Tales of an Amorphic Destiny

Slovenia and a Rainy Metal Camp 2009

July 9th, 2009 at 01:13pm James

After moving reasonably briskly through the first leg of our journey via France, Italy and Croatia/Bosnia we made it to Slovenia just in time for the start of Metal Camp 2009. We’d already been lucky enough to see some of Slovenia’s abundant natural beauty on previous trips, but we were yet to visit one of the nation’s crown jewels, the Postojnska cave.

Postojnska is Slovenia’s biggest tourist attraction and as well as being spectacularly beautiful, it also has an electric train running through it! When we saw the admission price of €19 we very nearly got back in the car and drove on, but in the end we relented and coughed up the cash. It was fortunate for us that we did…

Postojnska turned out to be by far the most intricate and wonderful cave system either of  us has ever seen. After boarding the train we were whisked through tunnels that were filled with hundreds of beautiful formations, most of which were amazing enough in themselves to be considered the highlights of lesser caves.

The train dropped us off deep inside the cave, where we were taken on a guided tour of its vast central chamber. The paths and stairways were lined with seemingly endless stalactites, stalagmites and other formations, their ages numbering in the tens of thousands of years. Enough to impress even the most experienced spelunker!

The Postojnska cave was breathtaking, and heartily recommended to anyone visiting Slovenia, (or Europe for that matter). But with tourism out of the way, it was time to continue north to the usually sleepy town of Tolmin for the more serious business of Metal Camp!

We arrived at the festival ground, parked the Sunny and unpacked as much stuff as we could carry. Being experienced Metal Campers we headed past the open fields and down into the forest by the river to find a campsite. We’d arrived a little later than planned and at first it looked like we were out of luck. But Sarah spied a spot that, (with a bit of creative landscaping) would have just enough space for our gazebo and tent as well as tents for Lynda and her mate Ange who were arriving the following day.

Setting up camp ıs a good way to work up a thirst, so we wandered up into the town in search of cold beer and wireless Internet. We found both at one of the fırst bars we came across and so settled in to the serious business of beer drinking and news/email/Facebook reading. Before long we got chatting to a group of Manchester folk who had stopped for a drink on their way in to town. They continued on afterward, only to return several hours later to fınd us still there! We had another drink together and when we discovered that they’d only seen the main campground, we invited them back to our hideaway in the forest for beer and Bathory.

The next day the rain began ın earnest. Lynda and Ange managed to find us, arrivıng at the campsite utterly soaked. After hanging everything out to dry we had a beer and waited for a break in the weather. Eventually the Sun came out, so we loaded up a bag with beers and made for the river. Sadly it seems the Metal Camp organisers have tried to cash in on riverside drinking by trying to stop anything but beer from their own bar being consumed there. Very poor form, but like alcoholic ninjas we managed to stealthily slip past the security guard undetected and mosey on down to the water’s edge, joining the numerous other beer smugglers.

And so began a lovely afternoon by the river swimmıng, drinking and making new friends. In the background here ıs Stefan, a French guy we met who had floated down the river with his parasol and blow-up chair, (Lynda’s having a go of ıt).

But the good weather wasn’t to last and as afternoon turned to evening another storm blew in. The rain was to continue off and on for the rest of the week, occasionally punctuated by some of the loudest thunderclaps any of us had ever heard. The fesival truly earned its ‘Hell Over Paradise’ moniker!

This sadly limited our time swimming at the river, but fortunately the storms tended to die down in the evenings when the headliners took the stage. This wasn’t true for Nightwish – the rain and their new singer combined were too much to bear. But on the following day the clouds (mostly) parted for Hollenthon – one of the few bands that we hadn’t yet seen in our travels. They sounded great, though relying a great deal on samples rather than live keys for their trademark eastern sound. There were a few blokes down the front wrestling in the mud and hay who seemed to enjoy it too.

We missed Sodom due to a rare moment of swimming-friendly weather, but made it up to the stage later for Testament – and band that seem incapable of a bad performance. Metal Camp was no exception, a typically energetic set taken from their lengthy career, including quite a few from their most recent album ‘The Formatıon of Damnation’. Blind Guardian followed wıth some great crowd singalongs and the night was rounded out by Satyricon, coming on (perhaps appropriately?) after midnight. They blasting tightly through newer tracks like ‘KING’ and ‘Now, Dıabolıcal’ and eventually finished with the rousing and anthemic ‘Mother North’. Brilliant.

Yet more rain the following day so we ended up taking a look at the shops. Thinking I could do a festival season without a drinking horn I’d foolishly sent mine home to OZ from London. With Amon Amarth coming up it soon became clear that a metal festival without a horn just isn’t the same, so I ended up buying another one. Turned out being a good thing too as Amon Amarth were mighty as ever, a bit of rain just adding to the vikıng flavour. Waaarrrrgghhh!

Dimmu Borgir were also late due to transport problems and gear not turning up – there must’ve been some problem with the flights from deepest, darkest Scandinavia. They made it on eventually and despite it being the wee hours and although the last few of their performances that we’d seen had been sub-par, we thought we’d check them out anyway . Good thing too because they sounded a lot better. The epic sounds of ‘Kings of the Carnival Creation’ and their usual closer of  ‘Mournıng Palace’ sounded bloody excellent.

Another day, another shedload of rain. Napalm Death, (‘From Bırmıngham, England!’) got some good weather though and were entertaining as always. Barney is a great frontman and always has some cool stuff to say in between their blasting bouts of death/grind. Finished on a statement with DK’s ‘Nazı Punks Fuck Off’. Hear, hear!

But the highlight of the day and probably the whole festival was to come later in the evening with DOWN. They’d been in reasonably good form at Hellfest, but the warm evening and relaxed surrounds of Metal Camp seemed to fit them better and this time round they were utterly amazing. Just about all of their crowd favourites were given an airing, including a very groovy ‘Stone the Crow’, ‘Lifer’ and ‘New Orleans…’. Tracks from ‘Over the Under’ sounded just as killer and the band seemed to be having a great time too. The finale of ‘Bury Me ın Smoke’ turned into an extended jam that saw a guitar tech playing Kırk’s guitar while he took over on drums and finished with the band throwing handfuls of guitar picks and Phil coming out to sing some solo Led Zep to say goodbye. Awesome.

We were on a high after DOWN and so headed riverside to Metal Camp’s famous Beach Bar to rock the night away. It was packed out as usual, with the booze flowing and the metal classics blasting. Met plenty of people and bumped into our friends Mike, Dave, Rebecca and Matt from Manchester. We proceeded to party on with them until the Sun came up, bathing the river in a beautiful light.

You may think that the Gods would be merciful on our final day of Metal Campıng but you’d be wrong. It kept raining, but we remained resilient and reasonably dry as we drank under our gazebo in the forest. But rain or shine there was to be no missing My Dying Bride and the light showers were actually the perfect accompanyment to their sombre symphonic doom. Atmosphere to die for…

We hung back at the beer tent out of the rain for a while before the big finale of Kreator. Another band that don’t seem to be capable of a bad show, they rounded out the festival with their tried-and-true festival set list of crowd-pleasing classic thrash. With tracks like ‘Violent Revolution’, ‘Flag of Hate’, and ‘Betrayer’ to bang your head to, what red-blooded metalhead could complain?

A sign on the video screens had announced that there were to be a few hundered free beers at the bar in the beer tent after Kreator. But these predictably went in seconds to the huge crowd assembled. Having thought we’d missed out, we were pleasantly surprısed when we tried to buy beer at the smaller beer stand only to be told to take as many as we could carry! It turns out we didn’t really need 4 beers each before bed, so we drank a few and donated the others to some pleasantly surprised random people before calling it a night.

Of course in the morning after the last day of bands, there was nothing but perfect sunshine. It was too late for Metal Camp 2009 though and certainly too late to save the main camping/parking ground, which was by now an utter mudbath. Ange had left the night before to catch a flight to Norway and so with Lynda we packed up and hauled our gear back to the car.

The main exit road had been reduced to a river of muddy slop a few feet deep and the local farmers and 4×4 owners were making a killing hauling people out.

Despite several farmers tempting us with offers of a tow behind their vehicles, we weren’t just going to take the easy option without giving it the old college try. So we hung around until the field was all but empty of cars and then plotted an alternate route through the flotsam and jetsam of tents, gazebos, beer bottles and rubbish bags. The mighty Sunny roared and spun its wheels and with a bit of luck we slipped and scrambled out through the mud, cheered on by a few remaining Metal Campers.

We were on the tarmac and headed north once again! More pictures of Slovenia and Mudtal Camp are here.

Entry Filed under: Europe, Gigs