2013 Belgian Invasion, The Day Before Departure and Brussels Day 1

Here is the newest series for Metal Trek, the 2013 Belgian Invasion. In this series, you get a first person perspective on Brussels, The PPM Fest, and even a night in Düsseldorf, Germany.

I feel I need to explain why the blog has been delayed as I tried to get it up and running earlier. For starters, when I came back, I had a lot of schoolwork to catch up on, as well as launching a new series for Channel 13 called Spurious Harmonics which has been long overdue. Also, I had a number of technological delays as my computer and my cellphones Micro SD Card were not on speaking terms, and Blogger.com and Firefox were having a similar quarrel.

I will try my best to update the blog as much as possible, but as always, there might be delays due to life's usual obstacles.

For the first post, it will will be about the day before leaving for Europe and the first day of travel. Onward, to the 2013 Belgian Invasion \m/

A tradition I have before embarking on major trips is to go to Rock N Roll Ribs. It is located in Coral Springs, about 1 hour north from where I live in Miami. For those who don't know, one of the owners of Rock N Roll Ribs is Nicko McBrain (if I need to mention who this individual is, you are reading the wrong blog), and as one can expect, it is a Iron Maiden Theme Restaurant. While themed restaurants have a tendency to draw a red flag, this one is a MAJOR exception to the rule, as the food is excellent, with a degree of quality that place it in a league beyond majors. UP THE IRONS FOR GOOD CHOW!6!6!6! \m/

To give you a first person perspective what this rib-house can deliver, here's a photo of a plate I ate some time ago. Forgot to take the recent one, sorry =C . The primary purpose for the traditional part of my exodus to Rock N Roll Ribs is in case something happens to me during my trips, at least I got a good final meal.

Iced Earth 2012 Florida Tour Post

Metal Trek has a new post from the past up and running, and it is the Iced Earth 2012 Florida Tour.

The reason it is not at the very top is due to the chronological order of my past trips, and since this trip was between my Wacken 2009 and Euro Metal Fest Tour 2011, that's why it is set up in this manner.

Click here for the post.

Iced Earth 2012 Florida Tour

I6Z6A6N NOTE: This post was originally on Wacken Trek, and set up as a PhotoBucket dump of pictures with no commentary. This is me being a lazy bastard (at least I'll admit it =D ). After much thought I have made the decision to make a proper Metal Trek Post out of it. Take note this post was up originally on February 4, 2013, while the trek itself was from March 2 - 4, 2012, and that's why it is placed before the Euro Metal Festival Tour with a post date listing of September 30, 2012 (to keep things organized chronologically).

Also, Instead of the usual "dedicate one page to each day", I decided to condense everything into one page as the weekend trip was very "hit and run" and the limited amount of pictures won't allow for one of my usual epic "Saga of the Icelanders" type of posts.

The weekend trip was what would you call a "concentrated" dose of Iced Earth as their tours tend to be limited. When they tour Florida, they usually go no further south than Orlando and after that they head off to their next northerly destination. This tour allowed the more hardcore Florida Iced Earth fans a chance to see their favorite band twice since they had 2 Florida shows (one in Orlando and the other in Ft. Lauderdale). Aside from myself being one of the aforementioned hardcore Iced Earth Fans, I had the distinguished pleasure of having 2 travel companions who shared my fandom level appreciation of Iced Earth throughout this trip in Alex Flores of Sinistre Division and Shirley Moonspell, paparazzi of the dark kind.

Day 1, March 2, 2012

The first concert of the this tour was the Ft. Lauderdale show at Revolution. The tour itself also had Symphony X where the 2 bands would alternate the headlining spots each day, and on this day Symphony X was last to play.

While waiting in line to claim our VIP tickets, a sweet promo poster was staring right at us. If they would have given these out, it would have been the cherry on top of this trip.