

Bang Your Head is easily one of my absolute favorite festivals. Always sunny (hmm, remember 2005 anyone?), always a great line-up, cool people and it has been a very nice tradition for a lot of summers! Already booked for 2011!

So, finally the report for this year's Bang Your Head Day 1, Festival is up on Metal Temple. Below follows some extra pictures from day 1.

JON OLIVA'S PAIN

GRAND MAGUS

FORBIDDEN

ANVIL

DORO

These sunny pictures really feels far away now! Today the first few snowflakes delapsed from the sky, the next few seconds it was really white... Ok, it's still a little too warm for the snow to stay but this is way too soon. Everything cleared up in the afternoon but now, in the evening it has started again, BIG flakes too.... Not good!

Cheers

E

NP: Jon Oliva's Pain - Tage Mahal

Got a limousine I wanna show it

First, FINALLY I'm starting to catch up with the Metal Temple work... The Bang Your Head report are sent in, but for now only the Report from the preparty is posted. More to come in the next few days!!! I will post some pictures in the next few days too, there are a lot of great ones and they really should be shared! So watch out for the next picture galore.


This weekend it finally time for the Jon Oliva's Pain DVD Shoot in Tilburg, Holland. I've been looking forward to see Jon and co alot, especially since they kicked ass on Bang Your Head... The reports from the shows will be posted on Metal Temple in the near future too.

Up, up and away

A frustrated bussdriver tried to convince me I was out of money on ALL my creditcards, forced us to pay cash and then gave the money back. So the first busride was for free. The flight passed a little too fast, both of us was dead tired since it was an early one and both me and Peter really could have slept a little more. Up in the air it was a really beautiful day with a thick layer of clouds far far down on the ground.

Not enough coffee you know

A short flight and short trip in a tiny rental car we arrived in Tilburg. We took a short walk around town. First because we needed to pick up some stuff for the rest of the trip and second because Tilburg is a really neat town and it's always nice to see a little more than the Concert venue.

Peter in Tilburg

The Church was located right next to the hotel. A quite impressive one... Can't say we were as impressed with the church bells all through the night though. Of course our hotel window was pointing directly towards the church too!

The church from the inside

The V.I.P Meet and Greet was starting at 4pm already so we didn't have very much time to rest. A shower and dinner was also needed before the concert. Since 013 is right at the bar-street in Tilburg dinner was fixed easy. I had some piece of meat and mushroom sauce and it was one of the best dinners I've ever had!
Everything was really nicely arranged with the signing, watching soundcheck and everything. It's just really unfortunate Jon's voice wasn't on top this evening. The rest of the band sounded awesome though.

Meet & Greet

The next day we hit the road again after a nice Hotel breakfast! Off to Turhout and Vosselaar. but since there are no Hotels in Vosselaar Turhout is the place to stay. This part of Belgium is a litte bit weird I think. Right outside of these small villages is the Red Light District, a lot of strip-bars, casinos and what ever in the middle of the woods. Like any other small village with town houses it's only instead of "Friteur" the neon sighs says "Hot Chicks" or "Fast Cash" or something like that. On my first visit to this area I had a run-in with a local who didn't really get me when I said I was in town for a concert... No, either Dancing or Sex was on the agenda apparently and he looked VERT surprised when I turned down his offer to go with him, he WAS going to pay... GAAH!!

Action in Turnhout

Next stop, Jon Oliva's Pain @ Biebob, Vosselaar. I've been at the Biebob a few times before so I'm a little familiar with the two towns but it was Peter's first time so I had to show him my favorite place there. I think it's only called "Taverna" or something like that. The towns are just 3km's apart There's really nothing special with it, it's just that after trying to get attention on several places to get something to eat on my first visit, this was the only place actually paying attention to me. Really nice staff, great and cheap food and a nice selection of Belgian Beers!

The oh so nice Trappist Westmalle, Belgian Crazy-beer

I don't get how Hotel's can justify €15 for breakfast. We decided it wasn't worth it and went out on town to grab something before the last stop of the trip. We found a really cozy Café and took on some Belgian Breakfast.

I must say I was a bit surprised about the whole grain bread being EXTREMELY sweet. I guess I really wanted a dark piece of bread and forgot the menu specified it as ginger bread... But it worked fine with butter and cheese. Would really prefered something without sugar though.

Sugar, sugar, honey, honey

There were a Flee Market or some sort of Farmers Market going on on the main square and quite a lot of people outside to look at, it's not often you see a Hurdy-Gurdy man nowadays!

Tonight he is my only friend...

Off to Dordrecht we went after breakfast, about an hour away from Vosselaar. We arrived nice and early on the hotel, took it easy and just hanging out. Internet was included so I decided it was time to read some mails.

Our plans was to walk to the venue, grab some dinner on the way and just have a nice and realxing afternoon. For some reason I went to the Bibelot's page, checked the ticket price and was just going to verify when the doors opened... Doors @ 15:00, First band @ 15:30... GAAAAH! It was 15:15 already, grab everything, run to the lobby and call for a cab. So much for planning. But I'm damn glad I checked. Would have been terrible to come to the venue when they were closing for the day. Now we only missed the first song of the first band.

Both Vicious Rumors and Circle II Circle did really good gigs even if it was really early. I really can't unerstand why not more people realizes how damn good Vicious Rumors are. Amazing US Metal really. Awesome guitarplaying from Geoff Thorpe and Kiyosi Morgan... Killer songs! Brian really sounded good too, this can be really good. I'm really looking forward to the new records that is recorded and will be released next year according to Geoff!!!

Then we had all night to hang out, that was great as always!

Steven, me and Brian

We actually had hard to believe the shcedule was for real, until were were there that is. Steel Engraved were on stage playing already and people behaved like any other concert.
It all turned out to be a really nice evening! It was nice to hang out, have a few beers and rock out to one of my absolute favorite bands, which also are one of the greatest live acts ever!!!

Me, Larry and Peter

More meet and greet! Even if Vicious Rumors was my main reason to be at this place I really enjoyed Circle II Circle as well. Still think their choise of set is a little bit strange though.

Crazy fan!

The "rock-star" shots with Zak didn't turn out the best though, but both are hilarious I think!

Lunatic Rockstar

Since we missed out on dinner before the show the plans was to get something to eat afterwards. I guess Dordrecht is just like any other mid-sized town on a Sunday, it's only the Kebab-places that are open... We skipped the first one we found, looked really crappy. There HAS to be something more... Yeah right! One really expensive place right by the Central Station and a "Frituer"... We decided for the latter and really hit the low point in dining out ever. Dutch Deep fried burgers is really disgusting.

Coolest of the cool!!!

Peter became a real Metal Head back at the hotel, he got a tattoo!!!! A glow in the dark spider. Does it get any cooler... It actually shone quite brightly when we turned off the lights too... Great stuff that's coming with the Belgian Crisps. There were a serie of tattoo's, 28 different but Peter declined the challange to find them all, at least THIS TIME!

Then it was time to turn back home again! It felt the trip was over before it started, I could easily have gone a few more days and we joked about tagging along with Vicious Rumors to Prague... Would have been awesome!

Madness reigns

The report from these concerts will be up on Metal Temple in the future... Guess I should try to post the extra pics here because there were quite a lot of good ones from all the shows...

We're going down, down, down to the temple

The good thing is that Vicious Rumors are coming back in the spring already. For the Keep It True Festival. The classic line up with Mark McGee and Carl Albert's son. Sure a cool think but I really hope they get to play as a real band too!!! Old School Metal IS good today too, not only for nostalgia!

Cheers

E

NP: Slough Feg - The Animal Spirits

Hear the people say... Just give me some hell!

Damn, time flies when you have fun... And even when you don't! Last week was a lot of work, I actually booked time in the Calendar to be able to work, that went so and so... Still a lot of other issues that got prioritized over the things I had planned to do. But in the end everything worked out fine but I was really exhaused when I finally hit the couch on Friday afternoon.

Metal is forever!

Maybe it had something to do with me and Uffe (aka Onkel Dark) enjoying the Primal Fear, Circle II Circle and Marya Roxx concert at Sticky Fingers Wednesday evening. Mid-week concerts isn't the best but all bands were good so it was defenitely work going. Also, I had an interview scheduled with Primal Fear's Ralf Scheepers prior to the concert. Both the review and the interview will be posted on Metal Temple in the coming days! So, besides the regular day job I've been working hard on the Metal Temple stuff... That doesn't really feel like work though because it's all fun!

Can you see me now?

Then the weekend was spent sorting out the last few CD's, clearing out the basement storage, packing new suff down the cellar and so on... There's actually not much left now before it is finished in the flat. Strumpan did the best to help out and try out all boxes and paper bags! I wonder what it is with cats and boxes! They really seem to like them.
Saturday evening we did plan to go out for dinner. We had finished everything planned just before 6pm and thought we'd sort out the 7" singles before going Down Town... Yeah right!!! Four hours later de decided to heat up some metalballs in the microwave owen for dinner.. Really classy!! But ok, it was cheap at least!

Waffel breakfast

And since dinner was forgotten on Saturday, Sunday started off with a really nice Waffel breakfast! Maybe a little too sweet for my taste with the jam and ice-cream but I was really hungry so everything went down easily.

History of a time to come

And the inherited Waffel Iron in cast iron and stainless steel fits perfectly with the rest of the kitchengear. Just so vintage trendy as things should be now! And nothing modern beats real cast iron... PERIOD!!

Apart from the Primal Fear concert it has been some calm weeks! That is over now, there sure are a lot of nice things at the agenda the coming moths! Concerts, travel, rehearsals!!! But more on that later.

Cheers

E

NP: Flotsam & Jetsam - The Cold

Misty morning, clouds in the sky

The fall is coming! Soon the leafs on the trees will be sparking in colours. I really likethe crisp and clear air this time of the year. But soon it will be really dark and rainy.

Green turns to red

I spent the weekend in Sandviken celebrating my mom's birthday. The downside with that was my cold, wasn't feeling good at all when I arrived Friday night, so the planned trip to Monster to see Tad Morose and Loch Vostok was cancelled. A little unfortunate because I was looking forward to meet a lot of friends and see some good music. My parents were happy I stayed home the whole weekend though!

Misty green...

After and early night I woke up early, first because I normally don't sleep more than 8 hours and then because it sounded like someone was breaking in through one of the windows in my room. First I didn't even know if I should dare to look. It sounded like an elephant was landing on the window ledge and dragging a chain over it. I gathered my courage and opened the blinds. Two Magpies flapped away, landed on the lawn and started croaking... I think I've been living in the city for too long!

Just a trampoline, no UFO landing station

But opening the sun-blinds I saw the outside, an amazing foggy fall morning. I just had to get out and take some pictures. I realized that nature photgraphy perhaps isn't my strongest side but shame on the one who gives up! I didn't really managed to catch the sun breaking through the fog over the tree-line... But it looked quite cool anyway!

Then I'd promised my parents to help them clean out some in storage connected to the garage. So we filled the car, left some at the container for red cross and then headed to the garbage station. Was a really quick fix, not too crowded!

Mom and Dad in their car, heading for Högbo

Since everything went so smooth and the sun finally broke through the mist we decided to take a little drive. First a little tour to Högbo. I've spent a lot of time there. First when I was really small walking around the lake, swimming, skiing, running and other sports. Then later, there wer the infamous Summer Discos... Everything looked just as I remembered it!

The outdoor dancefloor in the middle behind the red barns

We continued a little further north and drove by another place where I've been hanging out "on the beach" a few times. Cool to see it again, it was quite a while since I last were at these places.

The lake Öjaren

The thing though, everything looked MUCH MUCH smaller than I remembered it. But I guess that's common. The discos was in the beginning of the 90's and swimming in the lake was even earlier.

Back at my parents place I started to explore my new toy-camera! Mio the cat is a little more willing model than Strumpan. He enjoyed his time in the afternoon sun when I started to harrass him with the camera.

Here kitty, kitty....

Then I found another creature inside the house... Creepy, crawly spider....

Along came a spider

It was really one cm from toe to toe but the Macro effect did a great job. It really looks like a horror movie if you don't know that the spots around it is pretty unnoticable patterns in the floor and the "rocks" around its legs is tiny little breadcrums!!!!

This is the full picture, the spider is about 2 cm's away from the lens...

Not so creepy, crawly for real

But I must say I'm very satisfied with my Nikon Coolpix S8000. The landscape pictures looked good, the partypics ok, outdoor portraits amazing and the macro... Well, don't need to say more about that one!!!

Close-up

The weekend passed really fast and the train ride back to Borås too! I managed to catch up some on the Metal Temple jobs. A good thing because the new list of promos available for review were HUGE and amazing. It will be an expensive fall if I shall buy all the Records I want... I'm really looking forward to Forbidden, Helstar, Helloween, Virgin Steele to mention a few!

Train food-art

And when I got home Peter had pepared dinner and desert so I've been very spoilt this weekend. But at least the cold is getting a lot better so I guess it was really good with a lazy weekend.
Cheers
E

NP: Blitzkrieg - Theater Of The Damned