Day 1 Link to heading

From Izmir (Turkey), we traveled to Plovdiv (Bulgaria) in a horrible claustrophobia-inducing bus, where we got stuck at the border for 3 hours. We arrived around 8am, sleep-deprived, but check-in is only at 3pm, so we need to pull off a hobo and sleep somewhere. We thought of the mall’s massage chairs, abandoned buildings, and buying the longest-running movie in a cinema (only opens at 2pm).

We eventually settled on hobo-ing on the hill. I must say we are doing hobo on easy mode, nice view + perfect weather!

Korn was the highlight of day 1, but the band we were all excited to see was Spiritbox, and I think Korn isn’t exactly metalcore?? We don’t know much songs from both bands, but knowing Holy Roller (Spiritbox’s viral song) was enough to foresee the kind of madness that will be going down. For the first time, we are all gonna witness a female extreme vocalist performing live too—well, almost all. One of them had already seen Poppy live, but it wasn’t what he expected, as it’s mainly edm-ish stuff + overprocessed screams instead of those powerful raw fry screams that we all so desperately seek.

Sure enough, Spiritbox absolutely blew our minds right away with their opening song, Cellar Door. Our only complaint being that she doesn’t interact with the crowd much—no asking us to jump, no calling us <insert profanity here> for not opening the pits wide enough—none of that; she just went up the stage, did her thing, and killed it. At one point, she made gestures to the crowd to split in half, signaling the wall of death, and that’s as much crowd interaction as we get. Still, Spiritbox is hands down the best performance of day 1, IMO.

Then there is the dreaded long waiting time for the next band to setup, and the amount of people smoking everywhere added to the pain. If not for the Hills of Rock pamphlet to fan away the smoke, lifespan could decrease by a decade.

The consequences of our “quality” sleep from before are kicking in. We were too tired and left near the end of Korn. Combining all of our non-existent cooking skills, we managed to cook pasta for supper! Yumz:P

This photo sums up day 1, where we portray our fiercest selves! (not the first time they disappointed me, and it definitely won’t be the last! See Day 2 & 3)

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