Happy birthday Metaldays! Two years old, and look how you’ve grown. Sold out already – not bad, not bad at all!

Once more, the gates of the worlds heaviest holiday resort opened up in Slovenia, this year sold out at the box-office – yet still there was plenty of space for everyone to feel relaxed, at ease, and able to get around.
This year, Metaldays had a Scandinavian theme day going in the line-up, if you knew how to look for it. Tuesday, we had Norway day with the mighty Borknagar and Satyricon steering the ship; Wednesday was Denmark day where Artillery and Volbeat would rock our house; Sweden had the prodigious final day of the festival, where Sabaton and Tiamat closed the party for this year – and Finland, well, Finland was all over the place, utilizing the diverse powers of Children Of Bodom, Moonsorrow, and Amorphis.
This might all have been a coincidence of course, and there were some bands that broke free of the mould, but even so, it was a fun way of doing it.

“(If) all you see is metal bands, you’re doing it wrong. Live a little, find something new, see something outside the box.”
- Vince Neilstein (editor in chief, MetalSucks)

Though being stated about another festival, Roskilde to be precise, the above statement can easily enough be transferred to Metaldays as well. The box here would of course not refer so much to other musical genres than metal, but rather the box that is the festival and its immediate surrounding (camping ground, festival area, and beach bar). You see, Slovenia has so much more to offer, and it’s just around the corner if you are willing to take the step and have a look.
A lot of these possibilities, such as rafting, climbing, and cave-crawling to name but a few, are actually presented at the festival so with very little effort on your own part, you can easily enough get to try out a wide arrangement of past times to fill the space between bands.
We chose a different, but no less fulfilling, path this year – we simply got in our car and drove through the countryside, deciding our direction at a whim every time a crossing came in our path. This led us high (insanely high if you ask certain members of the staff) into the Alps, giving us a close to birds’ eye view of the land, and exposing several hidden spots of untouched, beautiful nature; a soothing contrast to the heavy life of the festival below.

One does not necessarily need to leave the festival to find differing forms of entertainment though – the metal disco at the beach bar, striptease and fire shows are just some of the classics that return year after year, and new (to us at least) was the find of a bar in the camping area which, apart from a wide variety of bottled beers, offered up a pinball game, a boxing ball machine, a dart-board and some table-soccer tables.
One of the more out there options at our disposal was the possibility of training in street/impro dramatics by a professional of the field – this was something I would have loved to try out but sadly I managed to forget the time with all else that was going on.

No matter what you may draw from Vince Neilstein’s comment, music is, always has been, and always will be the most potent and vital ingredient at a festival, and Metaldays was no exception.
Although 2014s line-up didn’t offer up many new experiences for us (that we really wanted to see that is, of course there were plenty of bands we haven’t heard about before), they still had quite a few names on the line-up that picked my interest.
Borknagar was the main pull for me this year, no doubt about it, but Tiamat who are equally unusual to find on the road, also held a high spot – and luckily both bands delivered!
In fact, there may have been something special in the water/beer, or maybe not, but with the exception of one concert, every single band we saw delivered a top notch show compared to their relative strengths – Grave for one was a real surprise as they have never been an interest of mine but still managed to pull off a lively performance which was quite entertaining!
Something in close relationship to this that I feel worth mentioning was a perceptible overall increase in sound quality, especially from the main stage. Looking away from a few problems as the bands entered (they always seem to be there before the final adjustments of the mix is in place), every band we saw had a nice, clear mix which allowed for hearing all of the instruments distinctly – thinking back on how few times this can be said about any festival we have visited, I can only congratulate Metaldays on the success, and hope they will build even further on this in the future!

One aspect, which has an unconditional impact on any festival goers experience while being almost completely out of the organizers hands, is the weather.
Now, I’m not going to lie to you or sugar-coat this in any way – the weather at Metaldays 2014 was schizophrenic to say the least! One minute we would have sunshine and blistering heat, while in the next the skies had darkened and a heavy downfall made us feel like scuba-divers on ground! Even so, as we had checked the weather forecast beforehand and had seen the dark hole of thunderstorms that were promised in the Tolmin area throughout the weak, we couldn’t help but be very happy and grateful for the many patches clarity that did show up throughout the festival. Of rain at concerts we had some, that is true, but never any of the really aggressive kind, and we could easily make do even without putting on a raincoat.
I heard several grumbling opinions on the matter, but I for one have no interest in chiming in as I feel that we got off extremely lucky compared to the threats that had been made by the meteorologists, and it was nice to see the festival taking immediate action, for example by asking everyone to leave their cars still during the festival unless an immediate emergency should arise, so as not to mud up the roads too much.

Another aspect, which is much more in the control of the organizers, is the food and drinks served at the festival.
I was saddened when finding out that Laško was no longer the official beer of the festival, having been replaced by Budweiser, but luckily we could still find the country’s premium brew in the town stores and with the aid of friends, thus making the transition less painful.
When it came to food, Metaldays had really taken several notches up however, and now offered a more varied and price-worthy menu than ever before! I cherished the chilli stand close to the second stage, but other options were available in masses as well – had we for instance tried out the vegetarian stand down at the beach, which among other things offered up some divine smoothies, we would easily have become regulars at that place as well!

Like good food and drink, good memories have also been piling up as usual, such as meeting up with up with old friends and new from all over the world – Chile being the furthest country away, and some people from our hometown being the closest, and of course a little bit of everything in between as well.
Fanboy that I am, I can quite easily place Borknagar, with the extraordinary effort they put in to help a cooperation between themselves and us for a special report, at the top of my musical pedestal, but below them are almost only good shows, more or less surprising, and that makes for a whole that is quite out of the ordinary.
When it comes to the festival audience, Metaldays had a lively one this year – crowd surfing was so high in course throughout the whole five days that Joakim Brodén of Sabaton suggested re-naming the festival Crowdsurfingdays instead of Metaldays, but one example that also clearly demonstrated the endurance of the audience, a personal favourite, was the well attended and lively after-party at the beach after the final concert. We stayed for the fireshow, and left for something to eat and then sleep – the clock must have been around 3-3:30 am. At around 8:30-9 am we awoke and went down to the river for a final dip of our toes, only to find the metal disco still blasting and a few souls still drunk enough to stand and sway to the music!

That the music ends does not need to be the end of all things either. Even the Metaldays organizers encourage the audience to stick around for as long as they feel like it.
True, most people do tend to pack up and leave first thing Sunday morning, but if you have the time and possibility, this is again a great time to take advantage of some of all the things you missed out on during the festival because you were too busy being blissfully drunk and listening to crushingly heavy music. For our part, we checked into the local Penzion Šterk in nearby Most na Soči and spent a couple of recuperating days there, which among other things entailed a canoe trip down the river until we reached the beach bar, which at this time was being dismantled. A sad sight, but an invigorating trip!

So in short, if you feel up to it, think outside the box when planning your activities at Metaldays the coming year(s), and make sure you get to experience the only true metal holiday to the fullest – be it both with music and without! We know we will...