The Inevitable Rant.
The break in updates was caused by some solid traveling and seething hate.
I got one my train from Edinburgh without issue and had an easy 5 hour trip down to King's Cross, where I changed trains to head out to Luton Airport for my 6:10 pm flight. Checked my bags in and wandered to the departure lounge, only to be told via the information board that my flight was delayed by an hour. Never mind, I'll get some dinner.
Emerging refreshed, the board had updated to show that my flight was now delayed by 2 hours. Okay! I will scan the racks in the newsagency! Duly scanned, I ventured out to check my gate number, and my flight had been delayed by another hour.
How lucky, then, that Luton Airport is so fucking interesting. When the gate number was finally announced and we were informed that our plane had landed, we were told that there would be an additional delay due to the entire passenger cabin being filled with piss. They don't know how they took onboard 14,000 litres of urine, but it must have happened in Majorca.
I finally boarded at 10:40pm and was herded to the back where I passed the entire flight cradling my head in my hands as unsupervised children screamed and ran up and down the aisle whilst undoubtedly shitting themselves with impunity and spreading germs, or whatever kids do.
By midnight, I was in Hamburg, and an expensive taxi ride later, in my Airbnb. A fitful night's sleep and I was back into travel mode. Heading out from Hamburg, I disembarked at a small town called Itzehoe, with a connecting service that deposited me at a smaller village called Wilster.
Very quiet and bucolic, I ambled along a riverbank until I got to the street where I was staying.
Erika, my host, was a lovely lady in her 60's, and in broken English showed me around. She then asked if I was interested in going to the Wacken festival site that very evening, a day before the whole three day event began properly, as they had pre-show entertainment.
Well, why not! Erika (which this fucking computer keeps attempting to autocorrect to "Srikanth") and her ancient, decrepit but lovely husband whom I named Nietzsche because I never got his real name, ferried me out the 10 miles to the festival, and we agreed to meet back at the prearranged spot at 10:30. On one side of the absolutely enormous festival perimeter ran the Main Street of Wacken, which was filled with food trucks, music related shops and beer outlets. So many beer outlets. Some enterprising people were selling beer out of their garages, and why not?
Entering the main gate of the festival proper, I could see that the avenues for foot traffic were wide, but already beginning to show signs of deterioration into muddy puddles, but I figured into wouldn't be too bad, since the days had been sunny and warm. After a cursory glance at further food stalls and the main stages, I headed back to meet Erika and Nietzsche, and we headed back to their place. I got a reasonably early night in preparation for the following three days of metal.
In the morning, I met Alex, the young Mexican guy who was also staying at Erika's place. His English was impeccable, and we swapped numbers so as to meet up during the day/night, and then catch the shuttle bus back home when the first night had ended.
According to him, some light rain had fallen during the night, but the day was sunny and I thought no more of it. Alex kept mentioning he wanted to buy gum boots, but I told him we'd be fine.
Oh, you fool.
Queuing up to swap our tickets for an armband that ensure access across all 3 days, Alex and I did our best to dodge the growing rivers of mud that had appeared since my previous visit. When we finally hit the main thoroughfare, the truth became inevitable. The rain had turned the grassy fields of Wacken into a vast sea of mud. And with it came an epiphany. As my foot sunk into the cold mud, up to my shin, I felt something click.
Two years before I suppose it officially starts at 40, I could feel myself transitioning into middle age, or at least my definition of it. Standing in mud, a guy to my right being violently ill at 11:00am from too much drink and another guy to my right pissing into a mud hole, I thought 'fuck this'. There was
almost nowhere to stand that wasn't a muddy pit of misery, and this was all before midday. One of my favourite bands was due to headline, and they weren't due onstage until 12:20 am.
After a few hours my calves had begun to cramp due to the necessity of having to walk delicately and purposefully, lest an errant foot placement send you arse over tit and into the mud. By 9:00 I had booked a new Airbnb place in Hamburg. At 1:00 am, when the band Nile had finished, it was a simple matter of walking to the shuttle bus departure point, which was almost 2 kilometres away, through more muddy 'streets'. In the dark.
While it was cool to see a number of bands that I'd wanted to see for some time, the overall experience was just fucking ghastly. If I still drank, I could maybe handle three days of mud drenched awfulness, but even that's a stretch. Kudos to the people who do it year after year, but you can keep your shitty festival in a field in rural Germany where it belongs.
I got one my train from Edinburgh without issue and had an easy 5 hour trip down to King's Cross, where I changed trains to head out to Luton Airport for my 6:10 pm flight. Checked my bags in and wandered to the departure lounge, only to be told via the information board that my flight was delayed by an hour. Never mind, I'll get some dinner.
Emerging refreshed, the board had updated to show that my flight was now delayed by 2 hours. Okay! I will scan the racks in the newsagency! Duly scanned, I ventured out to check my gate number, and my flight had been delayed by another hour.
How lucky, then, that Luton Airport is so fucking interesting. When the gate number was finally announced and we were informed that our plane had landed, we were told that there would be an additional delay due to the entire passenger cabin being filled with piss. They don't know how they took onboard 14,000 litres of urine, but it must have happened in Majorca.
I finally boarded at 10:40pm and was herded to the back where I passed the entire flight cradling my head in my hands as unsupervised children screamed and ran up and down the aisle whilst undoubtedly shitting themselves with impunity and spreading germs, or whatever kids do.
By midnight, I was in Hamburg, and an expensive taxi ride later, in my Airbnb. A fitful night's sleep and I was back into travel mode. Heading out from Hamburg, I disembarked at a small town called Itzehoe, with a connecting service that deposited me at a smaller village called Wilster.
Very quiet and bucolic, I ambled along a riverbank until I got to the street where I was staying.
Erika, my host, was a lovely lady in her 60's, and in broken English showed me around. She then asked if I was interested in going to the Wacken festival site that very evening, a day before the whole three day event began properly, as they had pre-show entertainment.
Well, why not! Erika (which this fucking computer keeps attempting to autocorrect to "Srikanth") and her ancient, decrepit but lovely husband whom I named Nietzsche because I never got his real name, ferried me out the 10 miles to the festival, and we agreed to meet back at the prearranged spot at 10:30. On one side of the absolutely enormous festival perimeter ran the Main Street of Wacken, which was filled with food trucks, music related shops and beer outlets. So many beer outlets. Some enterprising people were selling beer out of their garages, and why not?
Entering the main gate of the festival proper, I could see that the avenues for foot traffic were wide, but already beginning to show signs of deterioration into muddy puddles, but I figured into wouldn't be too bad, since the days had been sunny and warm. After a cursory glance at further food stalls and the main stages, I headed back to meet Erika and Nietzsche, and we headed back to their place. I got a reasonably early night in preparation for the following three days of metal.
In the morning, I met Alex, the young Mexican guy who was also staying at Erika's place. His English was impeccable, and we swapped numbers so as to meet up during the day/night, and then catch the shuttle bus back home when the first night had ended.
According to him, some light rain had fallen during the night, but the day was sunny and I thought no more of it. Alex kept mentioning he wanted to buy gum boots, but I told him we'd be fine.
Oh, you fool.
Queuing up to swap our tickets for an armband that ensure access across all 3 days, Alex and I did our best to dodge the growing rivers of mud that had appeared since my previous visit. When we finally hit the main thoroughfare, the truth became inevitable. The rain had turned the grassy fields of Wacken into a vast sea of mud. And with it came an epiphany. As my foot sunk into the cold mud, up to my shin, I felt something click.
Two years before I suppose it officially starts at 40, I could feel myself transitioning into middle age, or at least my definition of it. Standing in mud, a guy to my right being violently ill at 11:00am from too much drink and another guy to my right pissing into a mud hole, I thought 'fuck this'. There was
almost nowhere to stand that wasn't a muddy pit of misery, and this was all before midday. One of my favourite bands was due to headline, and they weren't due onstage until 12:20 am.
After a few hours my calves had begun to cramp due to the necessity of having to walk delicately and purposefully, lest an errant foot placement send you arse over tit and into the mud. By 9:00 I had booked a new Airbnb place in Hamburg. At 1:00 am, when the band Nile had finished, it was a simple matter of walking to the shuttle bus departure point, which was almost 2 kilometres away, through more muddy 'streets'. In the dark.
While it was cool to see a number of bands that I'd wanted to see for some time, the overall experience was just fucking ghastly. If I still drank, I could maybe handle three days of mud drenched awfulness, but even that's a stretch. Kudos to the people who do it year after year, but you can keep your shitty festival in a field in rural Germany where it belongs.
posted by Elfin at 11:29 AM
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