July 15: Nine Inch Nails @ London, UK

August 2: Airbourne @ Knebworth, UK 144 quid for the festival ticket? Even if it has NIN, Anthrax and Machine Head, fuck that.

August 14-16: Bloodstock Open Air @ Derby, UK

For some bizarre reason, single band gigs are significantly cheaper here than they are in Germany (NIN tickets for London were 33GBP each), yet on the other hand festivals clock in at easily twice the ticket price. WHAT IS GOING ON

Trollhammaren in particular was great fun in the moshpit and soiled one of my two pairs of jeans with mud. After they played that, the front guy asked the audience if there were any requests, and some guy from the moshpit just shouted “PLAY TROLLHAMMAREN AGAIN!”. Awesome :D

Two bands I really really liked there in spite of not specifically going for them were In Flames and Beholder, the latter having played cover versions of Soil, Metallica, Pantera, some weird country-ish stuff and god knows what else in the bar tent Thursday night. They also managed to blow one of the amps within the first two songs they played, and their front guy is great and definitely knows how to instigate a good moshpit.

What I didn’t like at all was the mixing on the main stage, particularly on Thursday and early Friday. Scar Symmetry barely had any vocals and no lead guitar for the first two songs, and Testament had no lead guitars for a while as well. Nevertheless, particularly the bands I mostly came for were utterly glorious, and if the lineup for next year gets good enough I’ll most definitely head up there again. In spite of the upped ticket price.

Much <3 also to J and G and their spouses for the lift, Saturday night accommodation and putting up with me for three days. Thanks folks, it was awesome and I’m looking forward to (hopefully) doing the festival again with you next year :D

[edit] Also, there was this guy: Finntroll Moshpit Hero. Must’ve been hell to get all of that mud back out of the furs, too. [/edit]

COMPLETELY UNRELATEDLY, I love Bioshock. My copy arrived a day early and I’ve basically spent the last two nights playing until my eyes bled. I also really like Space Giraffe, in spite of the somewhat messy visuals. A few more very very short reviews of games I’ve recently played a lot:

Crackdown: I am a goddamn VIKING. Who throws cars at Mexican gang members. What’s not to love?

Lost Planet: The cutscenes are gorgeous (even though the plot is rather hamfisted), and carrying mecha chainguns around to shoot giant alien bugs with is badass.

Chibi-Robo: This is more or less what Katamari could have become had it been sponsored by iRobot. I like the style, childish as it may be.

Red Steel: I still haven’t figured out if this game is cheesy on purpose or not. However: Raving Rabbids samples and slowmo gunplay.

Earth Defence Force 2017: Giant ants. Missile launchers that fire 20 shots per second. Two-player coop play. Collateral Motherfucking Damage.

That’s all for now, I think. Time for more Bioshock.

And I wanna conquer the world,
Give all the idiots a brand new religion,
Put an end to poverty, uncleanliness and toil,
Promote equality in all of my decisions
With a quick wink of the eye
And a “God, you must be joking!”

(Bad Religion – I Wanna Conquer The World)

If you came to conquer, you’ll be king for a day
But you too will deteriorate and quickly fade away
And believe these words you hear
When you think your path is clear

We have no control,
we do not understand!
You have no control,
you are not in command!

(Bad Religion – No Control)

(both from the album “No Control”)
Well, fuck. Thanks for the help, Bad Religion. :-(