4 days in Sweden, down $1000 and 0 IKEA sightings

Sorry, no pics. I haven't been anywhere that I could take generic shots of. I've actually just spent my time going from concert to concert across Europe for 5 straight night of shows.

After my last blog posting, I went to see prog masters Dream Theater in Olympic Park in Munich. It had been raining hard for 3 days so not exactly an ideal venue for a show, but luckily it kept the crowds away. Normally, Dream Theater draws upwards of 10,000 people to their shows. I was fortunate to see them in the rain in Munich with only about 1,000 though. Cool show, although the weather could have cooperated a little more.

The next day, I was off to Hamburg to see the best rock band in the world today, Clutch. I had ordered my ticket online and really had no idea what to expect as far as the show and venue were concerned. Clutch is by no means a big band, but they have a huge cult following and I didn't know how well that translated to Europe. I went to pick my ticket up at the venue (a sketchy spot on the Reapersbahn, the biggest red-light district in Europe) and saw the door open. Of course I walked right in the door to see what's up. On the way down the stairs, I pass Neil Fallon, the singerguitarist. I've been told before I kind of look like him. Both short hair, we each have big beards at the moment and kind of crazy eyes. He was hungover, I was hungover, we both stopped and kind of laughed at eachother for a bit. He took me down to their 'dressing room' and we played foosball and ate grapes. Totally random. Anyway, I had to go shower and put a Clutch shirt on before the show, so I let the band do their thing. I get back to the venue and see that what I thought was their dressing room was actually the bar. Couldn't have been mroe than 60 people at the show. It was wild. I've been to local shows in New Brunswick with bigger crowds than this. Excellent day. Got to meet one of my favorite bands and see them play a super small show.

Off to Sweden for the next round. Let me tell you, no matter what anyone says about the women here, they just can't do it justice. I was reading on the train up here that the average person falls in love 6 times in their lives. Please let me keep a shred of dignity and don't ask precisely what I was reading. Anyway! For all those people that marry their first loves in life, I'm currently making up for the average. It's unbelievable and almost tiresome. My neck hurt from being on a swivel even before I got to the heavy metal shows. I went out the first night in Gothenburg with a few people from the hostel and I just felt almost wrong. Do you remember when you were a kid and went in your parents room when you were home alone. Not even that you were snooping or doing anything bad, it was just somewhere you didn't belong. That's what it feels like here. And of course it's impossible to drink since the cheapest happy hour I went to was $9 drinks. Ouch.

The first night in Gothenburg, punk rawk was on the bill. Pennywise, Gaslight Anthems etc etc. I grew up on punk but I do find the genre's gotten quite stale over the last few years and hardly listen to it anymore. Gaslight Anthems I guess is one of the brighter spots though. The reason I really came to Gothenburg is for the heavy metal scene. Anyone that knows me knows that I'm a dirty heavy metal guy. And like The Bay Area was to the 80's, Gothenburg is the epicenter of modern heavy metal. This place has produced bands like At The Gates, The Haunted, Dark Tranquillity and In Flames, the bands that have made the sound (The Gothenburg Sound) what it is today. I've never seen such a metal scene. I guess that's why the festival was called Metal Town. The bands playing at the thing (minus the headliners, Slipknot and Marilyn Manson, who I don't care for) were pretty much taken from the most played songs on my Ipod. Children of Bodom, Meshuggah, Trivium (who was awful) and Napalm Death highlighted Day 1 at the festival. Day 2 was the real day I went for though. The Haunted were great, All That Remains stole the show and of course Opeth, the best band in the world today, were incredible.

Five consecutive days of music and partying in three different cities. Gotta love Europe. The next day was slightly less great though. Up until now, I've been reserving seats on the trains. This has proved fairly useless as I haven't encountered a train even half full. I decided to not spend the cash and just jump on to Stockholm the next day since there are 23 trains between the two cities. Big mistake. Every train and bus was sold out. Every hostel in Gothenburg and all train connections were sold out. Sulking in the train station, I overheard some people talking about hopping a freight train to get back to Stockholm. Now we're thinking. So I hopped a train with these random metal heads and carried my 40 pound bag on my head in 30C weather all day yesturday. Today, I sent half the things I own home.

Not much to report other than I'm going to the beach with a bunch of Swedes and eating bread to avoid stratospheric local costs. Back to the road tomorrow!

Also, I won't be around to see NHL Free Agency, but please please please Montreal don't sign the Sedins or Kovalev.

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