As the festival season is at its peak, so comes the days of metal in the festival valley of Soča, Slovenia.

Another edition of so much needed metalhead vacation has finally arrived. MetalDays opens it gate to visitors from all over the world for a week of metal adventure. The festival has been evolving over the years with management not seeking only to have as many big names as possible to hit the stage, but to have a great variety of what the festival can offer. And in doing so, you can have true festival adventure experience. MetalDays festival has proved itself to be one of the “must go” summer destination for all metalheads.

 

The possibility to arrive even four days before the official start of the festival, gets you enough time to relax, chill and check the beautiful surroundings of Tolmin and Soča Valley, as the festival prepare to kick off.

This year, we saw the new addition of the third stage named New Forces, that starts as early on Saturday, so the metalheads can warm up their engines discovering some new bands. With this move, MetalDays strongly supports the new upcoming artists and gives a bit more variety on their already versatile lineup. This year the mainstage aka Ian Fraser “Lemmy” Kilmister stage saw American goth icon Marilyn Manson, mighty vikings Amon Amarth, metal queen Doro, black metal legend Abbath and others, with the second stage Boško Bursać hosting the black mass by Batushka, 70’s riders Kadavar, atmospheric Sólstafir and tribute to Lemmy itself the Bömbers - The ultimate Motörhead tribute. Over 130 bands hit the stages during the upcoming week. As the Sunday evening came by, so did the now already traditional camp party at Brothers of Beer camp. The international camp group annually holds MD pre-party with their DIY party tent, music, lights and lot of beer. It’s a great way to meet up with campers and prepare yourself for the upcoming week of partying.

 

Day One

As the official first day started so did the usual routine. Waking around 9 am as the sun pierce onto the tent and give rise to a usual morning sauna. This year the Festcamper camp was equipped with pavilions to ease the summer sun. Good thing to have these, especially for something that was brewing for the next day, but first things first, the bands. As we scout around the festival, we enjoyed some bands on the newcomer’s stage. Day before, the Moros band from Austria played kickass show on the new stage. Combination of death & thrash really fired up the stage & crowd and guys eventually won the chance to play at the main stage next year. Moving along to Monday, after checking the beaches, we got to the second stage but not before trying to pass through a dense row in front of the MD merchandise. Visitors were standing in line before it opened so they can grab their memorabilia and there was a variety of it from different colour MD t-shirts, towels with logo, even to official  wine bottles and promotional limited edition pack of MD poster. As we passed through, we enjoyed the death doomers from the UK, The Crawling.  Awesome band, first time on MetalDays and they gave us the taste of that doomish death atmosphere. Crowd loved it and so did we. As we met up with an old festival friends along the way, having a good time and laugh, so did the time passed  and before you know the first headliner rose up on the main stage – goth icon Marilyn Manson. With many people posing the question whether the Manson was a good choice for MetalDays, that same amount of people came rushing to see the show. So, that answers a lot. Being restricted with the part of the photographers who were not on the list for the show, we got up to main stage area and mingled in the crowd. With some new tracks on their setlist and oldies but goldies, we enjoyed the show with a scent of nostalgic from those hits. After an hour performance we went back to the camp not knowing what tomorrow brings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day Two

The rain and a slight wind woke us. We didn’t mind, as we pitched our tents and could chill inside till it gets over. As the morning passed by so did the rain, but the clouds stayed over us. We checked if there were any damage but fortunately nothing, so we decided to hit up to town. During the lunch in local restaurant, we found out that the oldschoolers Kadavar had dropped out. But there was no place to be sad as the drummer’s wife got in labour so that was cheerful news. As the cloudy and windy weather continued, we came back in camp and packed our things for a precaution. There was a ringing in our head to watch over the North-west mountains, as we were told by the locals, from that direction you can tell whether the rain will come. As the wind suddenly stopped, we saw something brewing in the distance. The trees tops started to move rapidly on the mountains and just a minute after the hell break loose into the valley. The gushing wind wreak havoc through the camp ground. We manage to close our tents and get our rain coats just in time, but most of the campers weren’t that lucky. As we cling on holding our pavilion at bay, our crew member managed to film the situation. Later that video become viral hit of the flying unicorn over MetalDays. The inflatable toy came rushing by the wind as his saviour manages to recapture it as other campers in the back hold on to their camp livelihood.

The storm caused the stages to put the schedule on hold, and the New Forces stage got the worse scenario as is got ripped and damaged.  Soon as the wind calmed we could relieve and wait for the pouring rain to stop, killing the time by taking rakija (moonshine) shots to ease the past experience. After the storm, we managed to salvage our pavilion and most of the campers duck taped what needed to be fixed, except few of the tents. Celebrating with our neighbours from Russia for staying alive, we continued to party till the headliner. Amon Amarth rounded up cold and wet metalheads and with their storm of Viking power the crowd atmosphere got hotter and hotter alongside their pyrotechnics, that kept us warm during the show.