Warbringer European Tour Diary: Part 2

Californian thrashers Warbringer are currently trekkin’ European soil. Frontman John Kevill tells all…

“Here is a long overdue continuation on the saga of our summer tour in Europe. I meant to write this many times, and it’s been a good three weeks at least since I made the last one, so there’s a lot of ground to cover. Currently I am rolling through the Alps, going from a small town in Austria we were staying at, driving up to Metalcamp festival in Slovenia. This is one of the most beautiful places I have been in my entire life. I resolve to one day return and spend some time down by the river and hiking through the hills. I get to see this stuff, touring rules.

I left off a few weeks ago right before Bang Your Head festival, located in the town of Someplace, Germany. It’s actually a pretty massive fest. We arrive the day before we play to go check out the show. There were giant metal horns (like the sign you make with your hands) on either side of the stage, made, of course, out of metal. Yes!

We arrive while Arch Enemy is playing, and sort everything out to the sound of them playing familiar songs from the tour we just did with them last winter. Ran into Sharlee and Daniel sometime later, we caught up a bit, good times. I was reminded of one of the better tour pranks I’ve seen, on the last day of our tour with them they told us they were gonna have this guy give us a special introduction before our set. Being in Switzerland, he spoke German to the audience, and unbeknownst to us, he told them all to turn and face the opposite wall when we started playing. They did, and we were completely fucking baffled for a minute there, was ridiculous and memorable. Points for originality, dudes.

Furthermore on this same day we see Thin Lizzy, which our band universally regards as one of the all time raddest things ever. Despite the fact that Phil Lynott is way too dead to rock any further, they put on awesome live renditions of those amazing songs, with those wailin’ guitarmonies everywhere. We all stood out in the rain and watched the whole thing.

Next day we play the festival, which was actually a pretty difficult show to get through. About an hour before we had to go on this mighty wind picked up. It got to the point where the stage crew was having to brace themselves against the Marshall stacks just to keep them standing. Wind like that on a big outdoor stage does crazy things to live sound as well that can make pulling off a show pretty tricky, as well as just making headbanging logistically difficult. Your hair won’t go up and down like it’s supposed to, the wind just glues it to your face whenever you move.

It was definitely a show that we didn’t feel that strongly about our own performance, but people for the entire rest of the tour keep showing up to various gigs and saying they loved it, so I guess that means we were doing something right in that howling wind. Living in a Whirlwind, seriously.

After our show we went drinkin’ round the festival, and ran into our old buds in Exodus. Always a pleasure to see those guys, we immediately began broing down hard and pulling stupid party antics. They had this ridiculously brutal hot sauce that was just retardedly hot. It must of been made with peppers grown in fucking Mordor or something. I was challenged to drink a prarie fire with that stuff, a prarie fire being a mixture of vodka and hot sauce. Basically an ideal mixture to completely wreck your stomach. I survived the intense burn and stomach-churning effects for a few minutes, but then gave in and spewed everywhere out the window. This isn’t the first time this kind of shit has happened, no band has made me throw up as much as Exodus.”