TOUR ARCHIVE

Date: 2008-08-17
Location: Jonschwil - Switzerland [2 shows here]
Venue: Degenaupark [2 shows here]
Fan reviews: 1 - Add yours!
Author: Phil
Setlist: Yes

I had planned to go to the Swiss show from when it was announced. I was still living in the US, but I knew it was well after my move to Zurich. I had purchased tickets as soon as they went on sale. Note, I said tickets, not ticket. I had gambled on finding someone else to go with.
Some of the bigger fans I had met in the office couldn't or didn't want to go, but Aaron, who I wouldn't describe as a fan, and who is one of our few token Swiss guys in the office was up for trying a Metallica show. So, it was, I had someone to go with.
In the weeks before the show, Greg, or our Polish metal-head intern, and Jana a shy Czech intern in another group (the same Jana that took me and others to Prague) expressed interest. Jana doesn't know much about Metallica, but was excited about the prospect. It took some prodding to get her over her fear though. Greg was in without any convincing.
So I planned what time we'd catch the train from Zurich to Jonschwil (a tiny town in the middle of nowhere with a field and a stage), and gave everyone the details. I lent Jana a Metallica shirt so she wouldn't feel out of place, helped everyone make sure they got tickets, and gave a few concert-going hints to Aaron and Jana, our metal-concert-newbiews.
We were going to take the 3:10 train out and meet at 2:50... but on the day of, I realized I'd based that on a weekday schedule and the concert was on a Sunday. The closest train time-wise was 3:40, so I called everyone and told them to meet at 3:15 instead. We arrived, found each other (and a few other 'tallica fans from the office), grabbed tickets and snacks. Aaron was still missing and showed up around 3:30. We slowly headed to the train while he bought tickets. At 3:41 we were holding the doors open while the train was beeping angrily at us, waiting for Aaron. We saw someone who looked roughly like him run up and board about 8 cars down, so we let the doors close and hoped for the best. Still holding his concert ticket, I was quite concerned. It turned out he did make the train, we were all very relieved when he caught up with us about 5 minutes later.
As we walked through the train, it was clear that almost everyone on board was headed to the Metallica show - it was a Metalli-train. We congregated in a stairwell lacking any place big enough for our whole group to sit. A few questions from the newbies prompted me to give a short Metallica history lesson.
I had planned to get off at the closest stop and take the bus up the road to the show. However, the majority of the train got off a stop early where the shuttle buses apparently started. After some indecisiveness, we stayed on for an extra stop. We easily got on the bus and made it to the venue. We arranged meeting points incase we got split up and then headed into the venue.
Mnemic was already playing, and Greg really wanted to see them. So we split up - Greg and Aaron headed off to the crowd and the rest of us headed off to find porta-poties. After that the group with me went and found a place to sit and listen to the rest of the Mnemic set. We didn't see Greg or Aaron, but were in a decent place. None of the folks in my group were particularly impressed with Mnemic - myself included.
Between Mnemic and Within Temptation, Jana and I headed off to find t-shirts. We'd actually tried to find shirts on the way to the crowed from the toilets, but hadn't seen any. We found them this time and each purchased a shirt. We ran into Greg and Aaron who were walking around. We told them were we were in the crowd and then headed back to the group. Others in the group then went to purchase shirts and we braced ourselves to hold our spot as the crowd grew quickly. We were just behind the baracade that the first few hundered people got to be inside of - about three people back from that, and about a quarter way left of center. The others got back and we didn't move for the rest of the night. This was our spot.
Within Temptation came on and we were all very impressed. None of us had ever heard them before, except Greg. We were all blown away. They're sort of a cross between Nightwish and Evanescence. About half way through the set Greg and Aaron found our group. Within Temptation's set was remarkably quiet - I actually took my earplugs out. Both Mnemic and Metallica were much louder.
Within Temptation ended and Jana made some comment about how Metallica should be on in a few minutes. I explained we had at least an hour, and we settled in for a wait. It was drizzling on and off so the ground was fairly muddy making it a bit hard to keep a foothold once people starting pushing. However this being a Swiss crowd it was fairly calm in comparison to most other shows.
Shortly before Metallica we saw a huge castle float by in the sky. Yup, really. It wasn't until it got closer that we could figure out exactly what it was. It was a hot-air baloon with a large facade of a large castle. Even knowing what it was it was still very surreal seeing a large castle float by overhead. We half expected it to land in the field but it floated past the venue and out of sight.
Once we heard "Long way to the top", I told my group that those with earplugs should put them in now.
Metallica came and put on a fantastic show, as always. The mix was a bit reminiscent of KFMA Day (which was one of the worst I've heard), though not quite as bad. Too basy, too reverby. But not to a point of being painful, and you could still make out the music. For how far forward we were, we weren't crushed at all. In the beginnign we had several inches of personal space on all sides. By the end we were touching up against the people around us, but with little to no pressure.
As I often do when I have newbies, I spent most of my time keeping the pits on either side of us from hitting Jana. This is always a difficult task when you're getting slammed into, but with the crowds being much tamer here in Switzerland it was a more managable task.
I really love watching people enjoy their first Metallica concert. Much like watching Dave's sister on the SSO3 tour, watching Jana's amazement during the show was fantastic. This being my 49th show, watching every second on the stage isn't always my priority. Helping someone else fall in love with Metallica shows is a really awesome thing to me. This was definitely one of those shows.
We had a really great set! Most importantly we got Cyanide - I'd been dying to see a song from the upcoming album. We also got Whiplash, Ride, and Justice all of which I considered treats and all of which kicked ass!
I must admit while everyone seemed to have a ton of fun it was the quietest and most tame crowd I've ever seen. Most people were gently nodding their head to the music, a few people were singing along, but that was it. I think I saw one small pit at one point. When Greg started thrashing around most of the folks around him just got scared and backed off.
Afterwards I was thrilled at how much fun my newbies had. Jana called it her favorite things she did during her 3 months in Switzerland. See her blog post about it here. This is Jana.
Leaving the show was a whole other matter, however. There was one small enterance/exit and a gate leading to it and a huge crowd. However, what made this enterance was a tiny temporary fence around the edge of the park with a small gate in it. A single guard was standing at this fence directing people towards the gate. After about 20 minutes with very little movement the fans did something very un-Swiss: they pushed the gate over and ran up the hill to the road. The gaurd did quite a bit of asking people to please stop and to come back. This was highly ineffective. Finally he pepper-sprayed someone, though reluctantly. This seemed combined with another guard got the crowd back under control.
We decided to go get some water and wait for the crowd to die down. Once we did finally get to the exit we "picked up tickets." This was just bizarre. They took your entire ticket upon entering, and if you wanted a ticket as a souvenir, they dumped all 12k or whatever on a bunch of tables in a tent at the exit. Of course most of these tables were also largely covered in beer. We grabbed some mostly-dry tickets on our way out. Have they not figured out the "tear a piece of the ticket" thing here? Poor Swiss.
Anyway, we got out and there was a line of folks waiting for the bus back to the train station. We waited around and a bus finally came, but there was way too many people. By the time we got close to the bus it was packed full of people and the doors couldn't close. Folks were pushing other folks in just to try to get the doors to close. It was a mess. That bus finally left and we waited for another. But we noticed that the busses passed is from the right, took a u-turn, came back and then picked us up - but that it also already had people on it! So we decided we'd head down to the end of the road where it was doing u-turns and hopefully get on early on the next bus.
There was about 20 of us at the u-turn point when the next bus came, but it refused to stop even as about 10 folks were banging on the side of the bus as it drove by. We ran up to the stop, but by the time we got there the bus was leaving. Well that idea failed. At this point we noticed that these busses weren't getting very far. The street was packed with cars and busses and that last bus had only gone about 30 feet before it stopped. Greg kept purposing we just sleep in a field, but none of us saw the logic. We got on the next bus (even got seats), which only managed to go about 10 feet before stopping and turning off it's engine.
At this point it was about 5 minutes until the last train of the night left and 10 minutes to the station with no traffic. We all braced for the possibility of spending the night in the train station. After 20 minutes the bus driver came on the intercom and after a few sentences in German everyone started cheering. We looked to Aaron for a translation and he explained that the bus driver had called the train station and they were going to hold the train until we got there.
About 40 minutes later we got to the station, and then we got into Zurich at about 1:30am. We all darted to the McDonalds across the road, starving. Unfortunately being a Sunday, it had closed at 1am. Damn. We headed a few blocks down to Niederdorf (old-town) where we knew we'd find a Kebab place open. With food in our stomachs we grabbed cabs home (public transportation stops around midnight).