Metal Mike checks in from summer festival in Europe, Ozzfestupdate, Dokken Update, From The Heavy Metal Desk of METAL MIKE

Greetings All. Metal Forever.Com asked me to possibly contribute a quick Metal Festival Write Up. No problem .... With Testament we took part in several big European festivals this Summer. Some of them were Bang Your Head,Germany (Other acts included: Alice Cooper, Iced Earth, Death Angel),Gods Of Metal, Italy (With WASP, Motorhead, Stratovarious), Graspop, belgium(With Fear Factory, Judas Priest) to name a few.

European Festivals are trully a blast. Several stages, as many as 6 in someplaces have acts circulating all day. Fans usually travel from stage to stage to check out their favorite bands. On the grounds you will also find a MetalMarketplace, where you can buy CD's, hard to find vinyl, T-Shirts, and of course shiny Bullet Belts. The most important section of each festival for me, outisde of the stage, is the beer tent. Armed with a 6 pack from our dressing room, for on thee road warm up before I attend the beer tent .... I come well prepared.

You will see many metalheads drunk out of their god-damn minds .... and leatherclad girls looking for metalheads drunk out of their god-damn minds .... in short, pretty good time if you ask me. Another plus is that you can also check out some foreign beer if you only usually drink the US stuff.

The intensity of the festivals is always high, and you usually have fans buying a 2 or 3 day pass. This means that they sleep on the grounds or in the camping area waiting for the morning. In many cases, even the bands playing at 10:00 AM have a decent crowd in fron of them .... ok, so you have to count a 100 still drunk fans in there too, but what the fuck .... this isn't Sunday school.

In any case, i would recommend it to any fan who wants to see a good MetalFestival to get his/ or her ass to Europe to witness some really good headbanging hell.

During the Graspop Festival in Belgium, I also had a chance to catch up with "The Metal God". We had a good chat and laughed quiete a bit, as usual. I'll probably catch up with Rob once again at some Ozzfest dates and drink some more Priest beer. At Bang Your Head Festival in Germany, I cought up with my close friend Bobby who killed everyone with Iced Earth. That band sounded too good I must tell you. Ripper also proved once again what happens when you allow him to show his true self .... what a brilliant talent !! This tour was one of the funnest, no bullshit, no politics, coolest tours I have ever been a part of.

I also wish MetalForever.Com much luck with their great Heavy Metal Support.You can hear my or Testament lastest news and so on by visiting www.planetshred.com or www.testamentlegions.com.

Ozzfest report- Metalforever fan checks in from the stands at PNC in NJ

We thought this update from a metal fan was too funny to pass up- you can decide for yourself if this yearsOzzfest is worth checking out. By the way, while there are many great bands & Slayer kicked ass & seeing theclassic Black Sabbath with Ozzy is always a not miss situation- everyone we’ve talkedto agrees- JUDAS PRIEST steals the show- United again- the Metal Gods are back for sure!
Enjoy !

Here's how the night went:got there @ 6pm, used the "reverand" pass again, but this time I was parked in the front row! The were NO scalpers anywhere, one guy told me allwere gone by 4pm and even lawn seats were going for $125 - good thing we got some comp. passes for the lawn for us or we'd be done! Near our car there was a pack of drunk guys and this 40ish, ugly, fat, sloppy, drunk woman who decided to take off every piece of clothing in the parking lot and do a strip-tease - I mean, it was foul and sickening (yet great in a demented way!) and we saw EVERY womanly part of her private areas, it was not good! The "reverand" pass also worked again for the VIP entrance, hence no long lines and a civil frisk - then we I use my dummy "Fuel" laminent pass and get all theway into the 100's, and as I'm there I see this guy I know (forgot his name the whole night) and I squeezed in his row (200's, 4th row - not bad!) with his crew. This happens to be the same row Eddie Trunk was in, so knowing he had to split after Priest to do the radio show, I then grabbed his seat! Hah-Hah, squeaky wheel gets the oil! JP was solid, yet not spectacular - the music was tight, but then again they've been doing the same tunes with Ripper for years,so this was expected. Halford, I thought, was a little unsure of himself at times and hestitated at times that he should have hit the high notes, but instead opted for the lower more conservative approach - plus he did not look as loose as he did in Fight and Halford, and he wasn't headbanging a whole lot- overall it was a treat to see him up there, but the novelty will wear off quickly the way I see it. Sabbath only did 9 songs, 60 minutes, but let me tell you they were tight and the best treat of all was that Ozzy was as solid as I've seen him in a while - he sang in key, no big mess-ups and looked ok. He toned down his approach, no stupid gimmicks/ water guns, etc - he just played and it payed off. Overall it was a pleasant surprise, the band nailed everysong and even Bill Ward was pretty good (he has the long hair again and looks really really old, but his belly is a bit smaller). While walking into the venue, we saw a woman in the lawn who had to be 75 ish and was on a walker - it was no joke, she had the t-shirt on and all - after the show, we walked near the tourbuses with the dummy Fuel pass but nobody of interest was there -Sebastian Bach was there, I rest my case ---- total cost of the night for me was $12 for a case of beer - not bad!

Dokken Live from the road-

Several guys from Metalforever.com checked out Dokken this past month. Barry Sparks was kind enough to spend some time with one of the sites writers- so the good news is, a new Barry Sparks Celebrity Corner will becoming soon. All is all- Dokken sounded great & Don has built a pretty solid band with the absence of the obvious two missing members Lynch & Pilson. Wild Mick Brown had a great time on the drums & Don sounded as good as he can for a vet of his stature. The set list was pretty average- a simple blend of classic Dokken hits & onenew track was played from the new release "Hell to Pay" (see New Metal)

Iron Saviour sent to Metalforever.com
Our Friends at Noise Records (www.noiserecords.com) sent us acopy of the new CD Battering Ram- a solid power metal bands with influences of Judas Priest, Primal Fear, Helloween and Gamma Ray. Fans of solid power metal will enjoy this new Disc. Check out Iron Savior at www.Iron-Savior.com