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70,000 Tons of Metal - 70,001 Tons of Fun

After four years of planning, the vision of a young Canadian heavy metal concert promoter saw fruition as the enormous cruise ship pulled away from its Miami, Florida berth.  Mating the elegant accommodations of a modern day cruise ship, with hard-drinking, head-banging heavy metal fans seemed an oxymoron, but here it was in the form of, “70,000 Tons of Metal.

Cruising towards Cozumel, “The Hate Boat as it would soon be re-christened with typical tongue-in-cheek humor by opening band and thrash-metal co-founders “Exodus, carried 2038 fans, 100 journalists, and and unbelievable gathering of 42 classic and contemporary metal acts from around the world.

While metal festivals are nothing new in Europe, South America or Asia,, creating a floating international metal festival on a cruise-ship hadn’t been done in North America.  Note, emphasis on international.  This was far more than just a metal festival. This was a gathering of metal fans from around the world.  Fans and bands from five continents met in Miami, Florida for the cruise of a lifetime.  For many, it would be a life-changing experience with more personal significance than they had anticipated.

But give credit where credit is due, Andy Piller, a slender, long-haired, Canadian, metal-head came up with the idea of a “heavy metal cruise”  A concert promotor, the idea struck him after watching cruise ships sail up the western coast of the Great White North from his apartment in Vancouver. 

Over the next four years, Piller would work to develop the concept, team with international concert promoters, negotiate with cruise lines and work to book 42 talented international metal bands for what would become “70000 Tons of Metal”.

On January 24th, 2011, Andy Piller’s dream appeared to become a reality as fans from 48 countries boarded the ship.  It didn’t take long for everyone sailing to realize that language barriers were not going to be a problem.  The common language aboard the boat was a shared adoration and appreciation of heavy metal. Americans, Germans, Canadians and Aussies accounted for the majority of the fans making the journey.  Europe was well represented with an especially vocal and hard-partying batch of black and death-metal fans from the Nordic regions.

The countries represented by fans plunking down a significant chunk of change to attend included: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Estonia,  Faroe Islands, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and The United States.

One of the huge draws for this event was the opportunity for fans and bands a like to really hang out and mingle. Rather than a five minute meet and greet “70,000 Tons of Metal”  offered four days and multiple opportunities to meet genuine metal luminaries. 

To accommodate all the fans and the bands, the cruise ship’s main pool deck was converted into an outdoor concert venue complete with a stage, photo-pit, scaffolding, lighting rigs, pro-sound board, back-line, PA and all the assorted gear required to support a metal show.  In addition, two venues below deck, normally hosting a less hostile style of entertainment, were modified with photo pits and PA gear.  Converting the spaces and literally creating an on-deck stage required some four and one-half tons of equipment transported by 11 semi-trucks.  On the dock below, a gigantic crane was used to hoist the gear onto the deck of the ship where a 30 man crew created a stage out of what looked to be just an huge erector set of parts.

It was an impressive feat watching the stage rise out of the bottom of a swimming pool over the course of eight hours.  At just after six pm, the stages were built and the construction crew departed the boat. 
Some thirty minutes later, the history of cruise ship entertainment in the western hemisphere would be changed forever.  An incredible barrage of electric guitars, drums and even an accordion, projected a tsunami-like ripple across the Caribbean, reminiscent to the shock waves produced by a nuclear blast.  “70,000 Tons of Metal”  with it’s two-thousand plus metal heads, bands, media and crew were was a reality.

The lineup for day one started at 7.00 pm.  The bands performing that initial day were:

Exodus, Nevermore, Arsis, Gamma Ray, Sonata Arctica, Destruction, Marduck, Blind Guardian,
Fear Factory, Uli Jon Roth, Unleashed, Finntroll, Witchburner, and Malevolent Creation who took the stage at 3:15 am

Day Two found the ship off the coast of Cuba.  On the menu for today was a full blown aural assault of metal that started bright and early.  The music started at 10 am and would run for the next 16 hours.  The bands included:

Cripper, Dusk Machine, Agent Steel, Trouble, TYR, The Absence, Sabaton, Ensiferum,Circle II Circle,
Rage, Forbidden, Swashbuckle, Moonspell, Obituary, Voivod, Iced Earth, Epica, Sanctuary, Amon Amarth, Dark Tranquility, Death Angel, Saxon, Testament, Twilight Of The Gods, Korpiklaani, Sodom, Blackguard, and finally Raven would would finish the lineup at around four in the morning. 

Day two was a truly epic event of metal that ran late into the evening.  By the time most of the bands and fans crawled out of their bunks the ship had quietly slipped into the harbor, docking at the port of Cozumel, Mexico.  Throwing off exhaustion and hangovers, by 10.00 am most of the folks who planned on leaving the ship found their way onto the dock and took the walkway to visit the lauded cruise destination.

For the next eight hours Cozumel was explored by a curious hoard of long-haired, tattooed tourists wearing black T-shirts and ?lashing metals they greeted each other on the streets and haunts of the Mexican island.  Almost as much as an attraction as Cozumel, the fans and bands aboard the “Heavy Metal ship were quite the hit among the locals and tourists aboard other vessels. 

One of the more humorous highlights of the port call was re-boarding.  In the middle of the afternoon some 300 international metal fans converged on the ship to get back on board.  While hanging out in line waiting to clear customs, passengers from an adjacent cruise ship, one with a more traditional passenger manifest, was off-loading right next to “The Hate Boat”.  As the blue-haired old ladies gasped at the intimidating gathering of leather clad rockers, they snapped photos, while Ohhing and ahhhing at the thoughts of the debauchery that must surely be running rampant aboard a cruise ship packed with heavy metal fans.

Moments later a single voice in the customs line evolved into a teasing chant as the metal fans let the regular tourists on the adjacent ship know that“Your Boat Sucks “Your Boat Sucks, “Your Boat Sucks while throwing up horns and flashing metal.  Seriously,  while they did their best to look as menacing as possible, the wide grins on their faces and bags of tourist goodies let everyone know it was all in good fun. It was a truly great moment in the history of metal.

Once everyone was back on board the music started and sometime during the evening the ship slipped away from the Island of Cozumel.  Now back on the boat, tourist time was over, and it was back to the metal. Day three’s lineup featured:

Epica, Gamma Ray, Cripper, Agent Steel, Fear Factory, Exodus, Rage, Saxon, Iced Earth, Unleashed, Ensiferum, Marduk, TYR, and Destruction putting a cap on a long day of Mexican exploration and brutal guitar shredding at 4 am.

Day Four, the final day at sea would separate the hardcore fans from the mere wanna-bees as the lineup of metal was non-stop and stunning!  15 Hour of non-stop crushing percussion and screaming guitars included:

-Swashbuckle, Circle II Circle, Arsis, Sanctuary, Witchburner, Obituary, Uli Jon Roth, The Absence, Sonata Artica, Twilight Of The Gods, Blackguard, Dark Tranquility, Death Angel, Raven, Testament, Sabaton, Trouble, Sodom, Korpriklaani, Malevolent Creation, Blind Guardian, Amon Amarth, Nevermore, Finntroll, and closing the show very first “70,000 Tons of Metalwas hard rocking and no doubt exhausted Dusk Machine.

On the final morning, long lines of tired, yet completely satisfied fans and bands stood together, shaking hands, exchanging e-mail address and cell numbers.  The ship was in Miami, Florida and it was time to get off the boat and back to the real world. “70,000 Tons of Metal was something special.  It was more than a meet and greet, it was a chance to actually create friendships and relationships that could endure far beyond just a cruise.  More than just a concert or a festival, it was an event.  For 2034 fortunate fans, the media, the organizers and even the crew of the ship,  it would be something they will be something they would certainly never forget.  Let’s hope they do it again!

 

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