After you have been grilled like a chicken in the burning sun, the last day it one heavy shower of rain went down. Due to that the infield was one big puddle of mud. Anyhow, nobody was in a bad mood because also the last day had great acts like Alice Cooper, Nightwish or Sonata Arctica.
Last weekend a very special concert should take place at the Turbinenhalle at Oberhausen. This you already got aware after you entered the hall fully provided with seats. First the band from Berlin called Staubkind came onto the stage, supported by a cellist and a violinist, to play a wonderful and energetic acoustic set during that not everybody stayed on his seat.
On the second official festival day it was not only hot on the stages but in front of them as well. Temperatures of up to 36 degree Celsius among the shades and a cruel sun burning onto the main area that offered no shadow. So you had to pace oneself very carefully and should not drink too much alcohol. A great thankyou to the helpers and paramedics that had to help a lot due to sunburns, sunstrokes, dehydration, etc. during the festival.
This time it took something much longer then usual but finally I did it and so the first two days (Wednesday and Thursday) are online. Especially on Thursday they really brought the big guns up. With the Canadian trash metal old hands Annihilator there was really something going on at the stage while the reactivated band Thunder took it more easy. With the hard rock heroes of Deep Purple and a bombastic show of Rammtein this evening really got to a "Night To Remember" that earned its reputation.
During July I spent my holidays at Scotland where I first wandered across the West Highland Way from Glasgow to Fort Williams and afterwards via coach and car to Inverness, the Isle of Skye and finally Edinburgh. Some impressions of this tour are now online.
Next Wednesday the largest metal festival in the world will start: Wacken Open Air 2013! No matter what kind of weather there will be (it will be anyhow the usual lottery), everybody will party with well known persons and many new faces. It was until now the fastest sold-out in the Wacken history. Already after the announcement of Rammstein as headliner during last years fall a real run on the tickets started and everybody who received one can call himself a lucky one.
This was the 10th anniversary of the FortaRock and that was celebrated with a XL edition with a very impressive linup with heroes of the scene like Amon Amarth, Motörhead, Kreator, Volbeat, Opeth and the main act Rammstein. A lot of music, only very few time inbetween but very happy at the end that is what you could summarize the day shortly and catchy. The pictures of it you can find in the according category.
Last Friday Switzerland stopped at the Kulturfabrik Krefeld in the form of Me.Man.Machine and The Beauty Of Gemina. In front of a small and very intimate audition the evening was opened with alternative rock music before it went over into great dark rock. Even if the vibes could have been a little bit better both bands showed a great performance leaving no wishes open (except that they could have played something longer).
Under the slogan "Ballermann 6-unddreissig" a coach full of Krefeld people went on his way to Hamburg to hijack the points from the O2 World. Unfortunately this was not that successfull. Three times the black and yellow wearing ones gained the lead but all their fighting spirit was not awarded as the Hamburg Freezers could equalise all the time so that finally the shotout lottery was needed to decide about the additional point. This was kept at the hanseatic town but the round about 200 people from Krefeld could return with their head up high having seen a very promising game of their team.
First, in October from 20. till 21.10. I was at the Belgian Wieze attending the anniversary edition of the Metal Female Voices Fest. The 10th edition again offered a vast spectrum of metal styles from symphonic metal like Amberian Dawn on to some harder sounds like Arch Enemy. Of course Epica was not missing who took a gap year. Who if not they should headline this festival? And this they did in their well known exagerating way. Like every year it was a great festival with good vibes in front of the stage, only very few bands that were not that good and I am now already planning for the next year.
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