*A quick addition to what I wrote below since I posted that on the Powerfest forum a couple weeks ago. I also know have Bronchitis with cough from hell and I'm quite injured from the Exodus gig and both Morbid Angel/Behemoth/Krisiun gigs, so I actually had to stop doing things this weekend. Which in case made me able to finally post this stuff! So sorry it took a while to put in here too.*
So, I still have yet to recover from Powerfest completely. I also have yet to get more than 2 hours of sleep a night, either. Not to mention being gone from my house about 10 hours a day because of work. That said, I think anyone can understand that my brain is fried and why it's taken a week for me to acknowledge anything that happened over there.
Since I am posting all my photos that I took, I decided I ought to get this "review" together now, with attention to details like why I was running around like a chicken with it's head cut off, what happen with the merch situation, what ACTUALLY happened to Charles from Morgana Lefay, etc.
I cannot possibly tell you every detail of what I did from Wednesday until Monday since there was so much logistical stuff going on and the fact that'd you'd be here for an hour reading it, not that most of you would take that kind of time anyway. John, Julio and I finally heard from Morgana Lefay and Nocturnal Rites that they were through customs and we could go pick them up on Wednesday afternoon. Let me just tell you - trying to shove 15 Swedes and all their gear and baggage into a cargo van, a minivan and the Durango (which I got to drive, woohoo!) is not an easy thing. Oh - and did I mention yet how completely FUCKED UP the Chicago freeway/highway toll system is?! I thought driving in California was a pain in the ass. I've decided now that Chicago is 20 times worse. Not only do they have a toll booth every 5-10 miles or so, the roads split in half so that people with a paid pass can go on the left lanes and people who don't have the paid pass have to go in the right lanes. Enter problem number 1: Guess what happens when you're following people and you all get stuck between semis before a toll booth that you don't know is coming up? You guessed it - you blow through a toll area. DOH. Like I'm supposed to be able to zoom across four lanes in a DURANGO? ARE YOU MAD??? Well, not that I DIDN'T do that a bunch of times while trying to follow the guys, but... All I know is I am SO thankful I had the Durango since it made me taller than anyone else and I could still see Julio 10 vehicles in front of me (John got behind us long before that). Then we came upon a tollbooth thing where there was maybe 5 toll lanes to pay from that ALL bottlenecked into ONE FRIGGIN' LANE after you get out from paying! WHO'S BRIGHT IDEA IS THAT?! Again, thankful for the Durango as people generally got out of the way. HA Finally arrive at the hotel, only to have the responsibility of checking in 21 different people within 10 different rooms since John and Julio had to hop back on the road immediately as Eldritch were waiting at O'Hare to be picked up. Needless to say, quite a bit of chaos ensued, but it all worked out within about half an hour. Nice to know I became the keeper of 26 international band members. HAHAHA Not sure if that was a blessing or curse though - I'll let you know later. I did feel QUITE bad for John and Julio since it took them over TWO HOURS to drive from the airport back to the hotel with Eldritch. I felt even worse for the Eldritch guys since they were up for something like 36 hours straight. While waiting for them, I dragged the Swedes over to Applebee's and then returned later with the Eldritch guys. THAT was fun.
Thursday, I took Eldritch down to the music store by JJ's so they could get some of the stuff they needed. But of course, we had to stop at Dunkin' Donuts first so the Italians could try a piece of Americana. HAHAHA Some of the Morgana Lefay guys took a limo into downtown Chicago and Nocturnal Rites were still asleep as far as I know, so I took the Eldritch guys downtown so we could all see Sears Tower. Lo and behold, who do you think we run into at Sears Tower out of a city of about nine million people? MORGANA LEFAY. HA!!! Seems great minds think alike. Took bunches of photos from there - it was QUITE a cool experience to finally go there. Unfortunately, that's the only place I was able to take the guys since it took a while to get there and I knew it would probably take a while to get back if we didn't beat rush hour. WRONG. It STILL took us over 2 hours because of the bottleneck at the tollbooths with the 5 lanes merging into 1 thing. I am SO glad we left when we did! Eventually got to meet up with John and Julio at the hotel, who had picked up Biomechanical from the airport that afternoon. After a 45 minute detour for Eldritch and myself to get to JJ's (if they'd only label the 294 NORTH closer to the ramp so I didn't have to take the ramp to realize we're going the wrong way and having to go that way for like 10 miles or something before I could turn around), I was a bit frazzled. But it was fun to hang out at JJ's again with most everyone. Had a lot of fun meeting up with a lot of my non-band buddies like Steph, Bear, Dr_Metal and whatnot. I thought it was quite cool that Biomechanical made the effort to go down there for a little while since they had not slept yet either after taking their long-ass flight. After many detours, I finally got Eldritch back to the hotel and MANY MANY thanks to Terence from Eldritch for coming back with me to JJ's to fetch the Morgana Lefay and Nocturnal Rites guys, as I am SURE I would've fallen asleep driving since I was SO tired. With Swedes in hand, I followed John back to the hotel.
Friday morning was SOOOOOOOOOOOO funny. We crammed all of Biomechanical and Eldritch into the Durango so we could go eat at the Yellow Ribbon restaurant down the road. That place absolutely ROCKS!!! Not only was the waitress as cool as possibly could be, all TWELVE of us got ALL of our food within TEN MINUTES. Oh yah - and the prices were quite good and the food was awesome! Man, I love that place. We went back a few times. But I have to say... John K from Biomechanical is about the funniest dude I've ever met. He was about the only one who could make me laugh at that point since I was quite, er, strained from all the logistics that needed to be handled, etc. I thought my ribs were going to crack from laughing so much at that guy! JUST KEEP SWIMMING! hahaha All of Biomechanical are incredibly cool guys. Eldritch - needless to say are VERY VERY cool and both bands were so genuinely happy to be there. Nocturnal Rites and Morgana Lefay were also very, very happy to be there, but I didn't get to hang out with them quite as much since we had so many things going on. I really have to give kudos to Eldritch for being so easygoing. Somehow, those two bands managed to keep me semi-sane for the rest of the weekend. Now how THAT could be, I don't know, since we are ALL a bit looney. After I got Eldritch down to Walmart and a currency place (Walmart was definitely the experience, haha), John and I got Eldritch and Biomechanical down to soundcheck.
At this point, I want to say THANK YOU VERY MUCH to all the people who were SO PATIENT while the situation with the merchandise was being sorted out!!! I apologize that I could not start selling merch right away, but I had to sort everything out so that we knew what was what and what we had so that we could actually sell it. I needed to be able to show Julio how things were sold and it was just a lot easier for me to organize it at that point. So thanks to everyone for checking back so many times until we were able to start selling things. Unfortunately, I was not able to watch or photograph any of the bands on Friday except Biomechanical and Eldritch since I was getting the merch in order, but everyone sounded WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY awesome. I got to peek out every now and then to see what the stage was looking like and it seemed like everyone was really into it. I like all the bands that played both nights and I am glad they all were able to get more exposure here. I left Julio to do the merch with Mary (thank you for helping and for the awesome massage!!!!!!!) because I HAD to cover Biomechanical and Eldritch's sets. Biomechanical - holy shit. They put on a jaw-dropping show - so damned heavy, just the way I like it! Even if Truth Denied didn't get played, hehe. The amount of talent contained in that band is crazy. I was quite excited to see how they would pull off so much technical stuff live, but pull it off they did!!! I have waited quite a while to see them (thanks to Pellaz for getting me into them in the first place!!) and it was WELL worth the wait. Eldritch - man, they played damned near all my favourite songs. I also have waited years and years and years to see these guys (jeez, about 10 years maybe?). It's nice to see a band that clicks so well on stage. They make it look quite effortless. The new stuff sounds very impressively crunchy live and was great fun singing along.
Saturday was quite a bit chaotic for me. Eldritch took a limo down to the Acoustic Set being played by Lacuna Coil in Chicago in the afternoon. I took Matt from Biomechanical down to John's house so he could get dropped off to see a relative of his and then I proceeded to go to the Lacuna Coil set myself, which was being held at a Borders Bookstore next to the Avalon. Unfortunately, by the time I got there, I found out that Lacuna Coil's tour bus had broken down and they wouldn't be able to get there until at least 530. Also unfortunately, I ended up not being able to stay for that since I needed to go pick up Matt and get back to the hotel so we could shuttle Morgana Lefay and Nocturnal Rites to soundcheck. I was really, really bummed, but what can you do. At least the Eldritch guys got to meet up with our old friends, which they said was quite nice. I do have to mention that on our way up there, Matt and I heard Whitesnake on the radio. We turned it up to like 30 on the volume and sang right along and Matt did air drums while people we were passing looked at us like we were mad. HAHAHA Shit, that was fun. Didn't realize he likes that music too. It took me quite a while to get Matt since I had to figure out the best route over there. Being that I don't have a cellphone at the moment made things quite hairy for me a lot. :/ Then Matt and I ended up in Bolingbrook I think when we were trying to get back to the venue because the semis blocked the freeway signs by the construction. So we turned around and didn't get to the hotel until 720!!! I'm lucky that John and Julio were able to get the Swedes to soundcheck and back without me. Yikes. Again, I had to get the new merch situated, so I only got to hear the opening bands again. :/ But, of I did make it out of there long enough to be able to do Nocturnal Rites and Morgana Lefay's sets. There was NO WAY I was missing those. Nocturnal Rites is another one of those bands I've been waiting forever to see. I cannot believe the stage presence they have live! They have a TON of charisma between them and it's nice to see such camaraderie. They have some of the catchiest damned songs and I am sure they will break into the American touring scene soon.
Morgana Lefay - what can I say... they are my boys. I don't work with them for my health, that's for sure! It was fun getting "shit fuck" taped onto the kick drums, HA! I brought my stencils from home and we cut those out before their set so we could do that. The band, John and I are known as the Shit Fucks, by the way. I'll explain later, if anyone wants to know why. I was really, really, REALLY curious as to what they were going to play as we've all been going back and forth for months regarding the setlist (not to mention the merch or anything else, lol). I was VERY VERY pleased with the choices, needless to say. I think anyone who saw John and I on the side of the stage for a while could tell. I let my hair do the talking! *evil grin* Unfortunately, the wireless system had a bit of an issue with Tony's guitars in the first 2-3 songs, but the guys didn't let it get them down and they just TORE through the setlist. I think my (and John's) proudest moment was hearing the crowd chant "shit fuck"... you just have no idea how proud that made us. Now - here's an explanation for what happened to Charles and why the original encores were not done. I MUST make one thing clear - NONE of the problems or goofiness on stage was due to drugs or anything else, as I saw someone else dare to even insinuate. They are generally a bunch of goofy dudes (hello, why do you think I get along with them, hehe). Charles put so much damned conviction and energy into blasting through the set at a faster pace than they normally go that he ended up with a heat stroke and was also suffering from over excursion. He got very, very sick after the regular end to the set and REALLY wanted to be able to finish, but there was no way he could physically do that. I really hope the fans out there were happy with me sending the rest of the guys out there to do a jam thing and I would've liked to see it, but I had to make sure Charles got what he needed. He was very thankful to everyone's concern, by the way. So, I just wanted to make that clear so that no rumors were flying around out there. These guys give 110% and I hope the fans can see that.
Sunday was yet another logistical challenge as all the international bands were flying out of the same airport within a 2 1/2 hour period. I will thank Kurt upside down and backwards for helping us with driving at the last minute - we could NOT have pulled that whole part off without you being there!!! Somehow, we got all 26 guys checked out, all their bags and gear loaded and everyone piled into vehicles and not one of the bands missed their flights. WHEW. It actually went a lot smoother than I thought it would. I really, really hated to say goodbye to all the bands because they are all like family, but things have to come to a close sometimes. All I can do is hope that all of the bands and the fans enjoyed themselves over this awesome weekend. I just wish sometimes that there were more people to witness it. I'm really thankful to everyone who did show up and show your support for the bands, especially for the ones who have never played here before. It's good to see that the States are starting to have more fests here to cater to different types of metal, even though I know the US will never be like Europe. But hey, it's a start, ya know?
I do want to also take time out to thank Mark and Raymond for always saving a spot for me up in the front of the stage, even when I wasn't standing there. Also to all the other people who let me in their spot for a little bit to take photos - I REALLLLLLLLLLY appreciate that. It was also great fun for me to headbang yet again with the guy in the wheelchair - I'm sorry hun, I forgot your name again! :/ A huuuuuuuuge kudos also goes out to Julio, whom without we would've NEVER gotten all the bands to the places they needed to be nor would the merch have been sold while I was covering some of the bands. He went waaaaaay beyond the "call of duty" we asked for. Chris and Rob, needless to say, did a quite awesome job getting everything together and keeping all the bands playing on time!!! I can't believe they did that. I don't know that I've EVER been to a show, let alone a fest, that has been able to do that the whole time, other than ProgPower a bit. I like it when bands can interchange smoothly. John knows how I feel from running around ragged for 5 days with no more than 1 1/2 of sleep any of the nights I was in town (Tuesday night to Monday morning), not to mention that I went straight from my flight at 630 in the morning right into having to go to work for 8 hours on no sleep either. UGH. Oh, not to mention I'm a bit sick now as well. :/ Maybe I'll recover this week, although I don't think so since I have a couple more gigs to go to. LOL
By the way, the photos I DID manage to take are all posted on my website now. Go to www.photomistress.com and you can see the links to all six galleries. The offstage and on the town galleries include people from a lot of the bands as well. The band galleries are only from the soundchecks and their sets. Hope you guys will get a laugh out of some of them. Oh - and if you want to make it easy, when you click into a gallery, you can hit the SLIDESHOW option on the top right so you can see all the photos in a bigger size without having to click on all of them. Here's a couple of Bio to start you with:
ALSO - I will have some Eldritch and Morgana Lefay merchandise available to buy through me, especially for those of you in the States. I will be posting info on that in the next week or so.
Hope you like my crazy "insider" review and photos... UNTIL NEXT YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So, I still have yet to recover from Powerfest completely. I also have yet to get more than 2 hours of sleep a night, either. Not to mention being gone from my house about 10 hours a day because of work. That said, I think anyone can understand that my brain is fried and why it's taken a week for me to acknowledge anything that happened over there.
Since I am posting all my photos that I took, I decided I ought to get this "review" together now, with attention to details like why I was running around like a chicken with it's head cut off, what happen with the merch situation, what ACTUALLY happened to Charles from Morgana Lefay, etc.I cannot possibly tell you every detail of what I did from Wednesday until Monday since there was so much logistical stuff going on and the fact that'd you'd be here for an hour reading it, not that most of you would take that kind of time anyway.
John, Julio and I finally heard from Morgana Lefay and Nocturnal Rites that they were through customs and we could go pick them up on Wednesday afternoon. Let me just tell you - trying to shove 15 Swedes and all their gear and baggage into a cargo van, a minivan and the Durango (which I got to drive, woohoo!) is not an easy thing. Oh - and did I mention yet how completely FUCKED UP the Chicago freeway/highway toll system is?! I thought driving in California was a pain in the ass. I've decided now that Chicago is 20 times worse. Not only do they have a toll booth every 5-10 miles or so, the roads split in half so that people with a paid pass can go on the left lanes and people who don't have the paid pass have to go in the right lanes. Enter problem number 1: Guess what happens when you're following people and you all get stuck between semis before a toll booth that you don't know is coming up? You guessed it - you blow through a toll area. DOH. Like I'm supposed to be able to zoom across four lanes in a DURANGO? ARE YOU MAD??? Well, not that I DIDN'T do that a bunch of times while trying to follow the guys, but... All I know is I am SO thankful I had the Durango since it made me taller than anyone else and I could still see Julio 10 vehicles in front of me (John got behind us long before that). Then we came upon a tollbooth thing where there was maybe 5 toll lanes to pay from that ALL bottlenecked into ONE FRIGGIN' LANE after you get out from paying! WHO'S BRIGHT IDEA IS THAT?! Again, thankful for the Durango as people generally got out of the way. HA Finally arrive at the hotel, only to have the responsibility of checking in 21 different people within 10 different rooms since John and Julio had to hop back on the road immediately as Eldritch were waiting at O'Hare to be picked up. Needless to say, quite a bit of chaos ensued, but it all worked out within about half an hour. Nice to know I became the keeper of 26 international band members. HAHAHA Not sure if that was a blessing or curse though - I'll let you know later. I did feel QUITE bad for John and Julio since it took them over TWO HOURS to drive from the airport back to the hotel with Eldritch. I felt even worse for the Eldritch guys since they were up for something like 36 hours straight. While waiting for them, I dragged the Swedes over to Applebee's and then returned later with the Eldritch guys. THAT was fun.Thursday, I took Eldritch down to the music store by JJ's so they could get some of the stuff they needed. But of course, we had to stop at Dunkin' Donuts first so the Italians could try a piece of Americana. HAHAHA Some of the Morgana Lefay guys took a limo into downtown Chicago and Nocturnal Rites were still asleep as far as I know, so I took the Eldritch guys downtown so we could all see Sears Tower. Lo and behold, who do you think we run into at Sears Tower out of a city of about nine million people? MORGANA LEFAY. HA!!! Seems great minds think alike.
Took bunches of photos from there - it was QUITE a cool experience to finally go there. Unfortunately, that's the only place I was able to take the guys since it took a while to get there and I knew it would probably take a while to get back if we didn't beat rush hour. WRONG. It STILL took us over 2 hours because of the bottleneck at the tollbooths with the 5 lanes merging into 1 thing. I am SO glad we left when we did! Eventually got to meet up with John and Julio at the hotel, who had picked up Biomechanical from the airport that afternoon. After a 45 minute detour for Eldritch and myself to get to JJ's (if they'd only label the 294 NORTH closer to the ramp so I didn't have to take the ramp to realize we're going the wrong way and having to go that way for like 10 miles or something before I could turn around), I was a bit frazzled. But it was fun to hang out at JJ's again with most everyone. Had a lot of fun meeting up with a lot of my non-band buddies like Steph, Bear, Dr_Metal and whatnot. I thought it was quite cool that Biomechanical made the effort to go down there for a little while since they had not slept yet either after taking their long-ass flight. After many detours, I finally got Eldritch back to the hotel and MANY MANY thanks to Terence from Eldritch for coming back with me to JJ's to fetch the Morgana Lefay and Nocturnal Rites guys, as I am SURE I would've fallen asleep driving since I was SO tired. With Swedes in hand, I followed John back to the hotel.Friday morning was SOOOOOOOOOOOO funny. We crammed all of Biomechanical and Eldritch into the Durango so we could go eat at the Yellow Ribbon restaurant down the road. That place absolutely ROCKS!!! Not only was the waitress as cool as possibly could be, all TWELVE of us got ALL of our food within TEN MINUTES. Oh yah - and the prices were quite good and the food was awesome! Man, I love that place. We went back a few times.
But I have to say... John K from Biomechanical is about the funniest dude I've ever met. He was about the only one who could make me laugh at that point since I was quite, er, strained from all the logistics that needed to be handled, etc. I thought my ribs were going to crack from laughing so much at that guy! JUST KEEP SWIMMING! hahaha All of Biomechanical are incredibly cool guys. Eldritch - needless to say are VERY VERY cool and both bands were so genuinely happy to be there. Nocturnal Rites and Morgana Lefay were also very, very happy to be there, but I didn't get to hang out with them quite as much since we had so many things going on. I really have to give kudos to Eldritch for being so easygoing. Somehow, those two bands managed to keep me semi-sane for the rest of the weekend. Now how THAT could be, I don't know, since we are ALL a bit looney. After I got Eldritch down to Walmart and a currency place (Walmart was definitely the experience, haha), John and I got Eldritch and Biomechanical down to soundcheck. At this point, I want to say THANK YOU VERY MUCH to all the people who were SO PATIENT while the situation with the merchandise was being sorted out!!! I apologize that I could not start selling merch right away, but I had to sort everything out so that we knew what was what and what we had so that we could actually sell it. I needed to be able to show Julio how things were sold and it was just a lot easier for me to organize it at that point. So thanks to everyone for checking back so many times until we were able to start selling things.
Unfortunately, I was not able to watch or photograph any of the bands on Friday except Biomechanical and Eldritch since I was getting the merch in order, but everyone sounded WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY awesome. I got to peek out every now and then to see what the stage was looking like and it seemed like everyone was really into it. I like all the bands that played both nights and I am glad they all were able to get more exposure here. I left Julio to do the merch with Mary (thank you for helping and for the awesome massage!!!!!!!) because I HAD to cover Biomechanical and Eldritch's sets. Biomechanical - holy shit. They put on a jaw-dropping show - so damned heavy, just the way I like it! Even if Truth Denied didn't get played, hehe. The amount of talent contained in that band is crazy. I was quite excited to see how they would pull off so much technical stuff live, but pull it off they did!!! I have waited quite a while to see them (thanks to Pellaz for getting me into them in the first place!!) and it was WELL worth the wait. Eldritch - man, they played damned near all my favourite songs. I also have waited years and years and years to see these guys (jeez, about 10 years maybe?). It's nice to see a band that clicks so well on stage. They make it look quite effortless. The new stuff sounds very impressively crunchy live and was great fun singing along. Saturday was quite a bit chaotic for me. Eldritch took a limo down to the Acoustic Set being played by Lacuna Coil in Chicago in the afternoon. I took Matt from Biomechanical down to John's house so he could get dropped off to see a relative of his and then I proceeded to go to the Lacuna Coil set myself, which was being held at a Borders Bookstore next to the Avalon. Unfortunately, by the time I got there, I found out that Lacuna Coil's tour bus had broken down and they wouldn't be able to get there until at least 530. Also unfortunately, I ended up not being able to stay for that since I needed to go pick up Matt and get back to the hotel so we could shuttle Morgana Lefay and Nocturnal Rites to soundcheck. I was really, really bummed, but what can you do. At least the Eldritch guys got to meet up with our old friends, which they said was quite nice. I do have to mention that on our way up there, Matt and I heard Whitesnake on the radio. We turned it up to like 30 on the volume and sang right along and Matt did air drums while people we were passing looked at us like we were mad. HAHAHA Shit, that was fun. Didn't realize he likes that music too. It took me quite a while to get Matt since I had to figure out the best route over there. Being that I don't have a cellphone at the moment made things quite hairy for me a lot. :/ Then Matt and I ended up in Bolingbrook I think when we were trying to get back to the venue because the semis blocked the freeway signs by the construction. So we turned around and didn't get to the hotel until 720!!! I'm lucky that John and Julio were able to get the Swedes to soundcheck and back without me. Yikes. Again, I had to get the new merch situated, so I only got to hear the opening bands again. :/ But, of I did make it out of there long enough to be able to do Nocturnal Rites and Morgana Lefay's sets. There was NO WAY I was missing those. Nocturnal Rites is another one of those bands I've been waiting forever to see. I cannot believe the stage presence they have live! They have a TON of charisma between them and it's nice to see such camaraderie. They have some of the catchiest damned songs and I am sure they will break into the American touring scene soon.
Morgana Lefay - what can I say... they are my boys. I don't work with them for my health, that's for sure!
It was fun getting "shit fuck" taped onto the kick drums, HA! I brought my stencils from home and we cut those out before their set so we could do that. The band, John and I are known as the Shit Fucks, by the way. I'll explain later, if anyone wants to know why. I was really, really, REALLY curious as to what they were going to play as we've all been going back and forth for months regarding the setlist (not to mention the merch or anything else, lol). I was VERY VERY pleased with the choices, needless to say. I think anyone who saw John and I on the side of the stage for a while could tell. I let my hair do the talking! *evil grin* Unfortunately, the wireless system had a bit of an issue with Tony's guitars in the first 2-3 songs, but the guys didn't let it get them down and they just TORE through the setlist. I think my (and John's) proudest moment was hearing the crowd chant "shit fuck"... you just have no idea how proud that made us. Now - here's an explanation for what happened to Charles and why the original encores were not done. I MUST make one thing clear - NONE of the problems or goofiness on stage was due to drugs or anything else, as I saw someone else dare to even insinuate. They are generally a bunch of goofy dudes (hello, why do you think I get along with them, hehe). Charles put so much damned conviction and energy into blasting through the set at a faster pace than they normally go that he ended up with a heat stroke and was also suffering from over excursion. He got very, very sick after the regular end to the set and REALLY wanted to be able to finish, but there was no way he could physically do that. I really hope the fans out there were happy with me sending the rest of the guys out there to do a jam thing and I would've liked to see it, but I had to make sure Charles got what he needed. He was very thankful to everyone's concern, by the way. So, I just wanted to make that clear so that no rumors were flying around out there. These guys give 110% and I hope the fans can see that.Sunday was yet another logistical challenge as all the international bands were flying out of the same airport within a 2 1/2 hour period. I will thank Kurt upside down and backwards for helping us with driving at the last minute - we could NOT have pulled that whole part off without you being there!!! Somehow, we got all 26 guys checked out, all their bags and gear loaded and everyone piled into vehicles and not one of the bands missed their flights. WHEW. It actually went a lot smoother than I thought it would. I really, really hated to say goodbye to all the bands because they are all like family, but things have to come to a close sometimes. All I can do is hope that all of the bands and the fans enjoyed themselves over this awesome weekend. I just wish sometimes that there were more people to witness it. I'm really thankful to everyone who did show up and show your support for the bands, especially for the ones who have never played here before. It's good to see that the States are starting to have more fests here to cater to different types of metal, even though I know the US will never be like Europe. But hey, it's a start, ya know?
I do want to also take time out to thank Mark and Raymond for always saving a spot for me up in the front of the stage, even when I wasn't standing there. Also to all the other people who let me in their spot for a little bit to take photos - I REALLLLLLLLLLY appreciate that. It was also great fun for me to headbang yet again with the guy in the wheelchair - I'm sorry hun, I forgot your name again! :/ A huuuuuuuuge kudos also goes out to Julio, whom without we would've NEVER gotten all the bands to the places they needed to be nor would the merch have been sold while I was covering some of the bands. He went waaaaaay beyond the "call of duty" we asked for. Chris and Rob, needless to say, did a quite awesome job getting everything together and keeping all the bands playing on time!!! I can't believe they did that. I don't know that I've EVER been to a show, let alone a fest, that has been able to do that the whole time, other than ProgPower a bit. I like it when bands can interchange smoothly.
John knows how I feel from running around ragged for 5 days with no more than 1 1/2 of sleep any of the nights I was in town (Tuesday night to Monday morning), not to mention that I went straight from my flight at 630 in the morning right into having to go to work for 8 hours on no sleep either. UGH. Oh, not to mention I'm a bit sick now as well. :/ Maybe I'll recover this week, although I don't think so since I have a couple more gigs to go to. LOLBy the way, the photos I DID manage to take are all posted on my website now. Go to www.photomistress.com and you can see the links to all six galleries. The offstage and on the town galleries include people from a lot of the bands as well. The band galleries are only from the soundchecks and their sets. Hope you guys will get a laugh out of some of them. Oh - and if you want to make it easy, when you click into a gallery, you can hit the SLIDESHOW option on the top right so you can see all the photos in a bigger size without having to click on all of them. Here's a couple of Bio to start you with:
ALSO - I will have some Eldritch and Morgana Lefay merchandise available to buy through me, especially for those of you in the States. I will be posting info on that in the next week or so.
Hope you like my crazy "insider" review and photos... UNTIL NEXT YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
