Sara Hammerzmith

So the last day had come. The day for us to head home to wherever we came from. When we woke up I expected it to be really wet outside, but I was happily surprised to see it wasn’t! Of course, my chair was drenched, but that’s a minor thing. We set up the table and the sound-system for one last time, for one last breakfast at the amazing and cozy grounds that is Skogsröjet. We talked about the festival, about Lordi, about the festival, about Lordi… yeah you know. The normal things.

After this it was time to start packing down and go home. Packing down was fairly easy, and after two rounds we had gotten everything to the car. Now, the trickiness started.

As you might remember, our car was stuffed UP TO HERE with stuff when we traveled down, but we figured that if we re-packed everything, we should be able to get everything down into one bag each, and I managed pretty well. So instead of one large bag and two Disney Princess-bags, I ended up with one bag. And instead of a million bags, Michelle ended up with two. What a relief.

Of course, this didn’t help the boys too much sadly. Once they had gotten in we started to pack things on top of them. But you know, at least they survived! I was told Ludvig couldn’t exactly see anything, but you know. The only thing he missed out on was the returns of the dinosaurs, so no big deal.

After reaching our destination and saying good bye to the boys for this time, we headed on further to Katrineholm for Michelle to catch her train. We also took the opportunity to take an early dinner in the shape of pizza from Prima Vera Pizzeria, I wanna give a HUGE shout-out to them as they were so generous giving us soda and salad for free. We sat down in the central park of the city and had dinner and recorded a podcast. We knocked over our colas a couple of time and had good laughs all in all.

After a while we even laid down and fell asleep for a short moment, and this is the first time I have ever slept under bare sky in the middle of the day! But it was also well needed. I was dead tired after this festival, and I think that little nap re-powered me a lot. We also came across these funny looking ostriches, or a statue of ostriches. What on earth. We were probably very tired.

I said good bye to Michelle later and headed for a short drive home. Saddest drive ever. And when I hit Karlstad, I was greeted with thunder, rain and lightning. First time I’ve ever seen lighting in real life!

This festival was so epic. I wanna thank everybody involved – Ludvig, Albin, Michelle, Renata, Sofia, Johanna, Joiz, Izabelle and Angelina for making the festival what it was. Of course, I wanna aim a big thank you to the amazing bands as well – Alestorm, Steel Panther, Hardcore Superstar, Dream Evil, AVATAR, PAIN, Michael Monroe and more. And of course, the amazing people who work at the festival. Thank you!

Thank you all. See you next time!

// Sara

So! The day had come! We went to this festival mostly because of Steel Panther (and Fatal Smile, but we all know how that worked out...) so we were beyond excited! But not only for the sake of Steel Panther, but because fellow monstermaniacs and metalheads Ludvig and Albin were going to join in! Unlike yesterday, Saturday morning was very hot so we found ourselves taking “showers” with the cold water we had preserved in 2L cola bottles. That was cold as fuck, and we squealed a lot, but it was also veeeery nice to cool down.

Around 1pm I went to the bathroom and made it just in time to pick up Ludvig and Albin that had been driven to Skogsröjet by Ludvigs dad. It was so nice to see Ludvig again,and also to meet Albin! I brought them back to our camp where they made themselves at home and we sat down and talked a lot of Lordi. It’s so nice to catch up with monstermaniacs, I tell you.

It was soon time for Crashdiet, so we started to slowly move towards the area,but not before we had headed to the car to lock up some valuable stuff, when Ludvig stops, right next to the schoolyard and looks at us.

“Hey guys… ain’t that Satchel doing the double dutch?”

And it was. It was fucking Satchel doing double dutch on the schoolyard. We were all tempted to say something, but we figured we’d leave him alone and went to the car. But when we came back, he was still there, so Michelle took the opportunity to yell “HEY! Satchel! LOOKING GOOD!” Haha, he laughed a little and gave us the horns. I wonder how much he hated us.

Anyway, when entering the area we noticed Steel Panther HAD in fact added a signing session,which was AWESOME. And I hate myself for this. I had planned to bring some Steel Panther stuff just in case, but forgot it. Damn it damn it damn it.

Anyway. We headed directly for Crashdiets stage and waited for them. Last year, they cancelled their show so it was basically up to proof if they’d show up or not. Gladly, they did!

The gig was good. It was good seeing them again, it’s been so quiet in the Crashdiet camp lately. I must also add, Simon has gotten quite a dashing style! The setlist was pretty predictable though. “Cocaine Cowboys”, “Drinking without You”, “Riot in Everyone”, “Breaking The Chainz”, “Generation Wild” and so on. But I’m very glad they played “Damaged Kid”, my fave song off “The Savage Playground”.

Fun story: When we were standing there watching Crashdiet, something or someone came out behind us. We heard people whispering and we were like what, what are you all going on about. So we turned around. And A WILD MICHAEL FUCKING STARR + STIX ZADINIA APPEARS! Like. WHAT. What the hell you know. Apparently they are Crashdiet fans? Haha, it was fun anyway. Second time it happens.

After Crashdiet we picked up some early food and prepared to get in line for Steel Panther signing session. We watched Dregen a bit on a distance and once we were all finished with our dinner, we headed for the line. We were not first in line, but pretty far ahead. Eventually, the band showed up and we all collected our items (for me, Ludde and Albin it was the Skogsröjet program, and for Michelle the poster).

The first thing that happened when I came to the table was Michael raising from his seat to bend over to hug and kiss(?!) me and asking me how I was doing. Sweet man. Brings me back to Gothenburg in 2012. Stix asked me how I was doing and Satchel asked me to keep close eyes on Albin so he wouldn’t get into trouble. Until we seattled that maybe I was the one getting in troubled and he asked me to brofist that. Lexxi shook our hands and told us he was glad we came.

The meeting is about 30 seconds long you know, but this little can do so much. And before people go apeshit. Yes. I know we are not any special to the band. But it’s still nice.

After the session we headed over the car to lock up our newest signed items and then back for Michael Monroe, partly because I really wanted to see him, partly because Steel Panther was going on after him.

Michael Monroe delivered an energetic set as usual. You can NEVER be disappointed when you see this man, because, regardless if you like his music or not, him as a frontman will get to you, and get to you hard. I love this man.

Fun story: When we stood there during Michael Monroe we felt a few people pushing onwards and coming up alongside us jumping around and all. After a quick glance we realized we had ended up next to Peter London and Simon Cruz + entourage. Hahaha. Second time in a day, it’s like we attract rockstars. Well, I guess we could have gotten worse concertpartners, they were just as into it as we were.

Steel Panther. We headed for the first open spot we could find, that so fittingly happened to be right next to my long friend Renata from the UK! After all these years it was great meeting her. And where else, than at the Panther gig? Ok,truth to be told, we had met earlier by the bathrooms, but yeah. Reunited at Panther! Where else!

Anyway. After a while the gig started and it was a good gig. the pressure was intense, and UNNECESSARY. I can deal with pressure, but thats so fun about pressuring so much you can’t jump or anything? People! Get some manners! The crowd sucked too. The crowd wasn’t even close to the crowd we had in Oslo and London, and this kinda ties back with what I said earlier about Alestorm, and that some groups, even amongst metalheads, are more dedicated than others. I guess some subgenres just don’t wanna show their passion, haha. (Fanthers are great, though)

The gig was good, but not great. The band had fantastic energy, but the setlist was beyond boring. It was the same old thing over again and they forgot about “Tomorrow Night” and “The Burden of Being Wonderful”, for some reason.

After Steel Panther we rushed over to buy some ice-cream, you know, one last ice-cream and ran over to watch Hardcore Superstar wrap up the festival. Again we decided to get rid of some energy and I don’t think we were still at any point, except from when a guy who plays in Supercharger came to talk to us (Rockstar moment n. 3, here we go!). We also made sure to have a little and small jenka train to “Last Call For Alcohol”. Only four people in it, but damn, at least we did!

Hardcore Superstar are the perfect headliners for this festival. They are perfect for wrapping this festival up with all the love they shed over people. “We don’t Celebrate Sundays” echoed in the forest, and as the sound died out, so did we leave the festival ground too for the last time this festival.

Just as we had gotten to bed, it started to rain and the thunder came around us. I guess even Heaven cried over the fact the festival was over.

TO BE CONTINUED

// Sara

So yeah. First day of the festival, Woohoo! Despite going to bed so late, we still woke up early. I guess it’s somewhat of a curse when it comes to festivals. No matter how hard you try, you will always end up waking up early. Well well. Tiredly we went off to pick up both our table and our breakfast that we had conveniently left in our “minifridge” in the car, and at last, we could sit down and enjoy breakfast to the sound of whatever obscure songs I had decided to put on the iPod for this event.

This day it was actually rather chilly outside. The last few weeks has been immensely hot here in Sweden, but the winds were chilly as hell. Gladly, I had my precious Sweden Rock blanket with me, and Michelle… well she used her sleepingbag. Which worked fine. Until she fell over. Jesus fucking Christ. Only Michelle.

Anyways. Sooner or later, we decided to exchange our tickets for passes and headed for the festivalarea for the first time. See, Skogsröjets festivalarea is not big, as you might now. There is a reason we call it the coziest festival on Earth. Because it’s small. And sweet. And cute. And also, no bands collide. The stage-schedule had been delayed, but when we finally god a hand of it, I must say… I was a little disappointed.

I love getting programs for all festivals I go to – as a souvenir, if you like, but mostly to read about all the bands. For this years edition, Skogsröjet put in little to NO information whatsoever about the bands, barely even what stage they played on (‘cept from the schedule) and even better, they forgot eight bands, including Steel Panther. I’m not sure what happened this year – Skogsröjet is usually very well arranged, but this year it seemed to have dived right down.

Anyway. We started our whole festival so to speak with Dream Evil. It’s been a little while since I saw them, and I was beyond happy to see them again. They delivered pretty good, if you ask me!

We later continued on to watch PAIN on a distance, meeting up with a friend we met at last years fest! It was awesome seeing you again, Metal-Danne! PAIN gave us a powerful gig and sure proved to us that he ain’t going anywhere. I was impressed, to say the least!

After PAIN we headed directly towards Tube-stage for what was to become the best gig of the entire festival – Alestorm. Most people should know by now that I have an immense fascination for pirates, so a band that combines metal and pirates are no strangers to be. I still remember when I saw them back in 2010, only I was surprised as fuck to hear them play one of my all time favorite ESC songs, Wolves of the Sea.

The gig was intense, and it was fantastic. Pretty much as I would expect it. But I got to tell you this.

So, we were standing like, in the middle of this little crowd right, and there was an ongoing mosh-pit right in front of us, so we had full-display on the thing, without being involved in it. There is this one guy that hit himself pretty badly, and was bleeding profusely from his nose, all over his face. He was happy regardless – jumping around. The medics tried to get him to come out to get patched up, but he didn’t care. Eventually, the medics came out in the crowd (which was pretty calm aside the little moshpit) and took him with them. He came back later, cleaned up with some paper up his nose.

He comes back just in time for “Keelhauled”. And the first thing he do, is to hit himself again so badly his nose start bleeding just as much as it was previously. HOW THE HELL DID HE EVEN MANAGE I DON’T GET IT?! The look on the medics faces were hilarious though, they literally looked like “YOU AGAIN?” and threw out paper to him in the audience. Haha, sorry, but I just find it hilarious in a way that the same person manages to hit himself so badly twice in a row.

But yes. Alestorm delivered an AMAZING gig, and perhaps half of it was made by their amazing crowd. I’ve started to notice that some fangroups, even within metal, are more dedicated than others.

After Alestorm we decided to grab some food as we were starting to get real hungry. Michelle went for langos and fries and me myself I went for thaifood. I just fucking love asian food, people. After eating and collecting some sweaters for the chilling night, we headed back to catch Avatar.

Avatar is a band I first saw back in 2011 together with Maria when they were the supporting act for Hardcore Superstar here in town. They were pretty good, intrigued me more than anything (here we go with the bands with images, again) and we were very happy to see them. They delivered a powerful gig and it also helped me and Michelle get our first real slayer-neck for the festival AND get rid of energy. I mean, we were about to hit the sack soon…

After Avatar we headed to the main-stage to catch a few songs of Megadeth, but pretty much all our motivation was lost when our phones started to act up + getting tired, so after a couple of songs we hit the road in an attempt to load our phones, get our some angry energy screaming like this (I realized I didn’t link it in the original post, damn it). We travelled all the way to Vingåker in order to very… criminally obtain a few posters. It’s not like they had a million of them sitting all over the place, haha.

We got back around 2am, and hit the bed and feel asleep immediately…

TO BE CONTINUED

// Sara

Wohoo! Time for me to at last write about Skogsröjet. It’ll be in four parts covering all four days.

First of all, I think this festival ended up being the most deorganized EVER for me packing-wise. I sat all day chatting with Ludvig and Michelle before I realized it was a mere two hours before Michelle was arriving, and had to fast-pack everything at the quickest pace I have ever done so. Somehow, I did manage to get everything with me. Who would have thought.

Anyway, I went to pick up Michelle, we went home again to tuck in all my stuff in the car, we went downtown to pick up food, and then home again because I did forget something – my pink vest. After that, we FINALLY started driving towards Skogsröjet. But not until we had, thanks to ducttape, set up the stereo and GPS system. The car was pretty overloaded, I might add.

The road down was awesome. We hadn’t talked for a few days, making sure to have subjects to talk about for the long journey. And so we did. And screaming. Loads of screaming. You know, this kind of screaming. After going for a while, we figured it could be a good time for a pitstop to have some food, and after missing a few of the spots we had planned to stay at, we finally found this place called Våtsjön where we pulled over and walked down to the lake… And I tell you. I’m glad we missed all the other spots, because seriously… the beauty of that place was insane. We just sat there, staring at the view, eating our subway and listened to a very explicit SlipKnot. What a combo.

After the stop, we headed onwards to the festival. We got there around 22 (10pm) and to our dismay, there were NO parking guards whatsoever, so we really just drove in there, parked somewhere we hoped were right and went to ask the information if they knew 1) where we could exchange the tickets 2) what to do with the parking. Of COURSE, the ticket-exchange had JUST CLOSED, and we asked them how the hell they had thought this was gonna work with the camping, and they told us it would “hopefully” work if we just brought our tickets.

And of course it did. Because just as they lacked parking guards, they also lacked guards for the camping, so pretty much anyone could go in and out. We went in, located a spot we liked and then proceeded to get our tents and get set up. The only downside, I guess, about our location was the high grass. It was HIGH AS FUCK, but on the other hand, we figured it would be very soft to sleep on!

See this shit?

After setting up our tent as well as Ludvig and Albins tent, we headed back to the car to finish the rest of our subways and check some things online. Right in the middle of the pitchblack night someone knocked on our window and asked if we were up for hanging out a bit, and sure why not.

Just that we didn’t hang out for an hour or so, but for many hours until I somewhere around 4am said fuck this shit, we are going to bed. Said and done. We met up with some sweet Sabaton fans on our way back that was surprised to see us, and wondered when the hell we arrived, given it was 4am. Hahaha, I can understand the confusion!

Later than we had planned, we went to bed. Great. This wasn’t exactly the start you wanted to get, but oh well!

TO BE CONTINUED

// Sara