Only 2 days until I leave for Balingen, Germany and the Bang Your Head-festival…

I’m not a big fan of festivals, really. People are asking if I’m going to Wacken for instance. I tend to avoid festivals the size of Wacken or Roskilde. It’s too far away from all civilization and the main criteria for me is that it needs to be accessible by car and there has to be a HOTEL/hostel nearby.

After the Midfyn festival in Denmark back in 1994, which turned into a nightmare, I just knew I would NEVER do that again.

All I remember is not sleeping for 2 days, drunks everywhere, stolen items and shared showers.
I wasn’t exactly dying to do THAT all over again.
I’m not a fan of tents, I don’t drink at festivals or gigs and I need a good nights sleep and a SHOWER (and I don’t mean shower with a bunch of strangers, I prefer privacy in the bathroom/shower thank-you-very-much).

Cause you’re out there walking around all day long, you barely have time to eat or go to the bathroom or whatever from early noon til after midnight – and then you’re being pushed and shoved everywhere you go – not to mention standing in the front row at the shows.

Being a girl doesn’t get you any favors. Metalheads aren’t known for being the greatest gentlemen in the world, so in that sense I guess that the metal community is the most coequal. You get treated like any other dude. Take it or leave it. :)

But the point is – festivals are challenging. Unless you’ve got VIP/guest pass, that makes things a lot easier of course. We were offered Wacken-passes this year and I didn’t even respond, didn’t want to go.

Anyhooo……..
Sweden Rock Festival is cool, it’s not far from home, I can drive home every night and get some sleep. Graspop is just a weekend and it’s definitely near civilization.

Bang Your Head? I have NO idea. It’s totally new to me. :) Was talked into it by Jon Oliva’s former tour-manager, she said I had to come and check it out, that I would enjoy it.

Why not – I’m off on Friday! :-) She’s arranging everything so for once, I’m just tagging along. :)

At the time I didn’t even know who was on the bill. Talk about a BONUS when I noticed that FIREWIND are playing pretty early in the afternoon. Looking forward to that!

Speaking of Firewind – there will be more of them three days later when I fly back to Thessaloniki, Greece, to see them play in their home-town.
This time I’m prepared. I know now that Greek fans are crazy, lol!

THAT trip will be in the Firewind-blog, http://www.firewindtour.posterous.com

I’ll never forget my trip to Thessaloniki LAST year, you can read all about it here:

Part 1: http://lita77777.posterous.com/rockin-thessaloniki-day-1

Part 2:http://lita77777.posterous.com/magic-and-nightmare-in-greece

Part 3: http://lita77777.posterous.com/current-destination-london-sonisphere

I think it will be easier this year though – hotel is closer to venue. That helps!

Looking forward to meeting Panagotis from the Greek site MetalPaths too, always nice to get to know new people. :-)

Will be a busy week, but that’s the way I like it. If I’m home more than a month I get restless and bored. The road is calling! :-)