Wacken wear for the ladies

July 21st, 2010 by zoezombie

Today we have a guest post from the fab­u­lous and always styl­ish Zoe Zom­bie. You can also read more of her stuff on Quite Lovely.

My expe­ri­ences from Wacken 2008 will for­ever stay with me. Not bring­ing trousers was THE worst mis­take of my life. Appar­ently, the only trousers they sell at the Wacken mar­kets are leather and I wasn’t about to fork out the dosh for a pair. So I shiv­ered the nights away. Next time, I thought as I was moments away from freez­ing to death (I’m being dra­matic of course, it makes for a good story) I am not going to put myself in that posi­tion again. So now I am going to be smart about it and take my years of fes­ti­val expe­ri­ence into con­sid­er­a­tion and PACK ACCORDINGLY.

Metal fash­ion is com­pletely male-centric. That usu­ally leaves us with shirts that are too big or we go the com­plete oppo­site way — fish­nets and tits. I’m totally fine with women doing either but I don’t. I don’t believe that look­ing trashy is nec­es­sary (because not every­one loves see­ing that pim­ple on your ass being squeezed through those fish­nets). On the other hand, look­ing and dress­ing like a dude shows com­plete lack of self confidence.

So ladies, I hereby intro­duce to you some­one you may know. Her name is Sarah Con­nor. Not Sarah Con­nor Ter­mi­na­tor 2. Or even Ter­mi­na­tor 1. OH GOD NOTHE HAIR. I’m talk­ing Ter­mi­na­tor: The Sarah Con­nor Chron­i­cles. Why? Because it’s a lit­tle more mod­ern, it’s not slutty and it’s not too manly. It’s a per­fect exam­ple of how you CAN dress at Wacken. Not just for looks but for prac­ti­cal­ity. That’s right, I’m not a com­pletely shal­low woman. If you’ve never watched the show, I sug­gest you acti­vate some down­load­ing action now. And if you have watched the show and per­haps have a few episodes legally or ille­gally lying around on your com­puter have a quick look at them now.

Sarah’s cloth­ing is quite mil­i­tary (which is appar­ently super-duper in right now): boots, trousers, tank top and some­times a leather jacket. There are always vari­a­tions, there may be belts here or there. Her boots change but they are always boots. And she’s either wear­ing jeans, leather pants or pants with lots of pock­ets depend­ing on the day. So here’s what you can take from dress­ing like a fic­tional char­ac­ter and con­vert it into Wacken Wear.

  • Lay­ers: These will save you from the crazy weather which has been known to go from boil­ing hot to freez­ing cold and rain­ing in not much time at all. A cou­ple of tank tops, a shirt, long sleeved top and jacket. Easy to carry around with you and stops you hav­ing to go to your tent dur­ing the day to make (what I like to call) cos­tume changes.
  • Bot­toms etc: Jeans are only prac­ti­cal when it’s not rain­ing. Oth­er­wise, if it looks like rain I sug­gest trousers that dry eas­ily or work the tights-under-shorts combo. It’ll also help keep your undies dry if you don’t have a garbage bag to put over yourself.
  • Boots: Boots are a must and the higher up your leg, the bet­ter. If it rains, you could very well find your­self in mud. Sarah usu­ally wore boots with buck­les or exposed zips but over-the-knee options are always fun. I would stay away from PVC or patent leather unless you want to look like a strip­per. Sarah’s boots are always FLAT. Don’t wear heels unless you want to help aer­ate the grass or sink in the mud. Wedge/platform boots to be worn at your own risk (the ground isn’t exactly flat). And most impor­tantly, make sure they are com­fort­able as you will be stand­ing for long peri­ods of time. Ones that you can pull on or zip up are the most practical.
  • Acces­sories: I am not really one to acces­sorize at Wacken because this requires effort and more lug­gage. Also, no one cares. But if you must, I would stick with belts and very min­i­mal jewelery.
  • Bags: Bags at fes­ti­vals annoy me but if I’m going to be out all day I need a place to keep my water, med­ica­tion, pass­ports etc. And I am NOT one to wear pants with lots of pock­ets. Make sure it’s a bag that goes over your shoul­der and you can keep it close to your body so you don’t bash peo­ple with it. Sarah rarely uses bags (she’s cool like that) but if she does, it’s a brown leather mes­sen­ger bag.

Yes, you can look awe­some and be prac­ti­cal at Wacken. It just takes thought, con­sid­er­a­tion, mul­ti­ple tank tops and episodes of Ter­mi­na­tor: The Sarah Con­nor Chronicles.

Lineup conflict: Soulfly vs Despised Icon

July 19th, 2010 by goatlady

soulfly-despisedicon

Sat­ur­day, 11:15pm – 12:15am, True Metal Stage: Soulfly

Sat­ur­day, 11:40pm – 12:15am, W.E.T. Stage: Despised Icon

On the one hand, it’s Soulfly and as far as I’m con­cerned, lit­tle Max Cav­alera can do no wrong.

On the other hand, I like Despised Icon a lot and they’re said they’re call­ing it quits after their cur­rent tour­ing commitments.

But Soulfly are tour­ing Aus­tralia in Sep­tem­ber. And I’ve seen them live at least twice before.

But we’re see­ing Despised Icon at Sum­mer Breeze, which was sup­pos­edly their last ever show until they announced Trois-Rivieres Met­alfest in Canada in Octo­ber. And even if they announced more shows, it’s unlikely we’ll see them in Australia.

Both bands have a ten­dency to be maligned by metal elit­ists — Soulfly for their nu-metal lean­ings and Despised Icon for being totally unashamedly death­core. But I really don’t care — I love both bands and I’m crushed that they’re both on at the same time.

Some videos to help you decide: Soulfly’s new video for Rise of the Fallen which I absolutely fuck­ing love love love:

YouTube Video

Despised Icon’s Day of Mourn­ing:

YouTube Video

Deci­sions, deci­sions: Soulfly or Despised Icon?

Soulfly or Despised Icon?

View Results

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Your entry is now waiting for our go

July 17th, 2010 by goatlady

image

Good news for one mem­ber of the Blitzkrieg camp this week – my Wacken media accred­i­ta­tion came through, with pho­topass! This means I can take my SLR cam­era every­where and take a TON of pho­tos for Metal As Fuck and that makes me very, very happy indeed. Now the mighty Tish is going to line up some inter­views. I’ve ordered a fancy pants new dig­i­tal recorder which will hope­fully work a bit bet­ter at fil­ter­ing out back­ground noise than my dodgy MP3 player did last year.

She’s also try­ing to get accred­i­ta­tion for Party.San and Sum­mer Breeze. The Party.San online appli­ca­tion came back with some funny and con­fus­ing mes­sages includ­ing “your entry is now wait­ing for our go” and “You will receive an email if we have processed it”. So now we wait — for their email and their “go” (maybe).

Fin­gers crossed!

Lineup conflict: Unleashed vs Crucified Barbara

July 15th, 2010 by goatlady

unleashed-vs-barbara

It’s the bat­tle of the Swedes!

On Sat­ur­day after­noon at Wacken, my first con­flict comes up: Swedish viking met­allers Unleashed, or Swedish chick rock­ers Cru­ci­fied Bar­bara.

On the one hand, I very much like Unleashed – I reviewed their lat­est, As Yggdrasil Trem­bles, for Metal As Fuck ear­lier this year and found it very like­able. In fact, I even noted:

The riffs are catchy, as are the cho­ruses. Drum­mer Anders Schultz pushes every­thing along at a nice mid-pace that would suit fist pump­ing and wind­milling – I bet these guys are great fun live”.

Watch this live clip of the title track and tell me the cho­rus doesn’t kinda sound like “Ital­ians of the world, are you ready?”

YouTube Video

Cru­ci­fied Bar­bara, on the other hand, also seem like they might be good to see live. I have a thing for chick metal too.

Check out Rock N’ Roll Bachelor:

YouTube Video

AND, they do a rockin’ cover of Motorhead’s Killed By Death.

Argh, deci­sions deci­sions! What do you think?

Swede vs Swede: Unleashed or Cru­ci­fied Barbara?

View Results

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The Merch Rush

July 12th, 2010 by goatlady

3634104816_1809eb1c05

Unless you can get in line when the Wacken mer­chan­dise stands open on the Wednes­day after­noon before the fes­ti­val offi­cial starts, your chances of get­ting the Wacken tshirt of your choice in your size (unless you’re an XL man) start to dive pretty rapidly. Prob­lem is, every­one has the same idea and it’s not uncom­mon to wait in a hot crush of stinky peo­ple for 45 min­utes or more (the photo above is me doing just that in 2008). Hot tip: make sure you have a beer or two with you.

As for other merch, the Wacken online Full Metal Shop has you cov­ered for a pretty bizarre range of items. Let’s have a look, shall we?

P4049348186751_1

Cof­fee Mug

Just the thing for your full metal cuppa. I can actu­ally see myself using some­thing like this (although not drag­ging it home from Ger­many in my luggage.

EUR 9.99

http://www.full-metal-shop.de/p11-i4049348186751/logo-2010/index.html

 

P4049348186676_1

Flip Flops

Or, as we pre­fer to call them, thongs. Ques­tion is, can the Ger­mans be trusted to make cheap thongs with the same pre­ci­sion as the Aussies? Mind you they prob­a­bly all come out of the same fac­tory in China.

EUR 11.99

http://www.full-metal-shop.de/p11-i4049348186676/estd-1990/index.html

 

P4049348256980_1

Gold Vibra­tor

Wacken Power?

Um… yes.

EUR 19.99

http://www.full-metal-shop.de/p11-i4049348256980/gold/index.html

Operation: Croissant and Operation: Chocolate

June 4th, 2010 by goatlady

croissant

Last Sat­ur­day night at Casa Goat­beast: an intense meal of Goat­lady spe­cialty chili, fol­lowed by an intense Blitzkrieg plan­ning ses­sion, fol­lowed by an absolutely satanic choco­late berry baked cheese­cake, cour­tesy of the Full Metal Camp­ground Chef Vagrant and his lovely lady.

The end result? Some very full bel­lies and a tour diver­sion: after Party.San, we spend one night in Stuttgart, cross the bor­der into France to stay one night in Stras­bourg, then over to Switzer­land, for a night in Zurich, before head­ing back into Deutsch­land for Sum­mer Breeze. In ten min­utes we man­aged to dou­ble the num­ber of coun­tries we will be visiting.

Three coun­tries in three days is a tad intense, but we’re a dis­cern­ing lot and the prospect of the diver­sion of French pas­try and Swiss choco­late before head­ing back for more Ger­man beer is very appeal­ing. Oper­a­tion: Crois­sant will be accom­pa­nied by the sooth­ing sounds of Gojira, while Oper­a­tion: Chocolate’s sound­track will fea­ture the unholy Fis­cher trin­ity of Hell­ham­mer, Celtic Frost and Triptykon.

Help us out: what must-see and must-do things are there near these spots?

Wacken running order mass excitement

June 2nd, 2010 by goatlady

yes, we're grinning too

60 days out from when the Blitzkrieg Tour leaves Aus­tralia, the Wacken run­ning order and timetabling tool has been released.

With much trep­i­da­tion we checked off the bands we absolutely had to see and saw what it spat out. For me per­son­ally, it was not bad at all. Small dis­ap­point­ments are inevitable, but for­tu­nately many of the bands we’ll miss in clashes are play­ing at Sum­mer  Breeze too – 1349 (clash with Slayer), Unleashed (clash with Cru­ci­fied Bar­bara), Sui­ci­dal Angels (clash with Orphaned Land), and Despised Icon (clash with Soulfly). We’ll need to miss either Can­dle­mass or Immor­tal, and Enstille are unfor­tu­nately play­ing the same slot as Voivod and also Evile.

How­ever, there’s noth­ing in there I need to throw myself over a cliff about. Yay! Until I see the Sum­mer Breeze run­ning order, that is…

Gojira over­laps Iron Maiden, but that doesn’t bother me… I wasn’t both­ered about see­ing Maiden any­way. Fear Factory’s slot is right where we hoped it would be – where is absolutely should be — in the mid­dle of the night! That is going to be one killer set.

Kay’s Wacken Run­ning Order of Awesomeness:

THURSDAY

   

Time

Band Stage

16:00 — 16:45

Sky­line (+guests: Doro, U.D.O. etc)

Black Stage

17:30 — 19:00

Alice Cooper

True Metal Stage

19:30 — 21:00

Möt­ley Crüe

Black Stage

23:00 — 23:45

Gojira

W.E.T. Stage

FRIDAY    

13:00 — 14:00

Orphaned Land

Black Stage

14:15 — 15:15

Il Nino

True Metal Stage

18:00 — 19:00

End­stille

Black Stage

18:00 — 19:00

Voivod

Party Stage

18:25 — 18:55

Evile

W.E.T. Stage

20:30 — 21:30

Arch Enemy

Black Stage

21:45 — 23:00

Grave Dig­ger

True Metal Stage

23:15 — 00:30

Slayer

Black Stage

SATURDAY

   

14:45 — 15:15

Cru­ci­fied Barbara

W.E.T. Stage

15:45 — 16:45

Overkill

True Metal Stage

18:15 — 19:15

W.A.S.P.

True Metal Stage

19:30 — 20:30

Can­ni­bal Corpse

Black Stage

22:00 — 23:00

Immor­tal

Black Stage

22:00 — 23:00

Can­dle­mass

Party Stage

22:45 — 23:15

Rot­ting Christ

W.E.T. Stage

23:15 — 00:15

Soulfly

True Metal Stage

00:30 — 01:30

Fear Fac­tory

Black Stage

01:45 — 03:00

U.D.O.

True Metal Stage

A Whole Lotta Beer

May 26th, 2010 by goatlady

beeeeers

Stu and some ran­doms at the Ham­burg Ball­room prior to Wacken 2008

Beer and metal go together like… err… well they go together well. A fair amount of it is con­sumed at metal fes­ti­vals, or so I’ve heard.

A lit­tle while ago some of the Metal As Fuck team got together and built One Mil­lion Beers For Metal, a blog and Flickr group to try and doc­u­ment no fewer than one mil­lion beers being drunk in the name of metal. Any­one can sub­mit pho­tos and we post ‘em up and keep a tally.

We have a long way to go – we’re not even up to 1% of the way so far — but I’m guess­ing the Blitzkrieg tour will get us well on the way. Bot­toms up!

Currency exchange rates

May 24th, 2010 by goatlady

money money money

If you graphed my gen­eral mood over time the last few weeks, no doubt the line would mir­ror a sim­i­lar graph of the cur­rency exchange rate, Aus­tralian dol­lar to Euro. Sad but true, the amount of fun we can have on Blitzkrieg Tour 2010 largely depends on how much beer our measly Aus­tralian pesos can buy.

Last week were on a high – the Euro had tanked against the Aussie dol­lar, no doubt due in part to the prob­lems with Greece’s econ­omy and the sus­pi­cions that Spain and Por­tu­gal were likely to fol­low them into bank­ruptcy. 1 Aus­tralian dol­lar was buy­ing 71 Euro cents, at its highest.

Then our idiot gov­ern­ment decided to tax the hell out of min­ing com­pa­nies and the Aussie dol­lar took a mas­sive slide to it’s low­est point in 10 months. 1 Aussie peso is now worth a measly 65 cents. Thanks guys. It might not sound like much but over the course of hun­dreds of dol­lars it really starts to add up.

Here’s hop­ing things sta­bilise a lit­tle in the next few weeks so we don’t end up bored and sober! There’s 70 days to go…

Movie night at Wacken

May 22nd, 2010 by goatlady

image 
At Wacken 2008 the movie night film was the most excel­lent doc­u­men­tary Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey

The con­cept of watch­ing metal movies on a big-arse screen, at night with a whole bunch of other met­al­heads at a fes­ti­val, sounds cool. Yet despite that fact that I’ve been to two Wack­ens, I’ve never actu­ally watched one. Why? Not sure. There always seems to be some­thing else to do at the time – drink, watch bands, drink, eat din­ner, drink.. you know. Stuff.

This year, they’re show­ing Until the Light Takes Us, the doc­u­men­tary on Nor­we­gian black metal. I’m really keen to see it, as it’s been doing the rounds of film fes­ti­vals but hasn’t yet had a DVD release (although I hear that’s com­ing, later this year). Hmm… I might have to actu­ally attempt to par­tic­i­pate in movie night this year!

Here’s the trailer: