Metalcamp 2011: “FREE HUGZ!!”

On our way to the arena for Arch Enemy, and our first real taste of the live music Metalcamp is all about, we pass the scene pictured above. What you can’t really see in this photo is that the Metalcamp tape tied around his legs is preventing him from walking, so he’s hopping along beside his friends, seemingly enjoying the gentle torture they’re putting him through. I seem to remember he was shouting something weird at passers-by at this point, or maybe just asking for cigarettes or something. I can’t remember. Anyway, we haven’t got time to hang around here pushing him over and laughing at him trying to get up. Arch Enemy are waiting.

Well, they’re not. In fact, they come on late. In fact, while their crew is still sound checking a terse Germanic voice, seemingly coming out of nowhere, impatiently says, “You don’t have time for this. You’re running late.” It could just have been a member of Metalcamp staff talking to the crew via the PA. Equally though, it could have been the voice of God. Either way, it seems to hurry them up a bit.

Filed under: Metalcamp, Angela Gossow, Arch Enemy, bondage, burned at the stake, Dio, drinking horn, free hugz, funny, growler, hopping, horns, metal, Metalcamp, skeleton

Metalcamp 2011: “FAAH… KING… HEEEAH… ELL!”

The title of this blog entry is the closest approximation I can muster of the syllables Ash silently mouths as his scrotum is immersed in the icy cold waters of the Soča for the first time. When he returns to the beach he tells me that he had thought I was exaggerating when I said that the river was only a few degrees above freezing. I wasn’t. It is.

In order to keep from dying of the cold, Ash tells me he swam to the opposite bank and nearly got swept away by the current, which suddenly gets much stronger on the far side. He also encountered what he at first thought was the legendary Beast Of The Soča, but it turned out to be just some guy who was swimming around in a hazmat suit and gas mask for reasons best known to himself. The Beast Of The Soča scenario is pretty unlikely really given that not only is there no such beast, but also no such legend.

Filed under: Metalcamp, Arch Enemy, balls, Beast Of The Soča, Brujeria, cold, Croatian Guy, funny, growler, hazmat suit, Metalcamp, river, scrotum, Soča, Soča face, the Macarena