Scream for me Graspop!
Okay, it wasn't quite the same without Katherine, Iain and Bob, but Ian and I still managed to enjoy ourselves very much indeed.
After a smooth journey there and no queuing to get in (thanks to a new system of getting your wristband on the way into the arena and not at the entrance to the campsite) Ian and I managed to pitch our tent 3000 miles away from the festival because we momentarily lost all sense of direction in the excitement of it all. After the hassle-free wristband exchange, we had to queue for an hour and half in blazing heat to get drink tokens. I know we shouldn't complain about sun at festivals (especially after it rained so much last year) but we had both forgotten to put suncream on and, more seriously, YNGWIE MALMSTEEN were playing the main stage at the time so we were forced to listen to them. Aaargh!
By the time we got drinks tokens we weren't fit for much except water and painkillers, but after that and a bit of TESTAMENT in Marquee 1 (now with proper screens! Great news for short people like me!) we felt much better and pints were consumed. As if to mock us, the rainclouds moved in and DEF LEPPARD had to play in a downpour. Bless them though, they were shockingly good. I knew nearly all their songs and had a bit of a singalong, though I'm not sure I should really be admitting that. Pour some sugar on me! (ahem!)
WHITESNAKE were terrible, of course, so this bought us time to spend getting down to the front of Marquee 1 for MINISTRY. I was soooo excited. I have never seen them live although they have been one of my favourite bands since I was 17. They had the cage up and the motorbike microphone and exciting pre-gig music and everything, plus I could actually see because of the ace position we'd got ourselves in to the front right of the stage beside one of the screens. Anyway, I was not disappointed. Ministry were excellent from the second they came on to the very last song. The opened with Let's Go, a song made to open live shows really, and played a good mix of stuff from all their albums. They finished with a bunch of older stuff, including Just One Fix, NWO and Thieves. Al Jourgensen doesn't look very well these days, rather saggy and puffy-eyed, but he still rocks. Oh, and he's still not keen on George Bush. Or America generally. Ministry rocked!
We saw enough of JUDAS PRIEST to realise that Rob Halford is not a well man (he made Al Jourgensen look the picture of health) but it was nice that they'd disguised his walking stick as a fancy trident thing. The Priest shuffled through a few mediocre songs, and we shuffled off to bed.
Saturday brought gorgeous hot weather and Ian discovered the Special Beers bar. He (and some of the other guys) drank a lot of Grimbergen. Remember this fact, please. We'll come back to it once Saturday's bands have finished ;-)
Half-watched some truly awful acts on the main stage - SABATON (it's never good when a band introduce a song by saying "This is one about my penis!"), SONATA ARCTICA, ICED EARTH and CAVALERA CONSPIRACY (such a shame! I was hoping they'd be good...) We watched IMMORTAL in Marquee 1 and Ian got extremely excited...they're not my thing muscially but I did enjoy their show. I watched a bit of 36 CRAZY FISTS in Marquee 2 and they were alright but I couldn't help feeling they were like Killswitch Engage only not as good. After that we decided to be all depressed and gothic and watch MY DYING BRIDE. They're very dull live but we had a rather nice slow dance at the back of the tent nonetheless. Then we remembered that HELMET were on in Marquee 2 and wondered why the hell we hadn't gone to see them sooner. We caught the last few songs of their set and they were superb. Page Hamilton actually came and shook all our hands after they'd finished playing! He said "thank you" very earnestly when he shook mine and I decided I must dig out old Helmet songs as soon as I got home.
Then it was time for KISS. Normally, if you asked me, I'd take the piss out of Kiss and tell you they only have two good songs. I thought they were going to be rubbish. I was completely wrong. They really DO have a lot of rubbish songs. But they managed to only play a few of them, and even while they were doing that they were so into it and watchable that by the time they played one good song after another after another* I was pretty much signed up to the Kiss Army.
*by good I mean cheesey good, and you should also know that I had been drinking beer.
There was a firework display, lots of glittery stuff, various members of Kiss flying around the stage and over the audience, some fake blood, far too much tongue from Mr Simmons and rockets shooting out from guitars at regular intervals. A good time was had by all!
We headed off to the party tent for a couple of hours, where lots of very good tunes were being played, interspersed with the odd well chosen cheesy classic. Ian and I did lots of headbanging and had a thoroughly excellent time. By 4am I was all partied out and ready for sleep, but I had foolishly forgotten to factor in how much Grimbergen my husband had consumed. He wanted to stay in the party tent until at least 6am and, when I convinced him that bed was by far the better idea, I spent the entire walk back to the campsite listening to him bemoaning the thumbprint on his forehead etc...which amused me a good deal the following day when he had a giant hangover and almost didn't keep his breakfast down :-)
It was a glorious day again so after plenty of water and sunscreen we loafed in the sunshine half falling asleep to APOCALYPTICA. I had to conserve my energy. Sunday was a day of awesomeness with a bill chock full of my favourite bands.
First up, SOILWORK in Marquee 1. They mainly played stuff off their new album, which I haven't got yet, but it was so good that it made me resolve to buy it
immediately. They played a smattering of other stuff too and were just generally ace.
Then on the main stage were BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE. I know I'm not 14 but I do rather like them. They manged to completely muff up the opener, Scream Aim Fire, but straight after that they pulled themselves together and sounded much better. (I've always wondered why on earth a singer who can't pronounce his r's would write a song with the word scream in it anyway...bellowing out "Scweeeam! Aim! Fire!" each chorus is a bit comical!) They pulled off a very convincing set considering they've only done two albums and it was nice to watch a band who are under the age of 50. I was beginning to wonder if Graspop had done away with backstage passes and were using bus passes instead.
AVENGED SEVENFOLD were so good I almost cried. They belted out their set with amazing energy. M Shadows has a fantastic voice, which actually comes over way better live than on record, and I had also failed to realise before that he and Synsyter Gates are both quite hot. In spite of their daft names...
IN FLAMES were good of course, putting in a reliable set of old and new. They were a bit pissed off that the airline had lost their luggage, causing Anders Friden to apologise for "our rubbish looks" and lament the fact that he'd have no clean pants after the gig.
Finally, it was time for IRON MAIDEN. Just as last year, they played a two hour set full of killer songs, looked like they were having a brilliant time and made me love them even more than I did before. In contrast to Kiss the previous night, they had a slightly ropey stage set involving each of the album covers they were playing songs from being printed on a backdrop, which was supposed to change according to what they were playing. Somewhere In Time duly got stuck and Bruce Dickinson had to go and pull it the rest of the way while he sang the beginning of Wasted Years. Is there nothing this man can't do?! He chatted away to the audience between songs in the manner of a friendly chap in the local pub. I was glad there were no pyrotechincs or fancy gimmicks anyway. Iron Maiden don't need all of that: they've got far too many brilliant tunes to play!
We did catch a bit of ACTION IN DC (an AC/DC tribute band) in the party tent on the way out, but everyone had had the same idea, so the closest we could get was about 10 metres outside the tent. We had a beer and danced to High Voltage anyway.
Graspop 2008 was more crowded than last year, had better weather, was considerably more expensive, made me feel very young owing to the generally older crowd (I heard a revolting story about false teeth in the beer tent, which I won't repeat here but will tell you next time I see you in the pub!) and, as usual, was packed with enough bands I love to make the trip well worthwhile. I arrived home tired, filthy and wishing I was a rock star. Brilliant!
Photos are on my Facebook page :-)
After a smooth journey there and no queuing to get in (thanks to a new system of getting your wristband on the way into the arena and not at the entrance to the campsite) Ian and I managed to pitch our tent 3000 miles away from the festival because we momentarily lost all sense of direction in the excitement of it all. After the hassle-free wristband exchange, we had to queue for an hour and half in blazing heat to get drink tokens. I know we shouldn't complain about sun at festivals (especially after it rained so much last year) but we had both forgotten to put suncream on and, more seriously, YNGWIE MALMSTEEN were playing the main stage at the time so we were forced to listen to them. Aaargh!
By the time we got drinks tokens we weren't fit for much except water and painkillers, but after that and a bit of TESTAMENT in Marquee 1 (now with proper screens! Great news for short people like me!) we felt much better and pints were consumed. As if to mock us, the rainclouds moved in and DEF LEPPARD had to play in a downpour. Bless them though, they were shockingly good. I knew nearly all their songs and had a bit of a singalong, though I'm not sure I should really be admitting that. Pour some sugar on me! (ahem!)
WHITESNAKE were terrible, of course, so this bought us time to spend getting down to the front of Marquee 1 for MINISTRY. I was soooo excited. I have never seen them live although they have been one of my favourite bands since I was 17. They had the cage up and the motorbike microphone and exciting pre-gig music and everything, plus I could actually see because of the ace position we'd got ourselves in to the front right of the stage beside one of the screens. Anyway, I was not disappointed. Ministry were excellent from the second they came on to the very last song. The opened with Let's Go, a song made to open live shows really, and played a good mix of stuff from all their albums. They finished with a bunch of older stuff, including Just One Fix, NWO and Thieves. Al Jourgensen doesn't look very well these days, rather saggy and puffy-eyed, but he still rocks. Oh, and he's still not keen on George Bush. Or America generally. Ministry rocked!
We saw enough of JUDAS PRIEST to realise that Rob Halford is not a well man (he made Al Jourgensen look the picture of health) but it was nice that they'd disguised his walking stick as a fancy trident thing. The Priest shuffled through a few mediocre songs, and we shuffled off to bed.
Saturday brought gorgeous hot weather and Ian discovered the Special Beers bar. He (and some of the other guys) drank a lot of Grimbergen. Remember this fact, please. We'll come back to it once Saturday's bands have finished ;-)
Half-watched some truly awful acts on the main stage - SABATON (it's never good when a band introduce a song by saying "This is one about my penis!"), SONATA ARCTICA, ICED EARTH and CAVALERA CONSPIRACY (such a shame! I was hoping they'd be good...) We watched IMMORTAL in Marquee 1 and Ian got extremely excited...they're not my thing muscially but I did enjoy their show. I watched a bit of 36 CRAZY FISTS in Marquee 2 and they were alright but I couldn't help feeling they were like Killswitch Engage only not as good. After that we decided to be all depressed and gothic and watch MY DYING BRIDE. They're very dull live but we had a rather nice slow dance at the back of the tent nonetheless. Then we remembered that HELMET were on in Marquee 2 and wondered why the hell we hadn't gone to see them sooner. We caught the last few songs of their set and they were superb. Page Hamilton actually came and shook all our hands after they'd finished playing! He said "thank you" very earnestly when he shook mine and I decided I must dig out old Helmet songs as soon as I got home.
Then it was time for KISS. Normally, if you asked me, I'd take the piss out of Kiss and tell you they only have two good songs. I thought they were going to be rubbish. I was completely wrong. They really DO have a lot of rubbish songs. But they managed to only play a few of them, and even while they were doing that they were so into it and watchable that by the time they played one good song after another after another* I was pretty much signed up to the Kiss Army.
*by good I mean cheesey good, and you should also know that I had been drinking beer.
There was a firework display, lots of glittery stuff, various members of Kiss flying around the stage and over the audience, some fake blood, far too much tongue from Mr Simmons and rockets shooting out from guitars at regular intervals. A good time was had by all!
We headed off to the party tent for a couple of hours, where lots of very good tunes were being played, interspersed with the odd well chosen cheesy classic. Ian and I did lots of headbanging and had a thoroughly excellent time. By 4am I was all partied out and ready for sleep, but I had foolishly forgotten to factor in how much Grimbergen my husband had consumed. He wanted to stay in the party tent until at least 6am and, when I convinced him that bed was by far the better idea, I spent the entire walk back to the campsite listening to him bemoaning the thumbprint on his forehead etc...which amused me a good deal the following day when he had a giant hangover and almost didn't keep his breakfast down :-)
It was a glorious day again so after plenty of water and sunscreen we loafed in the sunshine half falling asleep to APOCALYPTICA. I had to conserve my energy. Sunday was a day of awesomeness with a bill chock full of my favourite bands.
First up, SOILWORK in Marquee 1. They mainly played stuff off their new album, which I haven't got yet, but it was so good that it made me resolve to buy it
immediately. They played a smattering of other stuff too and were just generally ace.
Then on the main stage were BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE. I know I'm not 14 but I do rather like them. They manged to completely muff up the opener, Scream Aim Fire, but straight after that they pulled themselves together and sounded much better. (I've always wondered why on earth a singer who can't pronounce his r's would write a song with the word scream in it anyway...bellowing out "Scweeeam! Aim! Fire!" each chorus is a bit comical!) They pulled off a very convincing set considering they've only done two albums and it was nice to watch a band who are under the age of 50. I was beginning to wonder if Graspop had done away with backstage passes and were using bus passes instead.
AVENGED SEVENFOLD were so good I almost cried. They belted out their set with amazing energy. M Shadows has a fantastic voice, which actually comes over way better live than on record, and I had also failed to realise before that he and Synsyter Gates are both quite hot. In spite of their daft names...
IN FLAMES were good of course, putting in a reliable set of old and new. They were a bit pissed off that the airline had lost their luggage, causing Anders Friden to apologise for "our rubbish looks" and lament the fact that he'd have no clean pants after the gig.
Finally, it was time for IRON MAIDEN. Just as last year, they played a two hour set full of killer songs, looked like they were having a brilliant time and made me love them even more than I did before. In contrast to Kiss the previous night, they had a slightly ropey stage set involving each of the album covers they were playing songs from being printed on a backdrop, which was supposed to change according to what they were playing. Somewhere In Time duly got stuck and Bruce Dickinson had to go and pull it the rest of the way while he sang the beginning of Wasted Years. Is there nothing this man can't do?! He chatted away to the audience between songs in the manner of a friendly chap in the local pub. I was glad there were no pyrotechincs or fancy gimmicks anyway. Iron Maiden don't need all of that: they've got far too many brilliant tunes to play!
We did catch a bit of ACTION IN DC (an AC/DC tribute band) in the party tent on the way out, but everyone had had the same idea, so the closest we could get was about 10 metres outside the tent. We had a beer and danced to High Voltage anyway.
Graspop 2008 was more crowded than last year, had better weather, was considerably more expensive, made me feel very young owing to the generally older crowd (I heard a revolting story about false teeth in the beer tent, which I won't repeat here but will tell you next time I see you in the pub!) and, as usual, was packed with enough bands I love to make the trip well worthwhile. I arrived home tired, filthy and wishing I was a rock star. Brilliant!
Photos are on my Facebook page :-)