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Channel Zero – where the action was @ Graspop!
This was one of the most memorable performances of the whole Graspop festival – much to my surprise. Channel Zero. Maybe I SHOULD know who these guys were, but somehow it has slipped me, never heard the name before unless I just chose to forget (after all, us blondes have a limited memory capacity, hehe ;P)
As most of you already know, Ozzy cancelled due to illness on Saturday. So the schedule had to be rearranged and one of those changes was Channel Zero who were called in in the last minute to play the main stage.
Frankly, the only reason why I was even standing there, was because Whitesnake were playing the same stage shortly after, and I didn’t want to lose my front row spot.
So, Bianca and I stood there and quickly realized that this was a band that got people FLYING through the air like I’ve never seen before in my life! And I”ve been to so many concerts that I’ve lost count a long time ago. This was unreal!
Of course there have been mosh pits and stage divings, crowd surfings and all that, but never this much – and best of all, it was all done in such a great, positive manner.
Those that came “flying” didn’t do it to harm anybody, each and every one of them was smiling as if they just won the lottery when they landed on the other side of the barricades. You just had to laugh about it. :-)
And the security guys and girls were awesome! They did a fantastic job making sure no one got hurt – but most importantly, they had a wonderful, positive attitude. No yelling, screaming or frowning faces. It was all just a liberating, great experience for everybody I think.
As for Channel Zero, personally, I probably wouldn’t go buy their records because it wasn’t my kind of music. It was very enjoyable live, but I can’t see myself listening to their songs in my car for instance. Some bands are best experienced on a stage, these guys kicked major ass, that’s for sure.
I think their singer was a very good frontman, confident and powerful in his role. He was interesting enough to get people who never heard of the band, to stay there and watch the whole thing, actually enjoying it.
I would want to see a Channel Zero concert again, for sure!
Here’s what I tried to film while people came flying left and right – you’ll be RIGHT where the action is!
The hierarchy of rock
Finally made it home in one piece – or almost. Got sick in the process, but it’s worth it. I’m never sick more than a day or two, so I’ll be good to go when it’s time for the next trip to Thessaloniki, Greece next week for the Stop That Sound 2310 festival. Once again with Whitesnake and Judas Priest. :-) And of course Firewind, playing in their own hometown.
Then flying straight from Greece to the UK for the Sonisphere festival, and then back home again. Another week of very little sleep, but I can handle it.
An Australian friend called me a “rock’n’roll camel” earlier today.
“You store the nutrition and fluid in your humps for long periods without – and you travel long distances”. Where do people come up with this stuff, lol! ;-P
Anyway – Graspop 2011 was very different from Graspop 2010 for me. I played totally different roles and lived in totally different worlds, and you really need to be a split personalilty to be able to do that I think…
In 2010 I had every backstage-pass there was – I looked like a Christmas tree! I spent most of my time in the backstage area, relaxing, schmoozing, talking to people, hanging with Jon Oliva’s band and crew, just somehow not being a part of the craziness that was taking place outside, at the actual festival site.
Every now and then we went outside our little “den” and checked out some band, standing either on the side of the stage with the other “cool people” or on a safe distance somewhere – cause it’s very uncool to “mix with the rabble”…
THIS year, I was joined on my trip by a dear friend, Bianca, who e-mailed me one day and said that she was craving for a concert experience, and asked if she could go with me to Graspop. That means that I didn’t do the “cool” thing this year, I was down there with the rest of the crowd, getting as muddy and soaked as everybody else. And frankly, in many ways, that’s a lot more fun.
Quite honestly though, I felt slightly weird checking out Firewind early Saturday afternoon.
The reason being, as I wrote to reply on a comment in this blog this morning:
“I must have looked damn professional standing front row in a rain poncho with my camera!
Some things dawn on you afterwards, when you realize what impression you must be leaving on people…! I suck at being cool, might as well learn to live with it.”
As much as I shouldn’t have to feel weird about it, I still do because it was only about a week ago that I was having a relaxed conversation with Gus two hours before he went on stage with Ozzy at Sweden Rock Festival. This time, when I wasn’t in that “VIP-world” for a second, it’s like it turned out kind of weird. You always need to remember the different roles you play in this business.
The best example would be when I thought I should go and say hi. I went to the signing-session that Firewind had at 5 pm, figured I’d sneak in and wave or whatever. But when I saw the long line of people, I thought that there was NO way I would stand in THAT line.Forget it.
So I went backstage, right after the signing session. Seemed like the most natural thing to do. However, sometimes things that are perfectly normal in your head, can turn out very wrong, seen from a different perspective.
As I was standing there, replying to a text message, it suddenly dawned on me that considering the different role I was in this time, this whole thing was ALL wrong if you were to follow the unwritten rules.
Instead of a friendly hello, it felt like I really shouldn’t be there at all, given the circumstances.
First I had been in the crowd watching the show, then I was at the signing thing and now I was here. Fuck, wrrooong! But it was too late to leave. No Scotty to beam me up.
Gus is a polite and nice guy so he was just as cool as always, whereas I once again learned that you can’t mix apples and pears. If you are part of the crowd – you have to stay there. If you are a part of the backstage-people, then it would have been okay. But you can’t be both.
Not at the same time. I should have learned after all these years, but sometimes I forget.
See, there IS a hierarchy in rock just as much as there is in a royal dynasty.
It looks something like this:
ON THE THRONE – COOLEST OF THEM ALL – GODS, HEROES….
The BAND / artist
Important as hell:
Manager of the band, tour manager (those are not necessarily the same person) record company people, management people
Little less important as hell but people are jealous of them cause they’ve got a crew pass:
Roadies, stage manager, guitar-, bass-, drum techs, light techs, sound guys etc…
Other VIP-people, in pretty much that order:
A. Friends of the band (normally other musicians), girlfriends, wives or groupies who are allowed to stand on the stage behind the stacks and shit, and watch the show.
B. Journalists and/or chosen webmasters of the band.
C. Photographers
D. Security people
…and then on the absolute bottom of the Rock’n’roll-importance hierarchy, at least at shows and festivals – THE FANS. In other words, the people who are paying for everything, because without them the bands wouldn’t be selling any albums or get people to their shows – which in turn means that the managers wouldn’t make any money either, and there would be no need for a crew. No groupies would bother hanging around a band that’s not successful and no journalists or photographers would waste their time writing about or taking pics of a band that has no fans.
So, it’s funny how backwards everything is. Being a fan generates very little or zero respect, whereas being as uninterested and “cool” as possible, generates muchos mega respect in the business, with other so called “professionals”. Pretty funny if you ask me.
Definitely a bit of a snob-elite situation which I’ve sometimes have had a hard time with because I don’t feel like I belong to one side OR the other. I am both. What a pain in the ass that can be. Videos and reviews of the Graspop-bands coming up in a few!
Coverdale saved the day
Back at the hotel after a long day at the Graspop festival. Actually, it wasn’t half as bad as I had anticipated. It rained, but it was just a little, there was very little mud (no more than usual), no bands sucked, except for maybe Priest but I will need to clarify that later, people were generally nice and I like this festival – simple as that.
What made my day today was David Coverdale – again. The past fifteen years or so, he has always recognized me anytime, anywhere – press conferences, shows, whatever. Same thing happened today.
He smiled, walked over to “my” side of the stage and then I heard him say: “Well hello Daniela, how are you? Looking hot as always!”
That was my ego-kick of the day, thank-you.very-much. I’m easy to please, ;-)
So, I choose to smile like a 15-year old girlie about it, OK? :-D
Didn’t even get it on video, would have been a nice memory. I was going to record the show (yes, I know, I’m a horrible criminal and I’m going to hell) but then I decided that I wanted to enjoy the show instead so I just figured “fuck it…”.
It’s always when you make those decisions that you wish you had made a different choice.
Ozzy’s cancellation must have been a bad thing for Ozzy himself, but I didn’t notice anything in particular at the festival, people were enjoying themselves as if nothing ever happened – and a Belgian band that I’d never heard of, Channel Zero, were asked to play mid-day to fill out the schedule, and that turned out to be the craziest performance of all! Not necessarily the band – but the crowd went crazy! The crowd-surfing was ridiculous! I haven’t seen that many people flying through the air even at a Megadeth concert..!
Fans of Ozzy-guitarists had a double-treat today as well – first Gus G and his Firewind, then Zakk Wylde and his Black Label Society. I’m more of a Firewind-person, not particularly into Zakk or his thing, never have been. And I can’t stand his solos, I know that I’ll get shit for saying that, but never in my whole life have I heard such boring guitar solos. When he starts doing that, all I can think of is “please just shoot me now!”
I’ve got videos from all of the above, but not now, it’s time for toothbrushing and maybe a few hours of sleep. The way I look right now could scare crows and children – or I could fit right in with any of the characters in The Night Of The Living Dead. Gah!
Sleepy time, more when I get home.
Ozzy cancelled, and it’s pissing down
In Belgium, reliving last year’s Sonisphere-nightmare. What was supposed to be a sunny, fantastic day, has turned into one of those “it’s pissing down and it won’t stop anytime soon” days where you KNOW you’re gonna be walking in mud up to your knees. It was only raining a little bit yesterday and that was enough to make it muddish… Today is going to be “walk around in gruel”-day. Perfect. :-/
Not only that. Ozzy has cancelled. He is sick. I feel so bad for Ozzy, cause after having seen him a few times on this tour, I know that the man LOVES to be on stage, and I also know that he has defied doctors before and performed against their recommendations. So, if Ozzy cancels, it MUST be VERY bad. :-(
It’s no catastrophy for me, cause I’ve seen him and I will see him a few more times on this tour (hopefully) and I will get to see Gus who’s playing with Firewind early in the afternoon today.
Trying to remember what Lips (Anvil) said in their documentary: “Everything went wrong, but at least there was a tour for things to go wrong on”. Same here. Everything has gone wrong so far, but at least I’m in Belgium and there is a festival for things to go wrong on. :)
Yesterday was an ordeal that I will write about when I get home. Right now I’m hungry, tired, thirsty and in desperate need to get some breakfast. So – more from what’s happening here tomorrow…
My YouTube-channel made it to Top 40!
When I checked my YouTube-channel this morning, there was a message saying that my channel was on the Top 40 list of most visited/most watched today. :-)
That was nice. It’s actually been quite crazy with the traffic to my YouTube-channel the past two weeks.It started when I uploaded a clip after the Whitesnake-show at Sweden Rock with special guests Bernie Marsden and Adrian Vandenberg. Not the best video in the world qualitywise, the stage is hopeless – cause with the catwalk-part, you can’t see what’s going on on all sides of the stage. That, and the camera-mic being too sensitive, picking up every sound from the crowd as well. But nevertheless, I must have been the first to upload something from this historic event. Cause over 11,000 people have watched it! In two weeks…. Crazy! It was so amazing, I still get tears in my eyes when I see that, that was extremely touching, seeing these guys together on stage after all these years, and the love they had for eachother and the music – I mean, all of it was just overwhelming. Then I uploaded the Judas Priest press conference and after that Zakk Wylde’s and Joan Jett’s press conferences – all of those also drawing a lot of people to the page. I guess it gives everybody who didn’t have the opportunity to be there, a chance to feel like they are participating in the festival-vibe in a way. And then of course, the interview with Gus G. I have to say, I was really very happy about that. I think the guy kicks ass in every possible way – musically, on a stage, as a person. It also turned out to be one of the most relaxed and fun interviews I’ve done in a while. Very enjoyable – and judging from the amount of visitors in just three days, it is appreciated by his fans too. No wonder.
Hopefully even more will discover it, cause I for one feel so relieved to see that there are people like Gus in the business still, who focus on their music, love what they do, and don’t have any rockstar- issues or the bad attitude that sometimes goes along with it.
There is still tons of material from Sweden Rock that I think people would enjoy, but I haven’t had time to organize it or upload any of it yet. And now, it’s time for Graspop in Belgium. Leaving on Friday. Can’t wait to see Whitesnake again!! Priest, my favorite band of all time, didn’t impress me at Sweden Rock so I can only hope that they give a better show at Graspop. I love that festival by the way. Last year was great, but that’s when I had the best VIP-treatment you could imagine, as a part of Jon Oliva’s Pain’s crew – but a guest.More about last year’s Graspop with live pix of Slash, backstage footage and more:
http://lita77777.posterous.com/almost-time-for-graspop-2011
This year, I “only” have press-credentials, but it’s okay since a friend of mine decided to join me on the trip.
She just wrote this morning, and I can only agree with her words:
“I’m really yearning to go to a concert again, the feeling of being one with the music, feel it with your whole body and get intoxicated by it. It’s pure, true happiness when you feel that you are truly alive, here and now.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Never mind all that other stuff, the hierarchy of rock’n’roll where the bands are heroes and the fans are worshippers – it all comes down to one thing, and that’s the love of music. Nothing else matters.
IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR 