Festival season is OVVVEEEEERRRRRRRRR!!!: Part One, Wacken

And by season, I mean the two festivals i went to, Wacken and Bloodstock, as I didn't have the money or lack of apathy to get my shit in gear and go to Tuska, Download (still gutted about missing Limp Bizkit), Metal Camp, or Hellfest.

If you want to know about the music or any of the boring stuff like that which also happens at metal festivals, look at Headbang, the Bloodstock review will be up shortly, and have lots of nice juicy pictures, as we got a photo pit pass :). This post however, is about the fun shit that comes from getting crunk, the main reason people come to festivals.



It was a good 2 days drive from the Northwest of England to Germany for Wacken, in Jim's fabled "Thrash Metal Bandwagon", a turquoise van that he used to use for his old band "Dead To Sin" and still has their logo and "Real Thrash Metal" written down the side in faded writing. Everyone knew the 6 of us meant business as we drove into the campsite in a beaten up Volkswagen van with this written on the side, all the wimps and posers kept their distance, even Manowar fans looked timid in the presence of the "Real Thrash Metal" Volkswagen van. However, the German security people were apparently neither wimps nor posers, as we were told several times that we had parked in the wrong place and would have to move.

Our infamous mechanic Harry "The mighty" Quinn, looks under the impressive hood of the Thrash Metal Bandwagon in a "Machine Fuckin' Head" T Shirt. You think that's coolant? Its the ubiquitous toxic waste that thrash metal bands always base their artwork on, and acts as fuel for the van.

All was however good, as soon we were set up and making friends, and by pure coincidence a friend from Manchester university arrived and set up next to us with her crew.

So pretty much the whole time there we were drinking beer non stop, hanging out and doing dumb shit, watching awesome bands, I went hardcore dancing, my new era cap managed to stay on all through Machine Head's very violent set much to my glee and surprise (although Jim did drop it in some floored ravioli, so it felt like an empty victory), and I figured out how to play my mp3 player in the van after my mix CDs failed to work in its shitty old CD player, so I still got to listen to brokeNCYDE as well as all the awesome metal I got that week!!!

I would now like to take a paragraph and apologize to the decade beginning 1980, The cities New York and L.A, Kerry King, James Hetfield, That fat singer of Testament, Gary Holt and anyone who has ever worn a denim jacket with patches; I am sorry for playing brokeNCYDE out of a van that says on the side "Real Thrash Metal". I have soiled your ancient (3 decades) tradition with this modern abortion, i have raped your beliefs and values. The only way this could have been any worse is if it had the Warriors of the World cover on the side. Sorry, i really am..........

Appology aside, the combination of brokeNCYDE and the Thrash Metal Bandwagon led to the discovery of possibly the best pickup line ever; "Do you want to listen to brokeNCYDE with me in my friend's van". I had just left a group of people and was in a happily tipsy state, and was about to go to bed when I noticed another group of friends. My unusual attire of vulgar brightly coloured hoodie and shuttershades allowed me to instantly steal centre of attention, and found myself chatting to a cute, although slightly chubby German girl. I dropped the brokeNCYDE/thrash metal bombshell, and within minutes she was polishing my quiver bone in the back of the van, if you catch my drift, all the while with the brokeNCYDE album playing on the speakers. The whole length of the hummer I couldn't help but think of how proud Se7en and Mikl would have been, if only i had this to say to them when I interviewed them. I was literally living the BC13 dream, in fact most of their lyrics spewing from the speakers I could directly relate to in the moment, and there was nothing gay about the fact that while I was getting head in Jim's van all I could think about was a group of effeminate guys with blonde highlights from New Mexico. Midway through someone shouted "Jim, ******'s doing some bird in your van!", to which the reply from Jim's tent was "he better bloody not be!"

The next day I got with another German girl with a mega rack, although unfortunately this time brokeNCYDE played no part in it :/, simply being the only guy in a square mile NOT to worship the fucking ground she walked on. Metal festivals are so full of socially retarded guys and stuck up girls who take advantage of this and get armies of minions following them everywhere, so keeping a fucking level head and just having fun works like no mans buisness.

We also made a sport of jumping off the van using an inflatable couch to catch us, ultimately resulting in it bursting, and a video of one of our number doing it naked. To put this into perspective, this is standing on top of a van in a field full of people, and taking your clothes off...there isn't many more attention gathering ways of getting naked than this, short of actually broadcasting it on TV, or doing internet porn. Weirdest was the fact that he did this with minimal sugestion, and after a moments reflection decided he would "Keep ma socks on".

Me gracefully completing a complex "face-dive" maneuver from the top of the Thrash Metal Bandwagon

Another fun event was when two German girls came around with a beer bong, and more or less raped Harry the Mechanic into swallowing beer rapidly through a tube, resulting in this video, which is probably the closest thing society will come to non nude worksafe hardcore German pornography



As you can probably tell, and I gauged from the situation, the one holding the beer bong was an extreme cock tease, while the one who gulps up the beer seemed like something of a bicycle. Here is an image of the event, and probably the most sexually charged photo on blogspot.

This image is more arousing than over half of the contents of tube8. That's me filming it on my camera by the way.

It wasn't all fun and boobs though, oh no. At one point Harry the mechanic in one of his more violent moods threw several glass bottles at various people including a member of security, resulting in a team of them (well, 2 of them) storming our camp in a quad bike, intimidating the hell out of us with their German accents, (think every second world war film ever) and demanding to see our passports. One of them almost hit me when i shouted at them to " Dude, Chill the fuck out!", which looking back was a stupid thing to do. After the initial storming they got much more friendly, and advised us that if we wanted to start shit, do it in another camp site so they couldn't trace us here. Good advice, but odd coming from a member of security.

I also met this awesome guy called Oli while pissing next to him in a bush, and ended up hanging out with him loads, listening to him talk about how much he wanted to fuck his super hot scene girlfriend back in Baden-Baden. He was a class guy, here is me holding him like the child I never had, and him appreciating the warmth and fartherlyness I offered, while drinking cheap gross German beer like a dummy/pacifyer.

I felt Billy Mays had the kind of fatherly image I should go for, as I cradle my pet scene kid.

Oli, if you read this, me and the guys wana stay in touch! Leme know if you see this and we can hang out again next Wacken!

At the end of the festival I saw this couple of metal heads having the most long goodbye ever next to the remains of our camp.

This was the best one I could get before they noticed me and I started to creep myself out

It was pretty cute to see this presumably fresh romance blossoming amidst the chaos of the last morning, I hope they're still in touch. We kind of ruined the mood slightly, just out of shot is Harry trying to jump start the Van and swearing loudly in a way that only Northern British people can. They paused their mutual affection to behold the curious and most likely alien spectacle of working class Britain jump starting a van that says "Real Thrash Metal" on the side (god, that never gets old). As they finally said goodbye she walked off and he stayed for ages, watching her go, leaning on the barrier of the light behind them. I neglected to tell him that we had been urinating on it since day one, it was obviously one of those moments you don't break for no amount of urine. Had he known, I doubt all the urine in Manchester would have stopped him from having his cool, nonchalantly-leaning-while-watching-your-girl-walk-away moment, popularized by so many romantic comedies, or Romcoms. Hygiene just isn't a priority at times like that. Seeing that made me feel so empty after my week of meaningless decadence, and i began to wish for whatever that guy...leaning on our makeshift urinal...felt right then, looking cool as she walks away, occasionally glancing back and giggleing at him. I began to miss my sort of bootycall back home, even though she has a boyfriend, and whatever twisted interpretation of romance we were scraping together. We will probably never get a moment as intense as the one I witnessed here, but maybe I could try at something,at least enough to make her miss me for a while when we go our separate ways to uni, provided her boyfriend dosn't have me lynched. At least I won't be unknowingly leaning in piss.

All in all, an awesome festival and a cracking week, even with sight fall outs, and Harry the notorious mechanic almost sexually assaulting a drunk girl and getting in a fight with her boyfriend. On the way out, the Thrash Metal Bandwagon broke down on the autobahn, resulting in us having to get out and push the fucker off the road onto the hard shoulder amidst all the traffic, who weren't exactly co-operative. All this with Sabaton still playing, taunting us with gay power metal songs about victory. Apparently the god of Thrash just weren't enough to keep the thing going, or maybe it was just getting us back for defiling it with brokeNCYDE, who knows, only Harry the Mechanic. Anyhow, a short walk for Jim to the nearest petrol station to pick up some diesel, looking like a tit in a luminous yellow coat, and we were on our merry way again.

The sign said diesel, as we waited for Jim to return, unsure we would ever see him again. It definitely felt a lot like the beginning of a new generation horror film, van of metalheads and scene kids braking down in the north of Germany after a festival, to be hacked up one by one.

After that we had an awesome barbeque at one of our number's German girlfriend's house in Hamburg, where the parents absolutely loved me, and I practiced all my German speaking skillz. My charm was so much that we got on great even though I was wearing my infamous "devourment" t-shirt.

We take over a humble suburban German household. On the back it says "She should have said yes". Plus now you know what Billy Mays looks like in a New Era cap and Devourment t-shirt.

It was a relaxing end to the week, and we got to shower each. I thought about trying it on with my friend's girlfriend's cute sister, but in the end was just too tired to bother, maybe next year.

Account of Bloodstock to follow!!!