In the past 3 weeks I’ve been to 4 concerts in as many cities. Radiohead in Vancouver, Beck in Victoria, Pennywise in Amsterdam, and finally, Metallica in Berlin. Now it was my very first Metallica concert, Dylan’s second, so it was truly something special. But it wasn’t an ordinary everyday show for them either.

Friday, September 12th was also the release date for their newest album (in about 5 years), Death Magnetic. They chose to launch the album, and open the brand new O2 World Arena here in Berlin. To top it all off it was one of two charity shows (the next on Sept. 15th in London) for only €10!

Metallica @ the O2 Arena in Berlin

Metallica opened with a string of a few new tunes before turning out the classics like Of Wolf & Man, The Thing That Should Not Be, Wherever I May Roam, Blackened, Frantic, Until it Sleeps, Master of Puppets, One, and so, so many more for an amazing two hours. The masters of metal then mixed in quite a few newer songs throughout, including the singles Cyanide and The Day That Never Comes. They ended it all with Jump in the Fire, right before Seek & Destroy. Pardon the French I picked up earlier this trip, but holy shit- that was unreal! Their stage presence is incomparable and their energy unmatched.

Now that my ears are ringing and my neck oh-so-sore, some sleep must be had. Tomorrow we will see as much of big beautiful Berlin, Germany (population 3 million) as possible during the day.

As for tomorrow night we are jet-setting to the southern isle of Crete, Greece for about 5, 6 days, we’ll see! I can’t wait and could really use the sunshine, sand and sea.

This evening we were privileged to be at the last show on Pennywise’s European tour- something they made very clear they were extremely stoked about as well.

They played at a venue that was previously an old factory. These days the Melkweg houses multiple rooms in it’s various areas for cinema, dance and theatre productions, art and photography exhibits, and- in the “the Max” area- concerts. It’s one of the two concert halls under the same roof and has standing-room-only anywhere you’d like- balcony, bar stool, steps or floor (with no barricade between crowd and stage) for a mere 1,000 people. The sound was within it’s tightly enclosed brick walls was pretty impressive.

A Wilhelm Scream opened with huge energy. Shortly after their brief set Pennywise took over with a wide range of old and new. From Broken, Living for Today, Pennywise, Perfect People, One Reason, Society and of course ending with Bro Hymn.

Now, I’ve seen Pennywise before in a way, though I don’t think I’ll count it, as it was at Warped Tour a few years back. And I recall listening to them (only, I know) around 10, maybe just under a dozen or so years ago… That made me feel a little old! Their experience and that venue this evening made for an amazing show here in Amsterdam.

So far we have our Eurail passes, they arrived a couple of weeks ago.  We’re free to bound across various borders throughout Western Europe for an entire month.  With the exception of a few minor obligations here and there- concerts namely- we haven’t many set plans. Only to not bog ourselves down with huge lists of must-dos/sees in one place or another, but to get up and go as we see fit.

1,000 person-venue Pennywise show, in Amsterdam? Far too good to pass up.

The Pennywise tickets for the Amsterdam, Netherlands show have also arrived, and now all we have to do is wait patiently, packed full of hope for (an official) announcement that Metallica will play the 02 World Arena in Berlin, Germany… Only then may we rest and anticipate take-off.

When we first started the planning process, some many months ago, we had to come up with the simplest way to organize the many minute details of this one huge trip.  Dylan came across a site to do just that, TripIt, which we’ve been using with much ease.  The iCal feed is a hugely beneficial feature, and this way we’re not fidgeting with a plethora of papers on the road, appearing more tourist-like than we hope to. We’ll have all necessary train schedules, maps, and tour information conveniently in one place. Maybe even as close as our fingertips, with the help of his iPhone.

I highly recommend travellers try out TripIt for future vacation planning, it makes a potential trip blunder much less likely.

3 crates packed full o’ fresh lobster, 2 cousins on either Canadian coast to execute the plan, and 1 group of hungry co-workers getting together at the office = a feast to write home about.

Write home we did not (too much effort, highly time consuming), but I’m certain we made our gratitude known through muffled “thank you’s” whilst stuffing mini two-pronged fork-fulls of delectable lobster in our mouths.

If I had to choose but one picture to sum it up? That one will do it justice, I’m certain!

Europe Planning

Though not on this continent, some notable concert news has come up recently.

Pennywise will be in Amsterdam on September 7th ’08, playing a show at the Melkweg Venue. I just happen to have the ‘Amsterdam’ part of this September’s European adventure slated to take place at that time; we’re most likely getting tickets.

By that time I’ll be half way across the world and seeing concerts will be feasible once again, considering in order to fund said trip I will find myself in the audience of only two shows this summer: Iron Maiden next week, and Radiohead in August.

But there are a plethora of inexpensive (often free!) diverse cultural/music/heritage, and all-around artsy events in Victoria to look forward to while I am situated here over the summer months.

Ah, the beauty of life in a tourism-driven community. Can’t complain, can… not… complain.