Exclusive | Primal Fear Summer Festival Run – This week Spain!

By Dutch bassist Alex Jansen

Another week another festival to play. We left on a Thursday night for a relatively short flight to Barcelona. We were all a bit on different flights this time, I flew with Ralf, Tom and Aaron, Laura and Carsten. Checking the luggage is fast and security is even faster than in Frankfurt. This is new, we can let all our electronics and toiletries in our trolleys.

The flight takes a good hour and a half, enough to watch a movie, which I did.

BARCELONA

Arrival in Barcelona is nice, greeted by some fans and our drivers from the festival. They take us on a trip through Barcelona around the harbour and straight to our hotel. We arrive there at 11 pm. as there are not enough rooms available we decided up front we are sharing rooms. I share the room with Alex B. We first meet on a street close to the beach though for something to eat. After that we meet with Alex B and Michael and his wife Susi at a bar. We have a great translator with us in Laura. She speaks Spanish, although with an Argentinian accent. No pun intended. We managed to get some great food in a nice bar. after that we walk back to the hotel and we crash in the rooms. 

BEAUTIFUL POOL

I got up the next morning, went to breakfast and checked that the weather was absolutely beautiful. This means I go back to the room, change in my swimsuit and go to the rooftop of the hotel. There is a beautiful pool there. The rest comes too and we have some nice chats and swims. 2 pm we get picked up for the twenty minutes ride to the festival grounds. Upon arriving there I catch up with Annette who is organizing the hospitality for the artists here. 

We decide to have lunch first and the lunch is absolutely great, a lot of good food and cold drinks. We head to our container afterwards and we see that most of the bands have several containers. Funny, we have one and we need only one. We have a lot of people in our party tonight. We place chairs outside and gather. After we have stage access I check out the gear and check out on Thorsten our guitartech for the day. Our beloved Armando is handling the drum setup today.

I catch up with some friends from Spain after this and then it is time to watch the soccer match in our container until it is time for us to go onstage. We get dressed when it is 0-0. When we are on stage just before the intro, they show the 0-1 that Spain made on the led-screen. The audience reacts with applause. 

KK’S PRIEST

This means we are on fire right away. We play a great show and it was very hot. After the second song I go to the side of the stage to get a drink, I am greeted by Tim “Ripper” Owens, he stays a bit to watch the show. He is on a little it later after us.  After the show we went back to the container, it is 1-1. We see that everyone in WASP has a separate dressing room. Well ain’t that a band feeling? To each its own I guess. KK’s Priest have 2 container, one for the band and one for the crew.

I watch KK’s Priest play there show, catch up with friends and then it is time to go. We pass the container from KK and Ripper, we have a nice chat and take the obligatory pic. We have a shuttle to the hotel with 6 police motorcycles in front of us. I guess it’s coincidence but gets you through traffic faster. At the hotel we pick a drink on the rooftop bar.

This morning I got up early and after breakfast I went to the beach, which is a 10 minute walk. On my way back I meet Tom and we walk a bit on the beach. The second wave catches my jeans of course but hey no problemo right.

We get dropped in the wrong terminal at the airport, this sucked as we have to catch a bus ride which takes 10 minutes to another terminal. We check in, drop the luggage and board the plane. Unfortunately we went from summer weather in Spain to rain in Germany.  Great memories and a new adventure. 

Next week I will be back, then we go to Bulgaria.

Cheers, Alex

All photos provided by Alex Jansen