Rock Im Park 2008, Day Two: Ze Germans!

Nürnberg is in Bayern (or Bavaria if you will), a region of southern Germany, and is indeed a very, very strange place. A place where the word Servus counts as a greeting, repetition of the mantra “SAUFEN, SAUFEN, SAUFEN!!” (drink, drink, drink!) serves as a proper means of communication throughout the weekend.. And a place where everybody, from the sounds of it seems to be looking for a girl by the name of “Helga”..

These facts, amongst others, caught us a bit off guard as we touched down on terra firma early Friday morning, happy to just get off the train. We immediately set out to get from the main station to the festival grounds. We decided on going by train and pretty quickly located the right platform as well as a bunch of other budding concert goers who pretty quickly started fueling our loathing for the Bavarian people by kicking right into their most popular pass time activity, crying out “SAUFEN!” in regular intervals. Anyways, the train arrived soon enough and the trip to Frankenstadion, the city’s main stadium at the outskirts of the festival grounds was barely noticeable.

Upon arriving at the Frankenstadion station, we stood around and pondered how to get from there to the festival grounds.. It turned out to be a simple matter of exiting the station because once we did, we were met by one of the most peculiar sights in the world. Everywhere, and I do mean EVERYWHERE in front of us were people and contraptions of various kinds.. Tents were pitched on whatever grass patches was around, cars vans and motor homes were parked wherever possible, tables, couches, party tents and what have you were sprawled out in the middle of the road, from somewhere in the crowd Metallica was blasting from a couple of huge ass speakers while elsewhere, people were piling together for a 9:30 AM keg party. We even saw a couple of old tour busses which people used for partying in – crazy.. Downright fucking crazy!

Still, we’d no way of knowing where we were or where to go from there. We thought we’d stumbled into the camping grounds by accident but it turned out that this was merely the public parking lots and not part of the festival grounds as such.. We figured this out by asking left and right, arguing a bit with grumbly security and more or less just trying our way forwards, taking whatever beating that might lead to. By a combination of these approaches we, after some time arrived at a small booth where our tickets were exchanged for the now common festival arm bands which act as your entrance pass through the days of the festival. With these on, and after some serious frisking, we now made it onto the dedicated camping grounds where we spent about an hour effortlessly walking around utterly confused, looking for places to pitch our tents. We did, however, notice a strange fluctuation in the helpfulness of the German people.. Some would sneer at us for even daring to ask for directions, while others would see us lugging our luggage and offer suggestions and directions to possible free spots. After an hour or so, we’d still come up empty, though.

We eventually decided to send the guys ahead with the tents to look for a suitable spot while Tina and I guarded the luggage. This left Tina and I plenty of time to get some much needed food and water while winding down a little after the long walk. Penny eventually arrived after an hour and a half or so and told us the good news that they’d found a good spot in the shade some mile or so away from our current location. So we fought our way through more of the parking lot, through more strange man made contraptions – including an old-school VW camper bus with a dining table mounted on the roof complete with 8-10 guys sitting around it eating steak and drinking beer (the purpose of this contraption escapes me, but I still found it worthy of mention) to our home for the weekend. Camping Site C8.3 located on the very outskirts of the festival grounds and as such pretty uncrowded

Upon arriving at the campsite, we found Dunkel and Henrik sitting around, looking dazed at the sight of our tent sprawled lifelessly over the ground. When questioned, they shrugged and pointed to the instructions which contained all of three steps and no pictures what so ever to help simplify the procedure. Sighing, we handed out a couple of beers and Tina, Dunkel and I got to work.. Okay, lets just be honest here, Tina got to work and Dunkel and I helped out as much as we could. Which limited us mostly to bolting things securely into place, holding stuff in place as she fixated them and bringing her whatever she needed while trying not to look like complete idiots.. At long last, I admitted defeat and decided to just head on over to the toilet building and get a bunch of toilet visit tokens that I knew would come in handy, for Tina especially, later.. That way I’d at least done something useful. Again I had nothing but love and respect for Tina and once again she more than saved the day.. Good work, babe!

After Tina saved our day and redeemed ourselves from some of the humiliation that had fallen upon us as the other campers watched us struggle with the tents, we sat down and had another beer just for the sake of celebrating our success. Penny and Henrik then decided to head downtown for supplies while Dunkel, Tina and I decided to go check out the newly opened stage areas.. We did so by way of some food stalls and a beer tent and were soon happy explorers. Tina, having never been to a larger festival seemed rather in awe by all of the activity, so Dunkel and I figured we’d better break her in easy by taking her to the Alternastage – the second largest stage – to see a performance by some band that none us had really ever heard about.. That way she could get pretty close up front and get a feel of what it was all about without the added bonus of a large crowd pushing us about.. It all seemed a good plan, had it not been for the fact that the bass on Alternastage had been pumped up to a point where we could barely stand it. So, before going on any further, we decided to return to base camp for ear plugs, supplies and for me to get rid of my glasses as to not lose them in the crowd later.

After this brief stop, we returned to the stage areas, once again taking our time to take in the sights and the sounds of the camping and parking areas. This time, we decided to go large and hit Center Stage, the largest stage where the headliners played for anywhere from 60 – 100,000 fans. Dunkel and I really wanted to catch Lostprophets and I had a feeling that Tina might really enjoy the show as well and luckily she agreed to tag along. Since they played at like 3:30 PM, we had absolutely no problems getting all the way up front and we figured, having come this far, we owed it to ourselves to at least get up front for one show.. So on we went and got some pretty awesome mid stage positions for what turned out to be one hell of a show. Dunkel and I are both pretty big fans of Lostprophets, so of course we were jumping the fuck around, yelling, singing (off key!), throwing horns and headbanging like crazy.. But hey, I saw even Tina jumping and pounding her fist from time to time and smiling brightly, so I guess I wasn’t too far off in thinking she’d like Lostprophets. Best part of the show was definitely the last three songs: “Shinobi vs Dragon Ninja”, “Last Train” and “Burn Burn” which incidentally are also the ones I know by heart. Moshing one on one with Dunkel during shinobi was awesome, as was the crowd singing the chorus on Last Train and Burn Burn is ever the crowd pleaser – and we had the added pleasure of having Ian Watkins storm through the crowd during the breakdown.. I even got a high five

Good times.. Tough times.. Jumping up and down for 30 minutes in 30 degree heat is just not good for you.. Apparently, according to poor Tina, our headbanging had also brought down a hail of sweat so no wonder we were feeling a little dehydrated when it was all over. So as Simple Plan prepared to hit stage, we decided to just go sit down and chill with some water and some beer. Incidentally, while we were sitting there chilling and listening to one of the only Simple Plan songs I actually know, we look over and go.. Hey, isn’t that Jamie Oliver from LostProphets standing right next to us talking to some chick? After a brief debate it was decided that it was indeed him and that we should go and try to get a photo with him. After downing a beer in about ten seconds, I muster the courage, put on a polite face and we walk over. It turned out that he was in fact Jamie Oliver from Lostprophets and that he was very proud to hear that we were such huge fans and that his band had been one of the deciding factors for us coming all this way. He even shook hands and was more than happy to pose for a picture. Which of course got everybody’s attention especially when someone not quite as subtle and polite as us cried out “Oi hey! You’re the fucking keyboard player from fucking Lostprophets!” We excused gave thanks and ourselves to Mr. Oliver and his lady friend before bailing out as the hail of paparazzis descended..

So far the day was off to a pretty good start.. And it was only to get better. I’ve been having a strange fascination with Kid Rock lately.. I mean, he’s just a funny character. I guess Dunkel feels the same way and following our last recommendations Tina wasn’t hard to persuade to stick around either. Center Stage was getting pretty crammed by now so we had to move up forward a bit to even be able to see just a little and so we did.. And I’m glad we did because this show was actually one of the biggest surprises of the weekend for me. I mean, Kid Rock actually ROCKED and the crowd was damn into it as well.. Probably playing “American Badass” in front of a crowd waiting to see Metallica by the end of the weekend helped quite a bit.. But so did “Sweet Home Alabama”, “American Rock History Medley” and “Bawitdaba.”

We considered heading back to camp for a while after Kid Rock, but since tonight’s headliner was “Die Toten Hosen”, Germany’s biggest punk rock band, and the co-headliner was apparently really big as well, we didn’t dare risk it out of fear of not being able to find a spot at all, so we stuck around, grabbed some food and eventually managed to sneak our way all the way up to the railing behind the wave breakers in front of the stage which made for a pretty nice spot for a band of this magnitude. It also involved getting Tina safely positioned against the railing with me behind her and Dunkel on my side in order to keep her out of harm’s way in terms of moshing or crowd surfing and what have you. Since we were on the side of the stage, not directly in front of it, we figured we’d be pretty safe..

So how were Die Hosen? Well, pretty damn awesome! Campino, the lead singer, came in on crutches having apparently broken his foot about a month ago after kicking a trashcan out of rage when Liverpool was eliminated from Champion’s League.. No, I kid you not! A few Heinekens seemed to do him good, though, and he was pretty soon running around on stage, jumping screaming and climbing things.. Yes, climbing.. Crazy motherfucker actually decided to put his broken leg to use and scale the entire height of the center stage lighting tower and sit on top of it while performing one of their songs with the mic in one hand and a lit road flare in the other.. Speaking of road flares, we spotted a few of those in the crowd as well.. Crazy! All in all, the crowd wasn’t too crazy, though. There was some moshing during a few songs, but nothing too bad.. Lots and lost of crowd sufers, though.. And I got pretty much all I wanted from the setlist including a heart felt performance of “Nur Zu Besuch” – as if that song isn’t touching enough as it is.. And of course, Hier Kommt Alex which also had me singing along with all the teenage girls crowded around us. After two sets of encores involving one which saw Campino playing his “Liverpool FC” custom guitar and a rendition of the ever so classic “You’ll Never Walk Alone”.. Man, you’d get to thinking these guys were Liverpool fans.. Die Hosen left the stage and we filed for the exit and set out on the long walk home to camp where, after 40 hours without proper sleep, we collapsed pretty quickly after a beer and a chat. Okay, actually two of us passed out during the chat, leaving me and Henrik (who’d popped into our tent to say hi) to finish our talk on our own before I headed for bed.. Time for a good nights sleep? Hmm, I guess we’d have to see about that!