Skrekkugle

Full video of Cinema Strange last year at WGT! An absolute priveliege to be in the crowd. Hope someone taped the Deadfly Ensemble gig as well.

Summer is coming to an end and I have neglected my blog lately as well. Had an awesome summer with a suprise trip to Prague with my BFF’s, some cabin trips and a lot of chilling out!

Prague was great! A town full of history, monuments and cheap drink. We also took a day trip to the Sedlec Ossuary (Bone Church) in Kutna Hora. Well worth the trip!

The pictures in this post will be reposts from my instagram account as I haven’t sorted through the ones from the camera yet. Might post some of them later or put them on FB.

Day 1 - Thursday

It had been 5 years since our first (and last) WGT and it was about time we got to go back. We tried a lot of other great festivals in the last few years but none as big as this one and we missed it. There’s just something about an entire German city being invaded by goths. The lineup was OK this year and it was the confirmation of Cinema Strange and Deadfly that sealed the deal.

Started out with a beer and some pizza early thursday morning at the airport in Oslo and after a short layover in Frankfurt our second plane would take us to Leipzig. Last time we flew from Oslo to Berlin and hopped on the train. I would say that was a bit easier but not by much,

The Hauptbanhof in Leipzig is Europes biggest train station and it’s a hundred years old. When we first came here it was a very “oh man German engineering” moment. 

We arrived pretty late and we were pretty tired so we skipped the “opening ceremony” which consisted of standing in the worlds longest line to see some DJs and fireworks in the local amusement park. Instead we went for some food and beer, and to trade our tickets for some armbands.

Earlier in the day there was a queue almost all the way back to Berlin for trading in the tickets so we we waited until everyone had gone to ride roller coasters.

Day 2 - Friday

Woke up late and went to Moritzbastei to find some breakfest. Food looked kind of lame so I bought a beer instead and we decided to head down to the festival area at the Agra.

Agra is the main festival area where you can find food, shopping, the camping area and the big main stage. There are other venues spread out all over town to accommodate the 200 bands and ~20000 visitors so it takes a lot of energy and planning (and some luck) to catch all the bands you came to see. 

Our list of bands this year wasn’t _that_ long but there were still a few crashes in the program that required us to prioritize and skip a lot of them. Out of the 200ish bands that are booked, about half or so are industrial/techno crap while the rest is a mix of all the good subgenres. The techno stuff is big in Germany and as long as the rivetheads help pay the bands I like to come I don’t really care. I guess we’re all some sort of big weird family anyways.

Hung out at Agra most of the day before heading back to the hotel to prepare for the night out. Friday we saw The Deadfly Ensemble and Peter Murphy and they were both great!

The Deadfly Ensemble is Lucas Lanthiers side project (now main I guess) and they were absolutely awesome! We saw them at Schauspielhaus which is a theater and it felt a bit weird sitting down but overall I think it added to the experience since they are very theatric. Like some weird Halloween Town theater of sorts.

We met up with a girl from the internet and her friend and jumped into a cab back down to Agra to catch Peter Murphy (Bauhaus).

It was awesome to finally see Peter Murphy playing Bauhaus tunes and it was a great performance and setlist. Not quite as good as with the original lineup of course, but pretty close in the sound departement.

He did not play Bela Lugosi’s Dead. He is at the worlds biggest goth festival and he did not play Bela Lugosi’s Dead. The worst part is that he told us on stage that he didn’t bother because it’s boring or something like that. What a fucking douchebag (sorry, but yeah). He is basically the father of goth and that tune is almost like the foundation the subculture is built upon (yeye you know what I mean) and he fucking skips it? At WGT? What the fuck man, come on. 

At least he made a big number out of Hollow Hills which was pretty great and threw in a lot of other classics so all in all it was pretty good (except for hurting my feels ofc).

Day 3 - Saturday

After crying in bed all night and planning to burn my Bauhaus collection my wife dragged me out to cheer me up with a beer. She also promised we can go home and watch an old DVD of him playing Bela Lugosi’s Dead with the volume turned up real high so I can pretend I was there. This cheered me up and off we went back down to Agra to get breakfest. I love cheap crap festival food sold out of little trucks so why bother finding a real place to eat? 

Picture from inside the shopping hall at Agra. It’s a pretty big Hall and you need a few days in there to get around to everything. If you have been there before it shouldn’t be a problem as nothing had changed in 5 years in there. Same shops and the same wares at the same layout as the last time we were here.

The one thing that had changed was that the guy with the worlds biggest wok who made me discover the true wonders of Yakisoba (noodles with meat/veg) was gone and replaced by worse chinese food. Still pretty good tho but not epic as that other guy,

Last time we were here we heard rumours about a mysterious medieval area but we never got around to check it out. That was about to change. One tram stop away from the main festival area there was a place called Heidnisches Dorf. A giant medieval village/stage/area with all things medieval!

When we first arrived there was some Witcher 3 style music coming from the stage and the first impressions were pretty cool. Home made beer, wine, foods and crafts everywhere. It made me feel like a shitty version of Geralt of Rivia or something.

We drank some beer and chilled out all day before heading back to the hotel, and decided to come back and spend our last day there instead.

Green pants and winklepickers equipped! +10 to deathrock! Tonight was the big deathrock-night at the Taubechental (or whatever). Can’t remember what we missed but the plan was to get there in time for Christ vs Warhol. Hopped on the tram and got out at this industrial area with lots of ruined brick buildings and a pretty apocalyptic feel. Joy was quickly turned into doubt and disappointment as turning a corner revealed a big fat queue to get into the venue. All hope was lost and despite it being -10 degrees and light rain my wife again wiped my tears and ensured me that we would get in sooner or later.

The queue started moving at a pretty steady pace and we actually got in somewhere in Lene Lovichs set after about 1 hour queueing. We had missed Christ vs Warhol but they are young and strappy so I guess we’ll see them again some day anyways.

After getting some warmth, food and some beer we sat down and chilled out while waiting for Tragic Black to be done with it. They have a couple of cool tunes but I’m not really a big fan. A bit too american I think. 

After hanging out for a bit it was finally time for Cinema Strange. My fav band of all time forever! Surely they wouldn’t disappoint us like old man Murphy, and they sure as hell didn’t. This time they had a bit simpler setup (no drummer or inflatable kids swimming pool) than the last but it was just as good. All their recorded stuff uses drum tracks anyways so this was closer to the original work. I don’t know if they have played any gigs since WGT 2011 but it seemed very much as they enjoyed themselves and even seemed like they were a bit surprised that we still were here for them.

I had now forgotten all my tears and hurt feelings and I was back on my feet ready to go home continue. 

Except my feet was really starting to hurt. Not that those shoes were helping so I put my feet back into my trusty old doc martens.

Day 4 - Sunday

The weather was supposed to be shit that sunday so we decided to do our shopping and stuff while it was raining. I shopped a few beer and wifey shopped some other stuff.

Most people dress in black at WGT but most of them are still nice people. So if you like the lineup but also like wearing beach outfits nobody is gonna beat you up or anything.

After getting tired of shopping we went to the Heidnisches Dorf again to catch Trollfest. I don’t know how to describe that band, they are pretty crazy. Viking-metal with some accordion and saxophone and triangel (don’t know the english word for triangel). I’m not a very big metal head but I think everyone would think this stuff is pretty cool. Went back again to the hotel to rest a few hours before going to see PiL. Nothing else really interested me all that much this evening and we really needed to chill out for a few hours anyways. 

PiL was thrown in as a last minute addition to the lineup to my great pleasure. Never got to see them live before and that old punk (the frontman there is Johnny Rotten of The Sex Pistols) could still entertain (even if he got a bit fat from eating all that butter on TV)! That guy is absolutely legendary and it was great to get the chance to see him live.

Day 5 - Monday

Last day of the festival and the two bands I was looking forward to this night was two bands I didn’t think still existed before I saw they’re names on the lineup. These are bands I typically found out about deep into related videos on YouTube which later have become avaliable on Spotify. The bands I’m talking about are of course Pink Turns Blue and And Also The Trees.

But before that we found another band that we have seen before: 

These guys were playing at Moritzbastei in 2011 all day long. Real medieval bard college stuff.

This was the day we were gonna chill out at Heidnisches Dorf all day and I started out with buying home made cherry wine in a home made bottle:

This was the nicest thing I bought all week and I wish it could last forever. Thats the cool stuff about not Norway. This entire area was filled with food and drinks made on fire in big iron pots and pans and everything was delicious and priced very fairly. I did not go to the medieval festival in Oslo this past weekend but I bet you it’s shit compared to this. Here you can sit around in the grass, eat and drink and listen to WItcher music and get drunk and have a good time. 

They sold a lot of clothes, weapons and armor too and everything else medieval. Next time I’m buying a full set of plate armor and a horse.

After being Geralt for a day (again) we went early to the Altes Landratsamt to catch tonights lineup before the venue got filled up. We came two bands early and Lament and The Mary Onettes were pretty good. Bought some beer and hanged out until the good stuff started.

And Also The Trees were stunning! They have a very special poetic post-punk sound and was my fav performance besides Deadfly and Cinema Strange. Very very british. You can check them out in one of my last posts.

After them it was time for Pink Turns Blue to end the festival for us this year. They were also great but didn’t quite reach the level of the previous band.

They did play all my favs from their somewhat extensive catalouge though so it couldn’t have been much better.

The day after we check out and went back home pretty uneventfully. This has been a great WGT and I look forward to coming back some time. there are lots of good things about a festival of this size but ironically this is also the problem with it. With 200 bands all over the city playing at the same time you will miss stuff and you will get very tired. We don’t really have the energy to run around all day then party all night. 

Smaller festivals mostly have lineups that are more narrow than the broad spectrum you find at WGT so you get to see more bands in less time so you still have energy to get shitfaced after.

I like both but it’s fun to try different things and see different places. WGT will hopefully always be there for us to come back to. See you in 5 years Leipzig (or whenever Cinema Strange is back on the lineup he he)!

For those who follow me on instagram (@skrekkugle) you will already have seen the pics but I figured I should blog a bit about it too. For those who have no idea, EVE Online is a sandbox mmorpg spaceship computer game, and this event is basically the developers inviting us to Iceland to come drink with them.

Started drinking about 9 in the morning at the airport last thursday, waiting for our flight to Reykjavik. After the longest bus ride ever from KEF to Reykjavik we checked in and arrived at Harpa just in time for the EVE Keynote.

After watching the keynote and some stuff about Valkyrie we went out for food and more beer. Beer was also sold at the conference centre in bottles and cans and was pretty much allowed anywhere at all times.

This monument has the names of all active EVE players (on a certain date) engraved into the metal plates at the bottom. Managed to find my two chars and it’s pretty cool to be part of that.

Since CCP and EVE is a big deal in Iceland, the bar Bryggjan (or something) had made three beers targeted at EVE players. Need Reps, HOP Success and Safety Off. The bar was located in the same building as CCP so it was the default hangout spot for the devs/gms.

We met a couple of GMs and some other guys and talked spaceships and shit all night. 

The day after (friday), we decided to pick up a rental car to go see some sites. Everything on Iceland is made of lava and the scenery was pretty cool but got a little boring in some places too. There are almost no trees and it is mostly flat and brown. The terrain features that are cool, are pretty cool though.

Some random big lava crack. It’s probably 8-10m down to the bottom but it doesn’t really show in the pic.

The Geysirs are pretty cool too and the smell like sick egg farts.

Gullfossen (the pic shows the lower half of it) was huge!

A little beer selfie warming up for the pub crawl with devs the same night.

People start showing up to be split into groups and get some beer and Brennivin before hitting the bars. 

This bar was filled with locals. They fairly quickly escaped when the spacenerds entered. Good for them!

When you need a glass for your beer but can’t find one.

We also bumped into Bjorn Bee (https://www.twitch.tv/bjornbee) before we got to the point of drinking beer from the fine china. As awesome in real life as he is on stream, and also a bit taller (and not green or blue in the face). Good shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

The morning after we skipped the eggs/bacon and went for a sandwich place recommended on the internet. Of course we ordered the one with all the meat on it and it was awesome. Especially the morning after drinking.

Then we went to Harpa to shop for some last minute loot and watch the presentation about Citadels. After that we found a bar and we just sat there all day drinking beer before we headed to back to the hotel to pack everything ready for the flight the next morning, before heading out for one last night of partying.

Went for a burger at burgerjoint which was quality stuff.

Starting to feel very tired from drinking and in general it took some time to build up the courage and strength to go for it one last time. It was time for The Party on Top of the World with CCPs own Permaband playing with the viking metal band Skalmold as warmup.

Skalmold was awesome and so was Permaband, ending on their new tune “Bring on the wrecking machine”, and with that we ended the trip ourselves and went back to the hotel to catch some well needed sleep before heading home the next day.

Saturday I was invited by a coworker to my first ever game of DnD as a PC. I have DMed a few sessions before but we never really got into it and I was not prepared for all the work I had to put into it so it died out pretty quick. This group kicked their no-show cleric and invited me to take his place.

Currently we are trying to unravel a mystery surrounding a sudden plague destroying a big city and it is pretty awesome! Looking forward to the next session.

We’re finally gonna see Peter Murphy! He is booked to play some Bauhaus tunes at this years WGT and the band actually sounds a lot better than expected. Peter/Bauhaus is the last ones of the good old “big ones” I have yet to see after I missed him in Oslo a few years back.

As usual theres a lot of bands coming that I have never heard of, but I like to think that I got my favorite genres of the scene under control, so the other stuff is probably just industrial/metal or some shit like that.

Gonna have to start planning what to see. For now these are the most interesting:

And Also The Trees (GB) Aurelio Voltaire (USA) Christ Vs. Warhol (USA) Cinema Strange (USA) worldwide exclusive show in 2016 Hante. In The Nursery (GB) Irfan (BG) Peter Murphy (GB) 'Mr. Moonlight show' presenting the best of Bauhaus Pink Turns Blue (D) The Deadfly Ensemble (USA) The House Of Usher (D) The Legendary Pink Dots (NL) Winter Severity Index (I) Xeno & Oaklander (USA) XTR Human (D) 

Just booked hotel and flights for Wave Gotik Treffen in Leipzig in may! Holy shit! Cinema Strange AND The Deadfly Ensemble are playing and I’m not missing out on that. There’s a lot of other good bands also announced already and I’m sure there will be a lot more to come. It’s about time we return as we haven’t been there since 2011 and after trying a few other festivals in the meantime, nothing has even come close to WGT.

I can’t really put my finger on why but Scott Pilgrim vs The World is one of the greatest movies ever made. It’s just fucking A W E S O M E!