Our son Gary travelled to Slovenia to attend Metal Camp last month, so I managed to twist his arm to write a guest post for the blog.

“Every year at the start of July, metal fans from all over Europe descend upon Tolmin, a town in the small country of Slovenia, for the five day Metal Camp music festival. As well as an opportunity to see some awesome bands, it’s a great excuse for a holiday! The festival lineup, as well as the opportunity to spend some time in a beautiful European country, had me sold.

Metal Camp. Slovenia

Ryanair fly to Trieste Airport, in northeast Italy near the Slovenian border, fairly cheaply. The plan was to fly there and make our way to Tolmin via a combination of buses and trains, so we planned all it out and made lists of all the relevant times (“we” meaning “my friend Ellen”, as I lack any sort of organisational skill). Unfortunately there was a thunderstorm at Trieste Airport at the time we were due to arrive, causing the pilot to spend a good bit of time flying around in circles before eventually making the decision to divert to Treviso instead. Slight problem: the two airports are about 150 kilometres apart.

We were informed that coaches would arrive “in twenty minutes” to escort us all to Trieste. Unsurprisingly, these coaches took closer to an hour and twenty minutes to appear. By the time we got to Trieste, our meticulously planned bus and train journey was impossible: it was so late in the day that most services had stopped running. The only option was a taxi to Tolmin, setting us back a whopping 150 euros. Thanks, Ryanair!

One of the things I love about mainland Europe is that the people tend to be very warm, friendly, and light hearted, not least in comparison to the Brits. I’ve been to a couple of festivals in the UK, and the atmosphere is a world apart! Instead of staying guarded and rarely talking to anyone outside their group, the Metal Camp crowd are all too keen to meet and get to know as many new people as they can. Our neighbours included French, Dutch, Finnish, and Bulgarians, all of whom were always up for a party, not to mention very competent English speakers.

Sleeping quarters at Metal Camp. Slovenia

That alone is a great motive to venture outside of the UK for your summer festival experience, but there are plenty of other reasons. Ticket prices tend to be more reasonable, as are food prices, meaning the total cost of the trip isn’t significantly more than that of attending a UK event. The lineups are at least as good; often better. Security is far more relaxed: nobody’s going to try and limit the alcohol brought into the site or stop anyone from using a camping stove. The Portaloos are even cleaned, and their toilet paper restocked, during the festival.

Tolmin itself is a small and pretty town, featuring a handful of bars and restaurants. Not much in the way of fine dining, but plenty reasonably priced and tasty places to grab some lunch; Slovenia’s proximity to Italy means that delicious pizza and pasta dishes are the order du jour. The establishments even cater to the festival attendees by providing a constant soundtrack of metal.

Metal Grill Restaurant, Tolmin, Slovenia

The campsite is a farm during the rest of the year, situated right next to two easily accessible beaches, also part of the festival site. The music didn’t start until three or four in the afternoon, meaning you could spend the day by the beach and even go for a swim in the freezing cold, straight-from-the-Alps river. Jumping in there is a great way to refresh yourself during the almost unpleasantly hot sunny periods. Which leads me onto another topic: the weather.

Mist on the water at Metal Camp, Slovenia

I’ve been to Central Europe during the summer before, so I thought I knew what to expect: hot sun, clear skies, and a few thunderstorms. We got the opposite: near constant thunderstorms with a few sunny breaks. The first three or four days weren’t bad: the sun would appear for a few hours at a time; however towards the end of the week the downpour was relentless, and most of our time was spent hiding inside tents or under umbrellas passing around a mead-filled drinking horn. By the end of the week most of the ground had been turned into ankle-deep mud, earning the festival the affectionate nickname of Metal Swamp.

Fun in the mud at “Metal Swamp”

The music itself was excellent. All styles of metal were catered to, and the lineup included classic eighties thrash bands such as Destruction, Kreator, Testament, and Sodom; modern acts including Lamb of God, Hatebreed, Down, and Dragonforce; and the more extreme styles of black, death, and doom metal with Satyricon, Vader, Kataklysm, My Dying Bride, and more.

One of the highlights for me was seeing Belphegor, an Austrian band playing an amalgam of death and black metal featuring extreme lyrics and a very intense and heavy, yet musically complex and creative, sound. Like many European bands, they are popular on the mainland yet relatively unheard of outside; discovering such bands is another great reason to journey overseas for your festival fix. Other highlights included Swedish Viking themed metallers Amon Amarth, classic British grindcore act Napalm Death, Scotland’s own pirate themed band Alestorm, US thrashers Warbringer, Lamb of God with their violent as ever mosh pit, and the most unusual act of the week: Romania’s Negură Bunget, who combine black metal with archaic folk instruments. As for lowlights, German power metallers Blind Guardian almost bored me to tears (although got excellent reviews from many other people), Finland’s famous symphonic act Nightwish will never be the same without their old vocalist, and Dragonforce were, well, Dragonforce.

The journey back fortunately went a lot more smoothly. Overall, Metal Camp was an incredible experience: great music, great people, and great scenery; however the weather did put a significant dampener on spirits, and is the only thing putting me off from returning next year. Still, UK festivals can be equally miserable, and I wouldn’t hesitate to wholeheartedly recommend mainland European festivals to anyone who wants to try something new, is sick of the dull and unfriendly atmosphere of Britain’s offerings, or simply wants a holiday with a difference.”