Michael Bohlin -

Zwarte Cross, The Netherlands

My good friend Frank who's Dutch have told me about the craziness of this festival and that i "won't believe it", but it doesn't matter, i was surprised anyway! I have never seen anything like this. About 160.000 people, many of them drunk or shitfaced in other ways, were there just to have a good time no matter what. It is mainly a motocross show but also several stages and loads of bands, but it felt like that was secondary. It was not that easy to get peoples attention in the lunatic parade that we found our selves in. As an example, one of the stages had a motocross ramp on each side leading up to the roof, and then the drivers could drive up on one side, fly over the stage roof and land on the ramp on the other side again. I am stunned…

As if this wasn't enough, the mud and dirt everywhere made this the dirtiest festival i have ever been. The festival is located in a field in the middle of nowhere, and every single attendee was completely dirty and covered in mud. Some of the bands had put plastic bags on their shoes and taped them to avoid the mud, as it was impossible to even go from backstage to the stage without sinking down in mud. I had a great laugh, that's for sure!

Once again we had our friends Exodus playing at the slot before us, and once again Rob Dukes came up on stage and sang "Shut your mouth" with us. But this time loads of people also joined Exodus on stage at their show and sang "Toxic Walz" and the coolest thing was at the end of their show when a kid, maybe 2-3 years old, came up on stage and joined in holding a screaming guitar in front of all the screaming audience. Priceless.
Once again Exodus where so kind to take our guitars and stuff in their nightliner, so we didn't have to hassle with them when we fly - yes, Exodus is playing the slot before us at the festival tomorrow as well, the fourth festival we do together in just a week's time. How crazy is that?

I saw a bunch of real Painheads both in first row and way in the back, even though this festival had a completely different direction. I also spoke to a few afterwards who all said they will come back in November at the European tour.

After the show we drove to Düsseldorf where our hotel was booked. The next morning i went up and had long shower, breakfast (breakfastpoints: 6) and then left to the Düsseldorf airport. We flew from Düsseldorf to Nürnberg and then drove to the hotel way up in the mountains of Masserberg-Schnett. This is where i am right now. This seems to be a "resort & sport active" hotel... I feel a bit odd and misplaced here... Anyway, in a few hours we will drive back down the mountains again and head towards the festival "Queens of Metal". See 'ya tonite!