6.13.11 - Sweden

My first impressions of Sweden include words like awe, beauty, and white people. Unfortunately, no reproduction of the sun over green Swedish fields through a lens is as spectacular as it is first-hand. It was an incredible sight.

Our lovely flight attendant was nice enough to get energy drinks for me before the shows!

Breathtaking...

We're at a rock festival today with bands like Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest, Rob Zombie, and Black Label Society, whose guitarist used to be Ozzy's a year back, Zakk Wylde. I really wanted to get a word with him, but he disappeared with his band pretty quickly after their set ended. Oh well, next time.

There is SO MUCH going on at this festival. All kinds of food in every direction, rides, carnival games, beer, you name it! The grounds were very spread out, and while the crowd in front of the stage wasn't very dense during set change, I knew this concert would be huge.

Local Swedes, very cool folks.

This place blew UP! The final count was somewhere close to 35,000, and this became the biggest show of the tour since it started last summer. The stage was gigantic and gave me tons of freedom to try some new tricks. A new stage is so key for me when I shoot these concerts. It's usually the same setup, and it's a bit more of a challenge to find ways to be creative, but this particular show gave me the opportunity to grab shots I've never been able to get before. It was especially cool to follow Gus and Blasko as they walked down the long runways on either side.

This was tonight's set list, revised a few times.

The noise from this amount of people nearly ran me over like a freight train.

Tonight we rest in Dusseldorf, Germany, and I desperately need some rest. I'm out!