Nothing else matters

RIGA - Spring is back in town, and it has brought a lot of new and exciting emotions and expectations. Though the weather isn’t yet anything to rejoice over, people now tend to get out more, regardless of whether it rains or if the wind is strong enough to blow the roofs off their houses. It is the wait, that ended finally, that pushes people to go outside. After spending the winter indoors, because it was too ghastly to even consider going outside for one extra minute after shoveling all those unbelievable shovelfuls of snow from your driveway so you could move your car at least a couple of meters closer to work… the spring has come. The season that is related to all that’s good and pure, that brings love and joy even to the worst skeptics in the world, is now walking into our lives, though painfully slowly…

You don’t even need a pint of espresso to wake up any more. Just open your eyes, lean towards the sun and seven seconds later you couldn’t sleep even if you wanted to.
Unfortunately, the weather forecasts in the Baltics are based on the Chaos and Probability theories, so the likelihood of it snowing is pretty much equal to having a perfectly hot day. This is why I personally hate the local weather. You never know what to wear or whether to take an umbrella with you or not. For all I know, I could wear shorts in the morning because it’s all warm, bright and shiny, and then freeze to death in the afternoon on the walk to lunch, because it had started snowing all of a sudden. The only sensible thing to do then is to take three sets of clothes with you every time you leave your home. One for sunbathing and volleyball, one including rubberboots and a raincoat and another with an Alaska-type winter coat and perhaps some skis.

No, really, the weather here changes so fast that if you’re planning on spending the weekend outdoors, be sure to check all the weather-forecast resources on the Web, and calculate some average values. That is especially true for the next month or so.

In order to avoid some tragic disappointments you should probably consider a way of spending time that is not dependant on the weather. Play some indoor tennis or bowling. Or perhaps you’d like to do something new and exciting? Something none of your friends and family have ever done in their life. Something that is usually only seen on TV. Have you ever done any Curling? Riga offers one to visit the first specialized curling rink in the Baltic countries - Kerlinga Halle - and the prices are affordable, too.
But there are certain people who prefer to be entertained, rather than having to entertain themselves. If you’re one of them, then going to a concert or a play would be just about the perfect option, leaving only one question unanswered –

Which concert?

Well, there are many. For obvious reasons, you can’t go to all of them, so you have to choose one. There is no point in going to see somebody obscure, somebody you have never heard of, because then you’ll never get your mates to go “WOW, Lucky You,” after you tell them you’ve spent two and a half hours sitting in a dark room watching children dancing badly in yellow robes to the music of an unknown composer and singing ridiculously cheerful songs in Slovakian.
But what if you tell them that you’ve seen Metallica perform live on a round stage in the center of a many-thousand crowd of people who have had the bands never dying lyrics and riffs replace their bedtime stories and lullabies? Anybody would be filled with envy, even your pets.

Metallica is an iconic band, known all around the world to almost anybody who at some point in life was listening to music and was somewhat interested in what’s going on in the industry, because the band has sold more than 100 million records worldwide. That has got to mean something, right?
Stephen Thomas Erlewine and Greg Prato, of Allmusic, called Metallica “Easily the best, most influential heavy metal band of the ‘80s, responsible for bringing the music back to Earth.”
The last time they were in Riga (two years ago) they said that they loved the local fans so much, that they will definitely return here in the nearest future, and they’ve kept their promise.

Metallica will give four concerts in the Baltic States this year. One, on April 17, on the stage of Arena Riga, another, on April 18, at Suurhall Saku Arena, Estonia’s largest indoor stadium in Tallinn and another two at the Siemens Arena in Vilnius on April 20 and 21. There aren’t many tickets left, so be sure to buy one, while they’re still available.