The Travel/Voyage Thread

[Sonnenritter]

I'll not be having too much to do aside from going to Columbus twice in September/October. Opeth and Katatonia for one date, Enslaved and Ghost the other. I did just book my cabin on 70,000 tons of metal yesterday though! That should be a hell of an experience.

 

[The Emptier]

I'll be at the columbus shows too, I think I'll pre-order my Opeth ticket this week

 

[zabu of nΩd]

My next big trip will probably be texas for rites of darkness. I wanna explore san antonio and austin thoroughly while i'm there.

Other than that i may take a few 4-day road trips in the next year or so to Charleston, NYC, Pittsburgh or wherever else i can drive to that sounds cool.

 

[MetalliFio]

My very first trip was to Spain, with my family, then I went to Greece, France, USA several times and England several times also. Cause of the lack of money, the 2 last years I did different trips to my own country, Switzerland, several times for some concerts. Except when I went to the USA, all my trips are some short ones for some concerts, in general.

My next big trip will be for Finland, for a concerts tour, in a sense I'm hoping to do several metal concerts over there, particularly one or more of my favourite band, Teräsbetoni Hopefully, that'll be for 2012 or 2013.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

I would love to visit switzerland. It seems like a beautiful place, both in the cities and the countryside. Are there any cool festivals you would recommend to a traveler, either of the musical or non-musical sort? I'd kind of like to go to a Zurifascht some year, that's all i've really read about though.

 

[MetalliFio]

That's true that my country is beautiful

About the festivals, we have a lot of them, list them would be hard, but the biggest ones, in music, are probably the 'Jazz Festival' in Montreux (not only jazz music, Deep Purple wrote 'Smoke On The Water' over there and were there several times, as some other rock bands), Paleo Festival in Nyon (between Lausanne and Geneva), Rock Oz'Arènes (in the roman ruins in Avenches, French part of the country) - this year Motorhead will be there among others -, for the metal music, I think one of the biggest festival is Metal Fest in Pratteln, near Basel. There will be a 2nd edition of another metal festival in 2012 called 'Long I rock' or something like this. Scorpions was in the 1st edition in 2010. There's also a festival in the Italian part of the country, in Locarno called 'Moon And Stars' (ZZ Top were there in 2010) and in the same city there's the Movie festival.

Except festivals, we have quite a lot of concerts, mostly in the German part for the rock, hard rock or metal music - the public in the French part isn't hard rock, as the Sideburn (a Swiss hard rock band) drummer told me once

 

[Vimana]

I agree with your sentiments, but must correct your ethnography, since the Turks aren't Arabs, they're Caucasians who speak an Indo-European language.

Nope. They speak Turkish, which is Turkic. In theory it is related to Mongolian, Japanese, and Korean.

 

[Zephyrus]

My bad.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

That's true that my country is beautiful

About the festivals, we have a lot of them, list them would be hard, but the biggest ones, in music, are probably the 'Jazz Festival' in Montreux (not only jazz music, Deep Purple wrote 'Smoke On The Water' over there and were there several times, as some other rock bands), Paleo Festival in Nyon (between Lausanne and Geneva), Rock Oz'Arènes (in the roman ruins in Avenches, French part of the country) - this year Motorhead will be there among others -, for the metal music, I think one of the biggest festival is Metal Fest in Pratteln, near Basel. There will be a 2nd edition of another metal festival in 2012 called 'Long I rock' or something like this. Scorpions was in the 1st edition in 2010. There's also a festival in the Italian part of the country, in Locarno called 'Moon And Stars' (ZZ Top were there in 2010) and in the same city there's the Movie festival.

Except festivals, we have quite a lot of concerts, mostly in the German part for the rock, hard rock or metal music - the public in the French part isn't hard rock, as the Sideburn (a Swiss hard rock band) drummer told me once

Wow that's quite a list, thanks. I'll keep those in mind for whenever i finally get over there. Moon and Stars was one other fest i'd read about, though it seems to bring pretty mainstream bands that i could easily see in the US.

When you say "the public in the French part isn't hard rock", do you mean there are not many people in the French part who listen to hard rock or heavy metal?

Also, have you ever seen Celtic Frost?

 

[damnromulans]

Grant don't hate me but I fell asleep standing up at a Celtic Frost concert once. Too stoned.

You can of course count on adventuring with krampurse and friends in Austin/San Antonio. Coughgothclubcough

 

[Zephyrus]

I saw Triptykon with V5 last October, it was Tom Warrior, and half the set was CF songs. That pretty much counts.

 

[King Richard]

To those who have traveled to and around Europe, how much money we talking here?

 

[damnromulans]

To do what? There's a huge cost difference between hotels/partying at clubs and couchsurfing/backpacking.

 

[Vimana]

Seriously. If all you do is overnight travel, eat cheap food, and walk most places, you'll be spending less doing everything in the locations than you would on getting there and leaving.

 

[arg]

i really wanna go to Moscow, Russia. no solid plans yet though.

 

[King Richard]

I decided that I'd only be willing to travel to one country at a time. There are too many things I'd want to do in a given country/area for me to spend the entirety of the vacation pretty much driving around.

The problem is I don't know where I want to start.

 

[challenge_everything]

When you say "the public in the French part isn't hard rock", do you mean there are not many people in the French part who listen to hard rock or heavy metal?

Also, have you ever seen Celtic Frost?

If it's anything like France itself, there is basically no market for metal or hard rock. Despite the number of bands coming from France, in the entire year I lived there, I don't think I heard any hard rock or metal other than at a gig or coming out of my speakers. I remember going to an Agalloch gig in Paris with like 40 people there. And that is a huge city. I'd be interested to know how many people go to Hellfest and how many are foreigners.

 

[challenge_everything]

I decided that I'd only be willing to travel to one country at a time. There are too many things I'd want to do in a given country/area for me to spend the entirety of the vacation pretty much driving around.

The problem is I don't know where I want to start.

1. Buy a Lonely Planet.
2. Driving? Who does that in Europe?
3. From almost any city in Europe, you can be in another country in 2 hours. I agree not rushing around to see too many countries, but if it's your first time, I'd be changing countries after a week or so depending on the place.
3. Forget the Lonely Planet, just go to Germany!

 

[Zephyrus]

To those who have traveled to and around Europe, how much money we talking here?

I found a $600 round trip on Alitalia to Rome last year (off-season, March) and stayed there a week at a youth hostel for something like $25 per night. I think I was super lucky on the air fare, but I can imagine doing a week in some country costing under $1000 if you're thrifty.

 

[MetalliFio]

Wow that's quite a list, thanks. I'll keep those in mind for whenever i finally get over there. Moon and Stars was one other fest i'd read about, though it seems to bring pretty mainstream bands that i could easily see in the US.

When you say "the public in the French part isn't hard rock", do you mean there are not many people in the French part who listen to hard rock or heavy metal?

Also, have you ever seen Celtic Frost?

In fact, the German part has a lot of influences from Germany, included the music, that means more hard rock or metal bands. In the French part, the most influence come from France and bring a lot of French artists. There are some people who listen hard rock or metal in the French part, but not a lot or not enough to bring success to a big band, well, it depends which band. We had a full Arena in Geneva for Deep Purple and for Kiss, with a lot of fans from France and the German part of Switzerland, of course.

We have several hard rock and metal bands in the French part, but they are more successful in the German part, as it's the case for Sideburn who are from my hometown. We also have 2 great symphonic metal bands in my hometown, Elferya and Trophallaxy, but I'm not quite sure they sing a lot over here. I discovered them while preparing my radio show and never heard of them earlier

I never saw Celtic Frost live yet.