Good ole metal & dogs
My weekend: escaped work at noon on Friday (I wish I could do that more often) and took the train to Tampere. Spent 7 hours outdoors on both Friday and Saturday at the Sauna Open Air Metal Festival having a great time.
The weather co-operated beautifully all weekend - there was no rain, and it wasn't too hot either. There were enough people around for a good atmosphere, but it wasn't too crowded. Of course, we didn't even try to get too close to the stages at any point - we are getting old. The music was good, too. All five bands on Friday were at least interesting, and Dio was probably even better than last year at Tuska. I'm seriously thinking about buying CDs. On Saturday we gave a couple of bands the miss, but since we were recuperating from the night before, that suited us well. Megadeth was better than I expected, although I did miss David Ellefson on bass. For me Megadeth has always been Dave & Dave rather than Mustaine alone.
I realised I get the kick out of the weirdest things - like the fact that Dave Mustaine is so cool he can wear a green t-shirt and light blue jeans on stage. The rest of the band did wear black: :-)
My friend and I also went to the official after party on Friday. The first set by the house band and guest vocalists rocked big time. I discovered two "new" (for me) great metal singers and loved at least 90% of the 80's songs they played. By the second set alcohol, aching feet, the lateness of the hour and too much cigarette smoke made me long for my bed.
If there's one complaint I want to make about the festival, it was their stupid rule of taking caps off water bottles. It's been a while since I've felt as stupid as I did on Saturday hiding my water bottle from the security people roving around the festival area - because it had a cap on! I wish somebody could explain the rationale behind that rule to me.
Yesterday, I got a ride back home in my friend's car. I'm not used to traveling with animals in the car, so feeling a breath against the back of my arm every now and then and seeing a black snout in my field of vision every time to turned to look at my friend kept startling me. Miss Lucretia likes to see where she's being driven...
When I got home I realised I had a slight fever. I'm not sure yet if it's allergies (a dog and several hours of outdoor life can be a bit much for my body to deal with all of a sudden, I guess) or just a cold. I've been getting little coughing fits, which might suggest a cold. I've been at work today, but I might not show up tomorrow morning. Depending on how I feel tonight, I might just have to stay at home and watch my Sharpe DVDs.