Metaltown, Gothenburg, Sweden

After an early morning flight from Stockholm to Gothenburg, i arrived at the backstage area of Metaltown Festival around 11am. I was completely alone in our backstage tent as David was already at stage rigging our pyro-stuff, Johan was still on the train from Helsingborg and the rest of the gang was still at the hotel, late after the endeavours with Hypocrisy the day before. So i started to check out the area, found some friends and then went to have lunch in the catering. Metaltown is a big festival nowdadays, and i must say it's also one of the better festivals! Now with over 25.000 metal maniacs it feels like Gothenburg is worthy a festival at this size and reputation.

This time we were playing at the main stage, which is the biggest of the four stages. It would be a great understatement to say that it is big - it is huge, 30m wide! I just love playing stages this size, we've done that before, like Wacken as an example, as you have so much space to run around and a great feeling of being free without have to be cautions of the other guys around. The bad side of the coin is just the same, that it's so big. You have to work your ass off to "fill up" a stage this size, especially in daylight where you cannot hide in the dark and/or in the lighting show. I believe we did our best anyway, as we opened up as the first band on the main stage this day. We had Pyro at this show, even though we nearly burned ourselves when the wind changed direction last time we played here in 2009. It was almost as windy this time though, but the stage was so much bigger and the type of pyro was different so it went all fine. The only funny part is that all confetti blew away in the blink of an eye after its blast, and all landed stage left in the backstage area, hahaha.

After the show we had a planned signing session in a record store tent at the middle of the festival area. "Bengans" is an old record store that has been around forever and it feels good to see they are still hanging in there! To my surprise it was loads of people standing in line waiting for our arrival, and it took us a long time to finish up all of them before we moved on. On a funny note, i signed more VINYL Pain albums than i have ever done before - it seems like the Painheads here wants the real deal, huh? During the signing session my daughter Jennifer was standing behind the barriers giggling with her friend, she obviously thinks her daddy looks silly :-)

The moment i had been waiting for since 1990 was Anthrax. Back in the 80's i was a huge Anthrax fan, and last time i saw them was in 1990 in Solnahallen, Stockholm, at the "State of euphoria" tour. I just love their music and attitude. Scott Ian must be one of the best riffing champs in the world and i must admit i looked up to him already in mid 80's together with Dan Spitz and Mille Petrozza. Now they are back and i am so happy. I enjoyed the show together with my daughter Jennifer and my long time friend Anders Mannio. I got everything i hoped for: "Antisocial", "I am the law", "Indians", "Madhouse", "Caught in a mosh" but also a short version of "I'm the man"! This made my day completely.

After the Anthrax show i went to the Slayer lounge with Anders Mannio and Danne McKenzie. We had the VIP passes to get in there and taste the new wine released by Slayer, called "Reign in blood red". It was a nice but smart marketing event of course, but we had a good time and the wine was exactly in my taste - as most Cabernet Sauvignon wines are... After a while the guys in Slayer also showed up in a very good mood, chatting with the people around. These guys are legends by now, and i have always loved their music, but i didn't see their show as i have seen them so many times now. Also, after Anthrax it felt like i need nothing more of this day :-)

The evening continued in the backstage area with good time among friends in a party that never ends. One of my best friends, Smirnoff Ice, was also there all evening. I met Anders Mannio, Danne McKenzie and André Warnie from Bandit Rock. Henric Carlsson from Jackson guitars, ex-HammeFall guitarist Stefan Elmgren. Magnus and Marcus from Engel. Pontus, Oscar and Joacim from HammerFall. Anders Ivers from Tiamat, Leif Edling from Candlemass and the list goes on and on and on... and then we had guys like Kerry King and Charlie Benante hanging around. It was a good day.

I took an early flight back home again the next morning and arrived in a rainy Stockholm. It was the same in Gothenburg with rain on and off, but we were one of the bands that didn't have any rain when we played! (it was raining during Anthrax though)
It was a very good weekend in general, and now we have a few weeks off again until the Rockharz festival in Germany, the Masters of Rock festival in Czech Republic and Bang your head festival in Germany is coming up!


Main stage at Metaltown is HUGE! Photo: Mattias Hedberg


Shut your mouth! Live at Metaltown. Photo: Anders Mannio


Backstage fridge looks good - all my friends are in there


Backstage area and Hede trying to reach for the sky

Painheads in a loooooooong line waiting for the signing session :-)

Signing session at Metaltown, including the table..

Our FOH Jonas Kjellgren in one of is best poses after show

Building my own pan flute - 12 notes in a full octave! :-)

Anthrax at Metaltown - fantastic!!!

Tasting the new wine "Reign in blood red" at the Slayer lounge

Danne McKenzie and myself happy with the Slayer wine

Slayer came to join at the Slayer Louge as well...

...and they were all in a very good mood :-)


Danne McKenzie outside the Slayer lounge

Backstage with my long time friend Joacim Cans

Gothenburg is beautiful - the view from my hotel room at 11th floor


My daughter Jennifer took this pic of me at the show - she was in frontrow

Danne and André found our confetti backstage :-)
Photo: Anders Mannio

Comments
Posted by: Satanja

Haha, det förklarar varför min kameraväska var full av vit & blå konfetti... dumt att placera den halvöppen till vänster om scenen med andra ord >_<

2012-06-25 @ 22:56:36
URL: http://www.satanja.se

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