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.

                          

With only a few days before we needed to be in Slovenia for Metal Camp, our time was becoming somewhat limited. So we opted to take a 90 minute walking tour of Dubrovnik’s stunningly beautiful and well-preserved old town, formerly the Republic of Ragusa and whose origin is still under debate.

We turned out being the only people there for our timeslot and so we were lucky enough to get our own private tour. To top it off our guide was a metalhead and so our discussion of Dubrovnik’s landmarks and history was interspersed with talk of bands and the Summer’s metal festivals.

The guy is lucky enough to actually live inside the old town, but this wasn’t always such a good thing – as a young boy in 1991 he had to temporarily flee with his mother during the attacks by the Yugoslav army. So much of the town was damaged and burned, but with a great deal of financial help from UNESCO most of the damage has been repaired. Apparently UNESCO were very particular about keeping repairs historically accurate and from the town walls we could see roofs that had been repaired with tiles made especially for the Dubrovnik buildings in traditional style.

Apparently football was as popular as ever in medieval times, as the planners of the old town cleverly designed one of its back streets in the exact dimensions of a medieval football field. This gave the locals a perfect area to play their favourite game, but this didn’t please everyone. Backing onto the football street was a church and on one of its walls was an interesting piece of graffiti written by a priest who was apparently rather fed up with the noise…

it is written in Latin and apparently translates as “Peace be with you. Remember you will die, you who play with the ball”.

As the tour came to an end our guide showed us a fantastic and secluded bar perched on the rocks between the town wall and the sea.

We were incredibly tempted to walk back to the car for our swimmers but yet again we had to push on, so after a quick beer and walk around the top of the town walls, we continued on towards the historic town of Mostar in Bosnia & Herzegovina.

After the relative safety and familiarity of the places we’d visited so far, crossing into Bosnia felt like quite an adventure. To begin with, it is recommended to stick to paved roads due to the risk of land mines and it was odd to be somewhere in which any piece of uninhabited land is a potential threat.

We only had plans to spend the afternoon visiting Mostar before returning to the Croatian coast, but apparently this didn’t exempt us from paying €20 for a week’s worth of Bosnia-specific third-party car insurance that the border guard insisted was an entry requirement. To be fair he was very patient and helpful and we got “Bosnia & Hezegovina” passport stamps for our trouble.

As with so many beautiful European towns, Mostar itself has become quite a tourist trap. But while the pretty streets of the historic old town are lined with souvenir shops, bars and restaurants…

…there are still numerous stark reminders of the Bosnian conflict of the early 1990’s. On the edges of the old town are bombed-out, bullet-ridden and shrapnel-damaged buildings and most notably the bridge from which the town derives its name is newly rebuilt since it was destroyed by the Croats in 1993.

We wandered the town for an hour or so and had a beer under the bridge, before heading back to Croatia via the “scenic route”. This involved us driving around Bosnia for a lot longer than we should have thanks to several brand new roads, unknown to our sat-nav or roadmap. When we finally made it back to the coast it was a little late and dark to be searching for a campground, so we decided we’d suffer a night of luxury in one Croatia’s seemingly endless coastal guesthouse/pensions.

In the end we stopped at one of the many “Rooms/Zimmer/Chambre” signs, where a family were enjoying an alfresco dinner and what sounded like copious amounts of wine in their front garden. A room was quickly arranged and upon seeing the “Australia” sticker on the back of the Sunny, the man of the house told me in broken English that his wife’s uncle, (“my woman – the brother of her mother”) lives in Australia. She couldn’t remember the name of the place, so she brought out a letter to show us his return address. Lo and behold he lives at Umina Beach, around the corner from James’ grandmother’s old house!. She was tickled by this – “the world is very small!” she said.

Refreshed after spending the night in a real bed, we drove north to Split. Croatia’s largest coastal city, Split is dominated by the 4th-century Roman remains of Diocletian’s Palace. we took a walk around the ruins and narrow streets, stopping for another luxury – our first ice-cream of the trip.

One of the coolest things in Split is this statue of Grgur Ninski (Gregory of Nin). He was a bishop who rebelled against the establishment and introduced Croatian language into church services, but the statue makes him look like some kind of kick-ass arcane wizard…

Croatia is blessed with a beautiful, seemingly endless coastline and driving further north after Split we resolved to find a nice spot for a quick dip. In the end we found the perfect place, though it had a curious surprise in store…

On the whole, the water was lovely and warm, as it is along most of the Croatian Coast. But in this spot, random currents of icy cold water also flowed, which was quite a shock! Our best guess was that the water was flowing up from an underwater spring somewhere.

For our last night in Croatia we found a cute little camp ground nestled in a small, secluded bay. After setting up camp we enquired about dinner and the old man running the restaurant was extremely eager to cook for us. He didn’t speak English, so in German he enthusiastically describd to us the seafood feast that he would prepare including prawns, calamari and three whole fish. How could we refuse?

In the end he was true to his word – the seafood platter he prepared was both bountiful and delicious and as the sun set across the bay, the setting couldn’t have been more perfect.

We rounded out the meal with a complimentary shot of grappa and retired to our tent before our push north to Slovenia and Metal Camp the next morning.

There’s some more pictures of Croatia here and of Bosnia & Herzegovina here.

                          

After crossing the French/Italian border we drove directly to Cinque Terre, a place we’ve been meaning to visit since our first trip to Italy back in 2003. Meaning literally “Five Terraces”, Cinque Terre is a group of five gorgeous little Italian villages set into the hillside along a beautiful stretch of Italy’s north-west coast.

The villages are linked by a well-trodden track of about 12km, which we planned to walk at least part of. After a short train ride in to the first village of Monterosso, we ran from the station around to the old harbour just it in time to catch the next ferry along the coast.

It was lovely riding out on the deck in the sunshine, but we were fortunate not to have been boarding or disembarking at the second village of Vernazza. The heaving swell around the tiny dock made for an exciting dash along the gangplank for several passengers – Italian health and safety at its precarious best!

We got to the last village of Riomaggiore and spent the rest of the day enjoying a beautiful hike back along the coast. After walking the first kilometre known as “lover’s lane” in the hot Sun, we stopped to cool down with a swim off the rocks in the deep blue water at Manarola – very pretty!

The swim and subsequent walk was good for the appetite and just past the village of Corniglia a picnic of antipasto, foccacia and cold Moretti beer was just the thing! We strolled into Vernazza some time later, having decided to skip the last stretch to Monterosso as night was closing in. That and we were buggered.

With a bus timetable that could only exist in Italy, (certain buses only running on certain, seemingly random days of the month) we found ourselves walking an extra 3km from the station back to our campground. But this turned out to be a blessing in disguise when we saw the first of many fireflies, (or “fairy bugs” as Sarah calls them). It was hard to believe at first, but then we saw another and then another. We were in awe of these little flying beetles, their arses flashing on and off like little light globes on a Christmas tree. They made the extra walk totally surreal and very worthwhile.

After Cinque Terre we continued into Tuscany with stops in San Gimignano and Sienna. Both were very touristy and with good reason, being that they are both so picturesque, their buildings all coloured in shades of brown and “burnt Sienna”. San Gimignano in the Tuscan countryside has retained 13 of its 72 fortified towers as well as its historic Duomo, where they insisted Sarah cover her shoulders with a bright blue paper cloth out of reverence despite the Cathedral housing some of the most debauched artworks we’ve ever seen inside a church!

In Sienna we recognised the location (Piazza del Campo) of the famous horse race, as seen at the start of the James Bond movie “Quantum of Solace”. The race was only a week away and the sand track in the Piazza was already being prepared.

The town’s gothic Duomo was also very impressive with its unusual facade of striped black and white marble. And to top things off, after a particularly delicious sandwich constructed from supermarket supplies, (foccacia, basil, mozarella, prosciutto and tomatoes) we decided that this area has the sweetest, tastiest tomatoes EVER!!!

We stopped overnight a little north of Rome at Lake Bracciano, where we sat on the lake shore watching a storm roll in. It’s only fair to mention that Sarah managed to photograph a flash of lightning even after repeatedly being told she would never capture it with our measly automatic camera.

Then we headed into central Naples, to a little pizzeria called Da Michele for supposedly the best pizza in the world. We’ve both had pizza we liked more but it’s easy to see why they have the title – even the Italians were queuing for tables.

Having the Sunny filled with our belongings parked in the middle of Mafia land made us a tad nervous. So after our pizza we quickly continued on towards the Amalfi coast and found ourselves a campground with its own section of private beach (pebbles of course)!

Driving along the Amalfi coast on a sunny Sunday maybe wasn’t our best idea, but gave us a real insight to the lengths Italians will go for a day at the “beach”. Parking spots tended to be at the top of cliffs on extremely narrow roads – how some of them got down onto the actual beaches is anyone’s guess. We didn’t actually stop other than to take a photo here and there (cliffs plunging down towards the ocean) as there wasn’t anywhere to park – and I mean ANYWHERE!!

Italians tend to be quite creative when it comes to parking but we couldn’t even spot a place to do an “Italian park”. So we continued on to Matera, driving past a lot of seriously giant lemons!

The town of Matera is utterly unique and almost indescribable. It is known primariy for the “sassi”, hundreds of stone houses carved out of the caves and cliffs that comprise the town’s two ravines.

From the 1800’s, an explosion in population led to drastic overcrowding and horrendous conditions, with the desperately poor inhabitants living in these carved houses without electricity, sewers, or running water. The situation finally reached a head in the 1950’s, when the Italian government forcibly moved 15,000 of the sassi’s inhabitants to new housing.

Wandering around the almost-deserted sassi is quite eerie. The roads are cobbled and there’s little vegetation, just a mass of brown, stone-carved buildings in various states of disrepair. Some parts of the sassi have been cleaned up and are now being used as businesses or once more as homes after a bit of modernisation. Though there were still signs of people living in buildings that definitely looked like they should still be abandoned. A very odd place indeed.

Then it was time to head to the Italian port town of Bari for our overnight ferry to Dubrovnik in Croatia. Only those who have experienced Italian organisation at its worst would be able to comprehend a port run by Italians. Imagine a 15-car-wide bottleneck trying to fit through a 2-car-wide gate. We soon came to understand why they suggest arriving at least 3 hours prior to departure during peak season!

Finally on board, for some reason the crew insisted on cranking up the air conditioning. Even wearing all our clothes and wrapped in sleeping bags, it was a cold night indeed sleeping on the floor of the ferry…

There’s more photos from our jaunt across Italy here.

                          

Before we knew it the whirlwind of house clearing, leaving parties, box packing, and general loose end tying was over. It was time to go.

We hurriedly packed the last of our belongings into the Sunny, newly outfitted with a roof box for this its final and most epic road trip. A quick check of  the oil & water, (honest Dad!) and we were off, rolling out of the quiet Luton cul-de-sac our friends Alex & Peta call home and onto the M25, bound for Portsmouth.

The first stop on our journey was to be the Hellfest Festival in Clisson, France. So from Portsmouth we caught the same overnight ferry to the French port of Le Havre as we did the previous year, arriving fresh and relaxed after a good night’s sleep. When we eventually stopped for breakfast in the Sunshine of a French motorway rest area, it finally began to sink in that this time there would be no return journey to Blighty. For us it was Australia or bust!

Just as it had when we attended in 2008, Hellfest once more offered arguably the most outstanding lineup of the European Summer metal festivals. The big names were a bit uninspiring, (Motley Crue? Marylin Manson?? Manowar???) but further down the bill, Hellfest laid on a veritable smorgasbord of tasty metal goodness.

We stocked up on supplies at the local branch if LIDL and set up camp amongst the wheat fields and grape vines, ready to begin European festival season 2009.

As it turned out, Hellfest was even better this year than last, the Sun beaming down for 3 fantastic days on a noticeably larger crowd than 2008, (possibly due to the utterly atrocious lineup at Graspop).

There were some awesome performances in the Rock Hard tent by Samael, Cathedral, Napalm Death, Moonspell and the mighty Grand Magus.

Entombed were in especially good form and appeared to have as much fun as the crowd as they tore through tracks old and new.

Outside in the sunshine were Down, who sounded great despite Phil Anselmo accusing the crowd of being drunk, (pot? kettle?). Also bringing the groove from the USA were Clutch. We were seeing them for the first time and they went down very well with the cold beer and afternoon Sun. Bringing out Wino from Saint Vitus for a guest appearance was very cool too…

Anthrax sounded fantastic with their new singer  – a real shame they were to split with him only a few weeks later. But it’s not just the ridiculously good lineup that makes Hellfest the great show that it is. The French give their festival touches of ambience that are truly superb, especially when the Sun goes down…

As we wandered back to the tent, Manowar’s fireworks signalling Hellfest’s conclusion, it was good to know we still had more festival goodness on the way before the Summer was done.

After the craziness that was our final weeks in London and then 3 days of partying at Hellfest, it was time for some much-needed downtime. We made our way toward the coast near Bordeaux in search of a campground, wary to avoid Camping La Pressoir after our last visit, (we and our then travelling companions Reb, Al and Jess were forced to make an early-morning escape in the Sunny along an improvised garden road after discovering the gate was locked until reception opened a few hours later).

As it turned out we found another, much nicer location…

The campground we ended up at was on the Dune of Pyla, Europe’s largest sand dune about 60km south of Bordeaux. It was a beautiul spot so we stopped for a couple of days to drink Champagne, take in the beautiful sunsets and organise all the crap we’d haphazardly thrown into the car shortly before our departure from Mother England.

We also started doing a little planning and soon realised that we had a week less than we thought to get to Slovenia for Metal Camp. So we bid the west coast of France adieu and high tailed it across the south to Cannes to have a beer with some former workmates…

and marvel at how disgustingly rich some people in this world are…

Ah well, it’s only money right? The next day we climbed back aboard the humble Sunny and plotted a course eastward – to Italy!

Some more photos of Hellfest 2009 and our French adventures are here.

                          

If all goes well we’ll end up at the Summer Breeze festival in Germany’s south-west in mid August and after that we begin our journey east. If the trusty Sunny’s still roadworthy we’ll take her across Czech and down through Romania and Bulgaria into Greece, where we hope to find her a good home, (if anybody wants a ‘95 Nissan Sunny with low miles, full service history, a roof box and a load of camping gear inside, get in touch).

After that we’ll cross into Turkey and thus out of Europe and into the east. After that we’ll be playing it by ear but we hope to go through the Middle East, (so far we have visas for Pakistan, India and Nepal and the Iranian one’s on the way) then south-east through Asia before finally reaching our beloved homeland in January 2010. The idea is to do this all without resorting to air travel but hey, we’ll see…

So if you’re interested in what we get up to you can keep an eye on our progress via the Amorphic Destiny web page, photo page , rss feed, or twitter. We’ll update as often as we can and would love to hear from you while we’re on the road. Perhaps we’ll even see one or two of you out there in the big, wide world!

                          

Every year, the sleepy town of Wacken in the north of Germany becomes temporary home to tens of thousands of metalheads who travel from the four corners of the globe for a few glorious days of German beer, sunshine (hopefully) and of course, heavy metal.

This year we were once more sailing the good ship Sunny from London, heavily laden with a cargo of camping gear and leather boots. This time on board we had Lynda, (now firmly ensconched as an ex-pat in London) and Gareth, who was back over from Oz for his first taste of European festival lovin’.

After one night-time ferry, 10 hours and several hundred kms of autobahn, we arrived at the Wacken campground. We’d been directed to a spot miles from the main festival area, but being experienced Wackeners we knew better than to camp where we were told.

We loaded our gear on our backs and made our way to what has become our traditional camping spot. There we found Tanja and Leo, who’d saved ample room for us and a few others that were on the way. Soon enough we were settled in nicely.

Sarah and I caught up on some sleep and then headed back into Hamburg by train to see Jeff Martin. Getting back at 3:30am we caught some more Z’s and woke up on day 1 of the festival proper. Since we’d left, Gav had arrived from London and Eric, (bassist in Leo’s band Deus.exe) had also set up camp with his girlfriend Anja. Our campsite was complete!

After a camp breakfast and a beer or two to get the ball rolling, Leo and I went forth on another the great Wacken tradition – finding a suitable pole on which to raise the Australian flag. The search was hard and long, but the final result was most excellent.

Wacken tradition #263 – head into town to stock up on cheap food and beer. We managed to enlist the help of an enterprising young local girl with a cart who helped us wheel our purchases back to the campground for a very reasonable fee.

We got back to camp and put some beer on ice – yep, thanks to our eskies and the Wacken shop now selling ice the days of warm campground beer are over! Then it was in for our first band of the festival, Australia’s very own Airbourne!

After their outstanding show at Hellfest earlier this year we knew we were in for a great show. We also knew that with their AC/DC-like sound, the Germans would be out in force and we weren’t wrong. The band got a huge reaction and singer Joel O’Keeffe shined once again as the perfect rock ‘n’ roll frontman, belting out, (amongst others) Runnin’ Wild, Black Jack, and the anthemic Too Much, Too Young, Too Fast as the crowd screamed along.

The excitement was all a bit too much for this bloke, who just couldn’t resist the urge to get naked.

After Airbourne it was straight over to the party stage for one of our personal favourites, Leaves’ Eyes. They were bringing along their viking longboat stage setup that we’d seen at the Metal Female Voices festival and a big show was promised.

Of course they delivered in spades, Liv’s trademark voice in fine form as it melded with the powerful twin guitars of Mathias and Thorsten. The band’s new rhythm section of bassist Alla Fedynitch and drummer Peter Hornung seem to have slotted in perfectly too, with Peter’s use of acoustic drums adding substantially to the band’s live sound.

It wasn’t long before Alex Krull joined the band on stage, bringing his heavy vocals to bear for a rendition of the always excellent Ocean’s Way. He did a great job of riling the substantial crowd, (the biggest we’ve seen Leaves’ Eyes play for) and as with the Metal Female Voices show, there were plenty of pyrotechnics!

The set was made up of plenty of favourites, including Solemn Sea, Norweigian Lovesong and Temptation and finished up with usual closer Elegy. After the set, Thorsten and Mathias came down to the front barrier to say hi to the fans, and we grabbed them for a couple of shots.

Iron Maiden’s first ever appearance at Wacken was always going to be huge and with 72,000 in attendance this was to be the biggest crowd of their Somewhere Back in Time World Tour. In fact we were to find out afterward that security eventually had to shut the gates to the festival ground, leaving many to watch the show from the beer garden or the big screen by the campground.

After seeing them at Twickenham Stadium a few weeks earlier we knew what we were in for, and so did the rest of the crowd the moment Churchill’s speech began to echo from the PA. The band burst onto the stage with Aces High and then went straight into 2 Minutes to Midnight, Bruce running around the stage like a hyperactive kid and the rest of the band clearly loving the response from the massive crowd of metal faithful.

The True Metal Stage had been kept clear for the whole day to accomodate Maiden’s beautifully over-the-top stage show, it’s Egytian theme taken from their Powerslave album. There were a few items missing from the extravagence that was the Twickenham gig but most of the show was intact, including a huge sphynx that opened to reveal a mummified Eddie!

The setlist was more-or-less the same as Twickenham, with just about every song a highlight. One standout was Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a track that’s rarely heard live due to it’s epic length of 14 mins. The Trooper was also a favourite with it’s requisite singalong chorus and it was great to hear some tracks from the Seventh Son… album in the shape of Can I Play With Madness and then Moonchild and The Clairvoyant during the encore.

The set and Wacken’s first night were rounded out with personal favourite, Hallowed Be They Name and with that, Iron Maiden had finally conquered Wacken in a big way. We made our way back to the campground and kicked on into the night with a few random Aussies that came by to visit.

The next morning I’d planned on catching Aussie stalwarts Mortal Sin, but ended up missing them due to their 11:55am timeslot and sheer laziness on my part. Cynic were up next and while I’d not heard them previously, Gareth played me their Focus album in the car on the way to Wacken. I was intrigued by their unique sound and determined to check them out.

In the end I was glad I’d made the effort. I found Gareth and we settled in to listen to Cynic’s unique take on technical prog/death metal under a refreshing patter of light rain. Their music was a perfect start to the day, employing a lot of dynamics and varying smoothly between clean and mellow parts. The musicianship on display was awesome to behold as well and by the end of their set I’d put Focus on my “albums to buy” list.

Not long after Cynic’s set was done, the heavens opened over Wacken with a vengeance. I took refuge in a surprisingly clean toilet cubicle and waited out the storm, killing two birds with one stone. My rendezvous with Gareth at the merchandise stand was temporarily put on hold but eventually we found each other and went back to meet the others at the campground.

When we went back in an hour or so later for soilwork, the ground was a little damp. We’d come prepared with boots, but other festival-goers were forced to improvise…

Soilwork weren’t too bad, though not as powerful live as they have been in the past. It was good to hear old classic Bastard Chain live though.

We ducked up to the Metal Market for some shopping and then made it back inside in time for Opeth. They played a solid set and being Wacken they focussed on their heavier tracks. Masters Apprentice had the huge crowd banging away and Drapery Falls sounded great as a closer.

Children of Bodom were the big draw of the evening and the ground was all but full as they took the stage. Frontman Alexi was as charismatic as ever and in front of their urban stage setup complete with the beat-up old car, the band put on a typically excellent show.

The final band of the night was Corvus Corax, though calling them a band is something of an understatement. They came out with a choir, orchestra, (complete with conductor), 5 blokes with strange bagtypes and all manner of enormous drums and other instruments. The music itself sounded like the soundtrack from Conan the Barbarian – very epic.

We gave Gareth a brief introduction to the Wacken beer garden and then turned in for the night.

After breakfast on day three we ended up with quite a crowd in camp Aussie. A couple of Gav’s mates from up north came along as well as some Swedes who were camped near us and we also met Ed, a Californian who now lives in New Zealand. He was looking for some other Aussies and spied our flag, but ended up hanging out and drinking beer with us instead. Being a Linux sysadmin, it wasn’t long before Ed and I were talking geek.

The death metal groove of Obituary provided a solid start to the day’s music, the band in much better form than when we watched them play Wacken in the rain a few years back.

Then after an hour or so it was time for the first half of Wacken 2008’s 1-2 punch. The reactivated death/grindcore legends Carcass took to the stage for a gig many never expected to see. After Hellfest we knew that we wouldn’t be disappointed…

The setlist focussed heavily on the Necroticism and Heartwork albums, from opener Buried Dreams through to Corporeal Jigsore Quandry, Death Certificate and a truly awesome rendition of Heartwork to round things off. There were also a few surprises in there too – Reek of Putrefaction sounded great live and Keep on Rotting from not-so-critically-acclaimed release Swansong. “C’mon, that album wasn’t so bad” joked Walker after the song was done.

Bill Steer wasn’t quite as tight on the guitars as he used to be, not having had as much practice playing metal as his bandmate and Arch Enemy guitarist Mike Amott. But he held things together for the most part, and all of his old solos still sounded great live. Amott’s bandmate and partner Angela Gossow also joined the band on for Incarnate Solvent Abuse, which was quite cool.

As the band left the stage the crowd cheered until well after they’d gone – Carcass are a band that won’t be forgotten. Back at the campsite to avoid Killswitch Engage and then it was time for the other big reformation of 2008 – Sweden’s At the Gates.

Like Carcass we’d been lucky enough for a preview of this gig at Hellfest and so this time we could just sit back and enjoy the ride. The Swedes were played as if the12 years since their breakup had never happened, playing their unique brand of melodic death to an enormous crowd who lapped up every sweeping riff and howling solo.

I’d lost Leo during Carcass but this time we were in the same spot so it was good to reminisce with some of the old favourites from back in the day. After a thundering opening of Slaughter of the Soul they played just about everything we could’ve wanted to hear, including most of that record and a few choice cuts form their earlier releases.

Terminal Spirit Disease sounded particularly epic and it’s hard to express in words how amazing the grooves of Suicide Nation and World of Lies come across live. Truly a band that will never be equalled. The encore of Blinded by Fear and Kingdom Gone was enough to leave any fan witha  smile on their face.

We’d bumped into Ed again before At the Gates, (something of a lesson in Swedish melodic death metal for him) and so we joined him at the True Metal stage to check out Nightwish with new singer Anette Olzon. She has rather big shoes to fill and on the last night of Wacken, she wasn’t quite up to the task. The band sounded ok, but Anette’s voice just didn’t have the power of her operatically-trained predecessor.

And so we headed back to the beer garden for the, (almost) final hurrah…

After a quick beer, Gareth and I went back inside for Kreator, who kicked arse as always. Mille and Co. can always be relied upon to deliver a thrashin’ good time and tonight on home turf they were firing on all cylinders. The same old favourites were aired but at the end of 3 days of music festival tracks like Tormentor, Extreme Aggression and Flag of Hate are always gonna go down well. The huge number of assembled Germans certainly thought so.

I returned with the now famous knobbi (garlic) bread for all and we shelted from the patchy rain and drank into the night. A nice german bloke called Sebastian joined us, bringing with him a bottle of Jagermeister which was shared around. It was the last night but we were celebrating what had been a great 3 days, rather than mourning their loss.

The next morning of course was the dreaded pack up, made worse by the mammoth trek back to the car. We dropped Gareth, Lynda and Gav off in Hamburg but due to the atrocious traffic the normally 40-min drive took almost 3 hours and by then we gave up all hope of catching our 9:30pm ferry. We had a last supper at MacDonalds before leaving the intrepid travellers behind to plot their own course.

After many more hours of slow traffic and a few sleeps in German truck stops, we ended up catching a Eurotunnel at 4:45am. We made it home just in time to shower and head off for work – what a productive Monday that was. The things you do in the name of Heavy Metal eh? More pics from our adventures at Wacken 2008 are here. See you next year W.O.A! \m/

                          

Jeff’s solo gigs in county Cork last year were fantastic and with Hamburg only an hour’s train ride from Wacken the timing was perfect – we weren’t gonna miss this one!

Once we’d arrived at the Wacken festival ground and set up camp, we celebrated the Sunny’s safe night-time traversal of the roughly 1000 kilometres from London with a couple of well-earned Becks. Then it was time to settle in for a rejuvinating daytime nap.

Waking up refreshed, we took a bus into the nearby town of Itzehoe and caught a train back into Hamburg for the show. LOGO was reasonably easy to find and after sorting out our tickets we stopped for a quick photo for posterity.

Yep, that’s Jeff in the background having a ciggie break during soundcheck…;-)

With a little time to kill, we went into town to try to find some reasonably healthy food in anticipation of the comparitively unhealthy few days that lay ahead. We found a pub with a lovely beer garden – perfect for dinner on a balmy German Summer’s eve!

We could’ve sat in that beer garden all night long, but soon enough it was time to go. We got back to LOGO in time to catch most of opening act Indian Tea Company, a local 3-piece who obviously draw some influence from Jeff’s previous band The Tea Party.

Their songs were a little less intricate but nevertheless they sounded pretty good. Their vocalist in particular had a very powerful voice, and they rounded off their set with an excellent cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Paint it Black”.

Following The Indian Tea Company’s set, Just about everybody in the club, (ourselves included) headed outside to either escape the heat or to smoke. Not long after we all piled back in, Jeff took the stage with percussionist Wayne Sheehy to rapturous cheers and applause from the German crowd.

After so many years as a live performer it seems that almost impossible for Jeff to put on a bad show. Tonight was no exception, with his unique voice as haunting and soulful as ever, ringing out over his trademark eastern-tinged melodies.

This time around the set focussed less on covers, with an almost even mix of Martin’s solo tracks and those from his Tea Party years. Jeff chatted between songs, thanking the crowd and saying how happy he was to be back in Hamburg. Judging from the extremely positive response after every song, the crowd were happy to have him back too!

Wayne’s percussion-work was similarly well-received. His vast array of different drums and cymbals makes him a very unique performer and tonight he was playing with gusto, even breaking a few sticks in the process. Not something you normally see at a totally acoustic show!

Requiem sounded beautiful as ever and was introduced as a song that was originally written for a friend, but interestingly turned out being for Jeff himself. Save Me was a crowd-pleaser as always, with the whole room singing along.

We were also treated to a new song, a ballad called Line in the Sand. Apparently from Jeff’s forthcoming album, the track was similar in style to the music on Exile and The Kingdom and sounded quite cool.

Jeff’s love of segueing continues unabated from the last time we saw him. Nearly all of the tracks he performed, (most notably the brilliant Fire in the Head) drifted off into other songs at one stage or another and to great effect.

Towards the end of set we heard The Kingdom, which Jeff described as the best explanation that he could give for his disbanding the Tea Party, and then the show proper finished on an incredible high with the always amazing Black Snake Blues. The energy of this song live is utter phenomenal, and the crowd loved it – probably the closest most of us will ever get to a southern gospel church singalong methinks.

We’d been told curfew was a strict 12 midnight so after Jeff left the stage I was ready to head off, happy that I’d seen another amazing show. Fortunately the normally strict German rules seemed to be a little more flexible tonight, and Jeff and Wayne returned for one of The Tea Party’s finest – Sister Awake. Then as we’d seen previously in Ireland the night was rounded off with a Drum Jam – Jeff swapping his guitar for a goblet drum and following Wayne’s outstanding percussion work.

We made it back to the station in time to catch the last train back to Itzehoe which left on time but ended up being quite uncharacteristically delayed due to a police incident somewhere between Hamburg and our destination. I guess this wasn’t the best night for the Germans’ legendary timekeeping.

We eventually wandered into the Wacken campground at around 3:30am, both bleary-eyed but on a high and feeling a little surreal after seeing one of our favourite performers right before the biggest festival on the heavy metal calender. Sometimes life is just too good.

There’s a few more photos from the gig here.

                          

So the day finally came when Kevin stayed home for the delivery of the much anticipated “Rock Band”! Hooray for Kevin!! Two guitars, a microphone, and a drum kit all projected on the big screen at The Grove. In combination with huge amounts of beer, cider, vodka, bbq food and fish pie lovingly made by Joe what more could a bunch of Beamers and friends want?

So the party started with the boys off to do some shopping and some cooking while the girls (Chloe, Sarah, Garvita and Lynda) jumped in and formed the first band. I would just like to say girls ROCK!!

But we knew our time of dominating the game would be short-lived as more boys arrived including the ever so competitive Party Dave who was keen to get straight in there.

We feasted on Joe’s pies, Garvita’s samosas and James’ marinated chicken as well as an array of German sausages.

Rock Band was/is truly awesome. Guitar Hero was always great fun, but the addition of vocals and drums makes the whole band experience so much more fun. The drums are especially cool and it took all of our powers combined to manhandle Kev from the drum stool…

The games continued until the wee hours of the morning before a bit of sleep for some, in preparation of the next day of partying.

Saturday started with the usual bacon and egg rolls which James cooked up for everyone. This was followed by sitting around in the backyard having a few drinks and catching up with Lynda’s sister Rose who had just landed from Australia that morning. Before we knew it, it was time to light the next bbq and get cooking before Eurovision started.

Kelvin and Christina came around to join the fun, as did Kev’s mate Carl. I ran around and organised a quick sweep and printed out the drinking rules for eurovision.

A jug of fruity shooter was made. A shot of which was to be consumed when our country from the sweep was playing. “Poor” Kevin had 3 countries in the sweep and had to have 3 shots – he REALLY hated that! We’d all had enough drinks by this time to be convinced that wearing the Viking helmet while our band played was also a good idea.

I think a few people were surprised that watching Eurovision could be so much fun. But the cheesy songs, funny accents and ridiculous dancing and props combined with Terry Wogan’s famous dry commentary resulted in huge laughs all round. It seemed not a moment went by without a shout of “Use of Props!” or “Keychange” meaning that we all had to drink. I bet Little Adam can hardly wait for next year!!

Sarah was the eventual winner with Russia and picked up the winning glass of coinage and the last shot – yummy!

There was plenty more Rockband to be played after Eurovision with Chloe fronting the band with consistent scores over 95% (but on easy). The drumming became too hard as more drinks were consumed but the band played on until the early hours of the morning.

Sunday was a wind-down day. The rain outside was a good excuse to be lazy so we ordered pizza and settled in to watch the Monaco Grand Prix. Afterward what else could we do but play more Rock Band??? Again it went well into the wee hours…

Monday there were still a few stragglers who didn’t want to give up but the weekend finally came to an end and the rockband tour which included 3 dates at the same venue was complete – until next time…….

                          

After a lunchtime cocktail or two at home, we made our way into town for the business end of proceedings.

We spent the afternoon in The Samuel Pepys, a very nice bar overlooking the Thames and directly opposite the Tate Modern. Before long a weird and wonderful selection of drinks were ordered and we settled in for a very relaxing afternoon.

Apparently The Samuel Pepys is quite busy during the week, patronised by workers from the surrounding offices. But being quite tucked away, it’s virtually deserted on the weekends and so we were lucky enough to have the place pretty much to ourselves.

The lack of business at The Samuel Pepy’s on the weekend is reflected by their unfortunate Saturday closing time of 5pm. We managed to stick around a little longer to finish off one last round before piling in to black cabs, bound for Belgo Centrall in Covent Garden.

Belgo is a Belgian restaurant famed for it’s hearty food and extensive beer menu.

We were soon tucking in to some very tasty appetizers, washed down by all manner of delicious and highly potent Belgian beers!

One of the many curiosities on Belgo’s beer menu are the shot sticks – long wooden racks of schnapps shots. We had one of the largest size delivered forthwith. And then another, and another…

Delicious mains included surf and turf (with lobster in place of the usual prawns), plenty of chips and of course the mandatory Belgian dish – Mussels!

After dessert and yet more Belgian beer, we finally departed and headed for home.

Some of us ended on a quick detour via Kilburn for a pint, but eventually we all made it back to the house where the fun continued with guitars of both the acoustic and plastic, (Guitar Hero) variety.

Great friends, great food, plenty of tasty beers and a lot of laughs – a perfect way to celebrate the big three zero for Sarah! There’s lots more pictures of our silly antics here.

                          

Katatonia were on the bill, as were Opeth who would be playing their first gig with their new, revamped lineup. Other prog bands of interest were Anekdoten and Leafhound, however the biggest surprise of the lineup was the inclusion of cult British folk/prog group Comus, who last played together way back in 1973!

After another painfully early Ryanair flight we arrived in a little airfield 100km outside Stockholm. There we met an Aussie guy Adam and his girlfriend Jen who were also there for the cruise, as well as a group of English guys who were held up by their mate who’d somehow lost his passport between getting on the plane and getting off again. The following day he found it stashed in a "secret" pocket of his jacket, but that’s another story…

The bus into Stockholm was full before us Melloboaters could get on, so we scored a complimentary maxi-taxi for the 1 1/2 hour journey into town. After a quick bite to eat in a Mexican restaurant, (Swedes seem quite keen on Mexican food – there were Mexican restaurants all over Stockholm!) we made our way down to the ferry port and onto the massive Silja Symphony. We found our cabin overlooking the boat’s promenade and settled in to catch up on a couple of hours sleep.

Feeling refreshed after our nap, we made our way down to the main auditorium where the gig was getting underway. The venue itself was quite surreal – every bit the cruise ship lounge bar, but with prog rock!

We got ourselves some cider and settled in to watch the second half of Anekdoten’s set. I’d only recently started listening to their music but was glad to hear a number of tunes that I recognised. Their live sound was great, especially the mellotron which really filled the room with sound – a great way to begin proceedings.

After Anekdoten we secured ourselves a perfect spot for Opeth, even though they weren’t on for quite a while. We knocked back another cider or two from our comfy lounge on the first balcony as the room gradually filled with people eager for Michael Akerfeldt and Co’s first gig in a long time.

Of course they didn’t disappoint, the finalised new lineup sounded quite tight and clearly enjoyed being on stage again. Even though the festival had a prog leaning they didn’t shy away from very heavy tracks like Master’s Apprentices, Serenity Painted Death and Demon of the Fall, which all sounded fantastic.

We got a few special tracks too. A reworked, trippy version of Harvest was very appropriate for the prog vibe of the gig and new song "Heir Apparent" featured some extremely cool riffs that everyone seemed to dig a lot.

After Opeth we got some food and then went down to the bar stage with Adam and Jen to see Qomph. They sounded cool enough – I won’t be rushing out to buy their albums but they made a good accompaniment to a few more drinks before heading back to the main auditorium for the Mats Morgan all-star team.

This super group of various Swedish musicians jammed away on all sorts of stuff, from free-form jazz to Frank Zappa. The music was quite cool, more from a skill and musicianship perspective than as memorable songs. After another drink or two hanging out with the English blokes from the plane we hit the hay sometime in the wee hours of the morning.

The next day the ship had arrived in Helsinki, so we ventured out on foot to see the city. We’d read that snow was expected in Finland and it was nice to see white winter landscapes once more…

We walked around town and eventually found a nice little bar/restaurant where we had some lunch. Afterwards we saw the ice rink in the town square and the enormous Helsinki Cathedral before it was time to set sail once more.

The journey out of Helsinki made for a relaxing start to the evening. We found some seats by the window and had a drink while we watched the many islands of the archipelago float past, in particular the very impressive fortress of Suomenlinna. This chilled-out mood continued as we went to watch legendary keyboardist Bo Hansson. Kicking back with a cider in the cruise lounge watching Bo’s funky hammond organ stylings was a very nice way to get the musical ball rolling.

After a quick meal it was time for the most important part of the festival – the reunion of Comus! The auditorium filled to capacity – Opeth frontman and renowned Comus fan Mikael Akerfeldt was standing just by our vantage point on the stairs. Many people on the Melloboat had come from all over the world just for this moment, and so there was a great deal of anticipation in the air.

Fortunately the group of English psychadelic/prog/folk musicians that took the stage to wild applause sounded like they hadn’t been apart for 1 year, let alone 35! At first we were sure that somebody was standing in for Bobbie Watson as she looked no older than in the Comus publicity shots from 1972, but once she started to sing there was no question it was her – exactly the same as on the record!

As they broke into "Song to Comus" there was a tangible magic in the room – to hear this music live was beyond belief. Roger Wooton delivered an admirable vocal performance, using all of the crazy animalistic voices and noises that give the First Utterance album it’s utterly unique and disquietening vibe. The music was tight and Glenn Goring was simply mindblowing on his 12-string acoustic.

We were lucky enough to hear just about the entirety of First Utterance, standouts being Drip Drip , (a personal favourite and the song from which Opeth’s My Arms Your Hearse is quoted) and The Herald, which I’d really been hoping they’d play. It’s an amazing piece of music and seeing/hearing it live was a very emotional experience.

The gig was rounded out with The Prisoner and then what was introduced as the only cover the band ever played – Shiny Boots of Leather by the Velvet Underground. Throughout the set several of the band members expressed how amazing it was for them to be back together again, especially to such a reception. They all seemed quite blown away by it all and genuinely thrilled to be back.

Just as it looked like the set was done, Glenn asked the crowd if it would be ok to reprise Song to Comus. It was almost unbelievable – we were going to get to hear it again! After this final song they left the stage, the crowd yelling for more long after the house lights were back on.

Truly an honour and a privilege to be present for such a historic occasion.

I was in something of a daze after Comus – it was such an amazing spectacle that afterwards we just sat down with a couple of ciders and let it all sink in. After a visit to the merchandise and the bar stage, we ended up back at the auditorium for the next highlight of the evening – Katatonia!

It’s worth noting at this point that since before Comus played the sea had been getting rougher and by the time Katatonia took the stage the boat was rocking quite a bit. I thought it was great fun – it reminded me that I was actually out at sea watching awesome bands, but there were one or two green-faced land lubbers about who hadn’t quite found their sea legs and may also have been feeling the combined affects of seasickness and excessive alcohol consumption.

Katatonia played a typically awesome set, especially after they got warmed up and used to the fact that the stage was rocking from side to side! Plenty of tracks from their entire career, rounded off with Mikael Akerfeldt taking the stage for a rendition of Murder - very cool indeed.

We’d hooked up with Adam and Jen again and so we kicked back for the last band of the Melloboat – Leaf Hound. This was my first time hearing their music and I later found that the band, (originally active back in the 70’s) was actually a group of new musicians with original singer Pete French. They had some great grooves and musically they were outstanding.

French’s voice was really powerful and in another cool Melloboat one-off, Per Lindgren of Opeth joined the band on keyboards. Special mention must also go to guitarist Luke Rayner – Adam and I looked/listened on in disbelief as he effortlessly pulled off perfect rhythm sections indispersed  with intricate solos and all with a guitar tone that was nothing short of phenomenal.

And so the Melloboat proper came to a close. We hung around drinking and chatting for a while longer but given that we had to vacate our cabins reasonably early when the boat reached Stockholm the next morning, we decided to get at least a couple of hours sleep.

The next day was spent slightly bleary-eyed in Stockholm waiting for our late evening flight. The old town was as beautiful as we remembered it from our last visit and we were pleased to see that the shop where we bought our viking helmet punch bowl is still there and still selling them at extortionate prices!

Back in London in the wee hours of the morning the whole thing seemed like it had been an amazing dream. A really special experience and one we won’t forget – thanks Stefan and all at Mellotronen records for making it possible. There’s a few more photos here.