The middle of August means it’s time to travel to Germany and attend one of the friendliest music festivals I know [I haven’t been to many but this one does feel like home]. On a Wednesday I travelled to see Smith in London town and we had dinner. I stayed over at his house as we had an early start to catch a flight to Hannover.
This year the flight was on time and we landed in Hannover and had plenty of time to get to our room. In fact, at one point we just sat by the river and let the world pass us by. In the evening we walked to the Maschseefest after a walk to get alcohol. We were both pretty tired having got up at 0400.
The Maschseefest, Hannover
Friday starts with a walk to the Bahnhof and then a train to Hildesheim. Once there we get the bus to M’era Luna. The whole experience is relatively painless. We find the tent and then chill because it’s been a long journey and not much happens on the Friday until the evening. I had some LED lights to light up the tent so we could find it once it was dark.
After I watch a band I note down a few comments on my phone. What you see below are those comments. On the Saturday the music we watched goes as follows:
re.mind – Main Stage – standard electronic. Singer wasn’t powerful but only ok. OK for a first band.
Steril – Club stage – upbeat electronic with some guitars. Much better than the first band.
Schwarzer Engel – Main Stage – Seen before. Metal.
Hell Boulevard – Main Stage – OK. Heavy rock. Keyboards in the background. Nothing special.
Centhron – Club Stage – Heavy as fuck bass and other motherfucking shit.
SPOCK – Club Stage – Excellent cheeky space based pop.
S.P.O.C.K.
Hamatom – Main Stage – Late on – technical issues. Good set. Lots of audience participation. Heavy metal. I enjoyed it.
Suicide Commando – Club Stage – Excellent set. Best band so far. Really enjoyed it.
Suicide Commando
The Sunday bands were as follows:
JanRevolution – Main stage – Better than yesterday’s first band. More upbeat. Enjoyable. I wouldn’t buy it.
Extize – Club Stage – Heavy dark dance. Actually good. I would buy.
Eden Weint Im Grab – Club Stage – Slow rock with violin and viola. OK.
Future Lied To Us – Club Stage – Really good electronic bouncy dance. Singer had energy but I didn’t like his voice. Really enjoyed the overall set though.
X-RX – Club Stage – Great energy. Very bass. Enjoyed it a lot.
Welle: Erdball – Club Stage – I was just getting into position for Combichrist. I didn’t like it. It was actually boring.
Combichrist – Club Stage – Elliott motherfucking Berlin! Amazing. The fucking best. An old school set.
Combichrist – Old School Set
Die Krupps – Club Stage – good. But not as good a previous times but enjoyable nonetheless.
Monday was all about getting home and leaving ML early to make the flight. We managed with plenty of time and it was interesting to see just how many people on the flight had come from the festival. Obviously I didn’t talk to any of them.
THREE YEARS. That’s how long it had been since I’d been anywhere other than the south east of the UK, Lincolnshire or Cornwall [which was twice this month]. Three years since Smith and I had travelled to Germany to see a collection of bands, dress in weird shit and have a great time. The wait was worth it. 2022 was a great year for M’era Luna and I had an amazing time. There was news to make this year’s event even more interesting: a band had to pull out and they were replaced by Combichrist!
The journey out to Germany went well. The Eurotunnel was on time and Smith and I made it to our standard hotel in Bochum with time to explore the centre of the city and get some food. Most of the centre looked like Harlow – a new town in the UK. But we did find a street with some life and many restaurants. It was a hot evening with temperatures hitting 30C. After food and a couple of drinks we headed back to cheap hotel and planned Friday.
We arrived at Hildesheim early and queued for entry into the camp site. Once in we chose a spot far enough away from the noise and close enough to the car. Then we went for a walk to see how the grounds had changed in the three years since we had been there. Friday night is normally disco night but we didn’t go to that. Instead we found a bunch of Germans who we knew and spent some time with them, drinking their beer. It was good fun. The real music started at 1100 on Saturday though.
As with previous years this is where I just copy my notes from my phone. I can’t remember every band or song. I can’t remember what I thought about them. So I make notes as I go and then regurgitate them here. What follows is pretty much, word for word, my notes. Occasionally I will add detail for particular bands as I have remembered more from those appearances.
SATURDAY
Enemy Inside – main stage -I enjoyed this. They had a female lead singer and it was rock/metal.
Enemy Inside – M’era Luna 2022
Rave The Requiem – main stage – I also enjoyed this, christian sounding metal. There were references to religious passages and I couldn’t tell if they were critical or supportive after that.
Ambassador 21 – club stage – industrial punk and was great. I really loved this show.
Ambassador 21 – M’era Luna 2022
Schattenmann – main stage – actually really enjoyable. Heavy songs. Singer had a chainsaw. Flames from front of stage.
OST+Front – main stage – Enjoyable, very similar to when we last saw them. German new metal. Female dressed in various outfits.
Lacrimas Profundere – main stage – Waiting for Faderhead tbh. Opening bars were really good. But everything else was not. Went to sit in the shade at Club stage.
Solitary Experiments – club stage – perfectly fine but his voice isn’t strong enough. A bit boring really.
Faderhead – club stage – AMAZING. Totally loved this. This was the best attraction on Saturday.
Faderhead – M’era Luna 2022
Blut Engel – main stage – halfway through when we arrive. Everything Is Black playing. Next song had 4 girls on stage. 4 songs then left to:
In Strict Confidence – club stage – 3 good songs.
Nitzer Ebb – main stage – probably great if you are off your head. Nice beat stuff. But boring live.
SUNDAY
Hell Boulevard – main stage – they sang hit me baby one more time.
Aeverium – main stage – elements of thrash, not really. But I enjoyed it.
Unzucht – main stage – Fuchs yeah. I do love a bit of Unzucht and they were really enjoyable. Great fun.
Feuerschwanz – main stage – medieval rock shit
Combichrist – main stage – Andy and I started the pit and it was good. Thank god. This made the weekend worth it. Totally loved the show.
Combichrist – M’era Luna 2022
Rotersand – club stage – amazing. Really enjoyable. People came and thanked us for starting the pit during the Combichrist show.
Rotersand – M’era Luna 2022
Nachtmahr – club stage – good show. Two dancers.
Eisbrecher – main stage – amazing show, really good fun.
And there we have it. A great weekend. Such a shame there were massive delays getting back into the UK but that’s the sort of shit we have to put up with now I guess a bunch of arseholes lied to us. One of the best bits of the weekend for me was Smith’s realisation that paying to have a shit in the posh loos was worth it and made things soooo much better.
I guess it takes some commitment to drive 500 miles to get to a music event. This is the fifth time Smith and I have done this. It is possibly going to be the last for a while, we kinda feel we need to seek out new things, but we shall see. M’era Luna does have an excellent atmosphere and I think we’ll be back at some point in the future.
As is now the standard we left on the Thursday and drove to a hotel in Bochum. We should have got there in time to have a meal out and see the town but instead there were power issues with the Eurotunnel that delayed our journey on the train by three hours, that was quite frustrating, but we did walk a couple of miles along the main road and find zero bars. Yep, zero. There were two gambling dens but zero bars. I’m not sure if that’s the Germany I imagined.
Campsite Sky
Friday morning means driving the last two and a half hours to Hildesheim and getting to the festival. This part of the journey went well. The traffic was queueing to get into the car park and so Smith ran to join the queue to get us a decent tent spot. It’s quite amazing how quickly the massive campsite fills up with tents. I got parked and dragged most of the kit to the tent. After that, we chilled and wandered and thought about getting ready for the disco that evening.
Friday Night at M’era Luna
Tickets for the disco were different from years before, we had to buy a wristband which was the standard 5 Euros. As we arrived in the disco there was some decent heavier music being played and it was DJ’d by a guy from the band Unzucht. After a short while it did change style as someone else took over and the music went a bit shit. Smith and I had drunk quite a bit. He lost his glasses. It was about 0200 when we quit and I went for a shower. That night I wandered back from the showers down the runway to the tent, the air was warm and I was happy.
I guess you haven't lived until you've walked half a runway dressed in only a towel.
Saturday was going to be hard work. There is always one night when there’s a little too much alcohol consumed. Last year it was the Prodigy gig and Saturday night. This time we overdid it on the Friday! Hangover protocols were now in place. But, there were bands to see starting at 1100 and so things had to get ready. I sometimes feel I physically suffer for my art.
Saturday at M’era Luna
Saturday’s theme for me was future-dystopian-cyber outfit. This was pretty much all home-made and I was very happy with the results. Smith had problems with his horns and so I watched the first band by myself.
Null Positive – main stage. Female fronted metal band, bit like Arch Enemy. quite enjoyable. Two female”dancers” on stage, playing with smoke and fire.
The gas mask on my outfit was really pulling into my head and making me experience pain. Plus the hangover wasn’t helping.
Sudenklang – main stage. I didn’t write anything else here so I don’t remember how good or bad they were.
Centhron – hangar stage. Fast beats, bit boring. It was during this set that I decided to go and get rid of the gas mask. It was hurting me and the backpack was annoying. Also, it was a warm day and I had about three layers on. I returned to the tent [about 15 minutes walk away] to get changed into boring normal clothes. I had been photographed and so thought it time to feel comfortable.
Corvus Corax – main stage. Four bagpipers medieval/folk stuff. It’s basically metal but with bagpipes. It’s not very inspiring stuff and the singer was terrible but the Germans love this shit.
We heard Oomph! while we ate food and I don’t remember being impressed. It’s a terrible band name also!
Agonoize – hangar stage. Bit disappointing really, I had heard some of their stuff and I was hoping for a really “edgy” show. The singer squirted blood three times, he pretended to cut his wrist and let the “blood” spray out for most of the songs. Finished with Breathe as a tribute to Keith, but it was a terrible version.
Agonoize – Hangar Stage, M’era Luna
Lacrimosa – main stage. 1.2 songs. Yeauugh.
SITD – Hangar. solid but only got going after second singers song. Lead singer doesn’t know words to some songs and was reading. The sound at front not great, the system speakers are quite wide and so a lot of the dynamic was missing from being close to the front.
SITD – Hangar Stage, M’era Luna
Die Krupps – Hangar stage. Saturday headliners. We watched from slightly further back and the sound was much better. This band are really good and their show has been excellent every time I’ve seen them. I’d happily go and see them again. I’d recommend them to anyone.
Die Krupps – Hangar Stage, M’era Luna
That was the end of the Saturday for us. I think ASP were playing the main stage as we left, I wasn’t bothered at all about seeing him. It had been a long day. We had both had problems with the sun cream running into our eyes and causing massive hayfever type symptoms. Overall the music had been great but I felt dead.
Saturday Steps
From the above picture you can see I walked quite a bit that day. I also hadn’t slept much, which was going to be the pattern for the whole weekend really.
On the Sunday I woke to the sound of someone calling “Kaffee”. I popped my head out of the tent and had coffee poured freshly for me from one of the festival workers. He had a large backpack with a supply of drink and all the accoutrements on his belt for a perfect coffee and only 3 Euros. Bloody lovely.
It might be time to talk about the pooing situation at festivals. I mean, this shouldn’t be talked about but too make the process as easy as possible it takes planning and hard work. Firstly, eating vegetarian reduces the amount of time required in the portaloos. Next, pick your portaloos carefully. The ones on the runway are very busy and stink. I mean they stink more than others. So, go to the toilets in the car park. Leave the festival site and walk a bit. This needs to be planned for after waking and coffee. Next up, take the portaloo furthest west. The one in the east gets sunshine on it and heats up. This increases smells. So, to sum up, find the least used loos, and use the coolest one.
Getting ready on Sunday was easy, it was an old costume being recycled.
Sunday at M’era Luna
I kept the hood with me as the Sun was warm and I didn’t want to burn my skin.
Fear of Domination – main stage. Finish. Male and female singer. Good bass drop. Good solid set.
Fear Of Domination – Main Stage, M’era Luna
Yellow Lazarus – hangar stage. Ok. EBM but fast, not great. Two songs. It’s like Aqua (Barbie girl) on speed. Pretty sure we only caught a few of their songs.
Scarlet Dorn – main stage. Slow melodic rock with female singer. Keyboardist is from LOTL. This sort of music is fine in the background but it didn’t really rock.
At some point I went to get changed, again! It was another hot day and I wasn’t enjoying being in my costume. My head was sweating a lot under the gas mask.
Formalin – hangar stage. Live drummer. Keyboards. Singer. Pretty good. Very good crowd interaction. Good song dynamics.
Heldmaschine – hangar stage. Blue LEDs on costumes and drumsticks. Two guitars (one a lefty). Bass. Drums. Singer. Backing track somewhere.
I’m in there a few times, as is Smith, I’ll leave you to find it though. After this show I had to keep pouring water over my head to cool down. I think I had over done it. At least I didn’t get a cracked rib from the PIT unlike Smith.
Suicide Commando – hangar stage. Really good but I lefty feeling unwell. Sounds better a distance from stage, speakers too wide at very front. I needed cool air. Spotted the SITD guy in front of SC.
Suicide Commando – Hangar Stage, M’era Luna
VNV Nation – main stage for a few songs. Ok, but the gig at the Scala was amazing.
After this it was shower time and a walk down the runway. Then, Monday we just had to drive home. On the way we had planned to stop just into Germany for photos but because of the delays at the tunnel we chose not to. We had plenty of time on the return journey and so we stopped on that:
Wankum, De
I couldn’t tell you why we chose to stop here!
The excitement didn’t end in Germany! We got to the Channel Tunnel a few hours before our crossing and so paid a little extra to get home earlier than originally planned. This was good as Smith only had prescription sunglasses left after losing his in the disco and he didn’t want to drive home in the dark. As we approached the Maidstone junction on the M20 one of the front tyres blew and deflated quickly. This was very annoying. We managed to pull off the motorway and put the spare on. We were about three miles from my house.
I’ve had the car looked at and it it probably a tracking issue which caused the insides of the tyre to wear down too far. This will hopefully be fixed on Monday or Tuesday. I’m just glad that it blew where it did rather than 500 miles away in Germany. That would have been quite a shitter.
So, M’era Luna 19 was amazing and fun. It was also hard work and a challenge. Next year, we will see what happens. Maybe I’m too old for this shit?
One of my favourite times of year is when I drive the 798km to Hildesheim in Germany. It takes about a day to get there and a further day to return, however, it is so incredibly worth it. Smith and I go there to spend the weekend camping in a tent city of 20,000 people to watch bands and be a part of the atmosphere.
Thursday was the day to leave Kent around lunchtime, drive the short distance to the magical train where you put cars on board and it drives you underneath the English Channel. Once we arrived in France we set about navigating our way to Bochum which is where we have a stop for the night. We travel through France, Belgium and the Netherlands to get to Germany and I will be really fucking pissed off if next year we have to pay for visas to get through those. Also, I suspect that the “leaving the UK” system will be a crock of shit. Fuck Brexit.
Friday morning we woke early and headed to Hildesheim. It’s another three hours or so of driving and we wanted to get there before the campsite opened to try and get a good spot to stay. We’d filled up with fuel back in Bochum so we should be good for the rest of the trip. Once in Hildesheim we followed the SatNav to the festival and managed to find the normal entrance to the car park. This year the fields were dry and we were much earlier than other times and so able to park reasonably close to the festival. We got some bits together and then joined the 400m long queue to enter the campsite. We had about an hour before the campsite opened but the queue was long already. It took ninety minutes to get into the old Army Air Corps base.
Mera Site
The Google Map star in the field is where I parked the car. We then walked due south and the campsite started at the runway. The grass area to the north of the runway is all campsite. The festival pretty much all takes place in between four hangers, where the red cross is marked.
The Friday was spent chilling, looking around the Middle Ages market and generally getting used to what’s around. We also had to do another run to the car to collect more equipment. Around 22:00 we headed to the disco hangar.
Daniel Graves DJ-ing
The disco was good fun. Daniel Graves of Aesthetic Perfection spent an hour at the mixing desk and it was good to see him doing this stuff.
Ok, this isn’t a gif. It’s a video clip but you can at least see the colours. pic.twitter.com/cD9Wyyl5rA
At some point that night we went back to the tent but I have no idea what time that might have been.
Saturday started with getting dressed up for the day. I recycled a costume from a couple of years ago. I was planning to wear the coloured mask that day but it was quite heavy and not easy to carry [except on my head]. If I was going to dance and mosh then I wanted a simple costume. Therefore I went for the human butcher look again.
The bands on that evening were Ministry and Prodigy, I expected both of these to be really good and possibly ones I would dance along to. So, the following is a list of the bands seen and what I thought:
Whispering Sons – hangar stage – Goth. Androgynous singer. Goth indie. Songs were ok.
Erdling – main stage – German rock. Pretty good.
Cephalgy – hangar – heavy dance but not fast. Ok. Blonde keyboardist. Singer had shirt tucked into his jeans. Not great crowd interaction. Songs slightly too long? Left after about 5 songs. My anticipation for The Prodigy is immense.
Merciful Nuns – main stage – samey songs, but goth. Goth shit.
Eisfabrik – hangar stage – dance. Snowman on stage. I guess someone has to corner the snow market? Didn’t really watch it, just saw them on the screens from outside the hangar.
Rabia Sorda – hangar stage – best so far. Good solid rock set.
Lord Of The Lost – main stage – pretty solid set. The band did well.
Ministry – main stage – by this time I was drunk, had been for a few hours, but I have to say that Ministry were pretty amazing. I saw them about 20 years ago at Brixton and this was just as good, if not better. Smith and I were in the mosh pit for quite a bit of the set. There’s a live steam video and we appear a number of times. Just look for the two people dressed in white next to each other.
In the video you can see me and Smith at 18:42 in the middle of the screen. Look for the white and me clapping.
Next band up were In Extremo but I have written no notes about them so I can’t comment. I don’t remember a huge amount about the rest of the day/
The final band were THE PRODIGY. I was very pumped to see them. They were on stage for about 90 minutes but I will admit that apart from knowing it was amazing I have very little recollection of the event. I don’t think there is any video either which is a shame because I would love to see what songs they played and possible see me in the mosh pit. All I can say is that at then end of the set I was drenched in sweat and absolutely knackered. Smith lost his phone. I know I had an amazing time. I just don’t remember much of it.
The Prodigy
Once the set was finished and Smith had used my phone to cancel his handset and we spent a short while looking over the ground it was time to head back to the tent [a 12 minute walk] and then shower the make up off. The showers were open all night so that wasn’t too much of a problem and to be fair the showers are pretty good. The biggest problem for me now was making sure I didn’t have a monster hangover, my hangovers are legendary.
Sunday morning was a little rough and eventually I got up, had an intake of caffeine and tablets, there was a headache there, brewing, waiting for the right opportunity to strike and limit me to slow movements and quiet. I struggled through trying to get ready for the day, which meant mostly painting Smith.
So, here is the run down of the day, after we had been to the Info Point to see if a phone had been handed in.
Massive Ego – hangar stage -goth with a reasonable heavy but slow beat. British band. Buns on his head. Some of the longer deeper sung notes were not good. We saw this singer hanging around the main arena later on and that’s pretty cool,
FabrikC – hangar stage – heavy fast dance. Singer talks too much. Really heavy sound. No real singing and lots of samples from movies.
Aesthetic Perfection – hangar stage – really impressive again. Joe Letz on drums.
Rotersand – hangar stage – bloody brilliant, as usual.
Atari Teenage Riot – hangar stage – first two songs were really poor but after that it turned into high energy industrial punk. Pretty good.
Front 242 – main stage – really good sound. Songs were solid but very 242
Eisbrecher – main stage – A very good set. Impressive show. I liked the snow on stage.
Considering the amount of alcohol I drank on Saturday along with being drunk before midday, sobering a little and then getting drunk again, the Sunday went remarkably well. I didn’t have a headache, I did drink lots of water, I didn’t have any alcohol this day.
I think the show finished around 22:00 and then there were showers to be had. Monday morning was all about packing up, getting everything to the car, Smith going to the police station and then driving the 798km home. This was easily the best M’era Luna so far. My suspicion is that although I am into EBM now, I have been a metal head for over thirty years and this M’era Luna was more of that than goth.
Just so you can see, here are two diagrams that show how much I moved over the two main days of the festival.
M’era Luna Saturday
M’era Luna Sunday
I am already thinking about costumes for next year and looking forward to it!
This is now an annual event. Travelling 1000 miles in a weekend to see a bunch of bands and spend time chilling out at a great music festival. Curiously we haven’t really watch any of the headline acts over the three years that we have attended but there are enough excellent bands elsewhere on the bill to make it worthwhile. I would argue that some of the bands I enjoyed should be higher in the playing order but I guess the bosses organise things to fit the mostly German audience.
We chose to try and spread the journey out a little this year. We left the UK on Thursday and drove to Dortmund to stay in a (very) cheap hotel, the bon marché hôtel, Bochum. We arrived there around 2 in the morning but checked in and got our room. It was clean and good value. 336 miles completed so far. When I woke up I was somewhat surprised to see hospital rooms right outside of my window!
Friday morning meant a short trip to Hildesheim Airport to hopefully arrive early and get our choice of camping spot. 166 miles (ish). There were Facebook updates and app updates along the way asking people to hold off arriving because the rain was and had been very bad and the organisers wanted the ground to drain a little before 20,000 campers turned up. We detoured through Hildesheim itself, because in three attendances we haven’t been in to the town centre yet and it is designated a World Heritage Site and looks gorgeous on websites. We decided quite quickly that we would head to the campsite and see what happened. It was raining and we wanted to get our tents set up.
Arrival
The weather was mostly light rain, the sort that really gets you wet. The forecast at this point was pretty shit with rain all night and also Saturday. We walked around and checked out the rest of the festival area. Picking out the most convenient [but quiet] toilets. There were some new additions along the runway, a food place, “posh” toilets and a small coffee place that was very stuck in the mud. The campsite was very busy when we arrived so our earlier than normal for us arrival didn’t really help, but with two tents this year we found somewhere suitable.
EDVM Runway
We looked around the medieval village and tried to pick out a festival t-shirt before really wanting to call it quits. The rain had got to us along with parking issues [covered elsewhere] and I was fed up and wanted to sleep. The tent beckoned and I pondered which outfit to where in the expected rain on Saturday.
Saturday morning meant finding somewhere for the daily routine. The “posh” loos mentioned already were spacious and didn’t smell. Wood chippings had to be thrown over the waste to stop the smell. These were also clean, but to be honest the receptacle was just a wheelie bin.
Time to get dressed and head to the festival. We had standard photos taken this year next to the M’era Luna sign and the overall joint aim of the weekend was to get our photograph taken and then on websites and in magazines. The costumes were designed to shock and be colourful, anything other than black stands out very well among the 25,000 attendees.
We got a neighbour to take a photo at our campsite area.
Then we had photographs taken at the entrance sign by the pond. You can’t see the mud here but there was tons of the fucking stuff. The rain had ruined the entire area of the festival.
Entrance Photo
I guess I out to talk about the music. That is why we were there. It was the music that had attracted us originally to a goth festival in the middle of Germany and the dressing up is just a little bit extra. As I have done in previous years I noted which bands I watched and what I thought on my phone. The following is pretty much what I noted down.
Saturday
Circus of Fools. Main stage. Metal. Black and white outfits. Female singer with male. Circus act. Girls on a ring.
Circus Of Fools
During this act I had a hayfever attack. I last had one of these in Cyprus and it lasted a few hours. I had a few episodes over the weekend, I think it was mostly to do with the air in the gas mask directed straight at my eyes. I even had an attack in my tent one morning so who knows what caused it. At times I could only wear the gas mask for a few minutes before I couldn’t see anything!
Eden Weint Im Grab. Main stage. Metal with violin and cello.
Ambassador 21. Hangar stage. Fast hardcore industrial. Female singer. Good.
Ambassador 21
Left to Unzucht. Main stage. I really enjoyed this band previously and once again they entertained. I really enjoyed their set.
Ost +Front. Main stage. Dita von Teese rip off with red liquid in the champagne glass. German industrial metal. Risqué show. Guitars dirty thrash sound.
We ate lunch at this point. The vegan Indian food stall was very good and most of the people working there remembered us from last year. We had a nice chat with them.
.com/kill on the hangar stage. Good electronic industrial. Could do with being heavier in places?? Less impressive than expected. The front man wasn’t that great and the lyrics were mostly repetitive which meant the singer didn’t do a great deal.
Feuerschwanz main stage from the side. Medieval German rock with violins. I don’t really need to add anything to this description.
Mesh. Main stage watched while getting a drink. Plodding electronica.
Faderhead. Hangar stage. Brilliant. Best act so far. I really enjoyed this set.
Faderhead
Ashbury Heights. Hangar stage. Female singer pretty much had her boobs out. Songs ok but too long and boring. It didn’t really work for me. Lacklustre front man/woman. I need band members to at least look as though they are enjoying themselves, which kinda goes against the Goth image!
Project Pitchfork. Main stage. 3 drummers, why? All seemed to be playing the same thing. Plodding but very well done. Not quite my stuff but glad to have seen them.
Solar Fake. Hangar stage. I put no notes here so I have no idea what I thought about them!
My Favourite Photo
At this point I went to take my Camelbak off. I had filled it with Pimms but I wasn’t really drinking it much and it was annoying me at this point.
Subway To Sally main stage. while waking through. I don’t like this band.
KMFDM hangar stage. Pretty much as excellent as expected. Very guitar orientated sound and almost thrash at times. Played a few songs from the new album. Technical issues.
Food (stuffed bread) while ASP (main stage) technical difficulties meant he was delayed and that also meant that Korn were going to start late. The Saturday entertainment finished around 01:00 on Sunday. I had already left and was asleep. I couldn’t care for Korn and it had been a long day with plenty of rain. The whole site was a mud bath and I wasn’t feeling the happiest.
Sunday
This morning we had to get costumes from the car, which fortunately was “parked” reasonably close. We could also try and take back stuff we wouldn’t need anymore to reduce the load we would carry Monday morning. My inspiration for this costume was a banana republic dictator although it has been pointed out to me that I need some medals. This photo of me captures me unaware, which normally gives good results.
Sunday Uniform
Over the last two days the campsite had been turned into an excellent mud wrestling venue:
Muddy Mess
I guess this is the accepted standard of things once it rains a lot. Who would have expected this in August in the centre of Germany though? I’m glad my boots help up to the challenge of keeping my feet warm and dry.
Here’s the run down of the bands seen:
Johnny Deathshadow. Main stage. Metal. Actually good. Good crowd interaction. Good metal.
Give Me Food
Then I had a vegan breakfast and whiskey with ginger, Of course!
SchwarzerEngel. Main stage. Ok-ish. Metal. Not ok-ish. A bit shit really. Boring plodding metal.
What’s Going On?
Darkhaus. Main stage. Dies in middle of song. Quite well done Rock-pop. Songs start well but die. This band could have been really good but their musical style just angered me. The songs started really well but then during the bridge they utterly lost all beat and sound. Not good.
Absurd Minds. Hangar stage. Electronica. Upbeat but not quite feeling it.
Versen gold. Main stage. Irish medieval rock. Makes me want to dance. This is really a ceilidh. Couple of songs.
Tyske Ludder. Hangar stage. Good dance industrial with German language. Good. Russian flag waving. Good front man. Really good set.
Outside for a drink. Megahertz on main stage. A fucking ballad!!
Left to: Leather Strip in the hangar. Very good EBM. What it’s all about. Still very good today. Really impressive and great fun.
Leather Strip
Haujobb in the hangar.Moody electronica. Artistic and very well done music but not really for dancing or watching? A little bit of politics!
Caught a little bit of Mono Inc. on the main stage and fuck me they sang a terrible cover of “After the war”.
Front Line Assembly. Hangar. Somewhat lacklustre. Left for a meal at the vegan store.
Went to have some mead. Saw the fish kebab, possibly the most disturbing thing I have ever seen, it looked puke-worthy.
DAF. Hangar stage. Early electronic. Basic like Nitzer Ebb. Probably something really special and transformative but not quite my stuff.
EDVM Tower
Came out for Blutengel on the main stage. Witches with fire. Started with “Black” first. Lesbian nuns and a female devil stage show. Girls stripping down to underwear. Is this 2017?? Rock Pop goth. The dancing girls were needed because the front man and woman are really boring.
The Results Of Rain
To medieval village for Rhambrot and an orange flavoured cookie.
De/vision in the hangar, we lasted one third of a song.
Outside to And One headlining the main stage. Clean pop-type electronic. Nothing special really.
And that was it. Favourite bands were Faderhead, KMFDM, Leather Strip and Tyske Ludder. The weather on the Sunday was much better and the general mood was great. Monday morning we woke early [ish] and packed up, got the car loaded and headed home. It was a foggy start in central Germany! This is a last photo of our camping area:
Misty Monday Morning
Sunrise Over Bora Horza Gobuchul
There are reasons the car looks quite lonely in the parking field and these will be covered in another communication. I had some parking issues over the summer and as the summer isn’t currently over I expect a few more to come!
The return journey included a poorly sign-posted diversion around Duisberg and we ended up relying on Apple Maps as Google was failing us at this point! We returned to Calais via the Brussels ring road and Lille. This route has a few more corners and hills along the way! 525 miles.
We got to the tunnel check-in two hours and 2 minutes before our train was due to depart and the woman working there delayed our check in by two minutes so we wouldn’t have to exit and go through the queuing system again. We met up with some friends for a chat at the Eurotunnel terminal and during the return train journey I cleaned my nails. What else are you going to do?
Did my nails the best I’ve done them for this years M’era Luna. Andy agreed. #mera17
A weekend during August meant it was time to travel to Germany again and the beautiful town of Hildesheim. In 2015 Smith and I went to the M’era Luna festival. This year we had tickets earlier, the tunnel booked earlier and also a plan! Except the plan had to be adjusted as Smith was flying into Brussels on the Friday morning. I spent the Thursday evening packing the car ready for the weekend and got up early on the Friday to head down the M20 to the Channel Tunnel. Last year there were problems with Operation Stack and this year the M20 was fine although the scene of a fallen pedestrian bridge a few weeks later.
I don’t care how old you are if you wear a baseball cap while driving you are a knob.
After the tunnel I headed to Brussels, which wasn’t that far off the route we needed to get to Hildesheim. There are two main motorway routes that head to the industrial heartland of Germany’s Ruhr Valley and one goes via Brussels, the other via Antwerp. So the first three hours of the journey were completed on my own, with podcasts and talking books for company [I don’t do music on long journeys].
Smith sent a message saying he’d meet me in P1 level 3. Well, I wondered while traversing the Ring if that is what the signs on approach to the airport would say or would they be in another language or missing entirely. Fortunately they did and we found each other easily. A quick adjustment on the iPhone Googlemaps app and we were heading to Hildesheim past Leuven.
Not a great deal of note happened along the way until we got close to Bad Oeynhausen when the app was telling us that there was a 90 minute delay and would we like to go a different route? Well, yes please. So we left the A2 motorway, where speeds reach in excess of 110mph, and headed cross country to Hamelin and then Hildesheim. I think that all in all the journey was about eight hours, which isn’t that bad for five hundred miles. All we now had to do was load up the trolley and walk about a mile from the car to the festival entrance, find a spot to camp, put up the tent, eat food and drink. We camped almost exactly as we did last year, about as far from the main festival as possible. This meant it was reasonably quiet and the toilets weren’t over run.
Runway 07
Friday evening meant wine, Jägermeister and Absinthe. This was possibly a little silly as Saturday was quite hard work for me. Although there is no live music on the Friday evening there is a disco in one of the hangers and plenty of stalls open along with the Medieval Village where you can practise your ax throwing, should you want to.
The weather wasn’t as hot this year compared with 2015. The forecast had 25C or so which suited me fine, the 33C of last year was too much. The night was good and Saturday morning meant a walk along the runway to showers and coffee. Not at the same time but I needed both. The shower marquee was pretty good and had lovely hot water to clean away the hours of travel yesterday. The queues for coffee were pretty long and I wondered whether it was worth bringing a stove to make a coffee each morning but it feels quite sophisticated drinking coffee in the morning sun on the taxiway of an airfield waiting for the outfits and music.
M’era Luna is cheap enough that if you just come along to display your costume and make up abilities then you don’t have to worry about the music. With Download coming in at about GBP200 the GBP80 for M’era Luna seems a bargain. It’s also small enough to feel cosy and pleasant. Getting ready for the day’s activities this year was a little more time consuming this year as Smith and I had plans for costumes, also it appeared there was a naked selfie competition on WhatsApp with a group of friends started by Walshe! These photos still exist in the ether but they are not going to be published anywhere public.
I should probably get on to the music with that being the reason for driving five hundred miles an’ all. But first there was getting an outfit on! Because Suicide Commando wasn’t playing on the Saturday it meant we dressed in white shirts [shock horror!] and Ayria ties bought when we saw her play at Electrowerkz.
And so on to the music. I seem to recall saying last year that the little details disappear from my mind and so what follows is mostly just a list with my thoughts at the time. Some of my favourite bands will appear with more details. There are two stages at M’Era Luna, the main stage and the hanger stage.
Saturday
Shaargot [main stage] – good industrial metal.
Vlad In Tears [hanger stage] – shit.
Erdling [main stage] – goth. shit.
Time for lunch.
Gothminster [main stage] – killing a zombie on stage during the first song. Bat ventriloquism in the second. What the fuck is going on? Left to the hanger stage.
Gothminister
A Life Divided [hanger stage] – caught the last song. pop metal.
Chrom [hanger stage] – the first band I was really looking forward to. I liked the music but they were boring. A shame.
Chrom
Stahlmann [main stage] – dressed in silver. female guitarist. slow goth rock. couple of faster ones, ok.
Noisuf X [hanger stage] – three blokes. White shirts. Two drumming. Heavy EBM. Good.
Cassandra Complex [hanger stage] – listened to this stuff before we went. Sounded ok. Turns out that live it’s just goth shit.
Oomph!
Oomph! [main stage] – Good German pop rock. 2 guitars, keyboards, percussion, drummer. Bass and singer.
Hamatom [hanger stage] – from outside hangar. Faster metal. Masks. Ok. A little derivative! Should be more dangerous given masks.
Apocalyptica [main stage] – Pretty good given it’s men with cellos. Too many Metallica covers.
[:SITD:] [hanger stage] – Solid good set. This was actually a pretty good set and they played well. Very good to finally see this band.
[:SITD:]Die Krupps [hangar stage] – Fuck yes! Playing metal pipes. Breaking guitars. Industrial well done.
Die Krupps
VNV nation [Main stage] – 1 song. Boring. I’ve listened to a lot of this at home and I like it. But only at certain times. It’s gentle music. The sort to put on when having dinner.
Hocico [Hanger stage] – Actually pretty good. Big sound. Two percussionists with black Angel wings!
Sisters of Mercy [main stage] – Bad. Dull.
And there ends the first day at M’Era Luna festival 2016. It was a good day. Plenty to see and the surprises of the day were Hamatom and Oomph! for me. I enjoyed both. Not to say I hated all the others, I just liked these two more. Oh, and Die Krupps were pretty awesome along with [:SITD:]. Hocico made a better impression that when I saw them previously at Electrowerkz, but still didn’t quite manage brilliant.
Morning time means the usual hunt for coffee. Showers and packing up the tent. Sunday’s plan was to pack up camp and then drive a couple of hundred miles after the last band. We had a date with Eurotunnel at about midday on Monday and we definitely wouldn’t make it if we left Monday morning. We walked the mile or so to the car and then got dressed in the costumes. Again we were dressed in white.
Me The Tiger [hanger stage] – Pretty good. One song. Good.
Aeverium [main stage] – Female main singer, sexy. Heavy. Male singer. Good contrast.
Rabia Sorda [hanger stage] – Rock, a bit pop? Guitar with keyboard sounds over top. Ok. Nothing special.
Rabia Sorda
Heldmaschine [hanger stage] – Ok. Industrial. Correction very good.
Centhron [hangar stage] – Live bassist. Good. Shame we left early.
Combichrist [main stage] – Darn good. Pit. I’ve seen this band many times and they haven’t failed to impress although I do prefer their earlier electronic work! [go to 3:24 in the video and there I am!]
Zeromancer [hangar stage] – Sat at back. Sounds ok.
Eisbrecher [main stage] – Drunk girl talk, orange hair. Late on stage. Very good. Speaks too much. Liked the set and the black suits. Left early to see:
Suicide Commando [Hangar stage] – Live drummer. Excellent. Including song: Die Motherfucker Die.
Suicide Commando
In Extremo [Main stage] – 1 song. Fucking medieval rock.
Had cup of tea. Listened to Within Temptation. Went and got some food. Left.
We travelled just inside Belgium and parked the car up and slept for a few hours before waking, driving to a service station for coffee and then getting to Calais for the Eurotunnel and home. We chatted about music and costumes for next year. I’ve got some ideas but I need to learn about mammal skulls first.
It’s hard to sum up the entire weekend. Almost every aspect of it was brilliant. The journey, the chatting, the alcohol, the food, the vegan food server with her lovely freckles, the coffee, the costumes, the music, just being away and feeling like I was at home.
There may be more to add to this but it has taken a long time for me to get around to writing this so I will publish this communication. Changes and added bits will be noted as such.
I am quite excited about this. It should be good. Having been last year I now know where we are going and what to expect. The festival is based at the airport of Hildesheim. This town has some wonderful buildings in the centre and is one of the oldest cities in northern Germany. Maybe this year Andy and I will get into the town centre to see what it is like.
The line up has some pretty awesome bands although, once again, I’m not sure if we’ll stay for the final Sunday night band. There’s plenty of time to decide.
Met with Smith last night and we chatted about which music festival to attend this year. You may have read about M’era Luna from last year. It was a very good time but this year there’s more choice!
Our preferred choice was to head to Munich for the Dark Festival, but this has been cancelled which is a shame. There were a lot of good bands that we would have liked to see there.
So now there are two choices. M’era Luna at Hildesheim again or Amphi Festival in Cologne. Here’s the line up for M’era Luna:
Of the bands in the above list I would really like to see VNV Nation, Eisbrecher, Combichrist, Hocico and Suicide Commando. But there are more:
This list has a few tasty treats: [:SITD:], Noisuf-X and Centhron. So, M’era Luna has a good selection, worth travelling the 500 miles for!
Next up we have the selection from Amphi Festival.
The list of bands to definitely see at Amphi is: Aesthetic Perfection, Covenant, Faderhead, Frontline Assembly, Mono Inc, Suicide Commando, Unzucht and [X-RX].
It’s a tough choice. The current preference is M’era Luna. Wait and see.
Smith and I travelled to Germany to a music festival over the summer. We searched many festivals to find the right one for price, distance and bands, although that wasn’t the order of the criteria. We settled on M’era Luna, a gothic/industrial festival that takes place on an old British Army Air Corps airfield near the town of Hildesheim, just south of Hanover.
On the Friday we traversed the channel via a train that carries cars [just imagine! a train that can carry cars! UNDER the sea! We humans are ingenious!] and headed to Germany. We used just a Sat Nav device, neither of us had a proper map. France, Belgium and the Netherlands were all pretty boring and we longed for some hills or vague scenery. The world kept track of our journey via twitter.
In Germany! Passing Wankum. And now there’s hills! — Ian Parish (@iparish) August 7, 2015
The route took us on the ring roads of two large towns and the traffic slowed a lot around them, hindering our progress! Once in Germany we travelled fast on the autobahn although we did have a detour around the northern edges of Dortmund as the sat-nav didn’t quite warn about a lane change on a slip road in time and then the next junction was closed. Dortmund looked like the edges of any town.
The temperature was hitting 32 Celsius along the way and finally we arrived at the airport near Hildesheim. 500 miles, 1 tank of diesel and plenty of snacks and LOTs of music.
We only just managed to find somewhere to put up the tent. There wasn’t a great deal of space left in any of the campsite. Our spot was furthest as could be from the main festival area, but reasonable close to toilets and leaving on the Sunday.
That evening we wandered the festival area, drank some alcohol already purchased from a service station and went to the disco hangar. There was some pretty good music played and it was good fun.
After a good sleep we awoke to find that the air bed had stayed up and was really comfortable. We both went about our routines to get ready to leave our tent area. I needed to satisfy my caffeine addiction and stave off withdrawal symptoms by finding more caffeine to ingest. Just as we were getting dressed Andy managed to puncture the airbed. It slowly deflated. We found a repair kit and tried to stick on a patch. We would have to wait 6 hours before we knew whether it had worked.
I found coffee. I also found some food. The weather for the Saturday was meant to be slightly overcast with a chance of rain showers. It had rained quite heavily in the early morning but the ground was so dry from the scorching summer that it didn’t really create any puddles or mud. Shortly after the sun had arisen the whole place was dry. Once we were ready we headed to the festival area to check out the shops, food places and mediaeval village (with food places and shops). It was also a good chance to see how the arena and hanger were set up so we knew where toilets, drink entrances, exits etc.
There now follows a list of bands we saw with comments about them if I can remember them. It is a good few months since the festival while writing this, unlike my detailed descriptions about Download.
Nachtgeschrei
Versengeld (with person playing the hurdy gurdy and another on bag pipes)
Speilbann
Coppellius (who played some Maiden covers in the style of mediaeval rock)
The Other
Frozen Plasma (half of this band is Reaper which is good, but Frozen Plasma were a bit dull)
Lord of the Lost
L’ame Immortal
Aesthetic Perfection (3rd or 4th time seeing these and they were awesome)
In Strict Confidence (surprisingly ok even with a female singer)
Blut Engel (just no)
X-RX this band replaced Suicide Commando who had to pull out of the weekend. They were good and I liked it, but left to see . . . .
Rob Zombie who just blew the competition away and was professionally brilliant.
Sunday started with the search for caffeine and then food. The air bed did not stay inflated and so the night was reasonably uncomfortable. We had decided we would probably leave M’era Luna that evening and then drive as far as we could home before kipping in the car. The bands on Sunday were:
Private Pact (a bad goth, stand still, band)
Schwarzer Engel getting better, quite thrash, goth and heavy.
Unzucht were just a great band with heavy thrash riffs and a great guitarist.
Dope Stars Inc. were good but looked as though they had just come from the 80s!
Tying Tiffany was the surprise of the weekend. They started slow and boring but from the third song onwards it was full of energy and heavy. Just a great find for the summer.
Assemblage 23 dull. very dull.
Rotersand a great band, a great show and really put previous band to shame. I loved it.
Nachtmahr were slightly disappointing. It’s hard to pin point this. Their music is very good. But live, they just didn’t capture the mood. It was almost boring, even with two women acting out a fetish scene it was dull. Can’t quite figure it out.
Nightwish we said we would stay for two songs but managed just a half of one song. We then drove towards the UK.
A strange thing about the German crowds is that if you had your spot to watch from everyone stayed in that spot. No-one moved when a band appeared. There was no crush at the front. Andy and I were in the second row for a number of bands on the Sunday and there was room to dance, moved around and no crush. This was actually refreshing and pleasant. It made the weekend a much more enjoyable event that had there been the UK crush.
Nachtmahtr
Rotersand
Rotersand
Assemblage 23
Rob Zombie
Private Pact
Schwarzer Engel
Unzucht
Dope Stars Inc.
X-RX
Aesthetic Perfection
Frozen Plasma
The Other
Blut Engel (I think)
Spielbann
Coppellius (possibly)
Smiff and Tent
It was easy to leave the festival as the final band hadn’t finished. The roads were clear and we made fast progress across Germany and then the Netherlands. We agreed between us that we would stop at the first rest area we found after midnight. It was fascinating to see how the landscape changed from central Germany to the low lands. Flat and straight is pretty much every road after Germany. We stopped at some services about 1km before the Belgian border. I think we slept ok.
The Monday we woke, I found caffeine and then we drove towards Calais. We arrived at the tunnel way before we were due but we paid some extra money to be on an earlier train. This was worth it as it meant I got home before my family left for other things.
The excitement of the weekend continued to the Monday evening as Combichrist played the O2 Islington thing.
![[:SITD:]](http://fooyah.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/20160813_171145112_iOS-1024x768.jpg)
