Tan solo hago un copiado y pegado de esta nota que publicaron la gente de Metal Glory Alemania, es una crónica del 700,000 Tons of Metal, llevada a cabo por la grandiosa banda de Thrash Metal Alemana, Cripper, durante su estancia en dicho evento. Al final publico la fuente original del artículo y el autor, de hecho les pedí autorización para hacerlo y no hubo problema tan solo poner la información original y la fuente, el texto se encuentra en inglés.
Metalglory.de extensively reported about the 70.000 Tons of Metal Cruise. And here is another Report. Written by Hannovers Thrash Hopefuls CRIPPER. Enjoy their very own Story about the Cruise....Kick Off: Friday, January 21st
We can’t say that we really like to get up around 3 in the morning – but having Miami and an event like 70,000 Tons Of Metal in the offing makes leaving a warm bed fairly easy.
We all met at Britta’s place on January 21st, 4 am, grab all guitars, bass guitars, merchandise etc. and take a tram to Hanover Airport. From there we flew over to Miami with a stopover in Paris. Almost 24 hours awake, we arrived at our hostel in Miami Beach.
Here we had a few days to do all the things you must do in Miami: take an air boat ride at the Everglades National Park, renting motorcycles and ride down to Florida keys / Key West, go for a swim in the Atlantic Ocean or simply enjoy burgers at Friday’s.
Monday, January 24th
The Cruise starts on Monday, January 24th. According to the motto „hurry up to wait“ we take a taxi to the Port of Miami and wait hours in the sun before boarding the ship. Bit by bit other bands arrive: Fear Factory, Gamma Ray and Exodus are among the first to show up, before all of us line up behind the onboard securites and board the ship. Just like leaving the country everybody has to go through the metaldetectors. It’s a funny feeling with a long-time-no-see meet and greet on one side and a scanvenger-hunt-for-metal-striptease on the other.
Finally on board the ship the first thing we set our eyes on ist he luxury of the main entrance. A huge lobby with two glass elevators surrounded by open stairs. Stereotype thoughts run through our heads as we try to image how this place will look like after 2000 metalheads had the party of their lives...
Before we can go and see our cabins, Cripper has to host a wedding ceremony. They got invited by two fans a few weeks before the cruise. Alex and Kelly tie the knot onboard, the cruise is their honeymoon. Congrats again! All is held very small, only some relatives take part and all of them will leave the ship afterwards. Although it all happens very fast you discover some small tears in some of the Cripper members eyes. But a rockstar never cries, right?
Afterwards it's free drinks for all so we hit the bar. After having received the message that Budwiser is out and the waiter is trying to offer a bud light, he is answered with a big laugh of the Cripper members. "Bud light? Come on you got to have something similar or harder... speaking of harder, just hit me with something harder, you know ANYTHING STRONG!" The waiter takes that literally an a new cocktail is born, the waiter comes back with a glass full of secrets and little grapefruit side taste.
The ceremony is held in the Viking Crown Lounge from were you can look down on the ship's pooldeck, there we can see the stage being set up.
Due to a massive traffic jam because of a parade for three shot Miami cops, the crane that delivers parts for the stages is about three hours late. Although the crew is working fast as hell the ship will leave the port with one our of delay which can cost up 10,000 dollars fort he ship. It’s a first timer for all of us.
The contrast of our high-class cruise ship cabins compared to the – let’s say very simple – accomodations of the hostel is expectedly enormous. Although quite small the cabins have a very nice ambience, air condition, a TV, a window and a bathroom with a shower. We are on deck no. 8, one of the altogether 12 decks of the Majesty of the Seas. The TV informs us what to do in case of an emergency, which will be quite usefull in next hour during the training.
Alltough they say that it is not allowed to bring beer to the emergency practice almost everybody has a beer in hand. Every alarm aignal from the ship is answered by 2,000 metal fans screaming „Hey“ in each pause. It seems like no cruise has had that much fun during a training like that and you can even see the ships crew smiling from time to time.
Still, waht will happen in case of a real emergency? We better don’t think about that.
The Windjammer ist the number one address on the ship to get food. It is located on the front of the ship and has a full view of the ocean – while your on it of course – it’s packed with all kinds of foods. From Mexican fajitas to steaks to fruits to Asian, there is nothing left to wish for. The only problem is to decide what to take!
After our bellies are hanging deep down between our feet we head to pool deck to have an excelent view of the skyline of Miami. The sun has already left us and we stare out into hundreds of little lights as the boat starts moving.
Time for Exodus! As one of the bands to set the party off, lots of fans gather in front of the doors of the ships theatre – the A Chorus Line Theatre. Waiters everywhere keep up the pace to serve each metalfan with cold beer before we spot Singer Rob Dukes walking through the waiting headbangers towards the doors. Yes, there really is no backstage!
100 beer and some bands later we hang out at the whirlpool, some of us leave for bed. Cripper have to be full of energy tomorrow since their show starts at 10 o’clock.
The back hits a comfortable matress and the thoughts in our heads all race around one important thing: I hope they have enough beer on the ship.
Tuesday, January 25th
Rrring! Wake up call at 7 in the morning. Totally unmetal, brother… Anyway – get your slobbery head out of your cabin bunk, grab corn flakes drenged in beer and focus on what’s up next: Cripper is going to enter the pool stage. Time is 10 a.m. and location is “Big Mama Of The Seas”, cruisin’ somewhere in the middle of the ocean. Wohoo, dude – we’re still living that dream from yesterday. It’s going exorbitant…
Amazing – there's a waiting crowd on deck in the morning. Maybe there are still around? Cause the nights programm / karaoke show closed just a few hours before… Crazy shit. But even if it’s a morning after happening or not – Cripper’s show turns into a summer party with a big bunch of different nations and even more similing and banging people. Among other, we talked to guys from Costa Rica, Brazil, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland. All nations under one flag: Oh boy, we’re soulless pirates!
We all meet again at the pool. What happens if you put some half-drunken metal maniacs into the salty water, then add a couple of free cocktails to it? These bastards invent new water games immediately. New discipline of today “Water Of Death”. Here we go with the rules. Two “athletes” jumping from each side into the pool, hitting each other in the middle with a hearty hug. And sinking down. Afterwards they are felicitated to their performance.
Kind of primitive? Maybe. And it looks like awkward crap. But funny? Yesss! Go on!
In the afternoon there was a thrashy signing session with Death Angel and Cripper at the meet and greet point. Lots of fan pictures were taken. CDs, shirts, nation flags, guitars were autographed and new friendships formed. Greetings to the hard rockin’ Frisco brothers and thanks again to the guys from Columbia for their tiny presents. – These souvenirs are still with us!
Eh, what else… Let’s switch over to 11th floor, conquer that mighty dinner table and eat for a horse. Again.
ARRH, we are goddamn pirates (…and Running Wild is not, hihihi).
Wednesday, January 26th
One can’t tell, they didn’t warned us about that: When we had lunch on tuesday we got a paper of information saying what point of interests we would be able to see on our day at land, wednesday.
Each POI was rationed by the level of physical fitness required to visit the chosen place. We decided to join Cripper visiting a tequila factory in the middle of Cozumel, Mexico. The Royal Carribean (falls noch nicht vorgestellt, bitte einen Nebensatz einfügen) Travelers-Guide said that tour to be an easy going one, but warned us seriously that „there might be some steps“ on our trip.
Threatend by the possibility we might have to lift our knees more than 45 degrees, we decided to get us a taxi from the port of Cozumel to whereever the tequila was waiting for us. In addition the driver should get us to some other POIs whenever in reach. Cripper booked the driver and his bus for a whole day.
Obviously they thaught themself to be at the start of a Madonna-like career with all of its benefits.
After arriving at the Tequila-Farm, our Tequila-Tourguide Paco, who introduced himself as Pancho (but had a nameplate with him saying his name is Francesco) first bought us some Margaritas and explained the differences between the various kinds of the booze and its effects on ones ability to „couchie-couchie“ (a nice word for having sex) afterwards. All in all some very nice pieces of information and there were no steps we had to be afraid of.
Our driver, who had introduced himself as „Charlie Brown“ (Mexicans seem to have a favor for nicknames not to comprehend in the first way) now drove us to what he was told by his managers to be „points of interests“. After visiting two of them we told him we wanted to see a nice beach in preference to see more souvenir-shops. And that’s what he got us to! Frightend we recognized that one could hit the beach only by taking some steps. But in prospective of hanging around there and listening to the waves we kept that shit going. A nice variety in sound compared to heavy metal and interesting insider informations about Mexico by Charlie Brown were the wages of our indescribable recklessness.
Because the Cripper-Guys had to play their second show this evening we had to say farewell to mexico way to soon. And after paying Charlie Brown from Chris’ and Bjoerns defiled bank accounts we got back to what we liked even more than tequila and waves: Lunch. And in addition to all this awesome experiences Cripper enjoyed a even more banging audience than the day before.
Thursday, January 27th
Thursday morning feels really a lot early, even at 11 am. Having in mind that Cripper finished off with both sets and both luckily successful, we've had more than the usual amount of tasty alcoholic baverages.
We all meet for late breakfast at the Windjammer. There are a few interviews for Cripper on the schedule, e.g. one with US radio show "Metalopolis" and another one with German magazine "Stern". Last one is kind a big thing, since the magazine has nothing to do with metal in general at all.
The winnner of the day turns out to be Bass-T. He is one of the lucky metal celebrities to be on a photo shooting with the Captain of the Majesty of the Seas. Bloody hell! Together with Russ Bergquist (Dusk Machine), Simone Simons (Epica) and Chuck Billy (Testament) to name a few, they pose and do a real good job. They also get a short explanation how the brain of the ship works, while the crew eagerly tries to convince one rockstar to get back out of the captains chair.
Britta now officially hates air condition. With hot summer temperatures outside, it is just too chill everywhere inside, be it on the plane, the hostel or on the cruise. It is understandable that the ac cannot be turned off, but for a singer it easily becomes a problem.
Unformtunately we cannot watch the belly-splash contest, but later in the evening Britta gets the chance to be on a picture with the winner, who is making her look quite... tiny
Since today is the last day on the cruise, we receive our schedule for leaving the ship. The baggage has to be ready and in front of our cabins by 12 pm at the latest. Which gives us as Germans a funny feeling again: you give your credit card to the waitresses and let 'em walk away with it, you leave your baggage somewhere unattended... seems to be quite common in the US.
According to the Cripper-shirt wearing metalheads popping up everywhere we can say that they sold extremely well onboard. Counting out with the girl from the merchandise prooves that, which is good, according to custom laws it is not really legal for Cripper to bring back their stuff to Germany.
Before we go over to the Chorus Line Theatre to watch Testament we are very happy to receive back our alcohol we bought in the duty free shops onboard and the nice Tequila farm in Cozumel. Yay, cheers.
End of the Story
The rats are finally leaving the sinking ship! It’s Friday, 8 am. Everyone is scheduled to go to deck four for debarkation. Due to heavy partying the night before, we compete with each other about the deepest eye circles.
We take a taxi back to our hostel where we will stay the last night before finally going back home. At around 2 pm we take the last opportunity to hang out at the beach and drinking some beers covered in nice brown paper bags.
After dinner we have to meet a real challenge. We bought a 3 l bottle of Jack Daniel’s in the ship’s duty free shoping area. Uff! After a week of party we must admit that our longing for alcohol excesses has seen better times. Nevertheless there are a few people left to take care of this issue and proudly present the empty bottle on the next morning. Hats off!
On our flight back we are lucky to have tailwind, which saves us more than an hour. The flight is at night, everyone is pretty much on his or her own, spending thoughts on important questions we will never have to ask ourselves again: What is Chuck Billy eating for breakfast? How would it sound if Rob Dukes sang YMCA at a Karaoke bar? Does Burton Bell know how to play Black Jack?
Instead we wonder where our voices have gone, if we have I smelled like this before, how many people peed in the pool, what is sunburn really good for and the most important question above all: How big are the balls of a guy that rents a fuckin’ cruise ship for a metal festival?
Horns up!
Fuente: Metal Glory, Das Metal Portal
Liga: www.Metalglory.de
(c) Cripper, cripper.de
(c) Marc Hansen blizzard@metalglory.de
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