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Events and Reports - Magic Circle Festival 2008 - Stuart's Festival Report - Days 1 & 2
Day 1 and 2
Day 3 and 4
"Manowar Manowar living on the road"
When I heard that Manowar were going to be playing their first 6 albums in their entirety at this years Magic Circle Festival there was no doubt in my mind that I had to be there. Having never seen Manowar live and having missed out on the epic 2005 Earthshaker show I did not want to live with being absent from one of the most exciting events of the year.
Ok, so the rest of the line up wasn't on the whole too inspiring, you had your brilliant announcements like W.A.S.P, Alice Cooper and Doro, the pretty good stuff like Majesty and HolyHell, the "who?" announcements in no-marks like Titanium Black and Sixth Sense and the "What the hell are they doing on this bill?" bands like Whitesnake and Def Bloody Leppard.
But let's face it the only reason anyone was going to this festival was to see The Kings of Metal split the earth and spill the blood of their enemies at ear- destroying volumes. This was proved when Whitesnake and Leppard pulled out of the festival the day before they were going to play. After offering anyone who wanted one a refund earlier in the day, Joey D'Maio announced from the stage that night that only "Thirty motherfuckers took their tickets back". I don't know if I totally trust Joey's stats but I do know that those poor souls who returned their tickets made the biggest mistake of their lives.
The Journey
"From a battle I've come, to a battle I ride"
Barry, Nicola and I headed out from Scotland on the Monday and stayed in a hotel in Dortmund for two nights in the run up to the festival. We had heard that the campsite was opening on the Monday but since nothing was officially going to happen till Wednesday we figured we had a bit of time to explore some German culture.
We took a wander round Dortmund on Tuesday bought some Cd's and found ourselves in this pretty cool pub called The Rock Café. I'd recommend that any metal-head who happens to be visiting Dortmund should check it out. They warmed us up perfectly for the festival by playing the full Battle Hymns album plus some assorted Maiden, W.A.S.P, Priest etc. Oh and I got to whip Barry at table football. Back of the net!
Wednesday
"Onward pounding into glory ride"
On travelling to the festival on Wednesday morning we met a true German servant of steel called Michael who was also going to Magic Circle. He helped us navigate the train system and became one of our companions for the four days of metal madness ahead.
We took a slight detour getting to the festival after exiting the train and buying beer at a nearby supermarket. This lead to Barry, Nicola, Michael and myself being seemingly lost in the forest beside the festival with 3 Irishmen, 2 girls from Iceland, a guy from South Africa and a couple more German.
To cut a long story short I'd like to tell the festival organisers that if you are letting people take a back road into the festival in future please signpost it better AND OPEN THE BLOODY GATE SO WE KNOW WHERE TO GO!!!!!
Whewww *wipes brow* sorry about that, anyway we eventually made it to the festival site and located Steen (I almost fell into his arms in sheer exhaustion) who took us to where he, Nina and Mads had set up camp. Apparently despite getting there around 1 o'clock we had missed absolutely nothing of note, which was a relief.
After getting the tents set up we got stuck into a few beers and decided to check out the festival site. Steen and I went to get our press passes and the nice people at MCF ended up giving me a photo pass which I wasn't expecting. I reckon after our epic journey to the site the Gods of Metal decided to grant me some good fortune. Press passes obtained we headed into the MCF arena.
Now I had been informed by Michael that the festival site used to be a Military base and if I hadn't been told this I would probably have guessed it anyway. The ten minute walk from the campsite into the festival was along this depressing concrete road flanked by large grey buildings. Not exactly the most idyllic of festival surroundings but I got used to it.
Now by this point it was getting pretty hot and I was getting rather hungry. Upon reaching the main arena we walked about and in vain tried to find some water (other than the fizzy stuff they were selling in plastic cups) and also some food.
It soon became apparent that the festival was nowhere near fully set up yet despite the gates being open for a few hours. We eventually found a food stall that was just setting up to sell steak burgers and sausages and waited in vain for maybe around 30-40 minutes to get served. Steen made a fortuitous decision to try round the other side of the stall and somehow got lucky. Mind you, he only managed to get two sausages minus the bread as they had already run out. What magnificent organization eh?
Still he did better than Nina, Mads and eventually our patience ran thin and we wandered off hungry and pissed off. We considered ambushing Steen and stealing his food but in the spirit of peace and harmony we decided to let him away with only a few jealous looks.
Having fully explored the half set up festival area and judging that there was bugger all to do apart from wait in a massive queue for the Manowar signing, we headed back to the campsite. As luck would have it we found a food stall that was not as completely crowded as the one in the arena and managed to get some food. But even then this stall too was out of bread.
The poor organization of the festival was hammered home further by two points. Firstly, despite the website saying there was going to be a supermarket on site that served beer in can form, there was nothing of the sort. There was a lone mobile supermarket selling your standard breads, meats, chocolates etc and that was it. The only beer available at the festival was the rather horrible stuff from the beer stalls which cost three Euros a time. I'm hoping they organizers just couldn't get the license to sell beers in cans rather than it being a case of them swindling the festival goers by telling them one thing then doing another.
The second, much more serious problem was the severe lack of water. It was pretty damn hot for the first two days of the festival and had this weather continued I believe the organizers could have had a severe problem on their hands. We had asked several security guards around the site were we could buy still bottled water. Not one of them could give us a definitive answer. This was made even more ridiculous by the fact that the mobile supermarket told us they were not actually allowed to sell water!
We eventually tracked down two really helpful security guards who advised us that there was a tap (just one tap!!!) beside the showers. We headed over that way, located the tap, filled a couple of bottles we were fortunate enough to have with us and ended our epic quest for water.
Some more drinking was done back at our tents where we were joined by Paul and Jim, a couple of English guys who had camped beside us. It hit 5 o'clock and we decided to try out the Manowar soundcheck. We went back in and found out there was a massive fence erected just behind the soundstage so we were stuck behind that.
The soundcheck sounded great with the band running through a few songs including "The Oath" and "Heart of Steel". It was immediately obvious that the sound would be second to none all weekend as even at this stage everything sounded crystal clear. At the end of the check Joey uttered some of the sweetest words in the English language "free beer" and bedlam commenced as everyone ran to the closest bar and demanded a beer. I managed to get my hands on two, so needless to say I was quite the happy camper.
This however is where my memory starts to get a bit sketchy, we did a bit more drinking then headed to see the some of the battle of the bands. The one band I unquestionably saw was Sexgapade with their unspeakably awful song "Shaved But Dirty". I seriously wish I could forget it but it's been scarred into my mind.
I think I was so put off by this I headed back to the tent and drank steadily till it was time for the burning of the Viking ship. I headed back in with Barry and we located the ship (which looked more like a big pile of logs through my drunken vision) and took a seat to watch it burn. It was round about this time I realized I was utterly wasted and was almost asleep waiting for something, anything to keep me awake.
I then took the brave decision to leave before the burning started and get back to the tent. No idea how long it took me to find our camp as I scrambled through rows of tents in the pitch black (another note to organizers, put some lights around the campsite so people don't break their necks in the dark) but I found it somehow and as it turned out I was shortly joined at camp by Steen who had also given up the waiting in favour of sleep.
Thursday
"Fires burn into the sky my spirit will never die"
Woke up on Thursday with a killer hangover and was relieved to find out someone had got water from the "Sacred Tap". I drank my fill of this and not to be put off by the pounding headache, got stuck right into the beer again.
Apparently I hadn't missed too much the night before, Eric Adams had appeared and shot a flaming arrow into the ship (which admittedly sounds pretty cool) then Joey conducted a marriage ceremony complete with lots of comments of a sexual nature (as you would expect).
Again there wasn't much to do around the site apart from wait in a horrendous queue to get stuff signed by Manowar and HolyHell. So yet again the afternoon was spent drinking. Not that this is a bad thing you understand.
We had a great time with music pumping out of our portable speakers and were joined by a collection of Swedes and Danes who had been on the 12 hour bus journey with Steen, Nina and Mads. Much drinking was done and Steen (who had been given a bottle of Jim Beam by one of the Swedes) treated us to his own faithful renditions of parts of "Achilles, Agony and Ecstasy" and also "When The Crowds Are Gone" by Savatage.
It got to around 4 o'clock and Mads and I decided to check out the stalls in the main arena. We left the party in full swing and wandered into the site. We bumped into Dougie and Rose, a fellow Scottish couple that I had been chatting to on the plane on the way over. They too were a bit disappointed at the organisation of the festival. As we were checking out one of the Cd stands the announcer appeared on stage and announces the first band Bendictum.
We were a bit confused as it was only 5pm and they weren't supposed to come on till half 5, but on they came half an hour early. And I'll be honest they needn't have bothered. The were only a few hundred people in the arena at this point and those who were there stood stock still as the band played through a collection of dreadful songs, the only one I remember being "Bare Bones", which was about as much fun as being kicked repeatedly in the balls.
We lasted about four tracks then headed to the campsite, we arrived to find out that the Jim Beam had got the better of Steen and he was rather drunk. We informed him that Benedictum were on stage and he gathered up his camera and bravely adventured into the Festival area to get some pictures...at least that was his plan.
A few minutes later someone walked past and said "Your friend appears to be sleeping beside our tents". We walk over and sure enough, there's Steen curled up on the grass using the camera as a pillow.
We decided to let him sleep while Barry, Nicola and I checked out MSG. I had a record to keep up with this particular band. Upon watching them at Sweden Rock a few years back I had fallen fast asleep about 3 songs into their set. I'm pleased to say I managed it again this time round as after lounging on the grass for a few songs the mix of hot weather and alcohol got the better of me and I drifted off to sleep. I awoke about two songs from the end and this time caught "Doctor Doctor" which sounded brilliant, as it always does. There is just something about that song that I utterly love.
We then bumped into Jim, Paul and a German girl called Ully who was also camping beside us. Jim has himself a rather large St Georges Cross flag with a rather beautiful Manowar logo and Sign of the Hammer drawn on it. It became quiet handy over the course of the festival as you only had to look for the massive flag to locate him.
Next band on was Ted Nugent, I didn't know much about the man's music but figured I would be as well kicking around to see what the fuss was about. Turns out I was right to do so as Ted turned in an hour of good but not so clean All-American fun. Songs like "Wango Tango", "Cat Scratch Fever" and the colourfully titled "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang" sounded excellent.
The band was much heavier live than I had expected considering they were only a three piece. Ted quickly confirmed his mad-man reputation with some crazy stage banter and antics. I never thought I would see an American man in his 50's shoot a flaming arrow into a guitar while wearing a Native American headdress and ranting about Buffalos. The mental bastard!
After the first brilliant performance of the festival we didn't have to wait around long for the second. Barely half an hour after Ted had left the stage, the intro music boomed out of the P.A and up stepped the living legend Alice Cooper to steal the night.
The crowd wasn't too big as Alice started but by three or four songs into the set the place really started to fill up. The band knew exactly what we were after and delivered hit after hit in a set of such magnificence that discussion raged afterwards that there might be a good chance it would be the best the show of the festival.
Tracks like "No More Mr Nice Guy" were followed by "Under My Wheels"," I'm Eighteen" and "Lost In America" and helped the audience remember how many stone cold classics the man has produced over the years. Alice also found room in the set for equally excellent newer songs like "Dirty Diamonds" and "Woman Of Mass Distraction"
The "Welcome To My Nightmare" section was as perfectly over the top as usual with the "Ballad of Dwight Fry" sounding as chillingly beautiful as ever and "I Love The Dead" providing a sick sing-along moment after Alice had been hanged by his eternally eager stage-hands.
Biggest reception of the night was left to the mega hits "School's Out" and "Poison" and when The Toy Master asked us to "Raise your hands if you're poison" I don't think a single persons arms were by their side.
After Alice had wrapped up his set Jim and I headed across to the events hall to watch some of the battle of the bands. We saw about 5 bands including some American Power Metal band, Snake Eyes who were half decent English Power Metal and a Norwegian Hard Rock band called Cassock who were without a doubt the most professional of the bands on display and also had the added bonus of a stunningly attractive female singer.
We were attempting to stay and watch Death Angel who were for some reason going to be on at stupid o'clock in the morning after the battle of the bands finished. But by half one in the morning our bodies started to fail us and we headed back to the tent.
We got waylaid by the sound of the Manowar truck which was parked near one of the bars pumping out some Manowar tunes. We had a look and discovered there were two of the most bored looking strippers in the world dancing with some guy at the bar and licking tequila off him. None of the three looked to be having that much fun really
Still we decided to watch this for a while and ended up singing "Die For Metal" and "Kings Of Metal" along with some fantastically drunk guys beside the Mano'truck (as I'm now calling it). Sadly the tiredness soon came creeping back and we decided to retire for the evening. This decision has nothing to do with the fact that the strippers had packed up and left. Oh no, not at all.
Day 3 and 4
| Click pictures for a bigger version.
A lone water post
The camp
Warming up for a party
Ted Nugent
Ted Nugent
Ted Nugent
Ted Nugent
Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper
| Written by Stuart
Monday, August 11, 2008 |
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RevelationZ Comments
| Comment by Revgoomba (Member) - Tuesday, August 12, 2008 | |
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