… appy-polly-logies, as Alex would say, for the delay. This is the report from Metal Camp 2007. Subjective and biased, but the blog is personal. It always seems to be harder to write about times that are full of interesting and awesome things, than about times that are dull. With dull things, at least you know where to start, but with the awesome things you could just randomly pick anything. Decisions, decisions… Oh the horror.

What if I should try starting at the beginning? Would that be too radical?

I had to get up at 5am on the day of the departure, to pack and go to my father’s at 6. Mission accomplished, except for the slight inconvenience of a lost list of things not to forget, and a list of things that were forgotten on previous festivals. In the end it all turned out all right, more or less. You’d be surprised how many things you just think you need, but one thing is for sure, Douglas Adams was absolutely correct when he said that you should ALWAYS have a towel.

We got a free ride from Ljubljana to Tolmin, in exchange for a plate of Laško. Fair trade, we weren’t complaining and neither were the co-passengers. (:

The first task, upon arival to Tolmin (with a stop every 15 minutes, so the boys could go use the little boy’s room) was finding a camping spot that is at least somewhat shady. Waking up at 7am every morning, because of the heat, wasn’t in my interest spectrum. We found something that looked shady enough, but there were some weird branches right in the middle of it, tied together… We asked the security if we can move that away and build our tent and did so with their permission. Just as we were finishing up on the tent, a guy drops by, telling us that the area is reserved and if we could please leave. As imposing on someone else’s territory really wasn’t our plan either, we agreed and went on a quest for a new shady place… After we found it and took down our tent again, the guy came back, telling us that we’re free to stay if we wish, cause the guys whose place we stole decided they don’t wanna be there anyway. XD At least we learned how to build that bloody thing properly. (:

We spent a lot of time sitting by the Soča river, a really beautiful sight, even though the river was just… no other way to put it, bloody freezing. I swear my toes went numb after a while, but in comparison to the heat, it was a sacrifice worth making. Once you came out you didn’t feel hot anymore, which is reason enough to jump in… Not too often though. (:

Also, there was a mechanical bull on MC, amongst other silly things, such as bartenders with water guns… [x]

On Wednesday we had Korpiklaani and Doro on our To-See list. Korpiklaani were awesome, as always. There aren’t that many things or bands that can compare to the amount of energy they show on stage, or to the atmosphere they create. Something comfortable, wild and uplifting… Doro’s stage energy and audience contact was also something I wasn’t expecting. She sure knows how to move on stage, I’m not a fan, I merely like some songs, but that was a great show. Also, another thing, Die Apokalyptichen Reiter, who were lined up right before Korpiklaani, surprised me in a positive way. (:

On Thursday I didn’t have much to look forward too, again. (I’m afraid I’m going to be crucified for the previous statement.) There were Graveworm, Unleashed, Pain (I hear there were all ladies in the front (; ), Satyricon and Kreator. The only thing I really, really, really wanted to see were Kreator, which didn’t display even half of last year’s energy. But to keep things fair, it was probably the audience’s fault just as much as theirs. I missed almost everything else, I can’t remember exactly what we were doing, but we were either chatting in front of the tents, or having a beer somewhere. I did go take a vid of Pain for Ling though. I promised.

Friday was a bit more down my lane, with Eluveitie and Ensiferum. Both phenomenal, though Eluveitie had the misfortune of playing in horrid heat and Ensiferum kinda messed up their set-list… I wished for more lively songs. Lai Lai Hei was, of course, a must… And a Slovene surprise! Well, not exactly a surprise as I’ve seen them play before, but Slovene never the less, Zvier. Thumbs up, what can I say. Great music. (: I was a bit sorry to miss Obnounce, another great Slovene band, but they were playing at the same time as Motörhead.

Oh, I almost forgot this year’s disaster, Cradle of Filth. Dani supposedly went drinking with some Slovene people and got so pissed drunk that he couldn’t hold the mic or sing properly. The sound was bad throughout the week in general, and I’m guessing that didn’t help. Dani started smashing the lights and threw two ventilators at the security and the audience. The audience, of course, was rather upset. Dani supposedly got even more ticked off at the crowd showing him the finger and left. He smashed his hotel room, as I’ve heard. The show only lasted around 30 minutes. However, all this I found out after the end of the festival and there were slight variations to the story, so I apologise if I got it wrong, you are free to correct me. When it came to making a choice between seeing CoF and having a cold beer in the shade, the beer won. Sorry, Dani… One less person to embarrass yourself in front of.

Finally, the day I’ve been waiting for. Saturday, the 20th of July 2007 at 22:45 Blind Guardian were to have us recite the “The field is lost! Everything is lost!” speech and storm into… Well, Into the Storm. (Pun not intended. XD) The show was great, they played all of my favourite songs… Well, the ones I expected, anyway. Mirror Mirror, The Bard’s Song, Born in a Mourning Hall, Valhalla, Fly… And so on. (: I was right in the front, thanks to Jesus/Jure. It was definitely the best part of Metal Camp. What I waited for all week and what I’ll remember most.

For Pulkit.
(sequel to Clearing Out The Attic)
The big rolls of wheat are gone.

I am a rather silly person. I frequently get on the wrong bus out of absent-mindedness, or forget to get off at my stop. I’ve gotten used to walking home for 30 minutes by now (don’t think it’s really a 30 min walk, it’s just 30 min MY walk…). Usually it’s not a problem, it just gives me more time to think about things, but yesterday… Yesterday was quite a shock.

What got me so lost in my thoughts was a line from the Dead Poets Society by Mr. Keating… He said that language was invented to woo women. I was busy thinking up all the ways that could lead to so many different languages, but each geographically centered in one area.

One version was that different langauges corespond to different women that were wooed… Which is a little unfair cause by that logic the entire male population of China was wooing one woman.

The other version is that different languages corespond to different temperaments of women in the area… Dialects should offer enough diversity. Any other thoughts?

Today was gorgeous though. Snow in March, if only it could be winter all year long…

Today, when I randomly strolled into the living room, the TV was on. Nobody was there so I sat down and took a break from… Can’t remember what I was doing. There was a film on Pop TV, I wasn’t very interested until someone called out a name, “Mengele“. That kept my attention for the next 5 minutes, but the film wasn’t much to my liking so instead of educating myself in that way, I turned on the computer and went wiki-ing. Mengele was always a fascinating topic, unethical, immoral or downright cruel people interest me. I didn’t find out anything new… It is still hard to believe that he remained hidden for 35 years and in the end, drowned. I wish his notes and diaries were made public, I would very much like to read them.

From Mengele I clicked away to Auschwitz. This will sound cold of me, but I like the word “Birkenau” it has a pleasant sound, despite it’s association. In the Wikipedia article, there as a picture, similar to the one above, “Arbeit macht frei” above the entrance to Auschwitz I. I’ve never seen that before, it surprised me. Killing people is one thing, but those words, they were mocking the inmates. They enjoyed torturing them. I don’t know why it came as a surprise, but it did.

Migs was a big help with… pretty much everything. (Can you believe people who get along with computers don’t only live in fairy tales?) I especially like the word, brahmakamal, which was his idea, also the Sanskrit and the photo of brahmakamal (to the right) is his - I only did a little tweaking here and there.