83.20 mi / 6:11:59 time / 13.4 mph avg. / 25.5 mph max. / 1308 ft. climbing
Staying at Smith Lake County Park

The tent held up well enough last night after what seemed like a good bit of rain, but who really knows? I woke to a sunrise I could actually see, packed up camp, and was ready to roll at 8am. Then I noticed a strange clunking noise, and saw that my rear tire was dead flat. Crap. Just when I was starting to think that my fancy tires (Schwalbe Marathon Supreme) were totally worth the money, I got bit. Well, better here in camp than out on the road (since it’s the rear wheel, I have to remove all the bags and flip the bike over). However, when I got the tire off, I saw that it wasn’t a puncture; the valve stem had come right out of the tube! So the good news was that my tires *are* still good. Don’t know what happened to the tube, all I can figure is that the lockring on the stem got loose and somehow the tube was being jerked back and forth inside the tire.

So after that delay, I headed out to face my first real headwinds of the trip (or crosswinds, but never anything behind me). I did the first half of the day on empty backroads to the resort town of Clear Lake where I stopped for lunch and library. Iowa is pretty indistinguishable from Illinois. You have corn on one side of the road, soybeans on the other, roads are straight and mostly flat, and I’ve only been chased by one dog. Well, actually it was the other way around, it was a big dog that sprinted out and easily outpaced my 22mph until it reached the end of its territory, stopped, turned, and barked at me when I finally caught up.

After Clear Lake there was a stretch on US 18, which was fairly annoying once the shoulder disappeared. The Iowa State Bike Map has been helping quite a bit by indicating paved backroads that I can take (although the gravel here is good-quality and perfectly rideable too, just slower). Made it to Algona and while I waited in a long line at Subway, I saw that the sunny skies were finally starting to darken. It wouldn’t be right if I went a whole day without rain, would it?

I rode a couple miles up the road to the unremarkable campground and was able to get my tent pitched before the rain rolled in. After an hour so it stopped, and by then it was dark, so I stood outside for a while watching a pretty amazing lightning show all around me. Then I took a shower which I needed very badly (I think it’s living in wet shoes that makes most of the stink, oh, and I’d been wearing the same clothes for 4 days!), and returned to the tent before the next round of showers. The leaking through the ceiling was back again, but now I think I’ve got the problem solved. They sell a thing called a “Gear Loft” which I assume is just a piece of fabric that you hang by these four loops near the top of my tent, so it’s essentially like a shelf above your head. Well, my new “Gear Loft” is made of plastic sheeting, and it’s more properly a “Water Loft”, but it does the job swimmingly. I’ve got a lot of experience with water dripping through my ceiling, so I knew this was one I could solve!

109.53 mi / 7:03:08 time / 15.5 mph avg. / 31.0 mph max. / 2504 ft. climbing
Staying at Beeds Lake State Park

I woke up this morning and had real Cheerios for breakfast in the motel lobby. Best motel ever! And yes, they provided lots and lots of towels, I didn’t even get through half of them. When I got everything packed up and rolled the bike out the door, it wasn’t even raining.

I had been up late the night before, planning my route, since I’m now well off my pre-planned path. I set a goal of Iowa Falls, which has motels, and is 100 miles away. Halfway there, I’d stop at Waterloo/Cedar Falls, check the forecast, and figure if I wanted to go all the way and get a motel, or stop sooner at a county campground.

The ride to Cedar Falls was pretty uneventful, except for this bright, hot thing that was shining on my back. That was weird. I’ve entered “waving” country, where many drivers will raise a few fingers off the wheel as they fly past. I passed pretty close to the town of Waverly, so that must be where they’re all coming from. Oh yeah. Been waiting to use that one all day. I made it to the Cedar Falls library, did a quick email check, and then checked the radar to see a storm was headed right for me. I packed up as fast as I could, and made a mad dash to Subway, where I arrived seconds before the rain hit.

While there, I was checking my map, and noticed this town “Hampton” up to the northwest. It too had motels, and a state park just outside of town. Even better, it was north, unlike Iowa Falls, which actually would take me five miles south of my northernmost point in the day. Since I eventually have to get back north, that’s an extra ten miles I would have added to the trip, so Hampton made a lot more sense. I have no idea how I could spend hours last night with full Internet access and come up with Iowa Falls, when I found Hampton in a few seconds while eating lunch.

By the time I was done, the rain had stopped, and the southeast wind was much stronger than it had been before. So I was crusing pretty well. There was one stretch of road where I was playing a game that somehow I’d never played before: cloud chasing. There were small clouds passing in front of the sun, and they’d cast a shadow on the ground that was moving exactly in my direction of travel, at about 20mph. If I wanted to be in the shade, I could speed up and catch a cloud. Otherwise I’d drop back and let them pass me. It was almost like porpoises leading a ship, if a bit of shadow can be compared to a mighty porpoise.

With the sun out, I was finally reminded that it was summer, and I actually started to think “a bit of rain wouldn’t be too bad right now!” But with the tailwind and the flattest day so far, it was tolerable. A note on my “climbing” figure: that’s a number reported by my cyclocomputer that adds up all the hills I climbed during the day, while ignoring the downhills. I don’t know how accurate it is, and there are all sorts of different ways to calculate it (see TopoFusion’s website for discussion!), but it should be a good way to compare from day to day. Today’s number was the lowest so far, and given the distance, the average grade was quite small. My max grade today was 6%, whereas the first two days had 12% and 15% climbs.

I made it to Beeds Lake State Park, got a beautiful site on the lake, watched the sunset, and ate my new campground-meal discovery (Country Crock Mac & Cheese…I was going to heat it, but after opening it and trying some cold, I realized it was pretty good that way, and didn’t even bother setting up the stove. The retirees group here told me it’s supposed to rain tonight, so maybe I’ll get to test out the tent’s waterproofing again. It would seem weird to have a day where I dodged all the rain, and the wind is picking up pretty good right now, so we’ll see…

86.25 mi / 6:28:06 time / 13.3 mph avg. / 42.0 mph max. / 4476 ft. climbing
Staying at Manchester Super 8 Motel

It continued to rain on and off through the whole night, although it must have been “off” for a while since I think I got a pretty good chunk of sleep. On the other hand, it was “on” enough to cause a good amount of dripping inside the tent. I still can’t figure out if there’s some sort of leaking in the fly, or if it’s just crazy condensation.

The rain would come and go in waves, and I had to wait out about three waves (while packing up between them) to get out of camp around 8am. Then I quickly got reminded that I was staying at Apple River CANYON State Park, when I was greeted by some 12-15% grades. Add in the rain, and it was pretty rough. It’s too bad it was raining the whole time, or I would have explored the park more. It looked pretty cool, with lots of sandstone bluffs surrounding the river.

Then it was lots of up and downs through the back roads on the way to Galena. This is the “driftless” area, one of the only places in the region where the hills weren’t knocked flat by glaciers. It’s pretty weird how quickly it seems to appear out of nowhere. Again, it’s too bad it was raining, or I would have gotten more pictures; what I could see through the rain and fog looked like beautiful country. It reminded me a lot of Kentucky, except without dogs chasing me.

When I reached Galena, the rain had stopped, and the sun almost came out again. Then it was onto US 20 to Dubuque, where the grades are a lot more tolerable (6% seemed to be the max). As I crossed the bridge over the Mississippi, there were a couple of kids sitting on the concrete wall on the Illinois end holding a cardboard sign that said “Honk if you don’t like Bush!” They showed it to me as I went by, but even at uphill-bicycle speed, I could barely read it, so I don’t think they were having much luck with the speeding cars.

I ended up spending (wasting?) a lot of rain-free time in Dubuque. First, a stop at a pharmacy to buy contact solution, which I’d forgotten to pack. Then I stopped at the McDonald’s because I knew they had AT&T WiFi access ($2/month with a standard DSL plan!) It was the world’s slowest McDonald’s, but I had plenty to do, so that was no big deal. Then it was off to a bike shop to buy some new sunglasses (I lost them somewhere on the first day!) And finally Target to buy more poly sheeting for various water issues.

My original plan had me going northwest out of Dubuque, but it turned out there were no towns anywhere near where I was heading large enough to have motel. And since it was likely to be raining, I figured that would be a good option. So instead I headed straight west. It started raining soon after I left Dubuque, and didn’t stop for the next 40 miles. Like yesterday though, I had wind pushing me from the east while I had rain soaking me from the west, so it wasn’t all bad.

They were cool with me rolling my wet and disgusting bike (and self) into my room here, they have free WiFi, and it was really nice to take a shower and dry off. To top it off, the pizza place next door had an all-you-can-eat buffet. suckers! It’s almost midnight and it’s still raining, and guess what’s on the schedule for tomorrow? (and the next day, and the next…)

Little Debbie update: I think I decided that I’m going to attempt to sample as many different varities of Little Debbie Snack Cakes on this trip as I can without endangering myself. Today was the the Frosted Honey Bun, not to be confused with the regular Honey Bun. The FHB has some white substance that looks like white silicone caulk laid atop it in a solid sheet. If that’s not disgusting enough, there was some loose oil floating around in the bag. It was ok, but I prefer the regular Honey Bun. But how can you beat 500 calories for 50 cents?

116.71 mi / 7:09:31 time / 16.3 mph avg. / 34.0 mph max. / 3690 ft. climbing

Staying at Apple River State Park

My goal for the day was to make to to Le-Aqua-Na State Park, about 100 miles away, with a contingency to stop at a county park about 80 miles out if conditions were less than favorable. It turns out that conditions were so favorable, I ended up overshooting my goal and stopped 10 miles further west.

All summer long, I’ve noticed an abnormal amount of east winds in the Chicago area. I figured that meant all the east winds for the year were being “used up”, and by the time I started my trip, west winds would be the only ones left in the bag. Well, there was at least one more east wind hiding in that bag, and it blew me forward all day long. My flat-land cruising speed was about 21mph, so I wanted to use up as much of that easy speed as possible, and not let it go to waste.

In addition to the wind, I think the temperature helped out quite a bit, as it was quite cool. At 3pm, it was 57 degrees, and it rarely got above 60 all day long. It was hard to believe that it’s still the middle of August. Those temperatures would be about perfect, if I wasn’t wet for much of the day. I rode through two or three hours worth of rain, in two main bursts. I was wearing my jacket almost the entire day, even when it wasn’t raining, because it was really that cold. Beyond that, the day was pretty uneventful, except for a 2-mile detour (which included a mile on a good-quality gravel road) because a bridge was out.

It’s funny how it’s almost the complete opposite of the first day of my Atlanta trip. On that one, I was fighting a headwind all day, and it might have reached 90 degrees. By the end of that one, I was beat, whereas today’s ride was almost relaxing. I was hardly ever pushing at all, and even once I got into the hilly country out here, I never felt very tired. And it sure does feel nice to know that I’ve already banked 35 miles on my first day out.

For the last 15 miles, the clouds got a little less dark, and I could even see the sun shining through them for a little bit. But then it started sprinking again while I was finding a site and setting up camp. The campground is surprisingly full for such a crappy day. The rain managed to stop long enough for me to cook some dinner, but now as I sit here holed up in the tent, it’s started once again.

Yeah, so I’m riding my bike to Portland (Oregon!), starting in three days. I think I’ll be posting journal updates on this blog, so I’m just trying it out to see how well it might work.

This was the first show I’ve ever bought tickets for on ebay. I’d already seen Rodrigo y Gabriela before (for free, no less!) at the Old Town School of Folk Music, but between then and now, I’d really grown to like their album a whole lot more. I didn’t buy tickets immediately because the concert was the night before I was scheduled to photograph my cousin’s wedding, and by the time I was sure there would be no conflict with that, the show was sold out. I still didn’t really care that much, but then I saw stuff like this video of ‘Diablo Rojo’ (where the crowd is just going insane), and read reviews of this tour with quotes like “the loudest crowd I’ve ever heard”, and I figured I needed to see them at a non-sit-down place. Plus, I saw that their entire US tour was sold out, and since I tend to avoid arena shows, I thought it might be my last chance to see them.

Opening act was Krystle Warren, a solo modern-blues-woman with acoustic guitar. She had one hell of a voice, but her songs were a bit boring. I’d be interested to see her fronting a whole band, where I think she’d do a lot better. She ended her set with the two most intense numbers (including a badass take on ‘Eleanor Rigby’), which woke the crowd up pretty well. Unfortunately for her, I think she needs to either grow her hair out, or wear some pink or something, because I overheard more than one group around me comment afterwards: “hey, he was pretty good…”

Then came Rodrigo and Gabriela: just two people, two acoustic guitars, and two mismatched chairs, sitting alone on a stage built on top of the stage. They did have a large projection screen behind them, showing artfully-reproduced close-ups and wide-angle shots of the two as they played.

They had the whole crowd in the palm of their hand from the first note. Early on, they said some nonsense about “not following a setlist on this tour”. But it was pretty clear that they knew exactly what they were doing and had everything planned out quite strictly, in spite of Gabriela’s hilarious, rambling, and “fookin’-” filled story-telling. When they finally got to ‘Diablo Rojo’, the crowd wasn’t whipped into quite the frenzy seen in that video, but it was pretty close, and they left the stage to the loudest ‘encore!’ cheer I can remember. Then coming back, they closed their encore with their big radio single, ‘Tamacun’, to an equally big cheer.

Beyond those hits, they played a good bit of their s/t album, a new one, and a collection of covers. But even their choices for covers show how calculating they are: by choosing such populist hits as Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish You Were Here’ and The Eagles’ ‘Hotel California’ (with the vocals enthusiastically provided by the crowd), they risk neither boring nor offending their audience. Their metal choices showed the same pattern. Despite name-checking influences like Testament, Sepultura, and Slayer, they drew exclusively from the far more popular Metallica (ok, Rodrigo teased a couple bars of Iron Maiden). While again it makes sense for their goal of pleasing a wide audience, it sure would be nice to hear them play some Megadeth or something (which would be a better match for their skills anyway). Still, that’s only a small gripe, and while I probably won’t pay that much money to see them again, it was worth it this time around.

This was the second time these Colombians have visited Chicago since November, and the second time they played well after midnight. And I don’t mean that there were a bunch of opening bands and lots of delays which caused Aterciopelados to start their set very late. It’s more like “doors @ midnight, show starts @ 1am”.

At first I thought this was a pretty crazy and annoying way to schedule concerts, but now after doing it twice, I almost wish more bands would do it like this. I can go to bed at 8pm, get four hours of sleep, wake up at midnight, get downtown in no time because there’s no traffic, park for free, see a show with no opening bands that starts right on time, and be back in bed before 4am to finish off the rest of my full night of sleep.

This was my sixth time seeing Aterciopelados, so I was a bit worried that I could start getting bored with their concerts, especially since it had only been four months since I’d last seen them. Also, their new album ‘Oye’, while very good, is probably a step down from their previous four (one of the best four-album streaks in music history), and I knew the setlist would once again draw heavily from it.

It turns out my worry was unfounded, because it was still a great show. They did play all but two of the songs from ‘Oye’, but this time around everyone in the audience knew the songs much better, so that made it a lot more fun. But what really makes them a band I can see over and over again is the way that they change up their songs. Tempos change, different rhythms convert songs into alternate styles, and new intros/outros keep you guessing.

Their song ‘Florecita Rockera’ is a great case study. As originally recorded on their 1995 Latin-rock-punk album ‘El Dorado’, it’s an energetic little number that alternates beteween clean, melodic verses, and an almost heavy-metal chorus. By the time I first saw them in concert in 2001, they had morphed into an electronic/chill-out band, so at that show, ‘Florecita Rockera’ was played as full-on dance-club party song with a thumping beat and a running time at least three times the original. Now, their new album ‘Oye’ returns them back towards the Latin-rock style of their earlier albums, but without the punk edge, so this time we got a rocking, but anger-free ‘Florecita Rockera’ that even inspired something I haven’t experienced seen since those earlier Aterciopelados shows: the Mexican Mosh Pit. Like its Norte-Americano cousin, the South American version involves people bouncing around and bumping into each other, but it’s actually done to the beat of the music, and with a joy and community spirit that you don’t get in the metal version.

Beyond the ‘Oye’ stuff (‘Panel’ and ‘Al Parque’ were the missing ones), we got two from ‘Gozo Poderoso (‘Luz Azul’ and ‘El Album’), ‘El Estuche’ from ‘Caribe Atomico’, the title track from ‘La Pipa De La Paz’ (introed perfectly with ‘Majestad’ from ‘Oye’), ‘Florecita Rockera’ and encore-closer ‘Candela’ from ‘El Dorado’, as well as one each from Andrea Echeverri and Hector Buitrago’s “solo” albums (‘A Eme O’ and ‘Altisimo’, respectively).

I think this was the first time I’d seem them where Andrea didn’t speak at least a little bit of English, but she’s so good at emoting and connecting with the audience that I had a pretty good idea what she was saying anyway. They have a tradition of throwing gifts out into the audience at the end of the show, which is an idea I’m surprised more bands haven’t picked up (used drumsticks and guitar picks don’t count!) Previously they’ve thrown out flowers and frisbees, but the last coupled times it’s been tiny wrapped bags of something. I haven’t been lucky enough to get one, so I can’t tell you what’s inside!

The Metro seemed pretty full, don’t know if it sold out or not. Lots of kiddies (it was an all-ages show).

Zozobra
They were about what I expected, stoner-post-metal. So you had some guitar leads and stuff, but I think most of the stoner-rock vibe comes from the bass riffs. Some screams, some clan vocals from all three guys. Heavy, reasonably groovy, and fairly entertaining to watch. They did something that lots of new, opening bands *should* do, which is connect all their songs with various forms of guitar feedback/e-bowing, so that it was never quiet and you could never hear the crowd being dead. Except that the crowd *wasn’t* dead, and was giving them a significant amount of applause between songs that they probably never even heard!

Jesu
Justin Broadrick claimed that he was really ill, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and say that explained their boringness. Three guys in the band (drummer, bassist, guitarist/vocalist), none of which were terribly exciting to watch. The bass player looked like a roadie, though his big sloppy wet bass sound provided most of the musical entertainment. I really have no idea what the guitar/vocals were doing, since it seemed that at least 50% of the music (vocals too!) was being played by the computer. Conclusion: they need to figure out a better way to translate Jesu into a live setting, or not bother at all.

Isis
Not nearly as good as the last time I saw them, but probably as good as the first time. They’re quite a professional-looking and well-seasoned band by now, particularly in contrast to Jesu. It seemed like a lot of the songs they played were ones with odd rhythms, and only heavy at the end, so I could never quite find the headbanging groove that I reveled in at their last show. Perhaps they simply saved up all their 4/4 “metal” to unleash it in the encore, with “Celestial”, which was just awesome, and was probably worth the price of admission.

Ok, Day Two. Ready….Go!

Manetheren
Top-notch atmospheric hypnotic black metal. Sure, the style has been done before, but they executed it perfectly, had a perfect sense of melody, and since Drudkh wasn’t anywhere to be found, this was the next best thing. They deserved way better than the 1pm slot with 20 people watching them.

Withering Soul
I missed them opening for Enslaved earlier in the week in Chicago, and then only caught about half their set here. Competent if unspectacular melodic black metal. I’d have to listen to them closer to figure out if their one guitarist is actually as awesome as he makes himself look by the motions of his fingers.

Dark Forest
Some more competent if unspectacular black metal. Or, maybe they were spectacular, but c’mon, I saw 18 bands, so I can’t quite remember everything! (Really, it’s a credit to the festival that all the bands had as much individual identity as they did.) Actually given their name/logo/origin, the music was actually a lot more militant and ‘viking’ than I was expecting.

Gwynbleidd
I totally understand why these guys have a pretty good buzz going. They sound completely “pro”, and sounding like Opeth these days doesn’t hurt either. Perhaps a little too much like Opeth for my liking. That’s why it was nice when they brought out the acoustic fun in their last song, it gave a bit more connection to the earth, if you’re feelin’ me. Subtract two points for the guitarist with his hair tied back! If you’re onstage, performing in a *metal* band, and you still don’t let your hair loose, why the heck do you even have it? For your second job as a romance-novel model?

Earthen
Let’s see if I can remember the eight people onstage: singer (girl), violinist (girl), drummer (girl!), bass (12-year old boy with a wedding ring, seated), 2 acoustic guitars, electric guitar, and keyboards. It sounds like it was basically their first performance, and it kinda showed, but I really like the concept, so hopefully they can keep this orchestra together and develop it more. Ooh, and they played a “Tolkien” song! (Pippin’s depressing-as-fuck lament from “Return of the King”)

Shroud of Bereavement
Most memorable moment was the singer/guitarist chugging from a half-gallon of milk between songs. They probably would have been a lot more memorable if their sound was better. They had two keyboardists, but I could only hear about half of one. And their female vocalist sounded incredible during the soundcheck (especially compared to the Earthen singer), so it was unfortunate that I could hardly hear her either. It was definitely good to have a doom-ish band like this on the bill though. I left a bit early to grab some dinner.

Hordes of Yore
Another good band playing “Heathen Crusade metal”, but I was hoping for a bit more ethnic instrumentation.

Mael Mordha
Holy crap, these guys easily won the whole festival. They came storming on stage in their Irish war-paint and never let up. Every member of the band was great to watch, with the singer in his Jesus-robe being the obvious focal point. He was climbing all over the stage, roaming out in the crowd, playing some flute and a big-ol’ horn, and was fookin’ funny too. Oh, and their songs completely slayed. Stomping, melodic, headbanging folk metal. It’s simply a crime that the first time I heard about these guys was when the HC lineup was announced. With a performance like that, they could be headlining Wacken.

Obtest
These guys were the ‘Slough Feg’ of the night, though a slightly more intense version. Almost speed-metal with tons of guitar harmonies. The “singer” was a bit unfortunate, but a lively performer if nothing else. Lots of fun, and perhaps a hint of what it would be like if a real power metal band ended up playing.

Rudra
Damn, did these guys bring it. Powerful death metal that just sounded great. For some reason, I was thinking “eh, they’re from the other side of the world, I’ll understand if they don’t have their shit together. They probably don’t have ‘survival-of-the-fittest’ to encourage them to raise their game”. But they were one of the most pro-sounding bands of the whole fest. Their frontman has the skinniest fingers I’ve ever seen on a (male) bass player, but he played some awesome stuff. They also win the award for Most Genuinely Heartfelt ‘Thank You’ Speech.

Skyforger
Ok, so you’ve got a singer/guitarist fronting your band who may very well be Rasputin. Yeah, the mad fucking monk, still alive and kicking after all these years. Then, you’ve got a singer/bassist *also* fronting your band, and he just happens to be King Of All Vikings. With that, how the hell can you lose? So yeah, they pretty much slayed. And that doesn’t even include the third singer and all his wacky instruments (flutes, bagpipes, some sort of strap-on zither-type thing). Probably second-best band of the fest for me.

Bal-Sagoth
The narrations and between-song banter was awesome. Unfortunately they had to play some music too, and that didn’t do a whole lot for me. Beyond the masked singer, there wasn’t much to watch either. So after 12 hours of watching bands, I checked out about halfway through their set. Seemed like lots of big Bal Sagoth fans stuck it out ’til the end and were having a great time though.

For the festival, they actually were running 10 minutes ahead for much of the day, and the lights were doing stuff, so that was nice. Only other thing I could have asked for was for the place to not reek of Sloppy Fuckin’ Joes the whole day!

Ok, I really shouldn’t be the one here posting the first Heathen Crusade comments, but I’m a boring old man who wasn’t drinking last night, so I think the job probably falls to me by default. Here’s my comments from Day One:

Bronnson
I caught their last two songs. They were a local band brought in as a last-minute replacement, and that’s basically what they sounded like.

Will of the Ancients
Pretty damn good for the second band of the night. I’d say they basically play “Heathen Crusade metal”: blackish metal with lots of melody and headbanging groove. While they were almost exclusively growling, their song about pirates had their bass player doing some epic melodic yelling which was quite awesome.

Vesperian Sorrow
Wall-of-sound blackdeath metal. The parts where they’d just blast away could be a bit boring, but luckily they included enough kickass headbanging riffs to keep me interested. In what I think is a first for me, the normally-growling singer would exhort the crowd *during* the songs, using a normal clean voice. That just struck me as funny.

Slough Feg
Easily the best band of the night for me. I’m not even that much of a fan of them on record (it all seems pretty one-dimensional), but I’ll never miss a chance to see them live. They had their shit so together they started 10 minutes early, which gave Mike Scalzi time during the set to work his stand-up act: “So who here got a ride from Gary Gygax?” “How many women are here who aren’t somebody’s mother?” Even without the awesome jokes, the band had perfect sound, is tight as hell, and had the most impressive drummer of the night. Add in nearly constant dual-guitar harmonies played along to head-chunking rhythms, and what more could someone with good taste ask for?

Vreid
Well, the Windir song was the best thing that they played, but only by a small margin, so that’s pretty impressive. Somehow they find the perfect proportions for the mix of black, thrash, epic, and rock-n-roll groove to generate what was probably the most energized crowd of the night.

Månegarm
Finally, the first non-standard instruments of the night (violin and a bit of recorder)! Oddly, they were played not by a Viking, but by the guy who works in the A/V department of your college library. Some of their songs were total ass-kickers, but then they had some that were just kind of there. Still, they kept me interested for their whole set, which means I was kept interested for the entire day, which is pretty unbelievable.

As for the festival, scheduled times were hit dead on the nose for the entire night. Sound was generally good, lighting was about the worst ever, and I cannot comment on the beer!