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Okay, I guess I'll spare you the whole "How I got there" stuff as it's not exactly interesting. Actually, it might be after all, so I'll just concentrate on the facts.
Also, I'm dividing this thing into chapters to get some structure into it. Here we go!
Part 1: To Oberhausen
My journey stared at 11:30 AM. First was three and a half hours on various trains which was pretty easy and relaxed, and then I finally ended up at the station Oberhausen.
"Now what?", I thought. I had printed out some maps and directions from the net, but it looked like walking was not really an option. I would be needing those a bit later, but youi'll see that soon enough. After having a couple of looks at various bus plans, I decided that this wasn't taking me anywhere as I didn't have a clue where I was supposed to go. So I finally walked in on the bus ticket sales guy and asked him. He pointed at the bus station on the opposite side of the street and sold me an 1,10€ ticket.
Once again, all was nice and well, and soon enough, I got on a bus and stayed there until it stopped at a bus station called "Lipperfeld". As the street where the Turbninenhalle is located is called "Im Lipperfeld", I was pretty sure that I was at the right place. But the moment I got off the bus, I kinda changed my mind. Factories everywhere! Bloody hell, this looked like I was in a bloody industrial area O_O
Now, the big mall in Oberhausen is called "CentrO" and I saw a sign saying exactly that, and it was pointing to the right. I knew that the Turbinenhalle was supposed to be somehwere around there, so I headed right. It turned out that this was exactly the wrong thing to do, as walking straight ahead for ten minutes would've taken me right to the venue. But well, when that long walkway ended, I didn't know any better and turned right once again =_= After walking for another ten minutes or so, I decided that I was bloody lost and took out my map, which saved my life. I noticed that I had already been on the street "Im Lipperfeld" in the very beginning and that I was now on a parallel road called "Essener Straße", walking further away from my destination. Luckily, I came across an intersection alomost right away which turned into "Im Lipperfeld". So for once, I was safe.
The venue's address is "Im Lipperfeld 23", but when I had a look at the nearest house, its number was 2 O_O Needless to say, I had another long walk ahead of me, and eventually, I came to the spot where this unfortunate oddyssey had started. That really made me laugh (Hooray for self irony, I say XD) as I'd made quite a circle now.
Well, eventually, I found the Turbinenhalle (and it'S really in the middle of an industrial area, yay ^_^;;;), and suddenly, I came around its corner and saw this right in front of me:
Nice, huh?
Part 2: Waiting and then - inside!
So finally, I could call hunny and mum to tell them that I had made it to the venue alive, and afterwards, I had a quick lunch (read: the quickest luinch of my entire life *lol*) at the nearby Mc Donald's. And then, as soon as I had placed myself in front of the main door where only a small number of other people could be found, the real dreadful part of the day had finally arrived: Three hours of waiting in the freezing cold (temperature must've been somewhere around zero), heavy, icy cold wind and the occasional wet snow. Not nice, not pleasant, but certainly worth it, as I realized later.
As I said, there were a few other Edguy fans waiting as well, but I didn't talk to them THAT much. And to be honest, I didn't really want to talk to them after one of the had insulted my poor Kai-sama in a very mean way *sobs* Oh well, at least another one of them said that he has a great voice *sighs* Anyway. What almost scared me is that the number of people didn't increase drastically until like, one hour before the opening of the doors which was to take place at 7 PM.
From most of the other concerts I had seen, I knew that both the opening of the doors and the beginning of the show would usually be delayed for half an hour, if not more. But maybe that was mainstream thinking? How surprised I was to see that this time, the delay was almost nonexistant, and so, at a couple of minuites past 7:30, we rushed in. Unfortunately, I had my backpack with me, which of course should have been searched by one of those scary security guys. When I had tried and failed to open it (my fingers were terribly numb and frozen), he decided to have mercy on me and just felt at it from the outside while I recited its contents (cellphone, purse...) to him and FINALLY he let me pass.
But was my chance to get into first row now gone? I didn't really have time to think about that as I first had to get where I was. It turned out that this was the foyer of the Turbinenhalle, and to get to the actual concert hall, you needed to turn left and run up and down some stairs. I did that, and as I saw the stage on the left side, I noticed that there weren't that many people standing there just yet. So I started to run and suddenly, I was there. First row, in the middle, a little to the right. Strrrike!
Part 4: Before the concert
What's cooler than managing to get a place in the first row at a Metal concert? Can't think of anything, really *lol*
Why? Of course, there's the visual thing. You can just see everything from there. But there's more. For example, you can hang your clothes and also yourself onto the barrier and get your poor feet some rest. And then, the stuff that's going on behind you will bascially go unnoticed. So, first row = love <3
After making myself comfy, I had a good look at the stage. There was a big curtain so that you could just see the front half, and I presumed Edguy's cool new stage set would be hidden behind there. Apart from that, you could see the shared drumkit (one bassdrum had the Sabaton logo on it, the other the DragonForce one), towers of speakers and other elctronic stuff and a couple of mikes.
Soon, I noticed that one or two rows behind me, there was a small group of Sabaton fans. It looked like they were pretty plastered already, and so they were quite loud. Especially one of them was dead annoying, and I won't mentioned the fact that he looked like a woman *cough* I'll get back to him later, and I guess I'm just gonna refer to him as "blondie" from now on. So my thoughts were along the lines of "God, I hate Sabaton fans". The only thing I liked was when they suddenly - and this is for you,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rdyfrde - started singing "Happy, happy, Sabaton". That cracked me up quite a bit and I had to pay attention in order not to fall off the barrier ^_~
Part 5: Sabaton
Well, finally, and I think they were more or less punctual as well, Sabaton entered the stage. I've heard people say that their singer tends to be a bit scary, and I'm not able to prove them wrong ;) Though he was kissing as quite a bit as well as he kept telling us how great an audience we were. Now, that's not a bad thing as such, but you just don't have to do that before each and every bloody song. Worse yet was his "We're gonna put up a banner at our homepage saying 'Sabaton loves Oberhausen' and 'Oberhausen loves Sabaton'" comment. I wonder why he didn't simply propose to the whole hall, that would've made things a lot shorter *lol*
Now, muisc-wise, they were pretty average. I've never been overly impressed with their style, same goes for those stupid WWII-lyrics. But when they played "Primo victoria" (and I could swear to you they were deliberately holding that song back cuz they knew how popular it is), even I joined in the singing and headbanging cuz I really like that one. What I also liked was the part where the singer jumped off the stage and touched the hands of everone in the forst row (including me ^_^).
Now on to the annoying part, and also the part where "blondie" went back into business. At one point, the singer announced that next, they would be playing an unreleased song from their forthcoming album. The moment they started the song, "blondie" went berserk. He pushed into first row and started banging like mad. The thing was that this new song (The title made me cringe, it's called "Nuclear attack" =_=) wasn't even that good, hehe. Anyway, so "blondie" had dashed between the girl standing on my left and the guy next to her. But as we weren't that packed, it wasn't much of a problem and the three of us just got a little closer together and gave each other "that look", knowing that he'd be gone after Sabaton's set. And so it happened and we had our piece and quiet back.
Part 6: DragonForce
But not for long, and after some rearranging, sound checking and re-positioning of beer bottles (*lol*) on stage, "the fastest band in the world" arrived.
It's a well-known fact that ZP Theart, their singer, is famous for cursing on stage, but seeing that live was soemthing else O_O;;; He also did a couple of things you simply shouldn't do to your audience, for example throwing water at it (You can do that in summer, but not in fucking February! Lucky he perferred to aim at the sides and not the middle!) and telling the people in front of them how bad they are. So he was sorta the opposite of Sabaton's singer. Voice-wise, he didn't impress me that much, but that might be cuz the rest of his band was so loud that the signal from his mike only made it to the speakers after having been cut in half. Sounded... uh... weird XD
Before the band had entered the stage, some of the roadies had put one of those rolling boxes up there and laid it on its side. I didn't really get what that was for, but it immedialtey became clear once DragonForce got really into playing. The two guitar players (Herman Li and Sam Totman, a Chinese who's not half as good-looking as I'd thought and a thin guy who - Sorry! - looks much too gay for my liking) used it to climb up and jump down again, posing like mad. Now, this might be fun if you do it once in a while, but after the umpteenth time, it just turns silly and utterly stupid.
So DragonForce mainly made a lot of noise. I've always liked their music, and it's also quite nice to hear it being played live, but sadly they left out "Body breakdown" and some of my absolute favourites.
ZP Theart's last sentence before he and his band left went something like "Wish you'd been better, but next time, we'll kick your asses". Well, considering the way he behaved, I kinda doubt that there'll be a "next time" anytime soon >:O
Part 7: Edguy
By now, it was about 9 PM. After yet more action on stage (from the roadies, of course!) we finally (FINALLY!) heard the familiar intro "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the freakshow". Next, the curtain was removed and we saw Edguy's whole stage set, with Felix' drumkit placed on the second level (probably two metres high) which was accessible by two stairs. Then, Alien Drum Bunny appeared and climbed up there, and the three guitar players took their positions behind their microphones. And there he was - Tobi!
He looked uber cute in his black shirt and grey pants (Yes, they're grey, which is soemthing I didn't notice on the photos from earlier shows), and his new hair style is quite okay as well. Anyway, it turned out that my place in the first row was almost exactly in front of him (!) and so I could observe everything he did quite nicely... unless he was running around, which happened quite a lot and should explain why he's that thin - he must've been sweating like five people *lol*
They started with "Catch of the century", next was "Sacrifice" (Awesome!) and then "Babylon". I could probably list all of the other songs as well, but don't ask for the right order as I have no idea. And anyway, it looked like this was "Edguy are completely changing their usual setlist"-day as they played two songs that had been heavily requested on previous gigs (at least that's what Tobi said) - "Land of the miracle" and "Out of control". During the latter one, Tobi suddenly forgot the lyrics of the second verse and had to wait until the chorus started again - he blamed that on Dirk *lol* Other highlights were "Tears of a mandrake", "Save me" and the second (out of three) encore, which was "Avantasia".
Felix' drum solo was really cool as well, what with the lighting effects and our chanting. And during that Star Wars part (however that march thingy is called XD) he was suddenly wearing a Darth Vader mask *lol*
Of course, Tobi was his usual hilarious self and kept joking between the songs, but unfortunately, most of the stuff he said is totally and utterly untranslatable =_= But believe me, he was very funny, as usual. And it seemed like he really loved the audience as well. Well, a lot of people kept singing and chanting between the songs and he could hardly make himself heard over all that noise we made =) Of course, he also did the famous "Tobi sings some stuff and the fans have to copy him". The face he made whenever we did something wrong was absolutelystupid adorable adorable in a stupid way. At one point, he split the hall into two parts to check which half of the audience could sing louder. He did that without his mike, and so he stood there, pantomiming his orders, which was simply hilarious to watch *lol*
Unfortunately, after the third encore ("King of fools"), the show was over and the people started filing out of the venue.
Part 8: Merchandise yay!... or not XD
Next thing on my to-do list was "Buy Edguy t-shirt" and so it was back to the foyer and there they were. Seeing the "I eat pussy" one made me grin, but as there were hundreds of people waiting for their turn, I quickly settled on the jester 'n' crossbones one. The only problem was that the merc guy seemed a bit dim:
Well, he finally managed to give the thing to me, I paid and was gone. Had a very late dinner (again at the American restaurant ^_~) and after a short time, hunny came to pick me up <3
Sooo... that was it, I guess. As you might've noticed, I had one helluva time, same goes for the writing of this report. Hope you liked, over and out *falls over*
Also, I'm dividing this thing into chapters to get some structure into it. Here we go!
Part 1: To Oberhausen
My journey stared at 11:30 AM. First was three and a half hours on various trains which was pretty easy and relaxed, and then I finally ended up at the station Oberhausen.
"Now what?", I thought. I had printed out some maps and directions from the net, but it looked like walking was not really an option. I would be needing those a bit later, but youi'll see that soon enough. After having a couple of looks at various bus plans, I decided that this wasn't taking me anywhere as I didn't have a clue where I was supposed to go. So I finally walked in on the bus ticket sales guy and asked him. He pointed at the bus station on the opposite side of the street and sold me an 1,10€ ticket.
Once again, all was nice and well, and soon enough, I got on a bus and stayed there until it stopped at a bus station called "Lipperfeld". As the street where the Turbninenhalle is located is called "Im Lipperfeld", I was pretty sure that I was at the right place. But the moment I got off the bus, I kinda changed my mind. Factories everywhere! Bloody hell, this looked like I was in a bloody industrial area O_O
Now, the big mall in Oberhausen is called "CentrO" and I saw a sign saying exactly that, and it was pointing to the right. I knew that the Turbinenhalle was supposed to be somehwere around there, so I headed right. It turned out that this was exactly the wrong thing to do, as walking straight ahead for ten minutes would've taken me right to the venue. But well, when that long walkway ended, I didn't know any better and turned right once again =_= After walking for another ten minutes or so, I decided that I was bloody lost and took out my map, which saved my life. I noticed that I had already been on the street "Im Lipperfeld" in the very beginning and that I was now on a parallel road called "Essener Straße", walking further away from my destination. Luckily, I came across an intersection alomost right away which turned into "Im Lipperfeld". So for once, I was safe.
The venue's address is "Im Lipperfeld 23", but when I had a look at the nearest house, its number was 2 O_O Needless to say, I had another long walk ahead of me, and eventually, I came to the spot where this unfortunate oddyssey had started. That really made me laugh (Hooray for self irony, I say XD) as I'd made quite a circle now.
Well, eventually, I found the Turbinenhalle (and it'S really in the middle of an industrial area, yay ^_^;;;), and suddenly, I came around its corner and saw this right in front of me:
Nice, huh?
Part 2: Waiting and then - inside!
So finally, I could call hunny and mum to tell them that I had made it to the venue alive, and afterwards, I had a quick lunch (read: the quickest luinch of my entire life *lol*) at the nearby Mc Donald's. And then, as soon as I had placed myself in front of the main door where only a small number of other people could be found, the real dreadful part of the day had finally arrived: Three hours of waiting in the freezing cold (temperature must've been somewhere around zero), heavy, icy cold wind and the occasional wet snow. Not nice, not pleasant, but certainly worth it, as I realized later.
As I said, there were a few other Edguy fans waiting as well, but I didn't talk to them THAT much. And to be honest, I didn't really want to talk to them after one of the had insulted my poor Kai-sama in a very mean way *sobs* Oh well, at least another one of them said that he has a great voice *sighs* Anyway. What almost scared me is that the number of people didn't increase drastically until like, one hour before the opening of the doors which was to take place at 7 PM.
From most of the other concerts I had seen, I knew that both the opening of the doors and the beginning of the show would usually be delayed for half an hour, if not more. But maybe that was mainstream thinking? How surprised I was to see that this time, the delay was almost nonexistant, and so, at a couple of minuites past 7:30, we rushed in. Unfortunately, I had my backpack with me, which of course should have been searched by one of those scary security guys. When I had tried and failed to open it (my fingers were terribly numb and frozen), he decided to have mercy on me and just felt at it from the outside while I recited its contents (cellphone, purse...) to him and FINALLY he let me pass.
But was my chance to get into first row now gone? I didn't really have time to think about that as I first had to get where I was. It turned out that this was the foyer of the Turbinenhalle, and to get to the actual concert hall, you needed to turn left and run up and down some stairs. I did that, and as I saw the stage on the left side, I noticed that there weren't that many people standing there just yet. So I started to run and suddenly, I was there. First row, in the middle, a little to the right. Strrrike!
Part 4: Before the concert
What's cooler than managing to get a place in the first row at a Metal concert? Can't think of anything, really *lol*
Why? Of course, there's the visual thing. You can just see everything from there. But there's more. For example, you can hang your clothes and also yourself onto the barrier and get your poor feet some rest. And then, the stuff that's going on behind you will bascially go unnoticed. So, first row = love <3
After making myself comfy, I had a good look at the stage. There was a big curtain so that you could just see the front half, and I presumed Edguy's cool new stage set would be hidden behind there. Apart from that, you could see the shared drumkit (one bassdrum had the Sabaton logo on it, the other the DragonForce one), towers of speakers and other elctronic stuff and a couple of mikes.
Soon, I noticed that one or two rows behind me, there was a small group of Sabaton fans. It looked like they were pretty plastered already, and so they were quite loud. Especially one of them was dead annoying, and I won't mentioned the fact that he looked like a woman *cough* I'll get back to him later, and I guess I'm just gonna refer to him as "blondie" from now on. So my thoughts were along the lines of "God, I hate Sabaton fans". The only thing I liked was when they suddenly - and this is for you,
rdyfrde - started singing "Happy, happy, Sabaton". That cracked me up quite a bit and I had to pay attention in order not to fall off the barrier ^_~Part 5: Sabaton
Well, finally, and I think they were more or less punctual as well, Sabaton entered the stage. I've heard people say that their singer tends to be a bit scary, and I'm not able to prove them wrong ;) Though he was kissing as quite a bit as well as he kept telling us how great an audience we were. Now, that's not a bad thing as such, but you just don't have to do that before each and every bloody song. Worse yet was his "We're gonna put up a banner at our homepage saying 'Sabaton loves Oberhausen' and 'Oberhausen loves Sabaton'" comment. I wonder why he didn't simply propose to the whole hall, that would've made things a lot shorter *lol*
Now, muisc-wise, they were pretty average. I've never been overly impressed with their style, same goes for those stupid WWII-lyrics. But when they played "Primo victoria" (and I could swear to you they were deliberately holding that song back cuz they knew how popular it is), even I joined in the singing and headbanging cuz I really like that one. What I also liked was the part where the singer jumped off the stage and touched the hands of everone in the forst row (including me ^_^).
Now on to the annoying part, and also the part where "blondie" went back into business. At one point, the singer announced that next, they would be playing an unreleased song from their forthcoming album. The moment they started the song, "blondie" went berserk. He pushed into first row and started banging like mad. The thing was that this new song (The title made me cringe, it's called "Nuclear attack" =_=) wasn't even that good, hehe. Anyway, so "blondie" had dashed between the girl standing on my left and the guy next to her. But as we weren't that packed, it wasn't much of a problem and the three of us just got a little closer together and gave each other "that look", knowing that he'd be gone after Sabaton's set. And so it happened and we had our piece and quiet back.
Part 6: DragonForce
But not for long, and after some rearranging, sound checking and re-positioning of beer bottles (*lol*) on stage, "the fastest band in the world" arrived.
It's a well-known fact that ZP Theart, their singer, is famous for cursing on stage, but seeing that live was soemthing else O_O;;; He also did a couple of things you simply shouldn't do to your audience, for example throwing water at it (You can do that in summer, but not in fucking February! Lucky he perferred to aim at the sides and not the middle!) and telling the people in front of them how bad they are. So he was sorta the opposite of Sabaton's singer. Voice-wise, he didn't impress me that much, but that might be cuz the rest of his band was so loud that the signal from his mike only made it to the speakers after having been cut in half. Sounded... uh... weird XD
Before the band had entered the stage, some of the roadies had put one of those rolling boxes up there and laid it on its side. I didn't really get what that was for, but it immedialtey became clear once DragonForce got really into playing. The two guitar players (Herman Li and Sam Totman, a Chinese who's not half as good-looking as I'd thought and a thin guy who - Sorry! - looks much too gay for my liking) used it to climb up and jump down again, posing like mad. Now, this might be fun if you do it once in a while, but after the umpteenth time, it just turns silly and utterly stupid.
So DragonForce mainly made a lot of noise. I've always liked their music, and it's also quite nice to hear it being played live, but sadly they left out "Body breakdown" and some of my absolute favourites.
ZP Theart's last sentence before he and his band left went something like "Wish you'd been better, but next time, we'll kick your asses". Well, considering the way he behaved, I kinda doubt that there'll be a "next time" anytime soon >:O
Part 7: Edguy
By now, it was about 9 PM. After yet more action on stage (from the roadies, of course!) we finally (FINALLY!) heard the familiar intro "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the freakshow". Next, the curtain was removed and we saw Edguy's whole stage set, with Felix' drumkit placed on the second level (probably two metres high) which was accessible by two stairs. Then, Alien Drum Bunny appeared and climbed up there, and the three guitar players took their positions behind their microphones. And there he was - Tobi!
He looked uber cute in his black shirt and grey pants (Yes, they're grey, which is soemthing I didn't notice on the photos from earlier shows), and his new hair style is quite okay as well. Anyway, it turned out that my place in the first row was almost exactly in front of him (!) and so I could observe everything he did quite nicely... unless he was running around, which happened quite a lot and should explain why he's that thin - he must've been sweating like five people *lol*
They started with "Catch of the century", next was "Sacrifice" (Awesome!) and then "Babylon". I could probably list all of the other songs as well, but don't ask for the right order as I have no idea. And anyway, it looked like this was "Edguy are completely changing their usual setlist"-day as they played two songs that had been heavily requested on previous gigs (at least that's what Tobi said) - "Land of the miracle" and "Out of control". During the latter one, Tobi suddenly forgot the lyrics of the second verse and had to wait until the chorus started again - he blamed that on Dirk *lol* Other highlights were "Tears of a mandrake", "Save me" and the second (out of three) encore, which was "Avantasia".
Felix' drum solo was really cool as well, what with the lighting effects and our chanting. And during that Star Wars part (however that march thingy is called XD) he was suddenly wearing a Darth Vader mask *lol*
Of course, Tobi was his usual hilarious self and kept joking between the songs, but unfortunately, most of the stuff he said is totally and utterly untranslatable =_= But believe me, he was very funny, as usual. And it seemed like he really loved the audience as well. Well, a lot of people kept singing and chanting between the songs and he could hardly make himself heard over all that noise we made =) Of course, he also did the famous "Tobi sings some stuff and the fans have to copy him". The face he made whenever we did something wrong was absolutely
Unfortunately, after the third encore ("King of fools"), the show was over and the people started filing out of the venue.
Part 8: Merchandise yay!... or not XD
Next thing on my to-do list was "Buy Edguy t-shirt" and so it was back to the foyer and there they were. Seeing the "I eat pussy" one made me grin, but as there were hundreds of people waiting for their turn, I quickly settled on the jester 'n' crossbones one. The only problem was that the merc guy seemed a bit dim:
Jessy: "I'd like the t-shirt over there *points exactly at it*"
Merch: "Which one?"
Jessy: "The blue one, size L"
Merch: "That one? Size L?"
Jessy (slighly annoyed): "Yeaahhh..."
Well, he finally managed to give the thing to me, I paid and was gone. Had a very late dinner (again at the American restaurant ^_~) and after a short time, hunny came to pick me up <3
Sooo... that was it, I guess. As you might've noticed, I had one helluva time, same goes for the writing of this report. Hope you liked, over and out *falls over*
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![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
Good to hear Land of the Miracle isn't obsolete yet :P I'll hear that song live if it's the last thing I do. Was it flippin' awesome?
From:
no subject
It sure was. I always enjoyed live versions of that song, but it's even cooler if you see it being played right in front of you. Great singing from the other Edboys as usual =)
From:
no subject
Anyway, I'm glad you had a good time :) That part about the audience participation makes me remember my first Edguy show last August. He made us hum the German national anthem. I couldn't figure out where I had heard it before until he told us ;)
From:
no subject
Well, so you even learned something from an Edguy show *lol*
Tobi also tried to make us sing a Carnival march. But that's more of a Cologne thing, so it didn't really work in Oberhausen ;)
From:
no subject
Sounds like you had a good night! And without trying to sound nasty, i'm glad Dragonforce didnt go down to well, especially after what I told you in that email!
Jen
xxx
From:
no subject
Well, even if DragonForce had been uber awesome, the things that happened in UK still would've made me dislike their show...
From:
no subject
From:
no subject