It’s been
several hundred of bands that I introduced over the years but I always come to
a band with the same humble approach. Would you like me to say anything special
before you play? Some bands have a clear vision – tell people that we are here
for the second time and that our split EP was just released and our merch is
right down next to the stage. Others leave it just to me – tell the fans
whatever you think is right and we are happy to get introduced. They don’t know
that I can mess it up quite easily and say totally different things against my
own plan. But their trust in me is binding. And then, there are bands that
never want to get introduced – you know them: technical death metal (they have
intros) and crust (they have DIY attitude). But there are exceptions to this
approach every year. I am there on stage for them, so I always fully respect
whatever they want. And I like death metal intros and crust DIY attitude on top
of that.
There are
bands that have a clear and funny approach to getting introduced. Sometimes it
is difficult for me to get the message across. Like Hellbastard this year –
Scruff tells me: “Tell the people that we are from England that we swam across
the Channel, one band member was shot and we got arrested by the police. But we
made it here.” I managed to introduce them with very similar words and had no
clue if anyone understood it. It was dark to see the audience from the lighted
stage. Scruff ran out from behind with his pyro effect that almost burnt me and
his band member. He is clearly a demon with a bright vision.
Every year
I ask Curby – what would you like me to tell to the OEF fans? Tell them “a very
big thank-you for coming to the OEF,” he is emphasizing. “It is great that they
all came and managed to stay until the end,” he says. But at 2 AM when two last
bands are remaining to play, many people are gone to hear that. So, we said to
each other – let’s write a thank-you note to the fans and here it is: Thank you
for being fans of the OEF, for being great during the fest. We really respect
you – you are great! Curby says that even if there is a snow next year we all
say – Fuck Everything, let’s enjoy OEF! :)
There are
things that are a problem during the OEF, we want to solve them right away but
it can’t be done for some reason. The merch was an apocalypse this year. There
were huge cues and people were upset. However, we could not bring more people
to serve the fans at the merch table just because they could not fit there. We
are really sorry about that. We promise to organize it in a different way and
much better next year. Despite the cues, all merch was sold out and we promise
a partial reprint of the merch. We also know that the VIP Camp toilets could
not be cleaned because the rain turned the road into a muddy slide that the
cleaning car could not take. We will also fix this next year.
There are
things that hardly have any good solution. Like the Nice truck massacre that
took place during the festival. We were approached by a couple of people from
France to say something. We were going to do so and there was a scenario for
that. But every pot has two handles. It is pretty clear that all the Europeans
are very much sympathetic during such insane event. But there are many people
from Asia and Africa at the OEF where several thousand people die of terrorist
attacks every year. Terrorism became “a part of the life” in these continents however
terrible it sounds. European media have a little interest in these terrorist
attacks happening far away from here and when they react, the affected parts of
the world take it sometimes as false solidarity. That’s why we decided not to
react since it does not belong to any society anywhere in the world. We hope
that people will understand that.
Once again,
thank you for the great atmosphere you made during the OEF! Thanks to all fans
and to those who helped organizing the festival in any way. Check out all the
reports and pictures documenting what a great time we all had there. We are all
looking forward to seeing you at the OEF 2017!
