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Saturday morning Martina and I woke up to the sound of the 9'clock concert
at Bang Your Head. We got up, had some coffee and again a very cold shower – no idea why they cannot provide
hot showers when the Wacken and Summerbreeze festivals can do it? Both of us were a little frustrated that this
great day had passed so quickly, and we both did not seem to be in the mood for the concerts that were to come
on that Saturday. I don't know who first mentioned to leave the BYH early, for I would not have wanted to leave
Martina behind on her own; but when she mentioned that she actually wanted to drive home, Pilsen came back in
my mind. I SMSed some friends and asked them to check the Internet if I could travel to the Czech Republic with
my European ID card only, for I obviously did not have my passport with me. When I found out that they by now belong
to the Schengen countries, my plan started to become more specific.
So I disassembled my tent, packed the car, and by 11 I was on my way to Balingen town, hoping to find some Internet access for further information on how to travel to the Basinfirefest. I drove around for 20 minutes with the laptop next to me on the co–drivers seat, trying to find an available Hotspot at various corners of the city. And I found many – though all of them secured :–(. The only Internet Café was closed so I did not want to lose more time and figured fate would take me there by following the Rychean trail... |
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It was an uneventful two hour drive to Nuremberg with lots of Ryche music, and from there another hour to the Czech border. Once crossed over, I found out that I needed a vignette for the autobahn, so I had to pay 10 Euros to get a sticker and exchanged some Euros for Czech Koruna. Then it was
about another hour to Pilsen; since I have not seen any speed limit
signs I was going at 110 miles/hour most of the time. I my plan was to drive downtown and hope to
run into some people in Metal gear that I could ask for directions. After all, Balingen and Wacken are crowded with people if the festivals are on, so I was surprised that the city of Pilsen seemed to be dead on a Saturday afternoon around 4. Stopped at a gas station and was very lucky that a
very friendly man both spoke German and knew the way. It turned out that the festival site was 25 kilometers
outside of Pilsen in a village called Spálené Poříčí. I bought a map
of the area and tried to find my way out of the city.
Then it got even more difficult, since there were no signs, or at least I could not read them for I don't understand the language. Also, it was not immediately clear which one was supposed to be the main road, for they all seemed to be so small. My theory was to get from one village to the next to the next to the next...'til I was out in the boonies, obviously completely lost. I am used to travel on my own, but even when I traveled in Thailand all by myself I always prepared, knew where I was going and had some travel guides at hand. So this time I was just thinking how crazy I must have been to go on a trip like that without the slightest information, and in that moment my CD player gave me "Roads to Madness" – definitely time to go slightly insane, hahaha ;–) |
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After a while I stopped next to a police car and asked for directions, and this time I was actually only
3 km outside of the town I cannot even pronounce or read correctly. By five I finally made it there, and
since I had been so lucky in Balingen, I again went for the press parking place right behind the main stage
and VIP area. Being chief editor I do have an official press ID, but the problem was that I had not signed up
in advance. However, when I told the friendly security man my story of me spontaneously leaving the Bang Your
Head to go on this adventurous trip, driving all alone to a foreign country, I guess he was impressed – and let
me stay :–). And if this is not a nice gesture, imagine my face when he gave me a VIP wristband – just like that,
I could not believe it! I remember having been to Prague in the 80s, and back then everyone seemed to hate Germans,
some of them really hostile, others simply ignoring us. Now they all spoke the language and were the most helpful
people – wow! Thank you so much, Pavel! My car was parked so close to the back entrance, it only took me 30 seconds to walk to the VIP area, and there they were: the famous "Y Not" Queensryche busses! |
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I could even bring my own beer from the car (although it was cheap, only 1 Euro compared to the 4 Pounds in the UK) and went for a walk.
Ran into Fozzy and after a while the rest showed up from the nearby hotel. It was a chilled atmosphere, with the band hanging around,
like Pam on stage watching other bands. Finally got to ask Stone if he had a fetish or how the heck he was able to breathe with the
mask he is wearing; he said the breathing was much less of a problem than the singing, but he would gladly suffer for his art ;–).
Had drinks with Shinobu, Mike and Laura, and sat down in the Rychean Living room a.k.a the sofas from the Mindcrime Stage and "the wooden chair bedside my window" with Sherry and Cindy. Most of the bands who played that night on 3 different stages were unknown to me, so we just strolled around and got so see some of Primal Fear who were on before the Ryche show. QR did not play until after 11, and Laura and I managed to get to the front row. Unfortunately, this was not a Ryche crowd like it had been the night before. I guess most of them were too young and more into hardcore or party metal that what QR had to offer, so crowd wise it was a quiet night. Also, at some times bands were playing on all three stages, so the 7000 crowd (so I was told, not sure) split up. They did not perform Mindcrime but a "Best Of" Set, and finally I got my "Anybody Listening" – see Thomas, since I missed out on Switzerland, I simply had to drive to Pilsen just to hear this one song :–). Prior to the concert I had actually heard someone mentioning they would play for 2 hours (I thought it had been Fozzy, but Fozzy later referred to Scott...), so when they stopped early (according to Fozzy, it was 1:14 when I thought it was 01:04) I was quiet disappointed. A 10 hour round trip makes 1 hour of driving for every 10 minutes of Queensryche...? ;–P. Apparently, they'd had some technical problem when someone destroyed on of Scott's cable, and with that being replaced they lost time in their slot. So when I finally got so see the Set List I could tell they had not played some of the songs – missed out on Take Hold, damn! We had some more beer until the truck was loaded and then it was once more time for good–bye. My friendly Northern Californian Family walked me to my car (there was no light whatsoever out there) and I crawled into my sleeping bag – wasn&146;t gonna put up the tent for just one night. When I laid down I could see the busses depart the venue...so sad it was over again. I woke up after only 6 hours of sleep, but while at night it got so cold, by morning it was too damn hot and I had to get rid of the many layers of my clothes. Went to brush my teeth and for a coffee, had a chat with Pavel and some Czech people who had parked next to me. They did not know any German and only a little English and presented me with a set list from the night before. It was a little weird when they asked my to interpret the song titles (as in I.D.B.I.L = "I don't believe in Love" and wanted me to tell them the full names so they could write it out on the sheet. Every collector's heart would probably break, hahaha ;–) And yes, I got pictures of it! By 09:30 I was back on the road. This time it took me 5 hours to get back home for the 500 km, including being stuck in traffic (so much fun with a broken air con :–(. Around Nuremberg I started to get quite sleepy and I had to turn up the music, but I made it... And what now...? I have experienced so much in the past few weeks, there was Barcelona, Norwich, Cambridge, London, on Stage with the Ryche at BYH, Pilsen...I love being home with my cats, but it is difficult getting back to real life. Sometimes it all just seems like a dream (yeah! ;–) One more show on Saturday and then back to the same old, same old... |