Storms over Slavland: the official Brutal Assault review, part 3
And so we reach the fourth day of the festival, my sixth day away from home, where my steadily-declining body is getting less able to deal with the rigours of such a trip with every passing year, and there's the even more appealing prospect of an 800-mile drive across continental Europe just to get back to the ferry, with the drive home from Dover on top of that all still to come.
How much longer can I go on doing this?
SATURDAY, 12 AUGUST
THE OATH OF THE GOAT
I don't remember waking up late. I don't remember waking up particularly early either, though. What was important was that there was no rain, there hadn't been any in the night, and though it was overcast the tent was slowly drying. It wasn't completely dry, mind, because that same cabbage-white slug had once again attached itself to the door and was given a second Dave Beef treatment. It'll learn one of these days. The space blanket, half draped on the ground, proved itself to be slug-free but was read the last rites, rolled up as if being packed away for another day, and then sent packing into the nearest bin; tarpaulin to tarpaulin, foil to foil, at the coming up of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember it.
The next casualty was the tent. The space blanket had served one last purpose in shielding me from the sun while I shovelled a makeshift breakfast of instant noodles, very nasty Sainsbury's ravioli (which used to be a lot better than it is now) and tinned mandarins (which are now relegated to "in light syrup" that always ends up on the grass). The tent had no more jobs to do - it had dried completely by lunchtime, and I thought it would be a better idea to pack it away while it was dry than to risk it getting wet at some stage between now and Sunday morning. Given the dampness of the ground, it required only a minimal de-slugging, two of the four invaders losing their lives in a splattery mess in the process, and there were even a couple of grasshoppers that tried to set up home in my home away from home. Some of my two-festival-old ultra-pegs for hard ground had also sacrificed their plastic ends over these last few days, but the whole tent setup would live to fight another year if called on to do so.
I thought the testing weather had finally driven some festival-goers insane on the way in. Who was that bleating like a sheep around one of the Medovina stalls? As it turns out, it wasn't one of us - it was a goat that I thought one of the locals was keeping as a pet. No so. "He jump down from the wall, he is a crazy goat!" remarked one punter after trying to tell me where the goat had come from in Czech (and I hadn't even asked). I never saw the goat again after that one time. At least if Impaled Nazarene had been playing today, we'd know who to blame. But they weren't, and the band I was going to see first were the far less Nordic SVART CROWN, from the land of baguettes, Camembert and extreme culinary arrogance. But like Hour of Penance before them, you'd never guess their nationality to look at them or hear them. They're somewhere in the middle ground between black and death metal, think maybe Vader with a hint of extra black, slather it in garlic and slightly weird occult-esque imagery and you'd be somewhere in the right area. As it had been when I saw them at Hellfest when they were a complete unknown, I'm not sure what else I could say. And that's a problem, because the rest of the day was looking very bare; it was 2:15 at this point, and the next band I had noted as a "don't miss" would be after the sun had gone down. Even if that had been the case, though, I remember looking at the line-up for Summer Breeze and wondering how I was going to pass both the Wednesday and Thursday when only Vital Remains had jumped out the page as a band I might want to see if I wasn't too busy, over the two whole days...
In the end I thought ARTILLERY were worth a punt. Seeing in the official programme that they were Danish and billed as "speed/thrash metal", were they the non-more-old-school band I'd seen on a previous Wacken Metal Battle line-up who I'd immediately thought would be perfect for Full Moon Dog, should that ever return? As it turns out, they weren't the same band; this lot have been plugging away (on and off) for 35 years, had an album out as early as 1985 and were clearly the most 80s band of the festival, lack of spandex trousers and poodle-perms notwithstanding. Mind you, the two brothers who founded the band are now in their 50s and don't have a lot of hair left to fluff up anyway. I would say they sat in the "almost thrash" camp, more like trad metal played a bit faster than usual; either way I think the Robinson dynasty of Harrogate would approve. And if I ever think I can count myself as a mega-fan of the likes of Clutch or Old Corpse Road with the number of times I saw them live, Artillery dedicated one song to one member of the audience who'd travelled around Europe (at the very least) watching them over the years, and this was his 60th Artillery gig. That's dedication for you.
Immediately afterwards on The Unspeakable Stage were PRONG, who had amazingly sprouted two more albums since the last time I'd seen them three years ago at Wacken. A lot of people say a lot of things about "groove metal" but - let's face facts - none of us were born listening to Cannibal Corpse, Hate Forest or Merzbow (and anyone who says they were is not to be trusted under any circumstances). They're really a mixed bag; I can clearly remember being spectacularly unimpressed by Unconditional, firmly believing it to be a latter-day track from one of these albums they've churned out like Korpiklaani when at their most productive and least bothered about quality control; imagine my surprise when I found out it comes from Prove You Wrong in 1991, supposedly the highest rated of their early albums until Cleansing came along. Talking of that album, I don't think I've listened to it since 1990-something but still recognised Broken Peace, not one of the regular two "hit singles" (which we were given anyway at the end); I like surprises, so extra credit for that... which I'm tempted to take away for their bassist trying a bit too hard to order us around as if he's Philip H. Anselmo, and we all know what that means. I suppose it was good to take the second chance to see them after never having done so in better days; they were entertaining but I'd probably have given them a miss if there'd been a clash on the Metalgate Stage.
I spent a while afterwards sniffing through the merch stalls, with a lot of extra electronic koruny left on my wristband to be spent so I wouldn't mind too much if there was a small amount left unrefunded at the end. This meant looking around for an extra discarded beer mug that I could trade in for 50 koruny; it wasn't to be. And so I had to be content with a second Аркона album, От сердца к небу (a Russian-market digibook with annoyingly-compromised artwork from Kris Verwimp's original, which was at least reproduced inside) to go alongside Гой, Роде, гой!. What I'd really wanted, though, was the latest Nokturnal Mortum album, Істина - it had an eight-year gestation period caused by the upheavals in eastern Ukraine, and might be a lot harder to get hold of on our shores; it was on sale for a massive 500 koruny in presentation-standard digibook form, which I couldn't quite stretch to without a long wait in the cashless-top-up queue. Then I remembered Mercian Storm will most likely have a few copies. Anyway, this didn't quite fill the gap in the schedule. Neither Decapitated nor Tiamat have ever gone down well with me, Oathbreaker sounded interesting but one look in the programme steered me clear of them, and nothing on the Metalgate Stage looked worth my time. I had a relaxing time at the tent, fetched more water for the journey home, and stuffed a big fucking sausage in my big fucking mouth. However, this was not at the stall advertising those exact words, it was one outside by the noodle stalls so I could use cash, and very good it was too; it looked to have been made from rolled ham, like a Krakauer.
I would like to apologise at this point on behalf of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland for the poor quality of the bands we sent to Brutal Assault this year. There were some hardcore herberts called Higher Power, dreadful metalcore called While She Sleeps, even worse deathcore called Oceans Ate Alaska, and the "post hardcore" Architects who would soon waste everyone's time on The Unmentionable Stage. Electric Wizard are a plus but we can't take all the credit for them as they're half-American these days, and Carcass might be "legends" but are more likely to descend into the politicised rantings of a bitter old man. So that just leaves VALLENFYRE to save the say. Excellent! Old-school Sunlight Studios SWEDISH STYLE! death metal mixed with TRUE DOOOOOOOOOOM and, in Ryan Neal's immortal words (probably on onemetal.com), "just enough crust to keep a Cornish pasty shop from having to roll pastry for the next 50 years". I have to be the bearer of bad news. Vallenfyre have made two more albums while I wasn't looking and the crust has taken over, so much that the pastry in the Cornish pasty shop has burst out the door, engulfed the whole of Cornwall plus parts of Devon as well, and has built a crusty bridge to the Scilly Isles and put the MV Scillonian out of business. The alarm bells were ringing when I noticed a new frontman with something resembling a mohican, who made the kind of snide, sarcastic barbs I'd have expected from Carcass - including the only pot-shot at Donald Trump I heard over the entire festival (which was tiresome and tedious before he'd even taken office - change the fucking record, mate). And every time he announced something was off their new album, what inevitably followed sounded like a death metal Discharge cover, rather than what I'd come to expect on A Fragile King. It pained me further to find out, on returning home and researching who this mohawked frontman was, it's Gregor Mackintosh - he's given up the guitar outside Paradise Lost and is trying to give himself a new crust-punk image, by the looks of things. I was expecting great things from Vallenfyre. Instead they have only just avoided the wooden spoon.
I wasn't the only one annoyed, either; Vallenfyre's biggest fan appears to be a short-haired girl who was (I would assume) so drunk she could barely stand, except to flop about like a rag doll in a tornado, throw her hands around, try to start a moshpit in all the most inappropriate places and generally make such a nuisance of herself that, had she had the other set of genitals, she would have been floored with a fist to the face. Barely five minutes later I could see her being given a very stern bollocking by more than one of the punters who were unfortunate enough to be in the blast zone of her flailing limbs. The words aimed at her may have been in Czech, German, English or none of those but the Sir Alex Ferguson "hair dryer" delivery twinned with some jabbing, pointy fingers that say "if this is what you want to do, the pit is over there, now behave yourself or fuck off!" mean the same in any language. Cue staring at shoes for all of five seconds before she was at it again, cue more sharp warnings, lather, rinse, repeat. One man who I assume to be her boyfriend found it all very amusing and I'm surprised he wasn't dragged into the drama.
I consoled myself with a last-chance visit to the Temple of Lemmy, reopened after it had spent most of the Friday flooded. So the story goes, some Czech metalheads have been volunteering their weekends to help with preservation and rebuilding work "at our beloved Fortress Josefov" so that Brutal Assault can stay here for many years to come, after its nomadic existence between 1996 and 2006. This has allowed parts of the fortress to be opened up after years on end of being inaccessible, and one of these passages had been turned into an art project this year and last year (when I was at Summer Breeze instead), where the passages into the fortress wall were lit only with tea lights, and led to a chamber containing a stained-glass window of Ian Fraser Kilmister with his favourite Rickenbacker bass. It had been painstakingly crafted by local artist Matěj "Zyklord" Bašta, and this was the last chance we'd have to see it. Lemmy never came across in interviews as someone who thought we should be making all this fuss over him, but such is the huge shadow he cast over the metal world and such was the reverence he was held in, this was an inevitable result. Much the same attention, after all, has been lavished on the memory of Ronnie James Dio, and there will be many more given the same treatment as our old heroes eventually die off. Still, I'm hoping some of them can make it to 80 and beyond (Bill Wyman is the only one to break that barrier so far) so we can see if age really shall not wither them, nor the years condemn.
I refuelled with another badly-ordered coffee from the stall on the fortress walls, as the Jägermeister Stage was taken by Devin Townsend and his project at an angle I couldn't see. I didn't stay long as TSJUDER were hitting the Metalgate Stage - and if anything, they were what I'd expected when Helheim were on. Full corpse paint, minimal crowd interaction, the black metal, the whole black metal and nothing but the black metal, traditional Norwegian style. Actually, that's not quite the full story, I did notice a slight sniff of the "black n' roll" that Vreid became known for, but there was still not a stretched earlobe nor a subscription to Pitchfork to be seen, and that's how I like it. It certainly banished the sour taste the previous band had left.
But on the downside, my tolerance for standing around trying to ignore the pain in my feet was running extremely low. I was at the point where I was limping around like a crippled old grandad and rocking from one foot to the other just to try and take some weight off whichever was in the air for a few seconds. I may have resembled the drunk girl in Vallenfyre's crowd. Time is marching on - my 16th birthday is now (just) further back the past than my 60th is in the future, I am overweight, all I want is a nice cup of tea and a sit down, and maybe the Times crossword (the easy one), and none were available. The next band was going to have to be spectacular or I would bail. Fortunately, they were Finnish.
If Wintersun are the ultimate example of talent and virtuosity being used to its maximum extent, and Moonsorrow are the ultimate example of mesmerising song crafting ability being pushed to near-impossible levels, then AMORPHIS are the ultimate example of how to get a balanced blend of both worlds without ever threatening to smash the boundaries of either of them. There are no green-with-envy-inducing solos on any of their instruments, there are no twenty-plus-minute meandering epics that make me think "how did they do that?" but are still just as effective as their countrymen in delivering a life-affirming performance right at the time I most needed it. As with others before them (such as Einherjer) I was detecting something of a "greatest hits" set outside of the newer tracks that I don't generally recognise, but with a twelve-album back catalogue as strong as theirs, and carefully avoiding the excessive chin-stroking period around the turn of the century (are you listening, Opeth?) that is nothing to worry about. I may also have been misled about their most recent three albums, at least two of which have been described as a similar dip in quality as the albums that saw Pasi Koskinen's patience run out - the unrecognisable tracks (and Hopeless Days which I do know, sort of...) sounded just fine here. Feet on fire be damned, this was a class act worth standing in front of for an hour.
Amorphis could, and possibly should, have been the last band I saw. It was now gone midnight, I'd be on a long drive the next day, I really needed the rest, but Baz Jones would never have spoken to me again if I'd bailed on MAYHEM, the band who must only be spoken about in reverential tones, and where they play live it should be more like an act of worship. Maybe it wasn't so strange, then, that there was a seemingly-deadly-serious announcement over the PA demanding that we did not use our phones or cameras "so as not to compromise the atmosphere". Even though I've moaned about 21st Century audiences seemingly preferring to watch gigs through their phones rather than getting a direct view, there are two problems I have with this. Firstly, the only band I've known to make such demands was Gorgoroth, at a time when Gaahl and Infernus still had some kind of criminal charges hanging over their heads and it may have been for legal purposes. Secondly - and this is the kicker - it is not 1991, this is not a small, sweaty fleapit in the back streets of Oslo, Euronymous does not rule the stage by his mere presence, the stench of Dead's recently-exhumed clothes does not fill the air, and the local fire brigade are not dousing the smouldering ashes of a nearby wooden church. No, this is a large, international, open-air metal festival on a big stage in front of several thousand people, and between this stage and the other one of the same size there is a fucking giant TV screen relaying what the film crew are capturing with their cameras (such as a pin-sharp view of Necrobutcher scowling malevolently at someone who dared to brandish a selfie stick)... and they're worried about a few phones? The atmosphere they're aiming for, try as they might, can never be recreated. Those two of its essential participants I mentioned by name are dead, after all - and even Euronymous' well-respected replacement has left the ranks. Nevertheless, hearing the opening blast of Funeral Fog I thought I'd stick around for a bit to see what they were doing - and, not entirely surprisingly, the intention was to play De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas in its entirety. And, before I knew it, my intention to leave midway after Pagan Fears was overturned, and I stayed for the whole lot, stretched out to an hour as it was by some eerie rituals mostly performed by Attila (using an altar that the huge TV screen revealed was obviously made out of a couple of flight cases covered with a blanket). In a way I'm glad I stayed, because this might be a one-off and I'd never have forgiven myself if it was (never mind what Baz would have said). But it felt forced; De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas isn't celebrating a significant anniversary (it's 23 years old), and it may have been that Mayhem chose to play it all just to stave off the challenge of Emperor. Mayhem's reputation, ultimately, isn't so much for their musical output - the "true" line up recorded a mere two studio tracks and a live album in Leipzig - it's for the antics they were at the forefront of at the same time. And on a musical level, it's their contemporaries from Telemark who are the more deserving recipients of "legendary" status that they'd proved once again two days earlier.
There were a couple of bands left - funeral doom courtesy of Monolithe that I really couldn't take by this point, or the technical American thrash courtesy of Revocation over on the Metalgate Stage. It was the right point to end. Ideally, I'd have had Mayhem and Amorphis trading places so I could have finished on the highest of highs, but at least it was a significant band I was ending with.
I slept well that night - in the car. It hadn't rained all day, all the surviving tents were dry, but I would say I'd made the right decision earlier.
PICTURES
The crazy goat in as much detail as I could get
Svart Crown
Artillery (1)
Artillery (2)
Prong
How refreshing - some Swedes who remember how to be Swedes!
The occupational hazard of setting up camp near the main railway line through the town
And there I was thinking there was no such thing as personalised Czech numberplates...
Vallenfyre (allegedly)
Entrance to the Temple of Lemmy
A tribute to the great man with two huge warts
Tsjuder (1)
Tsjuder (2)
Amorphis (1)
Amorphis (2)
Amorphis (3)
A word to Attila, Necrobutcher, Hellhammer and your two hired hands on guitar: I may not have taken any pictures, seeing as my camera is pretty much useless in the dark without the flash (and not great with it either), but those who you attempted (unsuccessfully) to prevent from posting videos on YouTube with more modern technology than what is available to me have been an easy source of a couple of half-decent pictures based on screenshots of those videos (especially where the on-stage lightning flashed, rather than any cameras). Cheers to those sources, and don't let the kvltists grind you down.
Mayhem (1) - screenshot from Mayhem, live @ Brutal Assault 22 by izudaraga
Mayhem (2) - screenshot from Mayhem - live Brutal Assault 2017 by Let81
SETLISTS
Amorphis: Under the Red Cloud / Sacrifice / Silver Bride / Hopeless Days / Bad Blood / The Smoke / Into Hiding / My Kantele / Death of a King / House of Sleep
Mayhem: Funeral Fog / Freezing Moon / Cursed in Eternity / Pagan Fears / Life Eternal / From the Dark Past / Buried by Time and Dust / De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
SUNDAY - TUESDAY, 12-14 AUGUST
NOTHING ESCAPES ME FOREVER
The morning after the festival before started with a constant "ding, ding, ding" of bells from the direction of the fortress. "Come to the big church opposite where the beer and ice cream stalls were! Repent, ye sinners! Cleanse your soul of watching horrible Satan-worshipping bands like Emperor, Mayhem, Tsjuder, Helheim and the rest! Avoid the fiery pits of Hell, unless you're going to the Malta Doom Festival where they're headlining!" Other than the final sentence, the call fell on deaf ears, with three and a half days of metal a distinct contributor to that. I've never been treated to such a relaxing final morning before - usually at this stage I'd have a tent to take down like everyone else, but I'd dealt with that a day ago and was even more amused at those who had a train, bus or plane to catch and were hurriedly shovelling their tents haphazardly into the bag to save a few precious minutes before a no-doubt-early departure.
Then, suddenly, as I was looking through the maps trying to find somewhere to explore on the way home, there was a huge BANG! from somewhere near the hippy commune where the road meets the cycle path the campsite was based around. I suppose I can say "fortunately", it was neither the hippies experimenting with substances they had no understanding of, nor was it some idiot trying to set a gas canister on fire, and it was certainly nothing to do with the Religion Of Peace™ spreading a last-minute message of tolerance and diversity to the campers of Fortress Josefov. When I investigated, a recovery truck had been called to rescue a Renault Trafic minibus with German plates that was not going to be making the long trip home on its own power - something in the engine had exploded and the accompanying groans were the sound of wallets being emptied of plenty of both Czech koruny and euros.
The noodle and sausage stalls had mostly packed up, but one still left, near the church calling us in to the response of nobody, was a grill serving fried breakfasts, with everything decorated in a garish neon pink. I suppose nobody had the excuse of not seeing it. They were handing out some kind of rolled chocolate-filled pastries for free (because they were getting a bit stale by now) as well as a reasonably-priced pile of eggs, bacon and coffee. I would say you have no idea how much I approve of this when there's a length drive ahead of me, but of course you all do. The walk back to the car looked worrying as a long, long queue had developed at the junction for the main road. I wasn't too worried, because I had plenty of time; I'd allowed myself an extra six hours on the road, and this time I wouldn't be trying to fight my way through Prague if all went according to plan. And as it turned out, I needn't have worried, because by the time I'd joined that queue, it had vanished. I conclude that it was a queue waiting at the level crossing just up the road, and the train had passed.
The drive from Jaroměř to Hradec Králové wasn't too testing, despite having to sit for a while with the engine off in the roadworks. After all, it was still far easier than getting out of Wacken, a drive which I'm genuinely grateful I'll never be doing again. I've since found that the work to alleviate the notorious Itzehoe bottleneck - involving completing the A23 motorway with two new and massive bridges - was finished in 2016 after ten years, and that's with efficient German Arbeit und Ordnung. Wacken, of course, has doubled in capacity since 2006 and the jams in 2017 will have been much the same as they were in 2006 as everyone who isn't heading towards Denmark (which is just about everyone) still has to be funnelled the same way, towards Hamburg. Overall, I reckon less than half of us were heading west towards Prague. Hradec Králové was an excellent place for a stop at the Albert hypermarket again, so I could pick up presents for those I deem worthy of them. Some of these were delivered on the course of this review, some will still have to find their way to York at some stage.
Unlike last time, I'd had some decent sleep the night before, the Intergalactic Battlecruiser's air-con had been fixed before I left, and so I didn't need to keep flaking out for an hour or so at annoyingly regular intervals. My drive through what is still, to this day, the land of Skodas (brand new Fabias, Octavias and Superbs are everywhere) was as calm and undramatic as I could possibly have hoped for, punctuated only when I stopped at a service station on the way through Prague and found that, despite rigidly following the signs for Plzeň, I'd left the correct route and was now heading towards Brno and České Budějovice, home of a different kind of beer. Thinking about turning round at the next junction, the signs still continued to point at Plzeň and after a roundabout but otherwise painless diversion, I was back on course. All was well until the border, when the Germans sent a welcoming party with a contraflow that spilled into Czech territory. Wir bauen für Sie, Tschechien!
And in the land of Wörk, Ordnung and freely-gibbed euromonies plox if you happen to be the correct religion, all continued to be calm. Even the German rozzers left me alone, preferring instead to pick on a Polish-registered van towing a low loader, that was almost certainly heading the same way I was to pick up a stolen car on the other side of the Channel and bring it back for sale or breaking in any country where the authorities will turn a blind eye to that with a bit of the local currency waved in their direction. Contraflows were plentiful but weren't all that much of a problem, except for one that had an absurdly low 60 km/h limit all the way through it, and was the first one I'd ever seen patrolled by a speed camera which I saw at the last minute, requiring a good slam of the brakes (just to make sure). And while I'd planned most of my stops at full-blown service stations, where I finally threw in the towel for the night was at an unserviced Parkplatz near the "Höchste Brücke in Deutschland" (bet you all wanted to know that) that consists only of parking spaces and some toilet cubicles.
But this is ideal, and I'd intended it all along. When the morning came, these free-to-use cubicles are an entirely self-contained toilet, washbasin, hand dryer and bin with a floor clearly designed as a wet room. So, if you've got portable improvised shower facilities, they're excellent to get wet in - I didn't, but an endlessly-refillable bottle of water provided much the same effect. I wasn't going to go on without some kind of bodily cleaning, whatever happened. I think some truckers must have had the same idea with all the splattering I could hear from the other cubicles; either that, or the alternative doesn't bear thinking about. There was also no threat of any meddling busybodies who might say "nein, you cannot use der Trangia here, das ist verboten" which I'm always concerned might happen, not that it ever has, but I prefer it this way. Cue more noodles, more tinned fruit, and of course, more tea, plus one more of those false Beroccas to keep me alive.
An off-the-motorway Autohof was my final stop in Germany, which might have got me into trouble. All I wanted was a quick piss and despite being continuously annoyed at being charged 50 cents for the privilege, I paid anyway. An old biddy who was cleaning the men's toilets wouldn't let me in, she just barked at me to use the women's toilets instead. Some of them were clearly occupied. I wasn't going to find out the hard way whether this is acceptable in modern-day Germany or whether it would get my picture all over the pages of Jezebel where I'd no doubt be branded as a creep and a rapist. The risk is not worth it. Instead, the nearby McDonald's was given my custom... and in a bout of indecision as an indirect result of the brain-scrambling thoughts of being dragged through the mud on a feminist rant website, eventually I realised I had never once ordered a Filet-o-Fish, the least popular item on the menu. I thought I'd try one, just this once. It's something I could probably make myself with little effort, but it's not objectionable, and I might never have had it if it wasn't for a spot of toilet trouble.
Luxembourg took all of half an hour to cross in its entirety before the customary fuel stop. Seeing as the price makes little difference whether I'm at a small, local station or one on the motorway, I opted for Aire de Capellen, the last motorway stop before the Belgian border, with huge, wide lanes, automated payment systems and more LPG pumps than I can remember seeing anywhere... ever. Obviously I took the opportunity to feed myself, to the bemusement of some other transients from other parts of Europe, who had never thought of bringing their own cooking equipment. What is the strange Englischer doing, not being content with making sandwiches from whatever can be bought inside, or sticking to the McDonald's fayre I'd already had once that day already?
The day wore on, and though I was well on schedule to get to Dunkirk by midnight (or there abouts), the long drive eas catching up with me and I finally flaked out around five in the evening for a "do nothing for an hour" break which involved no tins, no Trangia, no route planning, just a futile attempt at the "power nap" that City of London types can allegedly do (and which I can't). I'd thought this was the best idea as I was heading for Brussels at rush hour, where I'd probably be stuck in a jam with nowhere to make that stop when my body was screaming for a break; best to do it now, down some coffee from the services and then head onwards when I was more alert. Departing at six, I still had six hours to make the final 140 miles of the journey to the ferry, which could be done in less than three (and in one stint if I really wanted).
So I had some time to spare, and where better to spend it outside "illegal immigrant corridor" (i.e. Boulogne to Oostende) than in Bruges. What is rapidly becoming my favourite place in Belgium was very kind to me on my second visit. This time I didn't miss the sign directing me towards some parking spaces in the city centre... and though one of the central car parks at the Vrijdagmarkt looks like it's been demolished ready for a complete rebuild, I found it easier to pull up at the side of the road where the locals had parked. Apparently it wasn't free until 8:00 but if I could risk it for the next 22 minutes without a last-minute marauding traffic warden intervening, I'd be all right. Everyone else was doing the same, none of them had parking discs and only one had a disabled badge, and presumably the last traffic warden had already gone home for a big plate of chips and a waffle or two.
You see, I had unfinished business. Keri had tipped me off last year about the famous Beer Wall, and I'd thought it was all the beers on display at Cambrinus. Not so; it's far bigger and somewhere inside the bend of the river (where Bruges looks a bit like Venice). I had a look round, and located it from the market square so I knew my bearings. Disaster! The Beer Wall was part of a bar and tourist-trap shop that closed at 7:30, and here I was barely a few minutes later, staring at a huge, wooden door that was locked. But somebody, somewhere, may have been able to read my thoughts, and from outside I could see there were people still finishing their drinks in the bar. So I waited outside the door until one of them decided to leave. The door opened, and I managed to get in - just long enough to see the Beer Wall, examine it and make a series of photos which I've stitched into a truly terrible panorama. So it was little more than a quick trip, but the final check box of Things I Had To Do from last year was, belatedly, complete.
I was a bit short of cash, having only brought 60 non-electronic euros for the entire trip, and couldn't afford another generous helping of chips and mussels as I had before. Instead I had to make do with Belgium's answer to street food - still involving a gargantuan potion of chips and mayonnaise, but with a battered turkey stick to go with it. It was filling me up even half way through - unusual for me at my current weight (which is strong and empowering and society has to change so it isn't a problem, don't you know, or does that only apply to overweight women and trans-non-binary-gender-fluid-q-star-eer-otherkin?) so I was eating slowly... I think there was just a bit too much grease in one sitting, as the bramborak in the walls of Fortress Josefov had threatened to be. Even I have limits!
I was in the clear with the parking, I'd been well fed, I'd seen the Beer Wall, Bruges had been good to me. The road was clear to Dunkirk, the wait for the ferry allowed be a but of offline time, and to pass some time a useful way, I armed myself with the duvet and airbed for the sea voyage - I didn't even bother to watch us leave the port this time. Didn't sleep much, but my luck was riding high.
It ran out at Dover. Or maybe it didn't, in one crucial way.
I've had the Intergalactic Battlecruiser ten years now, give or take a couple of months (it should be a 57-plate, technically), and in that time I'd covered just over 85,000 miles. As I've logged all the foreign excursions, I know that 23,219 of those miles have been on the ckntinent, on the wrong side of the road. Most of that has been without any kind of breakdown assistance should I run into trouble. So what would the least worst time be, for the engine warning light and the message "CHECK SYSTEM" to come on? As I started the car at Dover to get off the ferry. Maybe it could prove to be an expensive fix. But then, it could have been so much worse if the light had come on when I was leaving Dunkirk and had about 1,600 miles to cover on the continent where rescue would be hard.
So I found a layby on a dark A-road leading back into Dover just off the A2, and bunked down for the night. In the morning I read the manual and found it was likely something to do with the emissions system, and I should not accelerate hard or drive at any excessive speed otherwise there could be extensive and expensive damage. A further inconvenience was that I'd had a call from Pocock & Shaw, the agents for my flat in Cambridge, and thought it best to call into the office on the way home - and that meant taking a different route, through the dreaded Dartford Tunnel. Only at the next service station was I reminded that the Dartford crossings have both been put under the same umbrella as the central London congestion charge, and I would have to pay for the toll on the internet before making the crossing. No problems for anyone with a smartphone, very annoying for those of us still in the technological black hole of 2005. The nearest crossing was therefore, the Woolwich Ferry, which would be slower. A lot slower, as it turned out, as there was only one ferry in operation and I'd be sitting on the dockside for an hour. Sod that, I'll risk the Blackwall Tunnel. And for those not in the know, this is the single least pleasant driving experience in all of London, only alongside the similar Rotherithe Tunnel. These days it's militantly patrolled by average speed cameras, it's not clear whether the speed limit is 30 or 20, and even though it was barely possible to break the speed of a glacier inside the tunnel as there was so much traffic, I'm still getting thoroughly sick of lorries driving right up my arse trying to get me to go faster when (a) there's no room to do so and (b) there are extremely financially painful state-sanctioned reprisals for doing so. Dickheads.
Other dickheads I could mention generally drive white vans, BMWs, or Audis. These were more of a pain on the M11 between London and Cambridge, who absolutely cannot stand anyone doing under 70 mph. Which, of course, I was, as I had a sick car to nurse home. Fuck off the lot of you with your flashing lights, and I can see what you're doing with your hands in my mirrors. Fuck right off. As far as I'm concerned this is a car I paid nearly 20 grand of my money for, and I am not going to force it to break just so you can get to the nearest Little Chef two minutes earlier. And an even bigger fuck off goes to the woman in the Peugeot 208 who was flashing hard at me, I hope you're laughing on the other side of your face when your haphazardly-built French ton box goes bang at the side of the B149 in the middle of the night and you have to call the AA and give them the "but I'm a helpless woman on my own!" spiel to which they say no, you'll still be waiting for another three hours if they're not too busy, and I will have no sympathy.
At least Cambridge brought a bit of good news - I had a chance to visit Pocock & Shaw's office to find out there was no undue panic, just a small job on the windows - and I got to visit the flat and find that the front door was absolutely fine and would last until all ten doors site-wide were replaced some time in the future rather than having to shell out £1,300 for a new one that I'd been recently quoted. I then found myself backtracking a bit, to rural Essex where my brother was only too pleased to take a consignment of some fine Czech beers that I'd brought back from the land of Skodas - so they were from the Albert hypermarket so they were all from the bigger breweries, but as far as I know, none of them are available here, it's not Staropramen, Budvar or Pilsner Urquell. A litre bottle of Kofola may not bring the same view. However, the main purpose of the visit was more to spill the beans that, because I've not been in the best of mental health these past two years and a bit, I'll be making some arrangements in case... the worst should happen. I think he took it rather well under the circumstances. Plan A is, of course, that none of us have to think about the worst happening for another 30 years or so. Contrary to popular belief, I am trying to do something to see that happens.
I couldn't be persuaded to stay in Essex that night - it was better for the car and my rising blood pressure if I nursed it home in the dead of night when there was significantly less traffic on any of the roads I'd picked, but most of all the A1198 and A47 which are single-lane only but offered a better compromise than having to thread through some small villages, which I'd usually do between Nottingham and Stamford. There was no trouble for the rest of the journey, and the car made it home in one piece, without the kind of drama suffered by a German-registered Renault Trafic on the Brutal Assault campsite. I'd been thinking of that all the way home.
Since the end of the journey at 2 am on the Wednesday, the Intergalactic Battlecruiser has been booked in for an early MOT, where the emissions would be checked, thus giving us a clue as to what might have gone wrong. In the only time I have driven it since then, the engine warning light has gone off. Once again, it is magically repairing itself.
As I said to Emma Bennett and Adrien Perrie after the Cadence Noir tour that headed the same way as I've done here: if you want to get ahead, get a Honda.
PICTURES
The campsite, the morning after the night before
Light aircraft were flying around all through the festival, seeing as there's an airfield on the other side of the fortress
A proper Czech breakfast!
A crudely-stitched panorama of the Beer Wall (or at least, most of it)
My proudest moment of the trip
Belgian street food at its greasiest
Bruges after dark
FINAL (RANDOM) THOUGHTS
THE AWARDS
A year's supply of Vietnamese noodles and Radegast's most special česky pivo go to:
The noodle sellers; the fact that the cashless system actually worked, as I've heard that both Download and Hellfest have had trouble with it before; a bit of good luck with the weather on the Saturday; further good luck in Bruges; the Temple of Lemmy; anyone who actually understood my desperately bad attempts at Czech; and most of all, the people at the Brutal Assault webshop and/or PayU in Poland who responded to my distress call and actually ensured I was at the festival in the first place.
A limp, wilted salad that's sat in the sun for two days and then in the rain for another day and is infested with slugs of various colours goes to:
Paul "not Joseph" Watson and his seafaring moral busybodies; the weather on Friday; my feet; the Blackwall Tunnel; declining standards of automotive courtesy once I'd reached the UK, and the concern I had for my most prized possession; the lingering thought that this might be one of my last European festival trips, however much I may not want it to be.
And for the bands, with four top awards, because there are four bands who stuck out above all the others:
PLATINUM: when they're on this sort of form, nobody can touch Emperor. Five times out of five they've been nothing short of sensational.
GOLD: Amorphis, proof that sometimes being the jack of all trades can save the day.
SILVER: Rotting Christ, for being the band that took on the challenge of following Emperor, ran with it, and were successful.
BRONZE: Wintersun, who like Amorphis banished the memories of Hellfest's blunder at putting them on the wrong stage.
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Аркона, Crowbar and Einherjer.
SURPRISE OF THE FESTIVAL: Rotting Christ, actually - for reasons I've previously given. This time, there were no new bands that made me think "where have they been all my life?"
WOODEN SPOON: Igorrr. But it could have been a side-project from Yorkshire who need a rethink of their strategy.
Many of the "festival camp" awards can't really be awarded this time, given that I had nobody else around me who I knew (those Poles who showed me their favourite death metal bands were closest). But still...
The Melody Hensley Award for Massive Triggering Capacity: ...is going to have to come from Triggering T-shirt Watch, isn't it? I bestow this highest award on he who was wearing the Novislav Đajić t-shirt, for the extra subtlety in not being advertising an NSBM band.
The Jeff Parke Award for Most Magnificient Bit Of Kit: should never be awarded to the Intergalactic Battlecruiser, even though it's the only part of the entire experience that didn't totally work as it should. It must know this award was coming and has fixed itself. So the award is... unawarded.
The Keith Boyle Award for Excessive Alcohol Consumption and The Baz Jones Award for Lunacy When Drunk are also unawarded, as I genuinely can't remember seeing any drunken excess, whether it's from the bands or the punters.
The Andy Hudson Award for Catastrophic Hair Loss: I mean, it should be me, shouldn't it? I haven't had this little hair since 2000. But someone who's lost even more hair than last time I saw him is Tomi Joutsen, who's dramatically shortened his once-four-foot-long dreadlocks in favour of something a bit more restrained.
The Fiona Gilchrist Award for Spending Too Long Asleep: is going to stay in the cabinet, because nobody slept excessively that I could see, not even me. Even the man sleeping in his car on the queue for the ferry at Dunkirk was easily woken up.
The Johnny Tightlips Award for Least Talkative Frontman: Attila Csihar, most definitely, who never said a single word to us, most likely so as to "not spoil the atmosphere". Had that atmosphere been present, it'd have been 27 years ago and it'd have been Dead not talking to us.
The Rod Boston Award for Being In More Bands Than Is Strictly Necessary: there were none that I saw, even with all those Finns on the bill. The closest I can get to those I saw were: Francesco Paoli, who is in Fleshgod Apocalypse and is a former member of Hour of Penance, and Matthew Brunson, now playing guitar for Crowbar having previously filled in on bass for Prong. One definite candidate (and probably the best for the slot) is Jiří Valter, a.k.a. Big Boss, the frontman of Root - because he played a set with his Big Boss solo project on the Oriental Stage that I didn't see. There's nobody I saw on stage twice, though.
And finally... The Jimmy Carr award for the Most Infuriating Waste Of Oxygen This Side Of Jimmy Carr: I admit there were worse problems in Vallenfyre's set, but I suspect Drunk Rag Doll Girl will qualify for this award for those around her. I'm more tempted to nominate those who were making my life difficult on the way back from Dover.
As ever, anyone who reads this should raise a hand to say they did so. Keri already has. The rest of you, what's your excuse? Get cracking.
How much longer can I go on doing this?
SATURDAY, 12 AUGUST
THE OATH OF THE GOAT
I don't remember waking up late. I don't remember waking up particularly early either, though. What was important was that there was no rain, there hadn't been any in the night, and though it was overcast the tent was slowly drying. It wasn't completely dry, mind, because that same cabbage-white slug had once again attached itself to the door and was given a second Dave Beef treatment. It'll learn one of these days. The space blanket, half draped on the ground, proved itself to be slug-free but was read the last rites, rolled up as if being packed away for another day, and then sent packing into the nearest bin; tarpaulin to tarpaulin, foil to foil, at the coming up of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember it.
The next casualty was the tent. The space blanket had served one last purpose in shielding me from the sun while I shovelled a makeshift breakfast of instant noodles, very nasty Sainsbury's ravioli (which used to be a lot better than it is now) and tinned mandarins (which are now relegated to "in light syrup" that always ends up on the grass). The tent had no more jobs to do - it had dried completely by lunchtime, and I thought it would be a better idea to pack it away while it was dry than to risk it getting wet at some stage between now and Sunday morning. Given the dampness of the ground, it required only a minimal de-slugging, two of the four invaders losing their lives in a splattery mess in the process, and there were even a couple of grasshoppers that tried to set up home in my home away from home. Some of my two-festival-old ultra-pegs for hard ground had also sacrificed their plastic ends over these last few days, but the whole tent setup would live to fight another year if called on to do so.
I thought the testing weather had finally driven some festival-goers insane on the way in. Who was that bleating like a sheep around one of the Medovina stalls? As it turns out, it wasn't one of us - it was a goat that I thought one of the locals was keeping as a pet. No so. "He jump down from the wall, he is a crazy goat!" remarked one punter after trying to tell me where the goat had come from in Czech (and I hadn't even asked). I never saw the goat again after that one time. At least if Impaled Nazarene had been playing today, we'd know who to blame. But they weren't, and the band I was going to see first were the far less Nordic SVART CROWN, from the land of baguettes, Camembert and extreme culinary arrogance. But like Hour of Penance before them, you'd never guess their nationality to look at them or hear them. They're somewhere in the middle ground between black and death metal, think maybe Vader with a hint of extra black, slather it in garlic and slightly weird occult-esque imagery and you'd be somewhere in the right area. As it had been when I saw them at Hellfest when they were a complete unknown, I'm not sure what else I could say. And that's a problem, because the rest of the day was looking very bare; it was 2:15 at this point, and the next band I had noted as a "don't miss" would be after the sun had gone down. Even if that had been the case, though, I remember looking at the line-up for Summer Breeze and wondering how I was going to pass both the Wednesday and Thursday when only Vital Remains had jumped out the page as a band I might want to see if I wasn't too busy, over the two whole days...
In the end I thought ARTILLERY were worth a punt. Seeing in the official programme that they were Danish and billed as "speed/thrash metal", were they the non-more-old-school band I'd seen on a previous Wacken Metal Battle line-up who I'd immediately thought would be perfect for Full Moon Dog, should that ever return? As it turns out, they weren't the same band; this lot have been plugging away (on and off) for 35 years, had an album out as early as 1985 and were clearly the most 80s band of the festival, lack of spandex trousers and poodle-perms notwithstanding. Mind you, the two brothers who founded the band are now in their 50s and don't have a lot of hair left to fluff up anyway. I would say they sat in the "almost thrash" camp, more like trad metal played a bit faster than usual; either way I think the Robinson dynasty of Harrogate would approve. And if I ever think I can count myself as a mega-fan of the likes of Clutch or Old Corpse Road with the number of times I saw them live, Artillery dedicated one song to one member of the audience who'd travelled around Europe (at the very least) watching them over the years, and this was his 60th Artillery gig. That's dedication for you.
Immediately afterwards on The Unspeakable Stage were PRONG, who had amazingly sprouted two more albums since the last time I'd seen them three years ago at Wacken. A lot of people say a lot of things about "groove metal" but - let's face facts - none of us were born listening to Cannibal Corpse, Hate Forest or Merzbow (and anyone who says they were is not to be trusted under any circumstances). They're really a mixed bag; I can clearly remember being spectacularly unimpressed by Unconditional, firmly believing it to be a latter-day track from one of these albums they've churned out like Korpiklaani when at their most productive and least bothered about quality control; imagine my surprise when I found out it comes from Prove You Wrong in 1991, supposedly the highest rated of their early albums until Cleansing came along. Talking of that album, I don't think I've listened to it since 1990-something but still recognised Broken Peace, not one of the regular two "hit singles" (which we were given anyway at the end); I like surprises, so extra credit for that... which I'm tempted to take away for their bassist trying a bit too hard to order us around as if he's Philip H. Anselmo, and we all know what that means. I suppose it was good to take the second chance to see them after never having done so in better days; they were entertaining but I'd probably have given them a miss if there'd been a clash on the Metalgate Stage.
I spent a while afterwards sniffing through the merch stalls, with a lot of extra electronic koruny left on my wristband to be spent so I wouldn't mind too much if there was a small amount left unrefunded at the end. This meant looking around for an extra discarded beer mug that I could trade in for 50 koruny; it wasn't to be. And so I had to be content with a second Аркона album, От сердца к небу (a Russian-market digibook with annoyingly-compromised artwork from Kris Verwimp's original, which was at least reproduced inside) to go alongside Гой, Роде, гой!. What I'd really wanted, though, was the latest Nokturnal Mortum album, Істина - it had an eight-year gestation period caused by the upheavals in eastern Ukraine, and might be a lot harder to get hold of on our shores; it was on sale for a massive 500 koruny in presentation-standard digibook form, which I couldn't quite stretch to without a long wait in the cashless-top-up queue. Then I remembered Mercian Storm will most likely have a few copies. Anyway, this didn't quite fill the gap in the schedule. Neither Decapitated nor Tiamat have ever gone down well with me, Oathbreaker sounded interesting but one look in the programme steered me clear of them, and nothing on the Metalgate Stage looked worth my time. I had a relaxing time at the tent, fetched more water for the journey home, and stuffed a big fucking sausage in my big fucking mouth. However, this was not at the stall advertising those exact words, it was one outside by the noodle stalls so I could use cash, and very good it was too; it looked to have been made from rolled ham, like a Krakauer.
I would like to apologise at this point on behalf of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland for the poor quality of the bands we sent to Brutal Assault this year. There were some hardcore herberts called Higher Power, dreadful metalcore called While She Sleeps, even worse deathcore called Oceans Ate Alaska, and the "post hardcore" Architects who would soon waste everyone's time on The Unmentionable Stage. Electric Wizard are a plus but we can't take all the credit for them as they're half-American these days, and Carcass might be "legends" but are more likely to descend into the politicised rantings of a bitter old man. So that just leaves VALLENFYRE to save the say. Excellent! Old-school Sunlight Studios SWEDISH STYLE! death metal mixed with TRUE DOOOOOOOOOOM and, in Ryan Neal's immortal words (probably on onemetal.com), "just enough crust to keep a Cornish pasty shop from having to roll pastry for the next 50 years". I have to be the bearer of bad news. Vallenfyre have made two more albums while I wasn't looking and the crust has taken over, so much that the pastry in the Cornish pasty shop has burst out the door, engulfed the whole of Cornwall plus parts of Devon as well, and has built a crusty bridge to the Scilly Isles and put the MV Scillonian out of business. The alarm bells were ringing when I noticed a new frontman with something resembling a mohican, who made the kind of snide, sarcastic barbs I'd have expected from Carcass - including the only pot-shot at Donald Trump I heard over the entire festival (which was tiresome and tedious before he'd even taken office - change the fucking record, mate). And every time he announced something was off their new album, what inevitably followed sounded like a death metal Discharge cover, rather than what I'd come to expect on A Fragile King. It pained me further to find out, on returning home and researching who this mohawked frontman was, it's Gregor Mackintosh - he's given up the guitar outside Paradise Lost and is trying to give himself a new crust-punk image, by the looks of things. I was expecting great things from Vallenfyre. Instead they have only just avoided the wooden spoon.
I wasn't the only one annoyed, either; Vallenfyre's biggest fan appears to be a short-haired girl who was (I would assume) so drunk she could barely stand, except to flop about like a rag doll in a tornado, throw her hands around, try to start a moshpit in all the most inappropriate places and generally make such a nuisance of herself that, had she had the other set of genitals, she would have been floored with a fist to the face. Barely five minutes later I could see her being given a very stern bollocking by more than one of the punters who were unfortunate enough to be in the blast zone of her flailing limbs. The words aimed at her may have been in Czech, German, English or none of those but the Sir Alex Ferguson "hair dryer" delivery twinned with some jabbing, pointy fingers that say "if this is what you want to do, the pit is over there, now behave yourself or fuck off!" mean the same in any language. Cue staring at shoes for all of five seconds before she was at it again, cue more sharp warnings, lather, rinse, repeat. One man who I assume to be her boyfriend found it all very amusing and I'm surprised he wasn't dragged into the drama.
I consoled myself with a last-chance visit to the Temple of Lemmy, reopened after it had spent most of the Friday flooded. So the story goes, some Czech metalheads have been volunteering their weekends to help with preservation and rebuilding work "at our beloved Fortress Josefov" so that Brutal Assault can stay here for many years to come, after its nomadic existence between 1996 and 2006. This has allowed parts of the fortress to be opened up after years on end of being inaccessible, and one of these passages had been turned into an art project this year and last year (when I was at Summer Breeze instead), where the passages into the fortress wall were lit only with tea lights, and led to a chamber containing a stained-glass window of Ian Fraser Kilmister with his favourite Rickenbacker bass. It had been painstakingly crafted by local artist Matěj "Zyklord" Bašta, and this was the last chance we'd have to see it. Lemmy never came across in interviews as someone who thought we should be making all this fuss over him, but such is the huge shadow he cast over the metal world and such was the reverence he was held in, this was an inevitable result. Much the same attention, after all, has been lavished on the memory of Ronnie James Dio, and there will be many more given the same treatment as our old heroes eventually die off. Still, I'm hoping some of them can make it to 80 and beyond (Bill Wyman is the only one to break that barrier so far) so we can see if age really shall not wither them, nor the years condemn.
I refuelled with another badly-ordered coffee from the stall on the fortress walls, as the Jägermeister Stage was taken by Devin Townsend and his project at an angle I couldn't see. I didn't stay long as TSJUDER were hitting the Metalgate Stage - and if anything, they were what I'd expected when Helheim were on. Full corpse paint, minimal crowd interaction, the black metal, the whole black metal and nothing but the black metal, traditional Norwegian style. Actually, that's not quite the full story, I did notice a slight sniff of the "black n' roll" that Vreid became known for, but there was still not a stretched earlobe nor a subscription to Pitchfork to be seen, and that's how I like it. It certainly banished the sour taste the previous band had left.
But on the downside, my tolerance for standing around trying to ignore the pain in my feet was running extremely low. I was at the point where I was limping around like a crippled old grandad and rocking from one foot to the other just to try and take some weight off whichever was in the air for a few seconds. I may have resembled the drunk girl in Vallenfyre's crowd. Time is marching on - my 16th birthday is now (just) further back the past than my 60th is in the future, I am overweight, all I want is a nice cup of tea and a sit down, and maybe the Times crossword (the easy one), and none were available. The next band was going to have to be spectacular or I would bail. Fortunately, they were Finnish.
If Wintersun are the ultimate example of talent and virtuosity being used to its maximum extent, and Moonsorrow are the ultimate example of mesmerising song crafting ability being pushed to near-impossible levels, then AMORPHIS are the ultimate example of how to get a balanced blend of both worlds without ever threatening to smash the boundaries of either of them. There are no green-with-envy-inducing solos on any of their instruments, there are no twenty-plus-minute meandering epics that make me think "how did they do that?" but are still just as effective as their countrymen in delivering a life-affirming performance right at the time I most needed it. As with others before them (such as Einherjer) I was detecting something of a "greatest hits" set outside of the newer tracks that I don't generally recognise, but with a twelve-album back catalogue as strong as theirs, and carefully avoiding the excessive chin-stroking period around the turn of the century (are you listening, Opeth?) that is nothing to worry about. I may also have been misled about their most recent three albums, at least two of which have been described as a similar dip in quality as the albums that saw Pasi Koskinen's patience run out - the unrecognisable tracks (and Hopeless Days which I do know, sort of...) sounded just fine here. Feet on fire be damned, this was a class act worth standing in front of for an hour.
Amorphis could, and possibly should, have been the last band I saw. It was now gone midnight, I'd be on a long drive the next day, I really needed the rest, but Baz Jones would never have spoken to me again if I'd bailed on MAYHEM, the band who must only be spoken about in reverential tones, and where they play live it should be more like an act of worship. Maybe it wasn't so strange, then, that there was a seemingly-deadly-serious announcement over the PA demanding that we did not use our phones or cameras "so as not to compromise the atmosphere". Even though I've moaned about 21st Century audiences seemingly preferring to watch gigs through their phones rather than getting a direct view, there are two problems I have with this. Firstly, the only band I've known to make such demands was Gorgoroth, at a time when Gaahl and Infernus still had some kind of criminal charges hanging over their heads and it may have been for legal purposes. Secondly - and this is the kicker - it is not 1991, this is not a small, sweaty fleapit in the back streets of Oslo, Euronymous does not rule the stage by his mere presence, the stench of Dead's recently-exhumed clothes does not fill the air, and the local fire brigade are not dousing the smouldering ashes of a nearby wooden church. No, this is a large, international, open-air metal festival on a big stage in front of several thousand people, and between this stage and the other one of the same size there is a fucking giant TV screen relaying what the film crew are capturing with their cameras (such as a pin-sharp view of Necrobutcher scowling malevolently at someone who dared to brandish a selfie stick)... and they're worried about a few phones? The atmosphere they're aiming for, try as they might, can never be recreated. Those two of its essential participants I mentioned by name are dead, after all - and even Euronymous' well-respected replacement has left the ranks. Nevertheless, hearing the opening blast of Funeral Fog I thought I'd stick around for a bit to see what they were doing - and, not entirely surprisingly, the intention was to play De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas in its entirety. And, before I knew it, my intention to leave midway after Pagan Fears was overturned, and I stayed for the whole lot, stretched out to an hour as it was by some eerie rituals mostly performed by Attila (using an altar that the huge TV screen revealed was obviously made out of a couple of flight cases covered with a blanket). In a way I'm glad I stayed, because this might be a one-off and I'd never have forgiven myself if it was (never mind what Baz would have said). But it felt forced; De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas isn't celebrating a significant anniversary (it's 23 years old), and it may have been that Mayhem chose to play it all just to stave off the challenge of Emperor. Mayhem's reputation, ultimately, isn't so much for their musical output - the "true" line up recorded a mere two studio tracks and a live album in Leipzig - it's for the antics they were at the forefront of at the same time. And on a musical level, it's their contemporaries from Telemark who are the more deserving recipients of "legendary" status that they'd proved once again two days earlier.
There were a couple of bands left - funeral doom courtesy of Monolithe that I really couldn't take by this point, or the technical American thrash courtesy of Revocation over on the Metalgate Stage. It was the right point to end. Ideally, I'd have had Mayhem and Amorphis trading places so I could have finished on the highest of highs, but at least it was a significant band I was ending with.
I slept well that night - in the car. It hadn't rained all day, all the surviving tents were dry, but I would say I'd made the right decision earlier.
PICTURES
The crazy goat in as much detail as I could get
Svart Crown
Artillery (1)
Artillery (2)
Prong
How refreshing - some Swedes who remember how to be Swedes!
The occupational hazard of setting up camp near the main railway line through the town
And there I was thinking there was no such thing as personalised Czech numberplates...
Vallenfyre (allegedly)
Entrance to the Temple of Lemmy
A tribute to the great man with two huge warts
Tsjuder (1)
Tsjuder (2)
Amorphis (1)
Amorphis (2)
Amorphis (3)
A word to Attila, Necrobutcher, Hellhammer and your two hired hands on guitar: I may not have taken any pictures, seeing as my camera is pretty much useless in the dark without the flash (and not great with it either), but those who you attempted (unsuccessfully) to prevent from posting videos on YouTube with more modern technology than what is available to me have been an easy source of a couple of half-decent pictures based on screenshots of those videos (especially where the on-stage lightning flashed, rather than any cameras). Cheers to those sources, and don't let the kvltists grind you down.
Mayhem (1) - screenshot from Mayhem, live @ Brutal Assault 22 by izudaraga
Mayhem (2) - screenshot from Mayhem - live Brutal Assault 2017 by Let81
SETLISTS
Amorphis: Under the Red Cloud / Sacrifice / Silver Bride / Hopeless Days / Bad Blood / The Smoke / Into Hiding / My Kantele / Death of a King / House of Sleep
Mayhem: Funeral Fog / Freezing Moon / Cursed in Eternity / Pagan Fears / Life Eternal / From the Dark Past / Buried by Time and Dust / De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
SUNDAY - TUESDAY, 12-14 AUGUST
NOTHING ESCAPES ME FOREVER
The morning after the festival before started with a constant "ding, ding, ding" of bells from the direction of the fortress. "Come to the big church opposite where the beer and ice cream stalls were! Repent, ye sinners! Cleanse your soul of watching horrible Satan-worshipping bands like Emperor, Mayhem, Tsjuder, Helheim and the rest! Avoid the fiery pits of Hell, unless you're going to the Malta Doom Festival where they're headlining!" Other than the final sentence, the call fell on deaf ears, with three and a half days of metal a distinct contributor to that. I've never been treated to such a relaxing final morning before - usually at this stage I'd have a tent to take down like everyone else, but I'd dealt with that a day ago and was even more amused at those who had a train, bus or plane to catch and were hurriedly shovelling their tents haphazardly into the bag to save a few precious minutes before a no-doubt-early departure.
Then, suddenly, as I was looking through the maps trying to find somewhere to explore on the way home, there was a huge BANG! from somewhere near the hippy commune where the road meets the cycle path the campsite was based around. I suppose I can say "fortunately", it was neither the hippies experimenting with substances they had no understanding of, nor was it some idiot trying to set a gas canister on fire, and it was certainly nothing to do with the Religion Of Peace™ spreading a last-minute message of tolerance and diversity to the campers of Fortress Josefov. When I investigated, a recovery truck had been called to rescue a Renault Trafic minibus with German plates that was not going to be making the long trip home on its own power - something in the engine had exploded and the accompanying groans were the sound of wallets being emptied of plenty of both Czech koruny and euros.
The noodle and sausage stalls had mostly packed up, but one still left, near the church calling us in to the response of nobody, was a grill serving fried breakfasts, with everything decorated in a garish neon pink. I suppose nobody had the excuse of not seeing it. They were handing out some kind of rolled chocolate-filled pastries for free (because they were getting a bit stale by now) as well as a reasonably-priced pile of eggs, bacon and coffee. I would say you have no idea how much I approve of this when there's a length drive ahead of me, but of course you all do. The walk back to the car looked worrying as a long, long queue had developed at the junction for the main road. I wasn't too worried, because I had plenty of time; I'd allowed myself an extra six hours on the road, and this time I wouldn't be trying to fight my way through Prague if all went according to plan. And as it turned out, I needn't have worried, because by the time I'd joined that queue, it had vanished. I conclude that it was a queue waiting at the level crossing just up the road, and the train had passed.
The drive from Jaroměř to Hradec Králové wasn't too testing, despite having to sit for a while with the engine off in the roadworks. After all, it was still far easier than getting out of Wacken, a drive which I'm genuinely grateful I'll never be doing again. I've since found that the work to alleviate the notorious Itzehoe bottleneck - involving completing the A23 motorway with two new and massive bridges - was finished in 2016 after ten years, and that's with efficient German Arbeit und Ordnung. Wacken, of course, has doubled in capacity since 2006 and the jams in 2017 will have been much the same as they were in 2006 as everyone who isn't heading towards Denmark (which is just about everyone) still has to be funnelled the same way, towards Hamburg. Overall, I reckon less than half of us were heading west towards Prague. Hradec Králové was an excellent place for a stop at the Albert hypermarket again, so I could pick up presents for those I deem worthy of them. Some of these were delivered on the course of this review, some will still have to find their way to York at some stage.
Unlike last time, I'd had some decent sleep the night before, the Intergalactic Battlecruiser's air-con had been fixed before I left, and so I didn't need to keep flaking out for an hour or so at annoyingly regular intervals. My drive through what is still, to this day, the land of Skodas (brand new Fabias, Octavias and Superbs are everywhere) was as calm and undramatic as I could possibly have hoped for, punctuated only when I stopped at a service station on the way through Prague and found that, despite rigidly following the signs for Plzeň, I'd left the correct route and was now heading towards Brno and České Budějovice, home of a different kind of beer. Thinking about turning round at the next junction, the signs still continued to point at Plzeň and after a roundabout but otherwise painless diversion, I was back on course. All was well until the border, when the Germans sent a welcoming party with a contraflow that spilled into Czech territory. Wir bauen für Sie, Tschechien!
And in the land of Wörk, Ordnung and freely-gibbed euromonies plox if you happen to be the correct religion, all continued to be calm. Even the German rozzers left me alone, preferring instead to pick on a Polish-registered van towing a low loader, that was almost certainly heading the same way I was to pick up a stolen car on the other side of the Channel and bring it back for sale or breaking in any country where the authorities will turn a blind eye to that with a bit of the local currency waved in their direction. Contraflows were plentiful but weren't all that much of a problem, except for one that had an absurdly low 60 km/h limit all the way through it, and was the first one I'd ever seen patrolled by a speed camera which I saw at the last minute, requiring a good slam of the brakes (just to make sure). And while I'd planned most of my stops at full-blown service stations, where I finally threw in the towel for the night was at an unserviced Parkplatz near the "Höchste Brücke in Deutschland" (bet you all wanted to know that) that consists only of parking spaces and some toilet cubicles.
But this is ideal, and I'd intended it all along. When the morning came, these free-to-use cubicles are an entirely self-contained toilet, washbasin, hand dryer and bin with a floor clearly designed as a wet room. So, if you've got portable improvised shower facilities, they're excellent to get wet in - I didn't, but an endlessly-refillable bottle of water provided much the same effect. I wasn't going to go on without some kind of bodily cleaning, whatever happened. I think some truckers must have had the same idea with all the splattering I could hear from the other cubicles; either that, or the alternative doesn't bear thinking about. There was also no threat of any meddling busybodies who might say "nein, you cannot use der Trangia here, das ist verboten" which I'm always concerned might happen, not that it ever has, but I prefer it this way. Cue more noodles, more tinned fruit, and of course, more tea, plus one more of those false Beroccas to keep me alive.
An off-the-motorway Autohof was my final stop in Germany, which might have got me into trouble. All I wanted was a quick piss and despite being continuously annoyed at being charged 50 cents for the privilege, I paid anyway. An old biddy who was cleaning the men's toilets wouldn't let me in, she just barked at me to use the women's toilets instead. Some of them were clearly occupied. I wasn't going to find out the hard way whether this is acceptable in modern-day Germany or whether it would get my picture all over the pages of Jezebel where I'd no doubt be branded as a creep and a rapist. The risk is not worth it. Instead, the nearby McDonald's was given my custom... and in a bout of indecision as an indirect result of the brain-scrambling thoughts of being dragged through the mud on a feminist rant website, eventually I realised I had never once ordered a Filet-o-Fish, the least popular item on the menu. I thought I'd try one, just this once. It's something I could probably make myself with little effort, but it's not objectionable, and I might never have had it if it wasn't for a spot of toilet trouble.
Luxembourg took all of half an hour to cross in its entirety before the customary fuel stop. Seeing as the price makes little difference whether I'm at a small, local station or one on the motorway, I opted for Aire de Capellen, the last motorway stop before the Belgian border, with huge, wide lanes, automated payment systems and more LPG pumps than I can remember seeing anywhere... ever. Obviously I took the opportunity to feed myself, to the bemusement of some other transients from other parts of Europe, who had never thought of bringing their own cooking equipment. What is the strange Englischer doing, not being content with making sandwiches from whatever can be bought inside, or sticking to the McDonald's fayre I'd already had once that day already?
The day wore on, and though I was well on schedule to get to Dunkirk by midnight (or there abouts), the long drive eas catching up with me and I finally flaked out around five in the evening for a "do nothing for an hour" break which involved no tins, no Trangia, no route planning, just a futile attempt at the "power nap" that City of London types can allegedly do (and which I can't). I'd thought this was the best idea as I was heading for Brussels at rush hour, where I'd probably be stuck in a jam with nowhere to make that stop when my body was screaming for a break; best to do it now, down some coffee from the services and then head onwards when I was more alert. Departing at six, I still had six hours to make the final 140 miles of the journey to the ferry, which could be done in less than three (and in one stint if I really wanted).
So I had some time to spare, and where better to spend it outside "illegal immigrant corridor" (i.e. Boulogne to Oostende) than in Bruges. What is rapidly becoming my favourite place in Belgium was very kind to me on my second visit. This time I didn't miss the sign directing me towards some parking spaces in the city centre... and though one of the central car parks at the Vrijdagmarkt looks like it's been demolished ready for a complete rebuild, I found it easier to pull up at the side of the road where the locals had parked. Apparently it wasn't free until 8:00 but if I could risk it for the next 22 minutes without a last-minute marauding traffic warden intervening, I'd be all right. Everyone else was doing the same, none of them had parking discs and only one had a disabled badge, and presumably the last traffic warden had already gone home for a big plate of chips and a waffle or two.
You see, I had unfinished business. Keri had tipped me off last year about the famous Beer Wall, and I'd thought it was all the beers on display at Cambrinus. Not so; it's far bigger and somewhere inside the bend of the river (where Bruges looks a bit like Venice). I had a look round, and located it from the market square so I knew my bearings. Disaster! The Beer Wall was part of a bar and tourist-trap shop that closed at 7:30, and here I was barely a few minutes later, staring at a huge, wooden door that was locked. But somebody, somewhere, may have been able to read my thoughts, and from outside I could see there were people still finishing their drinks in the bar. So I waited outside the door until one of them decided to leave. The door opened, and I managed to get in - just long enough to see the Beer Wall, examine it and make a series of photos which I've stitched into a truly terrible panorama. So it was little more than a quick trip, but the final check box of Things I Had To Do from last year was, belatedly, complete.
I was a bit short of cash, having only brought 60 non-electronic euros for the entire trip, and couldn't afford another generous helping of chips and mussels as I had before. Instead I had to make do with Belgium's answer to street food - still involving a gargantuan potion of chips and mayonnaise, but with a battered turkey stick to go with it. It was filling me up even half way through - unusual for me at my current weight (which is strong and empowering and society has to change so it isn't a problem, don't you know, or does that only apply to overweight women and trans-non-binary-gender-fluid-q-star-eer-otherkin?) so I was eating slowly... I think there was just a bit too much grease in one sitting, as the bramborak in the walls of Fortress Josefov had threatened to be. Even I have limits!
I was in the clear with the parking, I'd been well fed, I'd seen the Beer Wall, Bruges had been good to me. The road was clear to Dunkirk, the wait for the ferry allowed be a but of offline time, and to pass some time a useful way, I armed myself with the duvet and airbed for the sea voyage - I didn't even bother to watch us leave the port this time. Didn't sleep much, but my luck was riding high.
It ran out at Dover. Or maybe it didn't, in one crucial way.
I've had the Intergalactic Battlecruiser ten years now, give or take a couple of months (it should be a 57-plate, technically), and in that time I'd covered just over 85,000 miles. As I've logged all the foreign excursions, I know that 23,219 of those miles have been on the ckntinent, on the wrong side of the road. Most of that has been without any kind of breakdown assistance should I run into trouble. So what would the least worst time be, for the engine warning light and the message "CHECK SYSTEM" to come on? As I started the car at Dover to get off the ferry. Maybe it could prove to be an expensive fix. But then, it could have been so much worse if the light had come on when I was leaving Dunkirk and had about 1,600 miles to cover on the continent where rescue would be hard.
So I found a layby on a dark A-road leading back into Dover just off the A2, and bunked down for the night. In the morning I read the manual and found it was likely something to do with the emissions system, and I should not accelerate hard or drive at any excessive speed otherwise there could be extensive and expensive damage. A further inconvenience was that I'd had a call from Pocock & Shaw, the agents for my flat in Cambridge, and thought it best to call into the office on the way home - and that meant taking a different route, through the dreaded Dartford Tunnel. Only at the next service station was I reminded that the Dartford crossings have both been put under the same umbrella as the central London congestion charge, and I would have to pay for the toll on the internet before making the crossing. No problems for anyone with a smartphone, very annoying for those of us still in the technological black hole of 2005. The nearest crossing was therefore, the Woolwich Ferry, which would be slower. A lot slower, as it turned out, as there was only one ferry in operation and I'd be sitting on the dockside for an hour. Sod that, I'll risk the Blackwall Tunnel. And for those not in the know, this is the single least pleasant driving experience in all of London, only alongside the similar Rotherithe Tunnel. These days it's militantly patrolled by average speed cameras, it's not clear whether the speed limit is 30 or 20, and even though it was barely possible to break the speed of a glacier inside the tunnel as there was so much traffic, I'm still getting thoroughly sick of lorries driving right up my arse trying to get me to go faster when (a) there's no room to do so and (b) there are extremely financially painful state-sanctioned reprisals for doing so. Dickheads.
Other dickheads I could mention generally drive white vans, BMWs, or Audis. These were more of a pain on the M11 between London and Cambridge, who absolutely cannot stand anyone doing under 70 mph. Which, of course, I was, as I had a sick car to nurse home. Fuck off the lot of you with your flashing lights, and I can see what you're doing with your hands in my mirrors. Fuck right off. As far as I'm concerned this is a car I paid nearly 20 grand of my money for, and I am not going to force it to break just so you can get to the nearest Little Chef two minutes earlier. And an even bigger fuck off goes to the woman in the Peugeot 208 who was flashing hard at me, I hope you're laughing on the other side of your face when your haphazardly-built French ton box goes bang at the side of the B149 in the middle of the night and you have to call the AA and give them the "but I'm a helpless woman on my own!" spiel to which they say no, you'll still be waiting for another three hours if they're not too busy, and I will have no sympathy.
At least Cambridge brought a bit of good news - I had a chance to visit Pocock & Shaw's office to find out there was no undue panic, just a small job on the windows - and I got to visit the flat and find that the front door was absolutely fine and would last until all ten doors site-wide were replaced some time in the future rather than having to shell out £1,300 for a new one that I'd been recently quoted. I then found myself backtracking a bit, to rural Essex where my brother was only too pleased to take a consignment of some fine Czech beers that I'd brought back from the land of Skodas - so they were from the Albert hypermarket so they were all from the bigger breweries, but as far as I know, none of them are available here, it's not Staropramen, Budvar or Pilsner Urquell. A litre bottle of Kofola may not bring the same view. However, the main purpose of the visit was more to spill the beans that, because I've not been in the best of mental health these past two years and a bit, I'll be making some arrangements in case... the worst should happen. I think he took it rather well under the circumstances. Plan A is, of course, that none of us have to think about the worst happening for another 30 years or so. Contrary to popular belief, I am trying to do something to see that happens.
I couldn't be persuaded to stay in Essex that night - it was better for the car and my rising blood pressure if I nursed it home in the dead of night when there was significantly less traffic on any of the roads I'd picked, but most of all the A1198 and A47 which are single-lane only but offered a better compromise than having to thread through some small villages, which I'd usually do between Nottingham and Stamford. There was no trouble for the rest of the journey, and the car made it home in one piece, without the kind of drama suffered by a German-registered Renault Trafic on the Brutal Assault campsite. I'd been thinking of that all the way home.
Since the end of the journey at 2 am on the Wednesday, the Intergalactic Battlecruiser has been booked in for an early MOT, where the emissions would be checked, thus giving us a clue as to what might have gone wrong. In the only time I have driven it since then, the engine warning light has gone off. Once again, it is magically repairing itself.
As I said to Emma Bennett and Adrien Perrie after the Cadence Noir tour that headed the same way as I've done here: if you want to get ahead, get a Honda.
PICTURES
The campsite, the morning after the night before
Light aircraft were flying around all through the festival, seeing as there's an airfield on the other side of the fortress
A proper Czech breakfast!
A crudely-stitched panorama of the Beer Wall (or at least, most of it)
My proudest moment of the trip
Belgian street food at its greasiest
Bruges after dark
FINAL (RANDOM) THOUGHTS
- First of all, even though I enjoyed myself again, I really wonder how long I can keep on doing this for. Yes, I know, all around me I could see people who were in their 40s and 50s (or more...?), and there were at least three now-familiar amputees limping around with their artificial limbs on prominent display (and Jeff Becerra in his wheelchair) to remind us that there are some who have it a lot harder (two with a below-the-knee scratch, and one with the Zanardi treatment). But despite seeing them, when the pain in my feet has racked up to the point where I can barely stand on day three, and where I'm getting a lot less tolerant on being ridiculously hot and/or wet despite being far more prepared for this than I ever was in my younger days, I have to question if four days is too much to handle - and at the end of a thousand-plus mile drive at that. Many of what I used to know as three-day festivals have now grown to four, and four days may become five in the future. I do not have my camper van, and I think it is unlikely I ever will now; one day I will decide that I will stick with Bloodstock (which is still three days), and then some time after that I will stop altogether. I just can't say when that will be. But it will certainly be after 2019 when Emperor play IX Equilibrium in full. Because they will, if they know what's good for them!
- The final haul from Triggering T-Shirt Watch included Grand Belial's Key (I think there were two of them, because I doubt it was the same man wearing it on Wednesday and Saturday), M8Л8TX, Nokturnal Mortum from the old and very dodgy demo days, and Hate Forest - and that's not counting the hordes and hordes of Burzum regalia which pretty much blend into the background. The one involving Novislav Đajić was a spectacular bonus, as was a Triggering Hoodie with half a black sun and half a kolovrat on the back.
- Commie Car Watch is also something I like to do in the Eastern lands; remember, back in the bad old days of the hammer and sickle, those lucky enough to be able to buy the old nails that we laughed at in the West (with some justification) had to queue for years, lavished attention on their motors, and kept them for an unusually long time. It's mostly pensioners who'd been through that experience at the time who are keeping this Marxist chod on the roads of Eastern Europe at any cost even after 26 years of freedom. The final haul was: five rear-engined Skodas, two Ladas (one Riva on its last legs, and one original round-headlights version), a Wartburg 353 estate (really wasn't expecting that), and - most bizarrely of all - a Velorex! ("It looks like somebody's crashed a motorcycle into the back of a cow" - Sir J. Clarkson, 2008) I had no idea there were any of them left but there it was, buzzing down the cobbled fortress streets, throwing out clouds of blue smoke. The Skoda Favorit, incidentally, is not on this list - designed and built in communist Czechoslovakia it may have been, but it lasted until 1995 and there are so many of them left that it would wreck the charts to have included it.
THE AWARDS
A year's supply of Vietnamese noodles and Radegast's most special česky pivo go to:
The noodle sellers; the fact that the cashless system actually worked, as I've heard that both Download and Hellfest have had trouble with it before; a bit of good luck with the weather on the Saturday; further good luck in Bruges; the Temple of Lemmy; anyone who actually understood my desperately bad attempts at Czech; and most of all, the people at the Brutal Assault webshop and/or PayU in Poland who responded to my distress call and actually ensured I was at the festival in the first place.
A limp, wilted salad that's sat in the sun for two days and then in the rain for another day and is infested with slugs of various colours goes to:
Paul "not Joseph" Watson and his seafaring moral busybodies; the weather on Friday; my feet; the Blackwall Tunnel; declining standards of automotive courtesy once I'd reached the UK, and the concern I had for my most prized possession; the lingering thought that this might be one of my last European festival trips, however much I may not want it to be.
And for the bands, with four top awards, because there are four bands who stuck out above all the others:
PLATINUM: when they're on this sort of form, nobody can touch Emperor. Five times out of five they've been nothing short of sensational.
GOLD: Amorphis, proof that sometimes being the jack of all trades can save the day.
SILVER: Rotting Christ, for being the band that took on the challenge of following Emperor, ran with it, and were successful.
BRONZE: Wintersun, who like Amorphis banished the memories of Hellfest's blunder at putting them on the wrong stage.
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Аркона, Crowbar and Einherjer.
SURPRISE OF THE FESTIVAL: Rotting Christ, actually - for reasons I've previously given. This time, there were no new bands that made me think "where have they been all my life?"
WOODEN SPOON: Igorrr. But it could have been a side-project from Yorkshire who need a rethink of their strategy.
Many of the "festival camp" awards can't really be awarded this time, given that I had nobody else around me who I knew (those Poles who showed me their favourite death metal bands were closest). But still...
The Melody Hensley Award for Massive Triggering Capacity: ...is going to have to come from Triggering T-shirt Watch, isn't it? I bestow this highest award on he who was wearing the Novislav Đajić t-shirt, for the extra subtlety in not being advertising an NSBM band.
The Jeff Parke Award for Most Magnificient Bit Of Kit: should never be awarded to the Intergalactic Battlecruiser, even though it's the only part of the entire experience that didn't totally work as it should. It must know this award was coming and has fixed itself. So the award is... unawarded.
The Keith Boyle Award for Excessive Alcohol Consumption and The Baz Jones Award for Lunacy When Drunk are also unawarded, as I genuinely can't remember seeing any drunken excess, whether it's from the bands or the punters.
The Andy Hudson Award for Catastrophic Hair Loss: I mean, it should be me, shouldn't it? I haven't had this little hair since 2000. But someone who's lost even more hair than last time I saw him is Tomi Joutsen, who's dramatically shortened his once-four-foot-long dreadlocks in favour of something a bit more restrained.
The Fiona Gilchrist Award for Spending Too Long Asleep: is going to stay in the cabinet, because nobody slept excessively that I could see, not even me. Even the man sleeping in his car on the queue for the ferry at Dunkirk was easily woken up.
The Johnny Tightlips Award for Least Talkative Frontman: Attila Csihar, most definitely, who never said a single word to us, most likely so as to "not spoil the atmosphere". Had that atmosphere been present, it'd have been 27 years ago and it'd have been Dead not talking to us.
The Rod Boston Award for Being In More Bands Than Is Strictly Necessary: there were none that I saw, even with all those Finns on the bill. The closest I can get to those I saw were: Francesco Paoli, who is in Fleshgod Apocalypse and is a former member of Hour of Penance, and Matthew Brunson, now playing guitar for Crowbar having previously filled in on bass for Prong. One definite candidate (and probably the best for the slot) is Jiří Valter, a.k.a. Big Boss, the frontman of Root - because he played a set with his Big Boss solo project on the Oriental Stage that I didn't see. There's nobody I saw on stage twice, though.
And finally... The Jimmy Carr award for the Most Infuriating Waste Of Oxygen This Side Of Jimmy Carr: I admit there were worse problems in Vallenfyre's set, but I suspect Drunk Rag Doll Girl will qualify for this award for those around her. I'm more tempted to nominate those who were making my life difficult on the way back from Dover.
As ever, anyone who reads this should raise a hand to say they did so. Keri already has. The rest of you, what's your excuse? Get cracking.