Thread: Metal Camp Slovenia, Tolmin

Metal Camp Slovenia, July 1st – 8th, Tolmin Slovenia

Ahh. Finally. Summer holidays combined with 6 days of metal. Tom was interested head on. We did not need to organize so much, it would be all stuff in one car (possibly Tom’s). We made a list of things to buy (party tent, little fire pit, electric cooling box, international power plugs and so on). Despite the fact MRU members were gathered in Maryland, we already had tickets for Metal Camp so we had to cancel the American trip. Next year, probably. At the internet it took ages for any line up would be seen, but pictures of the location already made my mouth water. In a small village, surrounded by woods, a river and a small beach this would be heaven. I ordered tickets in November. We would experience Hell over Paradise part 6. We had ticket numbers 119 and 120 and both a free ‘early order’ festival shirt.

Tom told beforehand he could not fix his Manta in time, so we should go by my car. A little problem: if we were to take about 100 cassette tapes the car could become too full. Plus, the speakers in front sounded as if there was rain pouring on cardboard, so Tom would fix new speakers into the car. When the speakers were installed, the whole installation got too hot somehow and he had to replace the wiring. Still no good. I would need a new car stereo as well… sigh. So after the Graspop day we went to buy the last piece of equipment for a total new car audio set: the CD/MP3 player with USB and external input… Herman is finally digitized! Bill: only € 240. I should have done this ages before. What an amazing sound experience this stuff gives.

So, on Tuesday, June 30th we had coffee at 9 AM (to avoid traffic jams), checked the liquid levels of my car and off we went. Like our trip to Norway we would skip every two, two and a half hour driving. Our first goal was Munich. We passed cities I only know by their Zweite Bundesliga FuBball club (Leverkusen, Ulm, Erfurt, Unterhaching) but we reached Munich. I had my pictures of the Allianz Arena (shared by both München 1860 and Bayern München) and the Olympic Stadium (Holland won there the semi final of the European championship voetbal over Germany; 1988: they later won the finals against Russia too). We had not arranged for a hotel, we just burst in and ask whether we could rent a room. At the first one I had already unpacked and Tom had ‘lost’ several stuff in the garage ( ) before we were told there was no vacancy. Same with the second and third hotel, but the fourth had a room. Shower, new shirt, beer from the room service and off we went. About Munich I can be short: it sucks. Big time. We had expected that a city much bigger than Amsterdam would be open all day and bars / cafes wherever we looked. None of the above. We had to search hard for a beer outside, but we did find ‘Bei Hermann’ world’s largest stone beer mug: nearly a meter high, 32 liters contents, for the very strong beer drinker, only € 1666. Funny. We seemed to be near Hard Rock Café Munich, but we were fucked there. NO AC/DC, no Van Halen, just some slithery pop divas, James Brown and Queen; James Brown IS NOT EVEN A ROCK STAR. Tom bought me a cap, but I hesitated to take the offer. We. Are. Being. Screwed.

Breakfast at 9 AM again, which was pretty good and off we went. But to avoid traffic jams in Germany you should leave after 11 AM! It took us twenty five minutes to get into the city yesterday, but now we took more than an hour and a half to get OUT of Munich. Again, we are screwed. You will NEVER see me again in Munich. Such a rotten city. At the Austrian border we ate and I got myself my Austrian flag. Nice. We had to buy a vignette for the car, but that wasn’t that expensive (I remembered my trip to Switzerland in 1999, I had to pay 60 guilders to be able to drive Swiss highways). No problems at the Italian border. But at the Slovenian border we had to buy another vignette, I stepped out of the car to pick up my passport (walking on socks) the customs officer said were I to drive in Italy I would have had a fine for driving only on socks! I looked at him in disbelief and he said ‘I don’t know about Slovenia, but in Italy I would have to ticket you!’ Wtf??

We had to drive in the rain for another hour before we entered Tolmin. Of course I missed the turn and we were unvoluntary tourists of the town of Tolmin. Nice. Now at least we knew where the cash dispenser would be. The ticket for the festival told us camping was already involved, but not parking the car. So now I have three vignettes on my windshield. But, the weather had cleared up when we got to the festival grounds, so at least we could raise our tents dry. Good. Time for a cold beer from the cooling box. Ahhh. Nice. We decided to take the wrist bands as early as possible so we would not have to worry about losing the tickets. We bought Running order leaflets and got a coupon for each leaflet we bought? It was only 1 euro for both, but we had two leaflets AND two coupons. We moved on and inspected the festival area. The actual main stage was still being processed so we moved on to the woods. Woods.. more a small collection of trees. But coming to the river, that sight was amazing! The water was flowing fast and it had a beautiful copper sulphate colour and it was brighter than a mirror. Pictures!! We got into the water, but stupid freaks as we were, still with our shoes on. The water is melting water from the mountains around the festival area, so it was only 4 or 5 degrees Celsius. Oeempf, that’s cold. But I found out soon the first band would not play at July 1st, but on the third! What else can you do but drink senselessly? Barbeque? OK, let’s BBQ. We had brought some meat with us and ate that. Gone in a few seconds. Fire pit unleashed, another cold beer. Life is good.

The morning of July 2nd we hung around the tent, until we decided we needed breakfast, something to sit on and some more beer. After I had a disgusting meal (near our own tent was a breakfast and lunch tent; the coffee was molten asphalt, the milk was sour sperm, the bread not only vegetarian but also two weeks old and way too much olives; Tom had another Laugh for Herman moment) we went to town, Tom had ham and eggs (and a coupon) and coffee (and a coupon). Every single time we ordered we got a different form of coffee, sometimes in small plastic cups, sometimes in a big stone mug, sometimes with water but always with coupons… we could start a new fire with these coupons and after going to the mall we had beer, meat, two chairs and a table. We decided to take a swim. Friggin’cold, but it worked cleansing. When we returned to the tent we noticed the beer wasn’t as cold as we expected and… yeah right battery of the car down. I can speak German and English, Tom only speaks English so I went out ‘for power’ Our neighbors were glad to help in exchange for some Heineken beer (the Hertog Jan was already gone). It turned out our direct neighbors to the left were a bunch of 9 Slovenians, 3 Belgians and a German. It was a happy couple and we got to know Alexandr, Izak, Kristof and Darko. Result: everybody drunk as fuck. Good. Senseless drinking.

So, the next morning, a little hungover, back to the river and out for another swim. That helped, but it took until 4.45 PM for the first band to appear. Yep, we missed Dreamshade. We ate from our BBQ and went off to see our first band: Hackneyed. I had never heard of them before, but this was cool. Blunt, blunter, Hackneyed. They also did a nice cover of Megadeth’s Symphony of Destruction. Next up was Alestorm but this annoyed the shit out of us. Boring pirate metal, not loud, not tight, this was a bad interpretation of bad German thrash. It had started raining, but we thought we’d miss too much when we would get back to the tent for poncho’s. From dripping rain to downfall, that’s wet. I used to walk in my ‘Drink Till You’re Irish’ shirt and that pulled the attention of a beautiful Swiss girl. I never heard her name, but between the rain I managed to give her my MRU mail stuff and what can I say? It was like that cute AC/DC song ‘Love at first feel’, it fit perfectly. I still don’t have her name…

But.. Death Angel was on next and they SLAY! Because of the rain I could no longer write anything down, but I am sure they played half the Killing Season album and half the Ultra-Violence stuff. Amazing!! The grass near the main stage was already a big muddy mess when Kataklysm got to stage. Mostly playing stuff from the latter albums it was a mess before the stage. A huge pit swarmed across the festival site. I could not hand out my glasses to Tom because he was already in the centre of the pit. I put my wet shirt around my waist and followed. After the show we looked like moles, but grinning widely. We washed ourselves in the river again only to see Nightwish being booed off stage. Why the hell did Nightwish get an invitation, especially after heavy stuff like Death Angel and Kataklysm? Both Kataklysm and Death Angel played a well varied, tight and heavy as fuck show and were greeted enthusiast. Back to senseless drinking with our new friends. I also met Alan and Connor [in the meantime Alan already joined MRU as Scucca] and more drinking… Laško and Union are the big beer brands of Slovenia, but the one tastes like owl’s piss and the other as goat shit, but after three pints you no longer notice the difference. I also noticed most Slovenians speak English pretty good, or else German. There were many Italians at the festival but they don’t even try to understand you. Ask me about my shirt and you don’t even understand what I am saying in English or German about it? Why ask then?

On the festival site the first beer you order is not € 2,50 but it’s € 3,50 and you get a coin for deposit? Huh? On the fourth day in Slovenia I finally found out what to do: bring a coin and a plastic container (bottle or glass) to the deposit box and you get.. yeah another coupon. Screw that coupons! The third day I wanted to shower (remember my festival coup picture?) and again I got another coupon! Buy a festival shirt and get another type of coupon. That’s the sixth type of coupon I got and I still don’t know what to do with it! In the village you get the normal receipt, but anywhere near the festival… coupons. Blast them. Why don’t you use the Waldrock system? First beer you order is two coins, beer in hard plastic (they re-instated the system this year), when you return with the hard plastic can you only dig up one coin and you have another beer! At Graspop there are many suckers walking around to get one lousy drink after collecting 25 to 40 pieces of soft plastic… I am also surprised the festival is actually very small! The main stage was placed on a grass field only a hint bigger than a hectare. 200 meter long, 60 meter wide. Before we drove down there I thought it would be 20.000 people at least, I think there were no 10.000 people!

The next day, July 4th we drove out of our tents on our own sweat so we decided to hang out all wet stuff on the table and chairs and out for a swim. We had breakfast at the beach. I tried to make a picture of the Swiss girl but I could not capture her beauty as I wanted and I did not press the button. Stupid Herrie! Now you have nothing! The sun was so hot all clothes were dry when we got back to the tent. We had already missed Attica Rage and Hollenthon, but the cold water was like oxygen to my brain and I did not bother. We now knew if the day started warm the clouds were already getting together for some nice rain or even thunderstorm.

First band we saw today was Suidakra. It sounded OK, but as I don’t know much songs it has no use to write anything more down. But not for Sodom! They were here mainly to kick ASS! We had had lunch in the village again, and we thought we would miss half their set, but as we returned to the festival site they still had to begin:
- Napalm in the Morning
- Axis of Evil
- The Saw is the Law
- Blasphemer
- Agent Orange
- City of God
- M16 (even faster than on CD)
- Remember the Fallen
- Outbreak of Evil
- Sodomy and Lust
- Bombenhagel

Satyricon were to perform after Sodom, but the organization claimed they had flight problems and ordered Slovenian Tankard tribute band Soziedad Alkoholika to perform before Testament. I thought it was senseless metalcore about all kinds of booze, a cross between Pantera and Ektobarf I could hardly stand, but Tom simply HAD to buy a Soziedad shirt. All I heard was Pivo! Pivo! (Slovenian for beer) and after they raped a Carcass song, still whining about circle pits they absolutely don’t deserve I went to the river. There was a ‘beach club’ and some old school heavy metal music and a grill so it wasn’t that bad. But I had to stay sharp, as Testament would perform as scheduled (Satyricon would perform AFTER Belphegor). Ahhhhhh Testament! They could play a full set and it was sharp, heavy and loud! It had stopped raining so everybody could enjoy half the Formation album, some Legacy songs and a third of The New Order. I love Testament, I think I saw them around ten times now and they still amaze me.

But I was getting tired. I went back to the tent, as I did not want to be disappointed by Blind Guardian after such a great Testament show. How wrong I was. They started with Time Stands Still (At The Iron Hill) and Born In A Mourning Hall and it sounded fantastic, even from my tent. And Hansi is shouting again, instead of that false whiny singing he did back in Tilburg. Speaking of Tilburg, nearly every Dutch man or woman I ran into at the festival, the village or the beach came from the area around Tilburg. Three groups of them! A few exceptions, I met Rhea (see Macabre and Waldrock reviews) and the Enschedese Headbangers Organisatie (EHBO is originally Dutch for First Aid Organization, insider joke).

I fell asleep, only to be awakened twice, first time it was Belphegor’s Bondage Goat Zombie and second Satyricon’s Mother North both sounding great. But I fell asleep again. No hard feelings.

I awoke July 5th, thinking: ‘Where’s my second car key?’ I reacted totally paranoid, searching the car, the tent, my clothes, everything. Same happened when I thought I had lost my credit card. Both were found, but not after a nice and quiet search. Tom sent me away to take a shower, I was sweating and stinking like a pig. The horror! Not only did I lose the slippers so many times I decided to take the stroll on bare foot, but I also had ANOTHER Coupon! A shower is worthless on a camping site like MCS. Every fucking road is inches thick covered in mud and the land owners make it even worse by patrolling the area with 4x4’s making ditches the Dutch can learn from! So I did take a shower, but on the way back I had to endure the mud again. Good thing was I had some extra towels and a bottle of water, I cleaned my feet at the tent, being watched by a shrill laughing Tom. He had his ‘Laugh for Herman’moment again, just like after the second accident in Norway. As a gift for this great laughs he offered to take me to the village for a decent meal. And it was decent. We found Alan again, he was searching for as many beer cans he could find. He wanted to make a beer raft, we calculated he needed over two hundred cans to make it float. I also thought the organization would not be so happy with all these beer cans ‘thrown’ in the river; I don’t know whether he managed to do it anyway. Did you actually have so much Duct Tape, Alan?

Tolmin is a nice quiet town, only once a year it’s full. Yeah, with metal heads. The people at the restaurant spoke good English, except for the fluffy haired female owner (she looked like an old smurf with her hair totally pumped up). Another coupon… We took our first beers of the day and went back to the festival. First band we saw today was 13 to the dozen thrash metal band Hatred. We had not seen any band on the second stage but I wish we would have stayed at the main stage. We spotted 13 to the dozen metal core band Incubus Dreams. Forget them asap. Back to main stage for Graveworm. Was this gonna be the blunt death metal machine or the poppy powermetal band? I surely did not know, I think I have seen both Graveworm and Grave Digger once, maybe even on the same festival, but I could not remember. From the first couplet I knew it: this is the blunt death metal machine. But… with a slightly annoying keyboard and after a few songs the bluntness lost it to sad unoriginal death metal. We wanted to leave after four songs but still the last song got a huge pit!

Next up was Sonic Syndicate, but this was too mediocre, too melodic, sometimes even too ‘core’ for us. We had come today to see Legion of the Damned and Amon Amarth and our wishes became true: Legion of the Damned went totally over the top, band and fans included! From first basher Death Head March up to the magic Legion of the Damned band and crowd went insane!! This is the set list:
- Death Head March
- Sons of the Jackal
- Slaughtering The Pigs (“Are there any Dutchmen in the crowd? Yes? Damned! Never a nice festival without Dutchmen!!” )
- Cult of the Dead
- House Of Possession
- Diabolist
- Bleed for Me
- Sermon of Sacrilege / Pray and Suffer
- Werewolf Corpse
- Final Godsent
- Legion of the Damned (with a full Wall of Death!!!)
AARRRGGGHHHH!!! This is fucking awesome! They never let me down, I am a fan forever! What else can I say? FUCKING AWESOME!!! The crowd kept shouting for an encore, but I know the band doesn’t do that so I went out for a beer. Lamb of God was up next but what a difference! After two songs Tom and me had figured it out: Why is this band, Lamb of God, so popular: a. It’s an American band
b. they play metalcore-ish music
c. they are on a big label
d. others cheer easier than we do. Because we don’t cheer for Lamb of God.
a. + b. + c. + d. combined: we eat. The hamburgers on the festival were excellent! Of course we had to stay on the festival site as Amon Amarth was up next. THEY FUCKING KILLED!!! Sounds awesome, loud as a bell, all good songs Amon Amarth has, were played. In front of the stage, up to the beer tent in the back, EVERYBODY was doing something, showing they liked it. Fistbanging, headbanging, singing, shouting, drinking, beer in hand, beer in the sky, a huge pit in front of me, small pits all over the site, a circle pit around the beer tent in the middle, ANYTHING was moving! This is, I think, by far the best Amon Amarth show I have ever seen!! Highlight of the festival, if you ask me.

What’s next: not much anymore. Deathstars did their best to wipe off my huge grin on my face, but they failed. They play some electronic version of Dimmu Borgir and latter Mötley Crüe with fake vocals, but I no longer care. We had found our Slovenian neighbors and the Belgians and they provoked us to get the Slovenian national drink: cherry schnapps. Within less than ten minutes Tom and me had 7 of them. Our lights went out. Easy as pie. After 7 schnapps you don’t need Dimmu Borgir anymore to fall asleep. Only to awaken with a huge hangover…

The rain was thundering down on us. There was only one whoosh of wind and the party tent collapsed. Nothing seriously damaged, but we had to fix it instantly. Not a good idea after Legion, Amon and the 7 schnapps… everything went slowly today. The breakfast was another mistake, it tasted like horse puke. I wanted to see Negura Bunget, but we were too late. Then Vader. I have never seen such an uninspired set like this one. Three unknown songs before they actually played Back to the Blind. And they had the intro to God is Dead playing during sound check Tom and me looked at each other and it would be great. No it wasn’t. Pjotr surely had a worse off day than Marilyn Manson last week and that reflects on the band. They didn’t even play God is Dead!! Too cute to be called a pit during The Epitaph, another two unknown songs, Shadow Fear and Blood. Mediocre is a too big word for this, Tom even made me put this in the review. Only nice thing was This is The War at the end. No war for Vader this festival…

Glad Destruction showed how a show can be played! Schmier can be a prick sometimes, but not today. Destruction just gave everything they had and the audience went nuts. The set list:
- Curse the Gods
- The Alliance of Hellhounds
- Bestial Invasion
- Devolution
- Metal Discharge
- Life Without Sense
- Thrash Till Death
- The Butcher Strikes Back
- Nailed to the Cross
- Mad Butcher
Destruction surely had more fun in one song than Pjotr in the whole set. So did the audience. Time for some humble moments, Pjotr. Take an example from Marcel Schirmer. You can see Marcel, Mike and Marc having a great time with what they do. Screw your ego, Pjotr. When we went to the beach we met the Vader bass player (no idea who’s in the line up now) and told him we were disappointed by the performance. Not to blame the bass player, but we had seen Vader breath fire, this was just a cough. He claimed he did not speak English. Yeah right.

During our watery break we ‘missed’ Napalm Death and Dragonforce, but we did see some Italians playing extreme Norwegian black metal: Stormcrow. That was actually pretty good, check out STORMCROW - Pure Alpine Black Metal - Official Website or Stormcrow on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads (watch it! There’s also an American Stormcrow, but they play crustcore). Back to main stage for Hatebreed. I have seen the band several times and especially the smaller concerts bring back good memories, not the big ones.. This was friggin’great!! Jamey Hasta CAN be a humble man, he thanks the organization and the fans nearly after every song and it was me that started the first circle pit in the second song! Hilarious! This was a fine hour of pure hardcore, all known songs pass by. I was too busy with the pits and so on I did not write anything down. The next thing that happened was a bit strange, as the man who never cares what plays as long as he can get into the pit, Tom, told me Warbringer would be on the second stage within a couple of minutes! ’ Warbringer? Are you sure?’ “Yeah, dumbass, come on” ‘OK then’. Imagine the band performing on a 15 meter wide stage, in front of it only 100 people on a rocky floor, going totally nuts! A violent pit resulted in one unfortunate man being thrown on the rocks, he had to be taken away with a bone showing, but he refused to get into the ambulance! Weird, but Warbringer did everything I wanted them to do, including sharing my beer with singer John Kevill after the show. He actually wanted to stay to hang around the fans, but the tour manager has to be a dick and plucks John away from us. He asked: “do you want to take pictures?” I told him ‘I already have a few from Zaandam and Graspop’. “So you saw us with Suffocation AND on Graspop” ‘Yep’. Funny. I got Maarten a size L Warbringer shirt but damned I should not have been so snobby with the tour shirt…

For today the last band was to be Down. Damned, I know Phil Anselmo can do better than this, this is downright sloppy. Way too slow, whiny, not loud enough. In the audience there were loads of Down shirts, but after a whiny ‘We Go Away’ we looked at each other and we do go away. We say goodnight to the Slovenians and Belgians and left. Only to write down the band name of one of the Germans (he’s the boyfriend of one of the Slovenian girls of the group): old school thrash from Konstanz, Baden-Württemberg, Germany: SPELLBOUND on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads [sounds pretty OK to me, good reviews by Schmier, Maurice from Legion of the Damned, Sabina Classen]. When we passed the entrance tent (with the wrist bands) we noticed signs like ‘weather forecast: rain’, ‘mud metal, keep left’ and so on. These guys do have humor.

Awakening the last day of the festival was not the best time I had in Slovenia. I felt worn out, extremely tired, hungry but also no desire to eat. Signs of fatigue showing radically. Tom was about the same, so we decided to take a stroll and get back to the café where we got so many different coffees and prices. It just wasn’t good enough. We went to the beach, it was raining again, met the promoter of the festival and started boozing again, like we weren’t at the end of the line already. When the promoter ordered the heavy metal to be replaced by Slovenian schlager music the rain stopped! But that Slovenian schlager worked on my intestines and when I got back to the festival ground a warm, brown and stinky line got down, I knew it: diarrhea. Splfflutt. Yuck. I went to the river once more, but got pretty angry there: all the bread that was overdue was floating in the river and all mud seemed to have followed. Call me an idiot, but I washed the dirt away and went to the tent. I even gave my HRC Munich cap to the man that watched over my belongings. I took Norit carbon pills and went to bed, hoping I would not need to run so badly. The terrain was completely muddified and I had collected rain water to be able to keep cleaning my feet before I should go back into the tent. Seeing the line up I did not miss much, but I heard some My Dying Bride sounding gloomy (I think it even was The Angel And The Dark River, it fitted the rain) and the goodbye by Die Apocalyptischen Reiter (and that’s all I wanted to hear). Around 11 PM I awoke once more, so I could hear Kreator give an excellent show. I dare not go to the festival site, but I did see some sharp versions of the encore (Flag of Hate, Tormentor) standing by the breakfast tent. Only wearing a boxer short and a cut off shirt, people wolf whistled at me ‘Sexy boy’ and I only replied: “Am I still sexy with diarrhea?”. Pricks.

Tom told me he wanted to move the car off the terrain, and with us and the tents in it, it could possibly be too heavy to move properly. Fine.

Then, as if there wasn’t enough rain yet, the thunderstorm started. I had just slept for about 5 hours so I could not sleep anymore and I heard every single blow, saw every single lightning hoping it wasn’t too close by. In the morning, I think I managed to sleep for about two hours, the damage could be inspected. It was only 5.45 AM, but Tom and me decided to call it a day, dried the tent as good as possible, cleaned the plastic carpet and rolled all stuff reasonably dry into the car. We left the chairs, the table and the party tent and moved out of Tolmin. Still feeling a bit drowsy I took the steering wheel so I could stop whenever needed, but it was OK. We drove up to Milano, thinking such a big city would be a fun place to hang around. It wasn’t. Me, as a voetbal lover, wanted to see the San Siro Stadium, but U2 was to perform there today so the traffic jam was huge! We went back to the hotel in Legnano and ordered a taxi to get back to the town, so we could at least have a few beers (€ 6 for a small bottle in the hotel, Italian beer tasting like dog gore). The taxi driver was said to speak English but he didn’t. He exaggerated the price we had agreed to, screw you. In the city we decided to eat, but the pizza was a bummer. The beer was like rotten lemonade. We. Are. Being. Screwed. Then my pass could not bring in extra money, Tom had left his in the hotel, so we might have to walk the 28 kilometers back. We were lucky with the third money dispenser. Stress all along. Not good for a man recuperating from diarrhea.

Tom snores heavily, so even when I used the alarm on my phone I would not hear it. Tom did and woke me up, but I fell asleep again. Two hours later we had to rush to get a breakfast after all, and counting the hours could mean we should not be home before 11 PM. 1117 ahead. Good thing was, the Swiss border was only 32 kilometer from Milano, I felt a bit strange when I entered Switzerland and that feeling vanished at the German border. Near Frankfurt am Mainz we got stuck in a traffic jam because of a motorcyclist that thought he could fly through the back shield of a car. Another hour delay, so we decided to speed up and see if the old Volkswagen Golf Diesel could reach 150 km/h and he did! We were home at 10.25 PM. Not bad! We emptied the car, drank one last beer and the adventure was over again.

Plusses: - Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia are nice to drive through
- the festival site was beautiful, especially the river
- the cold water of the river worked refreshing in many ways
- nice serving girls at the cafes
- after a night rain the stuff was dry in a short period
- meeting the neighbors (not only did they help us out, they’re good company as well)
- making new MRU members
- reasonable prices
- new bands: Hackneyed, Stormcrow, Spellbound
- meeting John Kevill again
- Kataklysm, Sodom, Legion of the Damned, Amon Amarth, Destruction, Testament, Hatebreed, Kreator

Minuses: - Munich
- When IS the actual festival? July 1st or 3rd?
- Coupons for every fucking thing
- Every time you order coffee you get something else (at the same venue)
- Bad food at the breakfast tent
- Laško, Union, Pivo, Italian beer
- No name/address from the Swiss redhead, not even a picture
- No Negura Bunget
- Italians…
- Nightwish, Alestorm, Vader
- Rain, thunderstorm (especially the last Slovenian night)
- The festival was one day too long, or else we should have come at least a day later
- diarrhea
- Milano
All and all I am glad I went, but the minuses make me decide NOT to return to Metal Camp myself. Some sources stated the festival would begin July 1st, some said July 3rd. Correction, the camp site was open July 1st. Make up your mind and get rid of the coupon system. I went to check the MCS site once more, they will bring in more asphalt to overcome the problems with the terrain and the second stage. Good, but a year too late. Don’t put the shower facility at the end of a pasture but close to the road!

I think this is the longest review ever, right? Hope you enjoyed it. At least, writing it made me re-live the good, the bad and the muddy. Nastravja!

Your most epic story yet! I love it. Nightwish got booed and people dug LOG. Yikes. The friggin mud and the rain. Boy do I hate both. Great story, H!

You're certainly a fast reader, it took me four hours to write.

Originally Posted by herrieman

You're certainly a fast reader, it took me four hours to write.

I bet! You always have a nice flow with your stuff and it makes for an easy read.

The diarrhea was the flow I don't want to remember

Damn, Herman can I get the condensed version?

Fuuuuuuuuuck I can't post my reply!!!!!!!!!!!
__________________________________________________ ____________
This is the best concert review I've read, Herman!

Like always, I enjoy the 'story of the road' even more than the music stuff itself. Also horns up for the festival whereabouts details and intricacies, these things are itneresting to me as I normally don't go to open airs.

Originally Posted by herrieman

Our first goal was Munich. We passed cities I only know by their Zweite Bundesliga FuBball club (Leverkusen, Ulm, Erfurt, Unterhaching)

Come on herrie, Bayer Leverkusen is Die Erste Bundesliga!

Originally Posted by herrieman

I had my pictures of the Allianz Arena (shared by both München 1860 and Bayern München) and the Olympic Stadium (Holland won there the semi final of the European championship voetbal over Germany; 1988: they later won the finals against Russia too).

A memorable time. It's a good feeling that when I think back I tend to remember Van Basten's and Gullit's beautiful goals in the final against Russia more than the horrible (but at least equally unjust in the end) refereeing in GER-HOL semifinal.

Originally Posted by herrieman

at the Slovenian border we had to buy another vignette

I shall never buy a Slovenian vignette unless they change their system. They don't have short term (week/two week/month -long) vignettes and they make people pay €45 (as far as I remember) for a 6-month vignette. NO WAY PUNKS! I've gotten myself some nice Slovenian maps from the Internet and I travel through this country using local roads. Fuck you, greedy bastards, you ain't getting my hard earned money that easily!

Originally Posted by herrieman

Laško and Union are the big beer brands of Slovenia, but the one tastes like owl's piss and the other as goat shit

Balkan beers (from Yugoslavian countries at least) all share this trait. I mean, I like them, but I refer to them as 'lemonade beers'. This can actually be said about 99% of Meditarrenean beers. If you want a decent beer, it has to be brewed above 45 parallel and/or away from the warm seas.

Originally Posted by herrieman

I am also surprised the festival is actually very small! The main stage was placed on a grass field only a hint bigger than a hectare. 200 meter long, 60 meter wide. Before we drove down there I thought it would be 20.000 people at least, I think there were no 10.000 people!

Sounds great. I hate large crowds and 10,000 for an open air thing seems like pretty much breathing space

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FINALLY I managed to post this - after 1,5 hour of trying...

@Scucca: I usually come to festivals for the bands. The rest is bonus, the mud was bogus. Great you replied.
@Stach: yes, how to condens it?
@Marsallah: Leverkusen was an inside joke, it would take too long to explain. Always nice to see Die Deutschen Mannschaft lose. Especially that semifinal. Slovenian vignette for a week was € 8. No big deal. Swiss vignette van € 30.
As far as the beers go: it should be in Czech Republic. Plzn!!
I think the festival site is even smaller than Waldrock.

Originally Posted by herrieman

Slovenian vignette for a week was € 8. No big deal.

Good to know that - so they've changed it. Last year I drove through Slovenia on my way to Croatia (for family vacation) and at that time only 6- and 12-month vignettes were available.

I say €8 for a week is prety harsh for a vignette. in Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria it's usually around €6 and some of them are valid for 10 days. Esp. Austrian are good value for money, as you've got a lot of good highways there. Slovenia is still builiding theirs and are overcharging for the few kilometres of hwy thay have...

Absolutely correct, Mars. We nearly saw some of the cliffs a bit too clear...

When I bought a set list, I got a receipt. When I bought another one, I got a second receipt. In order to buy food or drinks at the festival, I needed coupons ('leaflets' worth 50 eurocent, 1 euro or 3 euro, depending on the colour) to 'exchange' for the beverage I wanted, except for the schnapps. Whenever I took a shower I got a coupon with some fuzzy information on it, it made me think the second shower was free or at least cheaper than the first time. It wasn't. Every single cup of coffee I got receipts, but the amount of coffee and the form was never the same. Neither was the price, I got different claims every time. Whenever I bought the first beer of the day, I had to pay an euro extra for deposit and I got a deposit coin. Bringing the coins with the can (hard or soft plastic) I got... a coupon for another euro-leaflet. Frustrating.

but, at first I called every piece of paper I got in return a coupon. It matched the Slovenian description (somehow).

Originally Posted by Missy

That is very different indeed.

Whoa. That's like getting the tickets at Chucky Cheese.

Originally Posted by X5452

So the car made it to 150! Hehe xD Uphill that was! Great!!

Good review "mud metal"!

I will be going next year!

Make sure you get a garden fire kit (vuurkorf) and a barbeque kit. The Mercator in the village has an excellent butcher, and not expensive!