The Metalbeast and I have been now to two Wacken festivals. We are of course in possession already of tickets for 2010 – but are thinking it’s time to expand the festival itinerary and take in another event while we’re in Europe.

There’s so many to choose from that it’s going to be a hard decision. Obviously stuff that is close to Wacken – both in distance and timing – is one of the key factors. We might be able to extend our trip to four weeks this time around, and whatever else happens we definitely want to spend time in Poland at the end.

Top contender for our second festival in 2010 is, at the moment, Party.San. It’s only a few hours from Wacken and is a week after. They have announced a handful of bands already and as their lineups are typically all black and death metal, it’s looking very appealing indeed. We could hire a car after Wacken, drive down there in half a day, and use the vehicle as a place to store all the crap we will have accumulated by then. We will probably have at least three other Aussies with us so hiring a van might be an economical and cool option.

Because we have mates in the UK, there’s also the possibility of Bloodstock. It’s also the week after, although it’s slightly more complicated to get there. The only thing going against it are the fact that it’s quite expensive to eat and drink there, even more so as the Aussie dollar is not as strong against the pound as it is against the euro. On the plus side, they’ve already announced Behemoth (Dave’s favourite band) and Obituary (my favourite band) for 2010. Given that both those bands are touring in 2010 it’s likely they’ll end up on other bills too, so that’s not too compelling a factor just now.

A certain person also would like us to go to Headbanger’s Open Air. It’s the week before Wacken, and also in Germany, but it’s all thrash and as such, not our cup of tea, so to speak.

Where to go, where to go? Ideas anyone?

Expanding the festival itinerary is a post from: hell bent for metal

They don’t waste any time, do they?

The first bands announced for Wacken 2010 are the mighty Immortal, and serious but out-there medieval metallers Corvus Corax.

I’m pretty impressed that announcements are being made already. Perhaps the organisers learnt their lesson from 2009, when they got hammered on their own forums and elsewhere for not releasing any information about the line up for such a long time – meaning the information when it did come couldn’t possibly live up to the hype and anticipation that surrounded it. Last year’s first band (Machine Head) wasn’t announced until mid September, before tickets even went on sale.

Whatever the reason, I’m excited as hell (don’t forget, any picture can be improved by adding Immortal to it) and will be eagerly awaiting further announcements, as always!

First bands confirmed for Wacken 2010 is a post from: hell bent for metal

So Wacken came, went and fucking destroyed.

My full festival diaries will be coming soon to Metal As Fuck, so I’ll link them here when they’re published. For now though, we just have the inevitable feeling of sadness that it’s over for another year

Sometime while we were recovering from the festival in Hamburg (festival recovery involves numerous hot showers, drinking beer that is actually cold, eating things containing vegetables and sleeping) special “X-mas package” tickets, limited to 10,000 and including a t-shirt, went on sale for Wacken 2010. A mere ten hours later, before we’d even noticed it had started, the X-mas package sold out. That’s nuts.

Fortunately the day we came back an Australian friend noticed that regular tickets were on sale so we snapped ours up. Wacken 2010 here we come!

Over for another year… is a post from: hell bent for metal

I didn’t look at the pictures but when I was telling Dave, he said was pretty sure they would be the bog standard USB drive with logo on the metal flippy bit like we are getting as promo materials a lot lately.

As it turns out, no. They are freaking BULLET-SHAPED! The news item doesn’t tell you what the capacity of the drive is but these days they’re usually at least 2GB… but who cares how big they are when they’re BULLET-SHAPED?

That’s a pretty cool USB stick is a post from: hell bent for metal

Image by skell via Flickr

When we were at Wacken ‘08, the official newspaper had an article about the festival’s plans for extra-continental domination and it quite clearly stated that Australia would be the first country outside of Germany to get it’s own Wacken-branded metal festival.

Shortly after we left, Wacken Rocks Brazil was announced, and once again us Aussies grumbled about being left out.

Now it turns out the Brazilian festival, scheduled for May, has been postponed. No doubt due to the GFC^TM*.

Bugger, eh. This kind of thing sucks for everyone. Here’s hoping things pick up.

_{*Global Financial Crisis}

No Wacken Festival for Brazil is a post from: hell bent for metal

Um, that’s us there… in the blue tent, towards the left… [photo from official WOA Gallery]

We went and picked up a new tent in the post-Christmas sales, seeing as we left our last one pitched in a field at Wacken along with a whole stack of other stuff that we figured we would no longer be needing. We picked up some valuable tent-related camping tips last year, but not being experienced campers – or in fact, campers at all — we unfortunately learned these the hard way.

1. You may think, as we initially did, that seeing as you only get a couple of hours sleep a night (if that), that a spacious and/or comfortable camping arrangement is not important. On the contrary. Because you are only getting a couple of hours sleep a night, you want those couple of hours to be as comfortable and restful as possible. If you spend your two previous hours of rest time squashed into a corner wondering what that lump is digging into your ribs, you’re going to be very cranky when you finally do get up (at least you will if you’re me), in which case you might as well not have bothered even attempting to sleep. Metal karaoke goes until 6am and by 8am it’s far too hot to stay in the tent anyway, unless you’re unconscious.
2. A two person tent is big enough for two (undersized, perhaps dwarven) persons, but not big enough for two persons plus two persons’ worth of gear. Our new tent apparently sleeps three. Looking at the additional space, I think they would have to be three VERY friendly persons, but we should be able to get me and Dave AND our packs in there a little easier.
3. You don’t want your head to be in a vulnerable position. We had a good camping spot, nice and close to the grounds and facilities, but this meant that we had more foot traffic then we would have otherwise. Stumbling drunks + metal boots + your head on the ground near the edge + tendency for dudes to unzip and relieve themselves anywhere = recipe for disaster. This year, our tent is 220cmx200cm floor area (last years’ was 140cmx200cm). While the 220cm is meant to fit the three fictional persons across, we’ll be using to let Dave stretch his legs all the way out, which will hopefully mean there’s less chance of his head getting stomped or urinated on. Which is A Good Thing.
4. On day two it rained. Which meant everything turned to mud. Mud + boots + tent = more of a problem then you would probably realise. We needed our boots in the tent while we were sleeping so they didn’t get rained on, soaked with dew or urinated in (the most likely of the three). But because they were covered in mud we had to put them in a plastic bag and try to keep them upright in the corner or else everything else in the tent got covered in mud too. It was a real pain, but anyway our new tent has a zip-up verandah (or at least you’d call it that if it wasn’t so laughably, pathetically small). Which looks like a convenient place to take your boots off before you come “inside”. FTW!

Last year’s tent cost $29.95, thank you Anaconda. This year we splashed out – with the 30% discount, it came to grand total of $38. That $8.05 had better be money well spent.

Festival camping – learning the hard way is a post from: hell bent for metal