Part II - Ozzfest adventures
Woke up bright and early (yes, Vin got up at 6:30 am) and drove to the venue. Because of a few lucky breaks the previous night, we got to bypass the masses with passes to the 2nd stage that he scored for us.
Here's my thoughts on some of the bands we saw.
Andrew W.K. - bad 80's hair metal, singer did some strange arm movements combined with moshing punctuated with can-can kicks. Weirdos.
Flaw - I liked them, their tour manager gave us the backstage passes.
3rd Strike - Gabe Hammersmith, a bassist with a scary stage look, met him by the tour buses in the parking lot and had a nice conversation.
Ill Nino - too many groupie hos hanging around.
Pulse Ultra - Vin liked them, I thought the singer lacked stage presence and his somewhat quiet singing didn't help much.
Otep - GOOD singing by a chick. Morgan Lander could learn a thing or two (or five). I wanted to talk to her after the show, but she disappeared, saw her as we were leaving, stoned/drunk/fucked out of her mind so I decided not to talk to her after all.
Meshuggah - AMAZING drumming!!! Talked to Mårten, one of the guitarists, when Vin introduced me to him, the only thing I could say was, "I have a thing for :sweden guys!" So we started talking about hockey and stuff, turns out he's from the same town as Fishface and ended up wearing a MoDo jersey during their set. Met Tomas, the drummer, who's one of Vin's drumming idols, shall we say, and he was very down to earth, "Hi, my name is Tomas..."
Hatebreed - they've never done anything for me. Sat in the shade and power napped during their set.
Adema - :disgust :puke :dead
Left after a couple songs into the Adema set.
Drove into Detroit to gawk at the freaky abandoned buildings. We had brought Avs/Team Canada jerseys thinking to piss off the locals, and had yelled "WINGS SUCK!" when passing by fans at the venue. We're driving along in what's probably the only decent Detroit neighbourhood and pass Comerica Park, then see a restaurant called the Hockeytown Café, covered with Wings flags and memorabilia. Can't resist the devilish temptation to waltz in, dressed in Avs gear. The staff there were good sports, and just teased us a bit, I can't say the same for the customers, and we had to keep an eye out for possible snipers lurking in the broken windows of the abandoned buildings.
We spent the night in London. (ahhh, safe :canada) Ended up at TJ's for a blue lagoon the mourn the closing of our favourite metal club/watering hole. :cry