Mera Luna 2012: Saturday

The stage as photographed from the tower

Saturday was fun :)

First of all I got to meet Kakuidori and her friend (Lenore? Don't remember if this was her name) before any of the bad rushing around started, which was awesome :D

Next Kev and I found ourselves a nice spot for Symbiotic Systems, who were actually a pretty good opening band, nice female vocals, kind of goth metal-y.

Next we zoomed over to The Hanger for Noyce, who I really enjoyed. They're kind of like a slightly more upbeat version of Kraftwerk musically. From an artist point of view I really enjoyed their visuals on the screen behind them, and please, who couldn't love a band who have a musical saw? (Musical saws are one of my favourite bizarre, not often used instruments).

Back to the mains stage for Invaders, while I did quite like them I found their placement a little odd. They sound a little bit like Incubus's early stuff, and after a little bit of metal and electronic music I struggled to really get into them at the time (but like I say they were pretty good, I just feel like the timing was wrong if you know what I mean?).

Next we had a little gap when we headed off to the medieval village that springs up just outside of the main festival area during Mera Luna. This year it was twice the size it had been the last two years (I guess Game of Thrones may have helped with this, as one of Kev's friends told us last year that the village had originally sprung up when Lord of the Rings came out and Mittelalter, the German equivalent to Battle Metal, suddenly became very popular).

This year there seemed to be a lot more food stalls, more hand made things (so many hair toys!), archery and axe throwing, and the Arabic Cafe (Chai teas and Shisha) had doubled in size!

Afterwards we headed back to the main stage for Heimataerde, who rather helpfully have a song that repeats their name several times, presumably for those of us in the crowd wondering how to pronounce it!

Heimataerde are a band of un-dead crusaders, dressed in Chainmail with swords, shields and a stage with horse traps (basically the dark age answer to speed humps), they're really quite imposing, and it's a little un-nerving to see them performing in amongst smoke and the smell of a nearby barbecue stall!

Musically they are a spectacularly bizarre mix of old and new...Electronic Hurdy Gurdy? YES PLEASE!

Roterfeld were pretty cool, their album is actually one of the catchiest ones I've listened to this year so I was looking forward to them. I was not disappointed, they were seriously good!

I was also rather impressed by their vocalist's jacket, it was very nice, but OMG the pattern matching on the fabric! So well made!

Next came Faderhead in The Hangar, nice set, fun times, Sami always knows how to get a crowd bouncing. This was the first time I had seen them as a four piece, it worked quite well in my opinion.

An amusing moment came when Adora BatBrat, Jenni and Hanna managed to troop through the crowd, right to the front by waving a unicorn hobby horse around to clear space before the unicorn ended up on stage with Faderhead!

Still in the hangar were Rabia Sorda, in my opinion the best of the hangar bands we saw on Saturday, musically great, performance-wise I wonder if Erk drinks only Red Bull because he seems so full of energy!

He seemed pretty delighted that some Mexican's made it to the front of the crowd and threw him a Mexican flag.

Next we headed up to the top of the tower, it's only from up there you can really appreciate how HUGE the festival is!

Now I wonder with over 20,000 people around how I managed to keep bumping into people I know? I must be luckier than I thought!

Next we caught a little bit of Fields of the Nephilim before deciding that food was probably a good idea and headed off back to the medieval village for falafel where I managed to amuse the falafal man by asking for garlic sauce whilst wearing fangs (I'm a Vegetarian Vampire...Like Count Duckula...Pass the ketchup!).

Last but not least were Placebo, who were every bit as wonderful as the last time I saw them, two years ago.

It's a shame that they don't play so much of their older stuff any more, but I am a huge fan of the Meds album, when it came out I was having a very bad time and listening to it made me feel better, so it was great that they played three songs from that album.

Getting stupidly emotional to Placebo?

Cliché, but yes that's me...

Afterwards we chose to walk home rather than get a taxi so that we could watch the meteor shower, some of the roads were pitch black and a little scary, but the shooting stars were worth it!

Lots of good wishes made :)