Today marked the start of the first festival and gigs of our trip. Its quite interesting how this relatively small town plays host to a massive metal festival every year. It seems well integrated and welcomed by the locals. I bet it certainly helps the bars, cafes, mini markets survive the rest of the year from just a few days of trade.
It all seems very well organised apart from the parking. There is no official parking!! You kind of have to rock up and find a space somewhere, hoping its not restricted and worthy of a parking ticket or being towed off by the municipal pick up truck!!!
With this in mind, we decided to get to Viveiro early on Wednesday (1st July). We decided to park in a well known and safe car park, but was a good 40 minute walk to the glamping we had booked. I was in two minds about getting a festival cart – which I did, and I am so glad we did as it was an absolute life saver on our unexpected trek!!!!
If you’re looking for a recommendation – I would fully recommend this cart (the 300l version) – it has been great , and it easily collapses down easy, and the wheels and handle unclip easily for really compact packing away. Its not the cheapest around, but its worth it!!!!
Once we got to the glamping check in, even though we had checked in online, as requested, we still had to queue for 2 hours to get our tent allocation. We were completely wrecked by this point already. We headed to the closest cafe bar for a bite to eat and soak up the atmosphere before heading to get our wristbands, get some food shopping done (well, snacks, beer, and wine!) before heading off to the arena.
Our position in the campsite was pretty nice, we could actually watch the screens from the main stage from our chairs! This cam in really handy at times when we just needed some down time but wanted to still catch some bands. The main and the second stage were near each other and alternated their sets so there was always a great band on, one after another from those two stages.
We headed off to the arena to catch the first few bands of the weekend. I caught the end of Man with a Mission. They seemed really good. Never heard of them before, but they looked like good fun so will definately check them out when we get home.
Strangely, President had a really small crowd intially. At Slam Dunk last month, it was impossible to get anywhere near for their set. Here, I just strolled to the barrier. Great viewpoint, and a great set too!!!!
I stayed around for A Day to Remember, who were awesome. I had planned on sticking around for Sabaton and Testament, but by this time I was completely wrecked. So tired from the day’s antics and the beer is surprisngly strong, and mixed in with the temperatures, I just had to go and crash.
Leave a Reply