Segunda-feira 7 Jul 2008, 20h:02

Some light rain in the night and mid-morning brought the temperature down wonderfully, allowing us to stay dormant until just before lunchtime. The first band of the day was the Australian outfit Alchemist, who captivated me with their wikipedia page, which promised a combination of death, eastern, progressive, electronic and heavy metal. The crowd was pretty small when we arrived about ten minutes before the set was due to start, and the crowd at the front was only about one person deep, so we were practically at the front. The crowd didn't really give the band much of a welcome, but Duncan, Greg and myself cheered loudly enough to probably make up for it, and hopefully set a good example. Even the guy with an Alchemist T shirt in front of me showed no signs of support. Thankfully, my show of faith in the band was not misplaced: they had some fantastic eastern melodic meanderings that they weren't afraid to explore properly, and they mixed this up with more traditional metal elements wonderfully. Whilst the high screams didn't work well (to my ears, anyway), I was really impressed, and their set went incredibly fast. (This may be something to do with it being only 40 minutes long). Alchemist were a fantastically refreshing set, and I'll certainly be investigating them. If anyone has any pointers about where to start, please throw them at me, as samples I have heard from all their albums interest me. In the meantime, here are a few sample tracks that give a pretty accurate depiction of their sound:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Z_GUSGP5Jig

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ta9Tzeeperw

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WUN1zTMG2O0

http://youtube.com/watch?v=JAcUmZO8QKk

Apocalyptica, as expected, played a load of covers of familiar metal songs. As Chriss said, it'd have been nice if they had the confidence to play more of their own material live. I did smile when they said that for their final song (The Hall of the Mountain King), they would "punish you with some classical music", but perhaps they shouldn't underestimate the combination of people's open mindedness and their ability for this type of instrumentation to appeal.

I only saw about half of Soilwork's set, but it was enough to acclimatise myself to what Gothenburg melodeath sounds like (apologies if I am taking liberties with terminology here). Midway through the set we decided to head back to the tents, to spend rest our legs in preparation for the evening, and getting ourselves suitably rehydrated. Whilst I was interested in checking out Primordial, I decided that being in a good location (and physical condition) to see Iron Maiden was more important. So we had lots to drink, and generally lazed about in our tents for an hour and a bit, before leaving to catch the end of Avenged Sevenfold. My only recollections of this band are my annoyance at their oft fatuous and sickly harmonies, and their lead guitarist's hat. At any rate, we were close to the front for In Flames, and thus were in a good position for being in a good spot to see Iron Maiden.

In Flames presented us with a brilliant hour and ten minutes of entertainment. The crowd movement was pretty insane, and whilst we avoided the pits, every few minutes you'd get thrown forward with the mass of the crowd a good few metres, before being thrown back again. Duncan and Greg continued to try to stay by the central crowd barrier, but I had to relinquish my grip on that just a few minutes in. The band put on a great set, not that I know any of their work, with some brilliant riffs that actually sounded heavy to my ear (which most bands don't achieve) and great drumming, ensuring that the music got my attention more than the impromptu grinding from the girls in front of me. Whilst I was disappointed that Opeth had canceled, it was probably for the best, as it spared me an agonising decision about seeing them or getting a good place from which to see Iron Maiden.

We'd put in a fair amount of effort to get good places for Iron Maiden, and were now near-exhausted and filthy (a light breeze, pits churning up dust, and sweat, are not a good combination). As soon as Iron Maiden came on, all was forgotten. They put on a stellar show that more than made up for my disappointment upon seeing them a couple of years back (when they neglected the classics at the expense of their latest album). The setlist was near-perfect (I'd only have added to tame a land, the evil that men do and the flight of icarus, and I suppose that every Iron Maiden fan has a few tracks they'd add in such a situation.) and the physical set was really impressive, drawing on the visual theme of the powerslave album.

They opened with Aces High:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=TNAXrgxVNVc

I've always been fond of Iron Maiden's '80s material, and have a special place for their piece of mind, which was my first metal album. Duncan and I spent pretty much a whole Christmas holiday listening to it on repeat whilst trawling through the Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King hack and slash PC game. I went out sometime in the January sales and got the number of the beast, and powerslave a few months later. Whilst each of these new albums had amazing tracks on them, Piece of Mind has always remained something special to me. So you can imagine my delight when I heard them blast out the opening revelations riff. Before I continue spamming videos at you, I should credit the youtube user kangouras68, whose surprisingly good quality recordings I have relied on heavily in the following selection.

Revelations:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=mAmJycZFi2g

Sadly the powerslave video cuts off the best bit, but the length of this guy's videos show a clear awareness of space limitations, and he's cut them all very sensitively, so I can hardly complain. Look out for Bruce's awesome costume change:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=LUS9Y7RFArM

Run to the Hills was obviously played, and was obviously awesome:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=YlKss3Qz-B4

Fear of the dark (Man, that is some bad singing along. Still, I couldn't hear them over where I was. I had an Irish girl a few rows behind me singing even more awfully and enthusiastically, and was probably butchering the sing-along-with-the-lead-guitar-melody section enough myself as it was.):

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Dk2nPJz8seM

The trooper was another highlight, with Bruce's flag-waving making me feel more pride in Britain than I'd ever felt before:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=W4GZE6I_zac

Duncan was super-pleased that they played the rime of the ancient mariner. I cheered extra loud for Coleridge:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=xz5PnDW1PdY

Iron Maiden always seem bogged down by their eponymous track. iron maiden always seems to me like a relatively weak way to end their set, even if it is a nice chance for them to set off the pyrotechnics and have Eddie appear, and even if it has a nice old-school, driving bass, and near-proggy ring, to it, and even if it does grow on me each time I hear it. Janick's guitar strutting perhaps even surpasses Malmsteen's:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=xTdqLM67bog

Eddie was awesome:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Yf5ea9mM86s

The encore was great. Sadly Eddie didn't get killed and have his brains dashed out and scattered over the stage, as I recall happened on the original Powerslave tour (causing much controversy), but the band still gets top marks for the fantastic fight choreography:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=R_SmOPo8zjQ

Once the band finally finished, drained, we made our way back to the campsite, along with the rest of the horde. We collected our belongings from the locker on the way (always a worthwhile investment), and played the old game/trick of walking fast to get through a crowd. I've never understood people walking slowly if they have somewhere they want to be in a hurry, and always enjoy darting through a walking crowd to get to wherever we're all walking that little bit faster. At night this game is a lot more engaging, particularly on congested roads. We passed well over a thousand people on our walk back to the campsite. Greg's fast walking was to be his downfall when we got back to the campsite, as a pair of guys in back sleeping bags were lurking to ambush unwary walkers, and toppled him right over. Thankfully his reflexes were up to the job of protecting his face, if not his dignity.

The journey home, and my closing thoughts and contemplations on the festival, will be presented in the next journal. I'll also check through all the previous posts for any glaring errors that didn't get caught by my tired proof-reads.