4-30-2007 Monday Arnheim at the King’s of Metal Festival    

There is quite a noticeable difference when you cross the border into the land of Holland. Everything just feels different. I can’t explain how. The countryside is beautiful but the city of Arnheim even more so. We pull into town during a street festival celebrating the Queens birthday. Many people are wearing the royal color orange! When we get to the hotel Paul has a pleasant surprise waiting for him, his long lost luggage!

Today we play an outdoor metal festival that includes some seriously heavy bands. As we pull up to the load in gate we hear the music shaking the ground that reminded me a little of Supultura or Cannibal Corpse. It sounded like demons were rising from a crack in the earth in front of the stage below us. Ryan looked a bit nervous as he said “we might not fit in here”. It seemed like he could be making a good point, Beatallica would easily be the lightest band here today. But all of these worries were assuaged when we met the other musicians. All were very kind and soft spoken, metal is cool. The stage manager was a great guy and even came on stage to sing “Hey Dude” with us. After our set I went out to watch the rest of the bands and meet some people from the Netherlands. I met a group containing a girl and two guys first. Their English was a bit sketchy as they asked me if I was from the UK. I corrected them and said “no I am from America”. Then they all made faces and the girl said “oh, America sucks”. My first anti-American sentiment. Very interesting. 

I traveled on undaunted and met another group of people and these folks were great. I hung out with them for the rest of the night joking and drinking beers that would mysteriously appear in my hand. A girl named Trisha was the coolest of the bunch along with her cousin Claire. With beer keeping me in a pleasant and comfortable high the festival people began to sweep up the mountains of beer cups and push us out as well. So we bid farewell to our new friends from Holland. Paul and I took to the streets of Arnheim to walk among the party still going strong. We soon tired of the predictable thump of techno music and headed back to the hotel.

A sea of black shirts mosh along to the soothing sounds of Onslaught at this open air metal festival in Holland.