Alright, so here's my boring-ass recounting of the events that took place in Skelators first trip overseas. For some reason, some of you seem interested.
So for those who don't know, my original plan on this trip was to fly over a week before the show and stay in England with my lady, hit up the fest in Germany, then go back to England for another two weeks. Unfortunately, the plan didn't work out and I had to change my flight, getting stuck with one of the worst itinerarys ever. Oh well, such is life sometimes.
So after a flight to Phoenix (where I was layed over for the evening), an early morning flight to Philadelphia, then after a brief layover (and a delicious burger and 3 Yuenglings) I was on my way to Frankfurt. The problem was that my flight got in at 6 am and I was going to meet the rest of Skelator (minus Samuel, one of the guitarists) at noon, which left me 6 hours (well, 4 hours once I got to our meeting place which was the cold-ass open air main trainstation) of waiting. So what do you do on a crisp, European morning when you are waiting for hours? Drink of course. So after breakfast, an Irish Coffee and half liter of beer later not to mention aimless wandering through the redlight district and a few minutes in an internet cafe, I finally located the guys which was punctuated by a high pitched "SKEELAAATOOOOOOOOR" in the middle of the crowded trainstation. Fantastic.
So the band is in Frankfurt after a good nights sleep, but I am near delusional with lack of sleep and just generally exhausted. What do we do? Go drink and eat of course! So a few brats, some beer, some walking, more beer and undoubtedly more sausage (this whole day is a blur, but there's pictures of it somewhere around here). All I really remember is there were liter steins of beer, a christmas market, us being annoying American assholes, and an assortment of alcoholic beverages.
Look, the next day was more of the same, but we replace Frankfurt with Andernach.
Finally, the day of the show arrives and due to certain events, I am fucking tired. The rest of the guys end up heading to the venue at 11 am to visit the metal market (and a very impressive one considering the size of the fest, which was a few hundred people). However, I ended up sticking around the hotel to take a nap (well, mostly nap) with Vicky who had arrived earlier. We got to the festival just after Icy Steel finished their set, and I heard that they were amazing. Fuck, wish I would have caught it. Kings Crossing (from Las Vegas) came up next, and they were alright. Pretty boring onstage and their songs lacked real substance and memorability, but that was good for us since we were on after them. There was also a bit of a scramble because Samuels multieffects peddle wasn't working so he had to find the components he needed from other people, but at the Swordbrothers festival, it isn't hard to find someone willing to lend you a hand. True metal!!
We finally got everything sorted, got beer and water for the stage and everything together. It freaked the fuck out of me too, because while we were setting up onstage people were singing the "Whoaaa" part from Coming of Chaos... these fuckers knew our songs! Finally, the intro tape came over the sound system (which I literally could barely hear... I didn't even know it was going until halfway through), which lead absolutely beautifully into The Coming of Chaos. We ripped through that as people in the crowd warmed up to us. By the next song we had most people singing along, not to mention the band was a flury of headbanging and moving around a stage that actually had some room (that was fucking weird haha).
Overall, I was incredibly impressed with our performance. It was only my 4th show with Skelator (third "real" show (not basement show) and second with people at it haha) and I thought I'd be nervous as hell, but it turned out ok. I think the stage presene was there, mistakes were minimal, overall performance was solid. The best (at least most fun for me) was during the last song when I decided to go sit on the edge of the stage next to the headbanging fans, which of course led to me jumping into the crowd and headbanging with the guys. The problem came when i realized i couldn't get back onstage and my cable was caught up on something, so i was limited to a very short distance from the stage and stuck on the floor. I was able to jump up to get my ass on the side of the stage, but then i realized I wasn't going anywhere, so i looked at the people in the crowd, shrugged and jumped back down (at which point we all were fucking laughing). But yes, i was able to make my way back up to the stage before the end of the show.
The response for us seemed to be pretty damned good. Vicky was wandering around taking pictures (again, can be seen somewhere around here) and said everyone, even people in the back were headbanging and singing along, so that is amazing to hear and I was very pleased that it went over well. Fucking strange to be the ones having people coming up and asking for pictures with us as opposed to the other way around though...
Setlist for SKELATOR was:
The Time of the Swordrulers (intro)
The Coming of Chaos
Death to the False
You've Traveled Many Miles (For a Heavy Metal Show)
The Dark Tower
The Wrath of Odin's Sons
Siege of Gondor
Give Me Metal or Give Me Death
I stuck around for most of Silver Fist (awesome fucking band!) and then went back to the hotel to hang out with Vix and sleep a bit more. From what the rest of the guys said, Warrant (the german speed metal band, not the shitty hair metal band), Zandelle and Doomsword owned and Memory Garden was boring as fuck.
The rest of the trip was mostly spent hanging out with Vicky, figuring out how to get to the airport and finding a hotel, then a long ass trip back home in time for christmas. Though the trip wasn't quite what i expected in terms of length or relaxation, it was one of the greatest experiences ever. Heavy fucking metal!
you could have spent 2 more bucks and been Damien instead of the poser you are.............. 
