The Swedish Adventure

On Saturday June 23rd my friend Mike and I boarded a plane down in Chicago destined for Stockholm, Sweden, which was to be the start of our Scandinavian Metal journey that would eventually end up in Helsinki, Finland for Tuska Open Air Metal Festival. However before we talk about Finland or Tuska we must discuss what happened in Sweden earlier.

As a starting point I have to say I had no idea what to expect out of Stockholm, but considering quite a few great bands had come out of the place and to think of all the amazing bands that have come out of Sweden in general I expected metal to be fairly popular here. It wasn't. Not at all. Not even... close. It seems Stockholm was a ridiculous fantasy world of high fashion, super models and extreme yuppie culture. Essentially it was one giant shopping mall where every single person was severely overdressed for the occasion. Now I'm a metalhead and for the most part I dress like a metalhead, which is a pretty simple wardrobe of metal band t-shirt and jeans. So, seeing how everyone was wearing top of line super expensive clothing both my friend and I felt out of place. We tried searching for some metalheads, but honestly during the three days we were there we only saw about ten obvious metalheads.

Basically right from the get go we felt like outcasts, which is exactly the way I feel living back home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the only difference being that most people here are obese and total white trash, while other people fall into social sub cultures such, 'bro douchebags,' 'White homies,' 'Jocks' or just complete fucking assholes. I cant help but admit that being in Stockholm I found people giving me looks and for the most part I found that a lot of people were not particularly fond of foreigners. At the airport we had to catch a bus down to the city, and once we found out bus, which appeared to be leaving, we began to waive at the driver to hold on. Instead he just waived back and drove off without us, making us have to wait 15-20 for the next one. A lot of other people just had extremely cold personalities and it seemed like they really, really hated speaking English with us. The only exception was the info girls who get paid to be helpful.

The experience was also ruined for us because the weather was just awful. Basically it was on and off rain for three days straight. Sometimes it would rain and be sunny and warm and then sometimes it would fiercely rain and be cold and windy. In any case, on numerous occasions my friend and I got totally soaked. I guess I was expecting warmth and sunshine, but it was so cold by the second day that I was forced to by a hoodie.

You can't help but wonder what there is to do in Stockholm then? Well, basically there's a fucking shit load of museums or shopping areas to go to and as far as I could tell that was all. I mean, maybe if I was into more normal things I would have found the whole place to be more interesting, but since I'm not I found it to be a bore. The museums were pretty cool, very informative and interesting, but most of the time we weren't allowed to take photos, which sucked and after all the boozing over in Finland a lot of these museums are just a blur in my mind now.

The Metal Stuff:
Metal was clearly not the thing in Stockholm, but we did manage to find a metal store called, 'Sound Polution,' which I believe is a fairly long running metal store, which I heard Mikael from Opeth once worked at. The store itself was decent and I found a few CDs that I wanted and I got the aforementioned hoodie here (A Deathspell Omega one), but all in all this place paled in comparison to any record store I'd been into in Helsinki, hell even our local metal store here in Milwaukee is on the same level.

We were also told to check out two bars; Pub Anchor & Medusa Rock Bar. Pub Anchor was anything but a metal bar, in fact the four hours we were there the only music that was played was U2, Guns N' Roses, Black & Load-era Metallica and Billy Idol. The bar tenders also clearly did not favor foreigners as we usually had to waive the guy down just to get another drink, otherwise we were ignored, completely. An attempt to talk to two metalheads that walked in fell short too. My friend felt so awkward that he even made some comment to the waitress about the service and while I have no idea what he said I'm sure it was something derogatory since that's the way he gets when drinking.

From there we walked some distance to a place called, 'The Medusa Rock Bar,' which had a more lively atmosphere and although smaller actually had a decent selection of metal and rock bands playing. I remember I ordered a few martini's and some shitty Swedish beer called Falcon. This place also had a downstairs area, which was fairly long, but I guess it was probably only open on the weekends. We went to one other bar that night, a rather interesting English looking pub, but of course not metal was to be found there. Were just alcoholics that needed one more fix before walking back to the hotel.

Our final day in Stockholm saw us heading to Skogskyrkogården, which is a cemetery in the south central area. The reasoning for going here is because back in 1990 Entombed shot an incredible promo photo in front of the gigantic cross near the entrance and I figured since I was never going to be back I'd better check it out. Its also worth mentioning that Tomas "Quorthon" Forsberg of Bathory fame and Per "Dead" Ohlin are buried here, but we weren't exactly interested in making it our lives work to find their gravestones. As soon as we got off the train and entered the nearby cemetery it, you know it, it started to rain, lightly. By the time we took a few photos by the cross it was completely pouring rain and we needed to seek shelter. Unfortunately the rain never really let up and we weren't able to explore the cemetery the same way we wanted too.

Later on that day we mostly just wandered around the city, often times taking shelter from the on/off rain and growing increasingly annoyed with the city. Of course there was more we could of seen, but the weather and the way people seemed to respond to our American-ness just really ruined Stockholm for me. Thankfully the next morning we were heading for Finland and that's where the journey gets interesting, finally! ...will save that for tomorrow though.