First Week on the Road with In This Moment guitarist Chris Howorth.
I started writing this from our dressing room at Rock im Park [in Nürnberg, Germany]. I woke at noon brushed my teeth and got coffee, ate lunch and decided to write everyone a little diary of our experiences in Europe.

Day 1: Rock am Ring -- Show
This is so f---ing unreal. Our first show in an arena in front of thousands! Our tour mates DevilDriver are the coolest dudes ever (they throw down so hard onstage). We made new friends with As I lay Dying, who are such nice people (I watched their entire set sidestage, and they absolutely destroyed. We cant wait to tour with them). Chimaira killed onstage and they were very nice, also (everyone we meet is so nice). [Our singer] Maria and I met Dave Mustaine (he was kinda intimidating, but nice, and he watched our set from sidestage). Dragonforce put on a very entertaining set (they were really cool dudes. too). I crashed out at 2 a.m. exhausted and jetlagged.

Day 2: Rock im Park
We don’t play today. We arrived at the fest at 9 a.m. I slept until 1 p.m. and woke up to a parking lot full of tour buses and bands. I had a quick cup of coffee and walked over and watched Lamb of God kill it at the second stage. After that, I had lunch and took a very satisfying shower (we showered in this crazy shower tent thing, but it felt great). I went back to the second stage and watched Papa Roach destroy the place; 30,000 people were going ape s--t for them. It gave me goose bumps. I stayed at the side of the stage for another hour or so and watched Killswitch, then Stone sour and Machine head. The capper of the evening was watching slayer three feet away from guitarist Jeff Hanneman. I can't f---ing believe I am here! After Slayer, we went to some stupid VIP party tent and raided the free bbq. I went to my bunk at 1 a.m. and passed out.

Day 3: Rock im Park -- Show
I'm sitting in the dressing room again writing. The dressing room here is a huge tent with about 20 rooms in it, and in the common areas there are comfy chairs and video games, and a pool table. It's sweet. Our room has a table and six chairs, a big rack for clothes and a bucket filled with beer, water and sodas. There is fruit and candy in here, too. Today we loaded into the stage area at 4 p.m., got all our gear sorted out and then met with a group of Century Media Europe people who were really cool and brought us stuff for our merch area. At 6 p.m. we hit the stage and if felt really good. We were rested and really wanted to give our label and the German metal fans a great show. It was amazing! The German fans are so into music and really made us feel great! We got a rousing, "Encore! Encore! Encore!" it was so cool! Mark [Hunter] from Chimaira just walked in our dressing room and asked Maria if he could wear one of her dresses at the Download Fest (he is funny as hell).

Day 4: Paris, France -- Show
I'm sitting in yet another dressing room (Our drummer Jeff is sitting with me reading a book). This dressing room is not as nice as the ones at the festivals. It's more like a U.S. club dressing room. Last night was really cool. We spent a couple of hours hanging with Chimaira and As I Lay Dying, talking about touring, dogs, Europe and all kinds of stuff. The bands we are meeting are so cool and down to earth. We left Rock am Ring at 2 a.m. and parted ways with all the new friends we made. I woke at 10 a.m., hot and sweaty (the fans in our bunks stopped working and everyone is grouchy). I sat in the front lounge (our bus is a double decker and there is a lounge right in the front at the top with windows), and watched the French countryside roll by. It kinda reminds me of Kansas. Our bus driver is this crazy German named Jurgen and he got lost 3 times on the way to the venue. Two days ago I woke at 8 a.m. to find our bus backing down this very narrow road for about two miles. Tonight is a DevilDriver headlining show and curfew is at 10 p.m. so it will be an early night. Bus call is 1 a.m. with a 10 hour drive to South Hampton, England for tomorrow's show. I am curious to see how the kids in France react to In This Moment. Maria is in the shower getting ready for a photo shoot for a French Magazine. I guess that’s all I got for now.

Day 5: South Hampton, England
Last night's show in Paris was our first club show of this tour, and although it was cool being in Paris and all, I wasn't that thrilled with the show. We played to about 200 kids and the crowd seemed more like a New York or Los Angeles audience; a good response, but not amazing. The highlight of the evening was seeing Fear Factory singer Burton C. Bell at the show (he is an old friend of DevilDriver frontman Dez Fafara, and was on vacation in Paris). The dude was so cool and offered up a lot of great advice. He was very positive about our band and it felt great. Bus call was at 1 a.m. and we had a huge drive to South Hampton. I got a little toasted with Dez and a bottle of Crown Royal before crashing in my bunk at about 2 a.m. We awoke at 6 a.m. at the ferry that crosses the English Channel. For those of you who haven't done this, it's kinda weird. Its a big ship and all the buses and cars drive into its belly Then we have to exit the vehicles and cross the Channel which takes about one-hour-and-twenty-minutes. So we had breakfast in the café (yes they had a café on the ferry) and vegged out till we got across the Channel to Dover. Then I got back in the bunk and slept until we arrived in South Hampton at the venue. A huge basket full of goodies met us at there from the beautiful Carolyne (our friend). I got tattooed today along with about seven other people. We all got sharks tattooed on us, symbolizing our unity (its an inside tour joke where we are all a different kind of shark. I am a Bull Shark, Dez is a Mako, Maria is Nurse, Jenny Blue Miller is a Great White) It's pretty funny! The show was good -- a lot better than Paris. The bus call was at 1 a.m., then we headed for Glasgow, Scotland.

Day 6: Glasgow Scotland
It was a really uneventful drive to Glasgow and once we arrived we all headed out to eat lunch, then we loaded in (the load in here has six flights of stairs. It's the worse load in I have ever been involved with) The show was okay. There were about 200 kids again and it was a very tough crowd. We played our hearts out and did our best but no one knows us at all here.

Day 7: London, England -- Underworld Show SOLD OUT!
London rules! The show was amazing! We had fans in attendance and the crowd was really giving us love. Yea, London!! Earlier, after leaving Glasgow, we drove till 11 a.m. and then spent three hours at a British truck stop. We got to the venue at 3 p.m. and met our agent, Dan, who showed us around the amazing streets of Camden (so many shops and so much food). As we were shopping, I heard someone shouting my name. It was [guitarist] Nick [Hipa] from As I Lay Dying (I keep running into this guy!). it turns out they are playing right down the street from us. He invited us to the show and put us all on the list. After our show, we all walked down to see As I Lay Dying at a tiny little hole in the wall. We watched about four songs, then walked back to the bus totally tired. But London was a blast. We are coming back here to attend the Metal Hammer Awards. Funny huh?

Check back tomorrow part two of the In This Moment guest blog.

Over the past couple weeks, Korn have played some great festival shows in Europe, and thanks to the recent advancements in European technology (they even have cell phones over there now!), the band's Rock am Ring 2007 show from Nürburgring, Germany on June 3 and their appearance at Norwegian Wood in Oslo, Norway on June 15 are now available for viewing. Both shows were professionally shot. Check out Korn's Rock am Ring concert here and their Norwegian Wood set here.

When Headbangers Ball took Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine for a yacht trip on the high seas, we knew we were in for a wild ride. At the beginning of our voyage, the veteran metal man said, "I hope no one here is named Gilligan." Good thing that's just our middle name.

Though the skies were dark and the elements turned against us (it was drizzling), Captain Mustaine was a real trooper and it wasn't long before he was at the wheel steering the vessel. But after he hit an iceberg and the ship began to take on water, we retired to the lower deck lounge and talked life, Megadeth and metal.

Here, Mustaine laments the lack of identifiable vocalists in today's scene, and he's got a point. After all, how many people can really tell the differences between the singers of Vomitory, Immolation and Deicide? Still, while we can easily identify the voices of Amy Lee and Chester Bennington, we're not sure they rank up there with Rob Halford and James Hetfield. But don't take our word for it, listen to Megadeth's finest and judge for yourself.

Florida-based symphonic prog-metal band Kamelot will debut the video for "Ghost Opera" on this weeks Headbangers Ball.

The song is the title track from the group's eighth studio album, which came out on June 5. The disc was was recorded and mixed by producers Sascha Paeth and Miro at Gate Studios and Pathway Studios in Wolfsburg, Germany.

Kamelot formed in 1991 and released their first album, Eternity, in 1995. Their current lineup is composed of singer Roy S. Khan, guitarist Thomas Youngblood, bassist Glenn Barry, keyboardist Oliver Palotai and drummer Casey Grillo.

The group will launch a European tour later this month and will return to the the U.S. for a headline tour in August and September.

A heavy metal fan in Sweden is so obsessed with his favorite music that the state of Hässleholm in the southern part of the country has deemed him psychologically impaired and eligible for financial assistance from Employment Services.

According to Blabbermouth.net, the story was first printed in the Swedish publication The Local, which reported that 42-year-old Roger Tullgren underwent psychological analysis after losing numerous jobs because he stayed out late at so many shows he couldn't make it to work the next day. He claims to have attended almost 300 rock shows last year.

"The fact that I am so into music has affected my work situation to the extent that I have had to quit some jobs," he said.

Tullgren started seeing a psychologist when he was fired from his last job and went on welfare. When the analyst realized the severity of the man's situation, he had Tullgren sign a paper that indicated his "heavy metal lifestyle" was a "disability" and the man became qualified for a wage supplement.

He has since gotten a job as a dishwasher at a local restaurant, but still receives his weekly payment from the government. In addition, his new manager allows him to go to concerts as long as he makes up for missed hours another time. And he's allowed to listen to metal while washing up.

After hearing about the case, an occupational psychologist in Stockholm was flabbergasted: "I think it's extremely strange," he told The Local. "Unless there is an underlying diagnosis, it is absolutely unbelievable that the job centre would pay out. If somebody has a gambling addiction, we don't send them down to the racetrack. We try to cure the addiction, not encourage it."

He's one of death metal's pioneers and has penned songs with titles like "Feasting on the Blood of the Insane," "Impulse to Disembowel" and "Bled to Death." So, we figured that when we approached Six Feet Under frontman Chris Barnes for a "Bang of the Week" entry he'd either go with something by Aborted, Pig Destroyer or Cattle Decapitation or simply grunt, impale us on a stake and remove our organs while we begged to die.

Surprisingly, neither happened. Barnes chose the latest video by Swedish Viking death metal band Amon Amarth, who are plenty into bloodletting, but only in the cause of Oden, Valhalla and all the stuff Manowar introduced us to many frosty winters ago.

The video of choice for Barnes was "Cry of the Black Birds," the title of which sounds more like a Mother Goose rhyme than a death metal ditty. But the song and video both rock balls. The clip was directed by William C . Schacht.

Amon Amarth's last album, With Oden on Our Side, came out in October 2006. The band will tour this summer with the Sounds of the Underground tour, which launches July 6 in Dallas and runs through August 11 in Louisville, Kentucky. Six Feet Under's new one, Commandment, came out April 17.

Now that we've wasted 30 more seconds of your time than we should have, here's "Cry of the Black Birds":

What floats Megadeth's boat? Why it's frontman Dave Mustaine, of course.

After a recent New York gig, Headbangers Ball took Mustaine on a boat trip around the harbor on a private yacht, and while there was a captain and crew aboard, it wasn't long before Mustaine was steering the ship -- literally.

Here, he mans the wheel and talks about the recording process for Megadeth's latest album, United Abominations, which came out May 14. Check back every day this week for more "Behind the Ball With Megadeth: United Abominations."

Norwegian black metal pioneers, Mayhem, have been forced to cancel their 2007 Deconsecrate The States tour because drummer Jan Axel von Blomberg (aka Hellhammer) recently suffered "an unfortunate and serious injury to his right limb," said the band in a statement.

The tour was scheduled to launch July 16 in San Francisco and run through July 25 in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Hellhammer suffered the injury while playing drums for Dimmu Borgir on their recent U.S. tour. He is currently being scheduled for surgery and will need rest and rehabilitation afterwards in order to fully heal, said the statement. Mayhem opted not to tour with a replacement.

"The power of Mayhem must come at full force," said the band. "And without Hellhammer it is impossible for us to accomplish this feat. We deeply regret having to cancel the tour but we feel that there truly was no other option. We shall however return stronger than ever to deconsecrate your shores as soon as humanly possible."

Mayhem's latest album, Ordo Ad Chao, came out April 23.

At first, we had no clue what this Norwegian commercial was advertising, but we didn't care. The idea of a long haired, leather and spike-bedecked metal frontman moonlighting as a -- well, as the song says -- "a kitty cat," was priceless.

A bit of research revealed that Coop Prix isn't a Scandinavian fetish retailer, it's a budget chain store comparable to K-Mart. Not that it matters one bit. We doubt that even scowl-pasted black metal dudes can watch this without cracking a smile:
silly leather princess

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When the members of some of your favorite bands -- Lamb of God, Mastodon, Shadows Fall -- were just kids, the only way to see groups onstage was to skip school and show up early at the box office the day they went on sale, then eagerly wait for weeks or months until the night of the concert.

Sure, some artists had videos available on VHS or Beta tapes that you could rent from your local video store (it would be another 30 years until Netflix cornered the market), but mostly you had to rely on concert albums and onstage magazine photos to get a taste of what the live experience was going to be like.

Because of this lack of access, attending a show was a real "event," and being in a room full of cheering, like-minded fans, getting bombarded by 100 or so decibels of pure volume and seeing the colored lights cutting through the machine-generated stage smoke as the band you hungered to see rocked you into oblivion was a near-religious experience that seems to have become a lost art with the advent of digital technology.

Good concerts can still be thrilling, of course, but now everyone has access to everything at any time. Got tickets to next week's Machine Head show and wanna see what their stage set is gonna look like? Just go online and check out one of dozens of bootleg clips shot by fans over the past week. If you're lucky, you might even find some professionally filmed footage, and it sure won't be too difficult to find a decent MP3 bootleg of the show to get you pumped.

The spoiler effect of such research is similar to like going onto IMBD.com and reading the full plot summary for a film you're about to see. The event might still be enjoyable, but element of surprise has all but vanished. But just because everything's out there doesn't mean you have to open Pandora's box and peek inside. Wanna be surprised by a movie? Don't read the review.

However, human nature being what it is, the instant gratification (and, perhaps, longterm disappointment) that comes from checking out the latest killer video stream is as tempting as an open box of chocolate. Maybe the bottom line is to know what you're getting into and do whatever will ultimately be the most satisfying without being lured by the latest technology just because it exists.

With that in mind, those who want to wait until the next time Iron Maiden come to town to be completely swept away by their majestic, galloping metal and charismatic live show should move on the the next blog entry, but if you'd like to check out professionally filmed footage of the Iron Maiden's entire Download 2007 festival performance, look no further. Remember, you've been warned.

The 15-song set features: "Different World," "These Colours Don't Run," "Brighter Than a Thousand Suns," "Wrathchild," "The Trooper," "Children of the Damned," "The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg," "For the Greater Good of God," "The Number of the Beast," "Fear of the Dark," "Run to the Hills," "Iron Maiden," "2 Minutes to Midnight," "The Evil That Men Do" and "Hallowed Be Thy Name."

And if you're rather just watch the Maiden video for "Different World" we aim to please: