Metal Crusade: Deutschland

After returning from Greece we had a relaxing day or two at Robert´s, and even managed to blow up a few rockets and shoot some stuff. We headed to London on the morning of the 8th and by a miracle, made it into the Golden Circle at Wembley - a cordoned off area at the front of the stadium for the first few thousand that make it there. We were literally 5 meters from the stage. For a Metallica show, that´s pretty unheard of. We watched Mastodon and Machine Head, two of the opening bands, while enjoying the 4000 strong moshpits going crazy behind us. There was a fellow we dubbed the ´wrecking ball´ as he was rather huge and round, and everything he did seemed to be in slow motion, however carried about a ton of force. He bobbed around in the moshpit and we could actually see a path in the crowd as he ran through, flattening anything that got near. HIM, the final opening band, is a sort of pop rock thing, and so pretty much got booed off stage. Being English a hail of insults came from the crowd in many different forms, and the band raced through their set without a pause and them promptly stormed off. It was amusing to watch, because the band was convinced that the crowd simply was anxious to see Metallica, but actually, we simply did not want to see them!

The intro track hit and Metallica took the stage. I was breathing fine this time, Wembley being a smoke-free arena and free of dust. The crush, however, was intense. All 6000 or so in the Golden Circle pushed forward, and being in the front 5 rows we felt it, hard. A few scuffles here and there, but eventually we found our ground and proceeded to hammer our necks and tear our throats. Metallica was in top form again, and really feeding of the 60,000 or so strong crowd. I nearly lost my fingers and got sat on by about 500 people when I grabbed for a pick thrown out by the bassist, but managed to secure it. Another totally mind-blowing night for me.

After a very good night´s sleep (in a bed this time!), we headed to Gatwick and caught our flight to Cologne. Since then we have been staying with me Dad here, and have had a look around Bonn, Cologne, Frankfurt and Düsseldorf. We looked at some museums around the area which was cool, and generally having a relaxed time. My brother was here for his last night when we arrived so he took us to Cologne and showed us the famous Kölner Dom, which was very very impressive, before we all went off to a wonderfully huge and tasty German meal - I had a Schnitzel and the boys had pork knuckle with sauerkraut.

We have also managed to make a visit to the Haribo factory, which is based here in Bonn. They have a factory outlet, a supermarket sized Gummi heaven. We bought a cardboard box of ´Bruchwaren´, which is factory rejected stuff sealed in a box to a weight of 4KG. They are very cheap and it´s a total surprise what you get, so we picked one up for the festival.

We drove up to Frankfurt and by chance there was a Nuclear Blast (best metal record label) affiliated store there, so we payed it a visit. Unfortunately for my bank account I went heavy and bought 15 DVD´s and about 30 CD´s, making the store man very happy. I think I have maxed my withdrawal limit on my debit card now.

We leave for Earthshaker festival on Wednesday, taking a train down to Nürnberg and figuring the rest out from there. We are looking forward to another festival, and are looking forward to a grass ground again! The weather here is now scorching hot again, but at least the nights will be cool.

Will try again with some pictures, they did not work in England.