Principality of Transylvania

So, last weekend it was time for Romania again. Our last time there wasn't really that successful trip. That was the kind of festival that you just want to forget. This time time it was more promising already from the start since they had bands like In Extremo and Stratovarius which meant that it just can't be anything like the previous time.

We left Tampere already around 5 in the Friday morning and flew to Bucharest. We were playing on Saturday so we were able to drink lots of free alcohol while in the air. Well, not that much since they weren't bringing it to us fast enough, but some at least. We arrived to Romania some time after noon and managed to be on the road in a local van by 13. The distance was less than 300km but remembering the last time driving to Iasi we knew that it was going to take long. The roads in Romania are not exactly German autobahns and especially around Bucharest they seem to be extremely congested as well. We stopped a few times to buy more alcohol and I think the whole trip took about 6 hours.

The hotel was really nice and conveniently located only 200m from the venue, Stadionul Municipal. The local promoter had organized a pre-party/dinner/whatever in the restaurant on the top floor. I think we were basically the first ones to arrive there. We ate too much and drank at least enough. There were even enough choices for vegetarians. Nice. In Extremo arrived a bit later. It was really nice to see them again and they seemed generally happy to meet us again as well so I guess our small tour with them went well. After eating too much and drinking a bit of red wine I decided to call it a day and hit the bed. According to the stories I heard next morning some of the others had an interesting night though. Including a local karaoke bar. And someone trying to get others to go to the local pub that he knew. Of course he didn't know any local pubs but he was really convinced that he was still back home in Finland...

Saturday morning I still met most of us at the breakfast so I guess the previous night wasn't that bad after all. We decided to head for some sightseeing in the city centre that was about 15 minutes walk away. We went to the old main square, took some pictures and decided that it's enough of tourism and went for a beer. We ended up spending the next two-three hours in the beer garden of a local bar. Everyone else stayed in the shade except me. Now my nose is loosing it's skin.

The festival was supposed to open it's doors at 13 and the Wacken Open Air Metal Battle thing whatever was supposed to start at 13.30. We had to take our merch there anyway so we decided to go check the place out quite early. I guess it was like 14.30 when we arrived and the stadium was empty. I'd say there was like 20-30 people. And there were no bands playing yet, so the signs were not good. The thing was like an hour and a half late already in the beginning. Nice.

We basically ended up hanging around at the venue for the entire afternoon. Not much to do. They did fill our catering rider exactly so we at least had a lot to drink. We were getting a bit bored there and after about an hour of planning Cane and myself finally did something. There was a huge amount of extra fences next to the stage and we went and built a giant pussy on the lawn.

When we finally started our show the festival was late only like 45 minutes. For the whole afternoon the local promoter kept telling us that the "audience will come" but they never did. I'd guess there was perhaps 300-400 people. Nice amount for a club but not for a football stadium. Because of the wind we couldn't use our side or back drops and since the stage was also open on all four sides we must have looked a bit strange. After we got through the first couple songs with just horrible stage sound it got better and we actually did a pretty good show. The audience was small but good and the band was quite good as well. The sound was definitely not perfect on the stage and sometimes it was really hard to follow where we actually were. I think we messed up the last section of Pine Woods but I don't think anyone in the audience really cared or even noticed.

I watched the entire In Extremo show from the stage. They were good as usual. Seemed to have lots of problems with bass gear though. And the show started a bit strangely because they were already all on stage but left again since there were some problems with the drummer's gear as well. I asked them earlier if they're going to have the full German production with all the pyros and stuff but they told me that they'll only have some local Romanian pyros. I of course saw that stuff while we were on stage and though that they looked a bit "home made". The funniest moment of the show was when the first ones went off. It was not a bang. It was not a boom. It was more like "pfffffffst". The guys on stage were looking at each other and their monitor guy was laughing his ass off. That WAS funny.

After the show we headed back to the hotel for showers and stuff and finally later in the evening ended up in the local metal bar in a cellar. Smoking was also allowed there so the "atmosphere" was quite dense. I didn't really like that and when I realized that there basically was only us left in the bar I decide to get back to the hotel.

We left Sibiu around noon. The drive back to Bucharest was faster since we didn't have to stop for the drinks that often. Once again we had overweight over 50kg. I was dealing with the airport personnel as usual and was as charming as ever. When she said that "You'll have to pay, you know that?" I replied "Yes, we know and we're prepared to do that, but usually the nice people of Finnair give us quite a good discount..." She did one phone call and said "OK, you don't have to pay anything." That was nice.

Now I guess it's time for the Midsummer celebrations. And next weekend it's going to be Tuska and Ukraine. I guess we'll be able to play Tuska this time. Ukraine? Who knows.