M'era Luna 2006

[herzverstreut_bu]

As you might have noticed, I'm back from the festival - tired, slightly sunburned, but definitely happy. :D Let me tell you all about the weekend:

On Friday, shivaluna and evil_trisha picked me up from work, and off we went on our way to Hildesheim airport:


Shiva driving.


Trisha practicing her puppy eyes.

The god of highways had mercy and gave us perfect conditions, except for one short traffic jam, so - with a short detour to Shiva's parents, dropping off her dog - we arrived at the festival perfectly on time. :D Unpacked a few things, got the wristbands they use for admission and went to find Kirsten and Frank, who had saved us some space at the camping grounds. While waiting for them, I marvelled over the festival grounds; being used to the huuuuge "Rock am Ring" it was awesome to have a festival where you could watch the main stage from the camping grounds and showers were less than half an hour's walk away.

We spent the evening setting up camp, chatting a bit, and then going to sleep to the loud electro drifting over from the hangar party - which I found to be surprisingly calming and nice to fall asleep to. Or would have, if it hadn't been FREEZING COLD. I only got a bit of sleep in the wee hours of the morning, when I was finally too tired to be bothered by my face freezing off.

Saturday started early, thanks to some dear neighbours enjoying an early morning yelling-session - but at least I got to shower relatively quickly while the lines for the stalls weren't yet very long. And then it was time for waking up, breakfast, styling, ... while the music began over at the festival grounds, announced by Medusa and prompting the first of many, many "SHUT UP, MEDUSA!!" Yes, she is truly beloved. :|

*looks at line-up* The first two bands were Sono and Northern Lite, none of which I remember anything of. Then came Gothminister, whom we wanted to see - but with all the time it took to really wake up and get dressed, we only caught the last song at the stage. But camping so close to the festival ground at least we could listen to them. And the styling might have been worth it:


Trisha and her pretty dress.


Queen Trisha and her lady-in-waiting. ;) Notice my Trowa Barton Memorial Hairdo. :|


Kirsten and Trisha.

A band we did catch on time, Shiva and me even making it relatively close to the stage, was Funker Vogt:


Whose frontman lost his shirt eventually.

I had only heard a song or two of theirs before, but I really enjoyed them - good beats and a good show, even though the singer seems to love himself a little too much. (Don't they all?)

Quote, Sunday night:
Me: "You know, Funker Vogt was great, but the frontman really likes himself, doesn't he?"
Frank: "Bah, Funker Vogt just aren't a girls thing. It's like Manowar."
Trisha: "Yeah, you men can keep Manowar, thank you very much."

Afterwards we looked around the market some more, listening to the Krupps from afar, before Shiva went on to watch Blutengel:



While Trisha caught some more sleep and I chatted with Ann(e?)-Kathrin (?), one of the girls we camped with, who tried to give me valuable tips for pimping my ugly old coat. The rest of the evening then passed by more chatting, relaxing, an attempt at barbecue, listening to Frontline Assembly and Nitzer Ebb from afar, before we went back to the stage to see Bauhaus:


No, our view wasn't much better than that, either.

Conclusion, after watching maybe one song standing and one or two sitting down: Bauhaus make awesome music, but listening to it without the show is perfectly fine as well. So we went back to the tents to enjoy it with some food, drinks and (most importantly) warm blankets. Shiva and I started on the booze, while Trisha and Kirsten claimed they were getting old and went to sleep shortly after the show was over.

We really weren't in the mood for bed yet, so Shiva and I grabbed the bottle of readily mixed Sex on the Beach and went for a little stroll around the camping grounds, ending in hours of just walking, talking, drinking, occasionally stopping by the hangar to listen to the music (and playing Guess-the-Remix - "Hm, that sounds like Covenant... No, wait, it's not. Could be VNV Nation? Stupid remixes, why is there so much beat with no voice? Ah, yes, does sort of sound like them.") Just taking in the atmosphere a bit, which was really, really nice. At some point we picked up a completely wasted guy from Munich, "given" to us by two other guys and a girl who were making out in the middle of the path. One of the guys and the girl, that is - apparently the three wanted to have a threesome or something and the Munich guy hung around randomly and they needed to get rid of them? :)) We offered him a vodka, which got us many thanks and me a kiss on the neck. *lol* From one of the threesome-guys, that is, Munich guy wasn't in much of a condition for anything besides slouching along.

There was also a nice guy from Leipzig, who apparently used to live in Berlin, that Shiva somehow chatted up while I wasn't looking and that we randomly talked to for half an hour or so. And the tent that played all sorts of good music and had a bunch of people hanging around dancing at all times. And the weird bucket with the unidentifiable contents. :)) It must have been four or so before we went to bed, somewhat tipsy. :"> Still not much sleep, though, thanks to more freezing cold. (I actually woke up from shivering so hard!) And thanks to more yelling guys in the morning.

Quote, early Sunday morning:
Random guy: *random yelling, probably 'aufstehen!' or 'heeeelgaaa!'*
Random girl: "SHUT THE FUCK UP!!"
Random guy, happily: "Hey, you're awake, too!"

Sunday started with slightly longer waiting for the shower, slightly longer waking-up period, and definitely longer styling:


Like so.

And it was worth it, because we all came out looking fabulous. *nods*


Trisha gave me an awesome hairdo. ♥


Fitting my outfit - note my favourite old skirt. ♥ And my "I. Hate. Photos." look.


Trisha herself looked awesome, too.


As did Shiva.

Weather on Sunday was quite good - a few drops of rain and some dark clouds in the afternoon, but really nice earlier. Nice and hot enough for icecream, in fact:





Band-wise we listened to Letzte Instanz from afar, then went to see The Birthday Massacre (really good) and wanting to continue to In Strict Confidence - but the sound in the hangar was abysmal, with the bass turned up so high it was barely tolerable, so we got out again after just a minute. Next up were Apoptygma Berzerk (more ok to listen to than I had expected) and Ministry (who I blamed for my slight headache), both of which were background noise to relaxing at the tents.

In the evening it was time for In Extremo, who - not surprisingly - gave an awesome show:



Though we spent still spent part of it sitting down:


My emo look isn't intentional, I just closed my eyes accidentally. :-p

And Shiva and I left early to get a good place in the hangar, where it was time for ASP. Definitely my highlight, music-wise; their quality might be debatable (as much as I love it, the lyrics are rather full of clichees), but the songs are all just so very enjoyable - you can't help but sing and dance along, and because they all have such hymnic qualities most people seemed to know the lyrics, which is always good. :D Having the whole hangar sing along to "Und Wir Tanzten" gave me shivers. ♥ And then shouting along to "Schwarzes Blut" (which I realized I don't actually have on my computer. :(( Can anyone help out?) or "Besessen" or "Sing Child" or everything else, really - that was wonderful. And the show was really, really good - he's so nicely dramatic, but in a good way, not seeming a bit big-headed like (for example) the abovementioned Funker Vogt guy. And damn, the man can sing. Such a good voice. (No pics, because my camera is broken and Shiva didn't take any.)

So ASP were a worthy end for a fantastic festival. (We're just going to ignore the shrieking banshee Within Temptation.) And I could hardly believe that it was really over. :( A last stroll over the market, picking up a little something for nairie, a last bit of hanging around at the tent (with me borrowing my handy to a slightly annoying girl whose friend had been admitted to the hospital thanks to alcohol :| ), and then back into the tents for a last time. (And that night I was finally clever enough to wear 29384 layers of clothing and didn't freeze too badly.) Packing up our things on Monday morning, driving back to Berlin "perfectly on time", and M'era Luna 2006 was over. :(

Some more random impressions:






Frank, demonstrating who the real headliners should have been. *lmao*




This photo totally needs a caption.

- "HEEELGAAA! TIMMEEEH! FIIIINAAAALE!"
- "Wir liegen perfekt in der Zeit!" ("We're perfectly on time!") being Shiva's catchphrase.
- Everything bad is by default either my fault or Medusa's.
- Loud cheering on Sunday night. "Do you think Medusa publicly hung herself?" (Turns out it were guys stripping in the hookah tent. Of course we missed that. :| )
- "Don't say anything bad about Bill!"
- Nightwish on repeat for the breaks between bands. Why??
- Endless pop/geek culture quotations. ♥
- "Sag noch einmal Junge, Junge!" (Trisha and Frank are the biggest nerds, seriously.)
- Our little barbecue just not starting up properly (despite encouraging rounds of "Ich will brennen"), and then being stopped by security before we could cook anything. (Turns out barbecue veggie burgers are delicious when cooked in a pan, as well.)
- Far too many cool clothes on the market. "I need to save up a bit for next year, maybe 100€ each month." Me buying a new bag, a bunch of badges, some spiked wristband and a plush spidernet for my spider plushies. :D
- Frank: "Shut up, Medusa!" - Every random person nearby: "Seriously!"
- I'm probably forgetting 2389478347 things. ♥

Again next year, no question. This was, to say it with Trisha, like coming home. ♥

Comments

[previolace.livejournal.com]

i'm really happy for you. :) and you look great with the new hair!
i know what you mean when you say that you felt like you belong. even though i often thought i'd finally come over my identity crisis, i haven't. i'm still fascinated by how much i'm able to feel at home somewhere whenever i'm with the right bunch of people. (that first happened at a club in berlin, by the way. and that's also when i fell in love with berlin. :))

[scatterheart.livejournal.com]

Hey, good to see you're still around! :)

i'm still fascinated by how much i'm able to feel at home somewhere whenever i'm with the right bunch of people.
*nods* It's amazing, isn't it? I never thought I could actually feel that way, the festival was such an epiphany.

that first happened at a club in berlin, by the way.
May I ask which one? Shiva and I decided that we really need to go clubbing some more and most places so far more or less sucked. :-/

Berlin is the best city. ♥

[previolace.livejournal.com]

k17. i guess you've heard of it or even been there?
i went there with my best friend and her boyfriend. she used to live in berlin, and that club was her home, kind of. so on new year's eve '04, she wanted to go there and travel back to her 'gothy past' for one night. i'd never been to any kind of club before (as i was only 15 back then), and it was such a devastating experience, but in a good way. :)

i want to be able to call somebody at night and say 'hey, i wanna go out!' and just be spontaneous. but the options are quite limited in my area, which does not exactly put you in the mood for being spontaneous. :/
plus, there's nobody i could call. *doh*

i want to go clubbing with you! :D

[scatterheart.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, I know that, but I've never been there - everybody tells me it used to be good, but has become somewhat crappy. :-/

the options are quite limited in my area, which does not exactly put you in the mood for being spontaneous. :/
plus, there's nobody i could call. *doh*
Yeah, I know the feeling. *sigh* There need to be more interesting places outside of big cities, and more interesting people.

(It's not like I go out very often these days, either, but at least there's the theoretical possibility.)

i want to go clubbing with you! :D
You should come to Berlin sometime! :X

[previolace.livejournal.com]

yeah, that's what i've been told, too. but if you don't know what it was like before, maybe you'll like it as it is now, anyway. :)

>> You should come to Berlin sometime! :X
i'd love to. :"> and i'd really like to meet you then. above mentioned best friend and me have been planning on spending a few days in berlin for a long time!