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thedarkprojectNow, 'tis time to tell thee of my journey to a Gaulish field to witness a gathering of wandering troubadours. Or something like that.
Thursday
I was due to be picked up by Pink (my driver for this excursion) from my house at 7am, and I was ready on time. Unfortunately he was still asleep, so he showed up at nearer 7:30. We then crossed the city to collect![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
infestchris and by 8am we (me, Chris, Pink, and Pink's girlfriend Laura) were setting off down for Dover. The ferry was to leave at 12:15pm with the last check-in time at 11:45am, so there was some concern over whether we were going to arrive in time. This was heightened when the sat-nav told us we'd arrive at something like 1pm, but then sat-navs are not terribly reliable. And so it proved in this case, us arriving at the ferry at 11:44am - "what were you worrying about?" Amusingly the mission nearly failed at the last hurdle - Pink was too busy watching a police van in his rear view mirror once we got to Dover that he went straight through a red light and almost ploughed into the side of someone else's vehicle. That was just after the acceleration seemingly vanished on his car due to having evaporated almost all of the oil in the tank. Fun times.
While waiting in line for the ferry we saw some fellow travellers from Nottingham such asfiendil and darkwaveart so we stretched our legs and chatted in the sun for a while. Then we rolled onto the big boat thing and found somewhere to sit and talk/drink/be merry. I think it was the same ferry as we boarded to come back from Wacken last year, but sadly the beautiful girl I saw before wasn't there this time. I suppose it might have been a bit much to assume she takes that ferry several times a day, every day... Anyway, the journey by sea was uneventful and before long we were back on the road, albeit the other side of it.
There was a tenuous plan for our 3 or 4 vehicles to drive down together, but due to some people getting ahead of themselves and others seeming to lag behind, this was soon abandoned in favour of an every-man-or-woman-for-itself rush to the finish, à la Cannonball Run (or something). We had a mostly uneventful trek through France, mostly due to the toll roads which feature very little traffic, meaning we were doing 170 to 180km/h in 110 km/h zones. A slight hitch came when we reached Le Mans and had 10 miles of fuel left in the tank. This led to a desperate search through the twisty and turny streets looking for somewhere that might sell us some diesel. We were down to the last handful of miles and seriously looking at the possibility of being stranded for a while before Laura (Pink's girlfriend, travelling with us) had the bright idea of getting the sat-nav to tell us where the nearest petrol stations were. Sure enough, there was one half a mile along the very road we were on, next to a Carrefour supermarket that we'd also been looking for to stock up on supplies. Luck was with us.
My experience of the supermarket was a bit crap. Finding good food in a country that makes 246 different kinds of cheese is difficult for someone that doesn't like cheese and isn't going to have cooking facilities, so I grabbed a baguette and some bananas and hoped for the best. I also went to try and get some cider but their selection was very poor, so in addition to some cider from Brittany (which turned out to be pretty good) I got 2 bottles of Leffe as well - better the devil you know, etc. Unfortunately when it came to checking-out time there was a bit of confusion as I was supposed to have bagged and barcoded the bananas and the language barrier made it difficult for the cashier to explain this to me. I hate hate hate not being understood almost as much as I hate hate hate not understanding other people, and this sort of thing is both in one go. Everybody says that you can get by fine in foreign countries without speaking the language but frankly I find it embarrassing and somewhat depressing. My inability to speak French is made worse by the fact that I studied French for 7 years, and that I have a great big "Born in Paris" on my bloody passport. Grr.
Anyway, we were back on the road fairly soon and after just a couple of minor wrong turnings we arrived at the festival site at 10pm.
Then things went a bit wrong again - because we were so late arriving compared to most people who'd been there all day, finding a camping spot was difficult. Someone's German friend led some of us - while joking about being a führer, since he was leading 20 English people - towards some 'unofficial camping' (ie. a spare field) before this was judged to be a bad idea and we returned towards the official camping space. The official camping area was incredibly full, and I think the Hellfest organisers really hadn't provided enough camping space for the number of people who were attending, so it took us a long time to find somewhere to pitch our tents, especially since night was falling and it was hard to find the spaces in what was also a poorly-lit campsite. To add insult to injury, the rain which the Internet had assured me would not happen, happened, and happened quite significantly, so we were getting drenched while trying to put up our tents. No fun. What was also no fun was having to move the tents, either to make room for other people, or because the campsite security needed space to drive their quad bikes through, etc. It got very frustrating very quickly and that first night was pretty miserable!
Once tents were up, we went to the party area where there was a beer tent where fun times should have commenced. However it was at that point that I discovered that the drink selection was not great, and that it was €2 for 25cl of Kronenbourg or 3€ for any other drink. That worked out at £3.70 or £5.60 a pint, which is expensive even by festival standards. I can afford it, but I felt quite annoyed that I would have to spend something like £15 to get even mildly merry. Instead I talked to Lorraine about how she was supposed to be delivering me 108 pretty women to my tent (6 an hour for 18 hours), and at some pointjellybearwhore appeared so we talked to her too. At about 3am local time I retired to the tent - I could have stayed up later, but I had Swallow The Sun to see quite early in the morning.
Friday
I woke quite early, and tried to find the people in our party who were heading over to the local supermarket for more supplies, intending to get some more food and drink before Swallow the Sun came on. As it happened there was a lot of dithering and even when we set off we lost people along the way, so it was just me and Duncan for the most part. When we got there I left him with Dan and Reena who he was meeting outside and rushed inside to find some sustenance - 2 bottles of orange juice, which proved very useful, and a bottle of rum, which was awful and ended up being given away. If I actually bought any food, I forget what it was... Anyway, I rushed back, deposited the stuff at the tent, and went into the arena area. I missed Swallow The Sun play their first and maybe second song, but I caught the rest of the set. Quite why they were on at 11:40am I don't know - perhaps the French just have very poor taste. But they played well and had a decent crowd so it was good enough.
After that I went to check out Urgehal having seen them mentioned onvelvet_noise 's LJ (I think) but wasn't terribly impressed so I left the tent they were in and went for a wander. Soon after I found myself in the Terrorizer Tent for 3 bands in a row - Sigh, Negura Bunget, and Ghost Brigade. It was interesting that these 3 were on one after the other because absolutely no other band in this tent over the 3 days interested me one iota. Anyway, Japanese band Sigh were great fun, and I was intrigued to see if their live presence was as quirky as their recorded version, and I think the growling East Asian girl with angel wings and a saxophone did the job nicely there. Their other singer looks like a swordless Samurai so that ticked off my remaining Japanese stereotype boxes at least. Negura Bunget were ok but didn't grab me quite as much this time as they did at Wacken - I guess the problem with bands that interest you due to some sort of quirky element is that you're never as surprised the second time around.
Ghost Brigade were one of the main bands I came here to see however, and that was an interesting experience. I had only heard them on record and had them down as being heavily influenced by Katatonia, yet just before the show I'd read someone describe them as primarily influenced by Neurosis, which I didn't really understand. But when I saw them, I could see why they thought this - if you look at Katatonia, they're all long-haired viking metal types, whereas Ghost Brigade mostly have the short-haired, beardy, post-metal look going on, despite coming from Finland. It's a bit like how the emo and hardcore people started getting into death metal and made deathcore and the like - you can have 2 different subcultural scenes arriving at the same musical destination, and it's only by looking at them that you might guess how they got there. But anyway, enough rumination on checkered shirts and beards - Ghost Brigade sound great, are great, and were great. One disappointment - Aleksi from Swallow the Sun is in Ghost Brigade but he wasn't performing. Why not? He's just played on the other stage, so surely he can walk over here? Oh well.
After them, I wandered around a bit more. I think I found some of my friends at some point, and even spottedneojezebel at another point (but didn't speak to her - sorry!) but eventually found myself back in the Rock Hard tent to watch Ihsahn, after seeing a little bit of Kampfar who were disappointing. Ihsahn was/were (?) ok, but I'm not a massive fan of his solo stuff. But then, I'm not a massive fan of his work in Emperor either. -10 METAL POINTS. I like black metal but I don't like excessively progressive music so it's not my sort of thing, but everybody played well and it was good enough to watch. Unlike the Ghost Brigade disappointment I suppose it would be asking too much to have Mikael Akerfeldt to come and do his half a song of singing for Ihsahn when he doesn't have to perform here until Sunday, so I'll let him off there.
Next up: Hypocrisy, who really impressed me back in Nottingham, but who bored me this time. I think they're the sort of band where to enjoy them requires you to either know all the songs or to be near the front, and neither was the case this time. Later came Watain, who weren't bad and who I shall be checking out further. They were followed by Ulver who were DULL DULL DULL. Seriously people, I know some of you really like Ulver but they're fucking tedious. I doubt anybody would give a damn about them if they hadn't started out as a black metal band and the highlight of their live performance is having a bloody field of antelope on the video screen behind them. I like ambient music and I like interesting soundscapes but I don't like pretentious toss, which is what Ulver are. NEXT! Actually, after the disappointment of Ulver - I had gone along hoping to discover something magical - I went back to my tent and got some rest while listening to the distant sound of Fear Factory, who were playing well, but Burton's voice was seriously off. Nice to hear them back to the old ways then! I dragged myself back out of the tent again to see what Marduk were like, and I'm glad I did, as they were entertaining enough.
Saturday
This was the day with the fewest interesting bands, so much of it was spent wandering between campsite and arena with a fair amount of time spent perusing the market stall area, where I bought a few CDs that aren't so common to see in the UK - 'Aerolithe' by Fall of the Leafe, 'Steadfast' by Forefather, 'Mond' by Lunar Aurora, and 'Refuge' by Rain Fell Within, one oflaurieannhaus's various past bands. One place had a load of interesting dark/gothic cds that I'll probably never see again, but my wallet isn't entirely bottomless. I think it was while wandering around on Saturday that I ran into Andy, the singer in Nottingham's Other Melodic Metal Band, Bloodguard. My band's singer Daz was working on the Earache stall so we outnumbered them 2 to 1, but I don't think either of us had brought demos to promote or anything. Ah well. It was shortly after this point that I thought it would be cool to have a demo featuring a few local bands (well, only the good ones). Maybe something for the future.
I also spent a lot of time looking for something to eat and failing. You see, I'd been too shy to try and order food from the bloody Frenchmen who never understood what I wanted and insisted on asking a plethora of questions I couldn't understand, let alone answer, and it was getting me down a bit. I sawvelvet_noise and Greg, the latter offering to buy some food for me, but I declined. I felt this was a battle I should fight alone (where 'fighting' involved running away. I was in France, after all.)
Anyway, back to the bands. I managed to catch female-fronted gothic/power metal act Delain at 12:15am and they were quite good. The next band I was interested in was Dark Funeral at 6:50pm and they were enjoyable also. Later on I saw Immortal and they were entertaining, despite some technical difficulties. Sadly I had to miss Slash and My Dying Bride respectively to see these two bands, but them's the breaks. In between I saw Airbourne who are a bit of an AC/DC tribute act. The guitarist did perform his impressive trick of climbing up scaffolding next to the stage and playing the guitar solo from the top, which was cool to watch, even if I was told that he does this at every festival they play at. Later that evening, I stayed up, despite my body aching for bed - even the uncomfortable bed of my tent - to see goth overlords Fields Of The Nephilim who were just as good as they were at Hellfire last year, but I didn't stop and listen to Carcass afterwards - and their video backdrops of penises oozing pus didn't exactly encourage me to be a spectator.
Sunday
By Sunday I was tired of being on my feet all the time and I was getting very hungry, and had been ready to go home for at least a day already. Still, I was cheering up a little and the bands were better today so this would hopefully be a good end to the fest. Sabaton opened proceedings, at least for me, and their fascination with war-themed lyrics always go down well with me. Of special note, making me feel a little melancholy, was their D-Day song 'Primo Victoria' which obviously has relevance to France and which also had relevance to me since my Granddad served in the Navy at Normandy on D-Day and he died a year ago today (at the time of writing, rather than last Saturday). After that I rushed over to the Rock Hard stage to see Ex Deo, or as I like to call them, 'Kataklysm go LARPing'. Basically the music is a little less brutal than Kataklysm but it's mostly in the same vein, with lyrics entirely themed on the Roman Empire and Republic. It's quite impressive how metal bands are fascinated with history, whether it's World War 2, the Roman Empire, or something else. I can't imagine being into a genre of music that just sings about girls and cars much of the time. Anyway, Ex Deo were very good. From there it was back to the main stage to see Eluveitie who continue the semi-historical theme with their songs about ancient Gaul. I do find it hard to take their Inis Mona song seriously though, considering it's about an island where the main claim to fame these days is the presence of a nuclear power station.
Later came Behemoth. I'd heard a lot of positive things about these guys but never really given them a listen. They play black/death metal, they dress in the black metal costumed style, and they were on one of the main stages at 4pm in the blinding French sunlight. Doomed to fail, right? Wrong. I thought they were pretty amazing and despite being an extreme metal band more accustomed to small and dingy venues they acted as if they had been playing festivals from the first gig. Admittedly at this stage of the festival I'd seen 5 or 6 black metal bands (or death metal bands in black metal trappings, as arguably Behemoth are) and I was becoming hypnotised by the super-loud and super-fast KICK-SNARE-KICK-SNARE-KICK-SNARE-KICK-SNARE sound all these bands had. So you could have put any competent death metal band out there and I would have loved it.
Still, it was time to escape to less aggressive music, and 5 minutes later Katatonia delivered it over on the Rock Hard stage. They lost 2 of their long-standing members recently, and although I was worried about how this would affect the band, they replaced them with men with long blonde tresses who make Katatonia more metal again, headbanging at every opportunity. I know a band shouldn't be judged by their hairstyles but when you see people who look like that you know they don't intend to go off and write an electronic album any time soon (cf. Paradise Lost, circa 1999). I've seen Katatonia enough times now to not be amazingly impressed by what they play or how they play, and I was just a little disappointed that they didn't play Murder, but then they didn't play that in Nottingham when I saw them recently either. It was a good show nonetheless.
Over on the main stage afterwards was the Devin Townsend Project, and I didn't listen too closely as I'll see him at Bloodstock, but my main impression was that he's a very funny man, but that his music isn't terribly interesting. The former was a pleasant surprise, as I don't find his lyrical matter very funny, despite it being deliberately comedic in places, but he is a genuinely funny frontman. The latter was what I expected though - I just don't rate his music very highly. Very talented guy, just writing stuff I don't care about.
We were starting to run out of festival by this point. I spent a short bit of time watching Nile but they were, in technical musician terms, 'fucking shit'. I really don't see the attraction there. After that I found a nice spot to watch Slayer for what I think was the 3rd time (the previous 2 occasions being supporting Iron Maiden in 2000 and at Donington 1995 - I AM OLD) before relocating back to the Rock Hard tent for Bloodbath. I ran intovelvet_noise and Greg again while waiting around and had a terribly civilised chat before half of Katatonia and half of Opeth came on to deliver their dose of Swedish death metal. I am not a big fan of how Mikael Akerfeldt has changed from the polite frontman I first saw in 2003 to the overconfident and sometimes insulting person of today but I'm assured it's just a stage persona so I can half forgive him that. Despite playing a style of music that doesn't really appeal to me, Bloodbath were good fun to watch and a worthy band for me to close my Hellfest 2010 experience with. When they finished at 12:30am on Monday morning, I slowly trudged out of the arena, taking in the sights as I went, because I might not go back. Who knows.
Monday
The alarm was set for 7am on Monday as we had a 4pm ferry to catch, with the prospect of a 7hr drive through France ahead of us. Thankfully the act of packing up the tent was a lot easier - and a lot drier - than putting it up in the first place was. Compared to Wacken, with the long queues and the 8hr traffic jam outside Hamburg, escaping from the festival site and Clisson was much easier, and we were on our way in no time. The journey - this time with addedjellybearwhore - was again largely uneventful, thanks to the mostly deserted French toll roads, although at one point shouting "left! left! left! left!" at Laura made her turn right - bless! We stopped off at a pleasant French service station along the way which boasted a fine array of flags and odd sculptures, and I took this opportunity to buy some Red Bull and a packet of Pringles. Incideltally, the packet of Pringles have a picture of the French footballer Nicolas Anelka on it, and in it he looks genuinely happy and proud to be representing his country in the World Cup, which makes me almost sad that he got sent home after the second match. Amazing what sentiments a packet of crisps can bring out in me.
Anyway, Pink's driving would have made Lewis Hamilton proud and despite overshooting Calais and nearly ending up in Belgium, we still managed to turn around and get on an earlier ferry than we had been booked to be on. I think we were back in Nottingham by just after 8pm, whereupon about 4 people ambushed me on MSN asking how Hellfest was. The short answer was that it was pretty good, but I don't know if I'll go again. The language barrier is frustrating and the camping was awkward so I'll need some persuading to go back. We'll see.
Pictures, for the curious, can be found on Facebook here. If I find the time I may upload some of the better ones to Flickr too, but don't hold your breath!
Thursday
I was due to be picked up by Pink (my driver for this excursion) from my house at 7am, and I was ready on time. Unfortunately he was still asleep, so he showed up at nearer 7:30. We then crossed the city to collect
infestchris and by 8am we (me, Chris, Pink, and Pink's girlfriend Laura) were setting off down for Dover. The ferry was to leave at 12:15pm with the last check-in time at 11:45am, so there was some concern over whether we were going to arrive in time. This was heightened when the sat-nav told us we'd arrive at something like 1pm, but then sat-navs are not terribly reliable. And so it proved in this case, us arriving at the ferry at 11:44am - "what were you worrying about?" Amusingly the mission nearly failed at the last hurdle - Pink was too busy watching a police van in his rear view mirror once we got to Dover that he went straight through a red light and almost ploughed into the side of someone else's vehicle. That was just after the acceleration seemingly vanished on his car due to having evaporated almost all of the oil in the tank. Fun times.While waiting in line for the ferry we saw some fellow travellers from Nottingham such as
fiendil and darkwaveart so we stretched our legs and chatted in the sun for a while. Then we rolled onto the big boat thing and found somewhere to sit and talk/drink/be merry. I think it was the same ferry as we boarded to come back from Wacken last year, but sadly the beautiful girl I saw before wasn't there this time. I suppose it might have been a bit much to assume she takes that ferry several times a day, every day... Anyway, the journey by sea was uneventful and before long we were back on the road, albeit the other side of it.There was a tenuous plan for our 3 or 4 vehicles to drive down together, but due to some people getting ahead of themselves and others seeming to lag behind, this was soon abandoned in favour of an every-man-or-woman-for-itself rush to the finish, à la Cannonball Run (or something). We had a mostly uneventful trek through France, mostly due to the toll roads which feature very little traffic, meaning we were doing 170 to 180km/h in 110 km/h zones. A slight hitch came when we reached Le Mans and had 10 miles of fuel left in the tank. This led to a desperate search through the twisty and turny streets looking for somewhere that might sell us some diesel. We were down to the last handful of miles and seriously looking at the possibility of being stranded for a while before Laura (Pink's girlfriend, travelling with us) had the bright idea of getting the sat-nav to tell us where the nearest petrol stations were. Sure enough, there was one half a mile along the very road we were on, next to a Carrefour supermarket that we'd also been looking for to stock up on supplies. Luck was with us.
My experience of the supermarket was a bit crap. Finding good food in a country that makes 246 different kinds of cheese is difficult for someone that doesn't like cheese and isn't going to have cooking facilities, so I grabbed a baguette and some bananas and hoped for the best. I also went to try and get some cider but their selection was very poor, so in addition to some cider from Brittany (which turned out to be pretty good) I got 2 bottles of Leffe as well - better the devil you know, etc. Unfortunately when it came to checking-out time there was a bit of confusion as I was supposed to have bagged and barcoded the bananas and the language barrier made it difficult for the cashier to explain this to me. I hate hate hate not being understood almost as much as I hate hate hate not understanding other people, and this sort of thing is both in one go. Everybody says that you can get by fine in foreign countries without speaking the language but frankly I find it embarrassing and somewhat depressing. My inability to speak French is made worse by the fact that I studied French for 7 years, and that I have a great big "Born in Paris" on my bloody passport. Grr.
Anyway, we were back on the road fairly soon and after just a couple of minor wrong turnings we arrived at the festival site at 10pm.
Then things went a bit wrong again - because we were so late arriving compared to most people who'd been there all day, finding a camping spot was difficult. Someone's German friend led some of us - while joking about being a führer, since he was leading 20 English people - towards some 'unofficial camping' (ie. a spare field) before this was judged to be a bad idea and we returned towards the official camping space. The official camping area was incredibly full, and I think the Hellfest organisers really hadn't provided enough camping space for the number of people who were attending, so it took us a long time to find somewhere to pitch our tents, especially since night was falling and it was hard to find the spaces in what was also a poorly-lit campsite. To add insult to injury, the rain which the Internet had assured me would not happen, happened, and happened quite significantly, so we were getting drenched while trying to put up our tents. No fun. What was also no fun was having to move the tents, either to make room for other people, or because the campsite security needed space to drive their quad bikes through, etc. It got very frustrating very quickly and that first night was pretty miserable!
Once tents were up, we went to the party area where there was a beer tent where fun times should have commenced. However it was at that point that I discovered that the drink selection was not great, and that it was €2 for 25cl of Kronenbourg or 3€ for any other drink. That worked out at £3.70 or £5.60 a pint, which is expensive even by festival standards. I can afford it, but I felt quite annoyed that I would have to spend something like £15 to get even mildly merry. Instead I talked to Lorraine about how she was supposed to be delivering me 108 pretty women to my tent (6 an hour for 18 hours), and at some point
jellybearwhore appeared so we talked to her too. At about 3am local time I retired to the tent - I could have stayed up later, but I had Swallow The Sun to see quite early in the morning.Friday
I woke quite early, and tried to find the people in our party who were heading over to the local supermarket for more supplies, intending to get some more food and drink before Swallow the Sun came on. As it happened there was a lot of dithering and even when we set off we lost people along the way, so it was just me and Duncan for the most part. When we got there I left him with Dan and Reena who he was meeting outside and rushed inside to find some sustenance - 2 bottles of orange juice, which proved very useful, and a bottle of rum, which was awful and ended up being given away. If I actually bought any food, I forget what it was... Anyway, I rushed back, deposited the stuff at the tent, and went into the arena area. I missed Swallow The Sun play their first and maybe second song, but I caught the rest of the set. Quite why they were on at 11:40am I don't know - perhaps the French just have very poor taste. But they played well and had a decent crowd so it was good enough.
After that I went to check out Urgehal having seen them mentioned on
velvet_noise 's LJ (I think) but wasn't terribly impressed so I left the tent they were in and went for a wander. Soon after I found myself in the Terrorizer Tent for 3 bands in a row - Sigh, Negura Bunget, and Ghost Brigade. It was interesting that these 3 were on one after the other because absolutely no other band in this tent over the 3 days interested me one iota. Anyway, Japanese band Sigh were great fun, and I was intrigued to see if their live presence was as quirky as their recorded version, and I think the growling East Asian girl with angel wings and a saxophone did the job nicely there. Their other singer looks like a swordless Samurai so that ticked off my remaining Japanese stereotype boxes at least. Negura Bunget were ok but didn't grab me quite as much this time as they did at Wacken - I guess the problem with bands that interest you due to some sort of quirky element is that you're never as surprised the second time around. Ghost Brigade were one of the main bands I came here to see however, and that was an interesting experience. I had only heard them on record and had them down as being heavily influenced by Katatonia, yet just before the show I'd read someone describe them as primarily influenced by Neurosis, which I didn't really understand. But when I saw them, I could see why they thought this - if you look at Katatonia, they're all long-haired viking metal types, whereas Ghost Brigade mostly have the short-haired, beardy, post-metal look going on, despite coming from Finland. It's a bit like how the emo and hardcore people started getting into death metal and made deathcore and the like - you can have 2 different subcultural scenes arriving at the same musical destination, and it's only by looking at them that you might guess how they got there. But anyway, enough rumination on checkered shirts and beards - Ghost Brigade sound great, are great, and were great. One disappointment - Aleksi from Swallow the Sun is in Ghost Brigade but he wasn't performing. Why not? He's just played on the other stage, so surely he can walk over here? Oh well.
After them, I wandered around a bit more. I think I found some of my friends at some point, and even spotted
neojezebel at another point (but didn't speak to her - sorry!) but eventually found myself back in the Rock Hard tent to watch Ihsahn, after seeing a little bit of Kampfar who were disappointing. Ihsahn was/were (?) ok, but I'm not a massive fan of his solo stuff. But then, I'm not a massive fan of his work in Emperor either. -10 METAL POINTS. I like black metal but I don't like excessively progressive music so it's not my sort of thing, but everybody played well and it was good enough to watch. Unlike the Ghost Brigade disappointment I suppose it would be asking too much to have Mikael Akerfeldt to come and do his half a song of singing for Ihsahn when he doesn't have to perform here until Sunday, so I'll let him off there.Next up: Hypocrisy, who really impressed me back in Nottingham, but who bored me this time. I think they're the sort of band where to enjoy them requires you to either know all the songs or to be near the front, and neither was the case this time. Later came Watain, who weren't bad and who I shall be checking out further. They were followed by Ulver who were DULL DULL DULL. Seriously people, I know some of you really like Ulver but they're fucking tedious. I doubt anybody would give a damn about them if they hadn't started out as a black metal band and the highlight of their live performance is having a bloody field of antelope on the video screen behind them. I like ambient music and I like interesting soundscapes but I don't like pretentious toss, which is what Ulver are. NEXT! Actually, after the disappointment of Ulver - I had gone along hoping to discover something magical - I went back to my tent and got some rest while listening to the distant sound of Fear Factory, who were playing well, but Burton's voice was seriously off. Nice to hear them back to the old ways then! I dragged myself back out of the tent again to see what Marduk were like, and I'm glad I did, as they were entertaining enough.
Saturday
This was the day with the fewest interesting bands, so much of it was spent wandering between campsite and arena with a fair amount of time spent perusing the market stall area, where I bought a few CDs that aren't so common to see in the UK - 'Aerolithe' by Fall of the Leafe, 'Steadfast' by Forefather, 'Mond' by Lunar Aurora, and 'Refuge' by Rain Fell Within, one of
laurieannhaus's various past bands. One place had a load of interesting dark/gothic cds that I'll probably never see again, but my wallet isn't entirely bottomless. I think it was while wandering around on Saturday that I ran into Andy, the singer in Nottingham's Other Melodic Metal Band, Bloodguard. My band's singer Daz was working on the Earache stall so we outnumbered them 2 to 1, but I don't think either of us had brought demos to promote or anything. Ah well. It was shortly after this point that I thought it would be cool to have a demo featuring a few local bands (well, only the good ones). Maybe something for the future.I also spent a lot of time looking for something to eat and failing. You see, I'd been too shy to try and order food from the bloody Frenchmen who never understood what I wanted and insisted on asking a plethora of questions I couldn't understand, let alone answer, and it was getting me down a bit. I saw
velvet_noise and Greg, the latter offering to buy some food for me, but I declined. I felt this was a battle I should fight alone (where 'fighting' involved running away. I was in France, after all.)Anyway, back to the bands. I managed to catch female-fronted gothic/power metal act Delain at 12:15am and they were quite good. The next band I was interested in was Dark Funeral at 6:50pm and they were enjoyable also. Later on I saw Immortal and they were entertaining, despite some technical difficulties. Sadly I had to miss Slash and My Dying Bride respectively to see these two bands, but them's the breaks. In between I saw Airbourne who are a bit of an AC/DC tribute act. The guitarist did perform his impressive trick of climbing up scaffolding next to the stage and playing the guitar solo from the top, which was cool to watch, even if I was told that he does this at every festival they play at. Later that evening, I stayed up, despite my body aching for bed - even the uncomfortable bed of my tent - to see goth overlords Fields Of The Nephilim who were just as good as they were at Hellfire last year, but I didn't stop and listen to Carcass afterwards - and their video backdrops of penises oozing pus didn't exactly encourage me to be a spectator.
Sunday
By Sunday I was tired of being on my feet all the time and I was getting very hungry, and had been ready to go home for at least a day already. Still, I was cheering up a little and the bands were better today so this would hopefully be a good end to the fest. Sabaton opened proceedings, at least for me, and their fascination with war-themed lyrics always go down well with me. Of special note, making me feel a little melancholy, was their D-Day song 'Primo Victoria' which obviously has relevance to France and which also had relevance to me since my Granddad served in the Navy at Normandy on D-Day and he died a year ago today (at the time of writing, rather than last Saturday). After that I rushed over to the Rock Hard stage to see Ex Deo, or as I like to call them, 'Kataklysm go LARPing'. Basically the music is a little less brutal than Kataklysm but it's mostly in the same vein, with lyrics entirely themed on the Roman Empire and Republic. It's quite impressive how metal bands are fascinated with history, whether it's World War 2, the Roman Empire, or something else. I can't imagine being into a genre of music that just sings about girls and cars much of the time. Anyway, Ex Deo were very good. From there it was back to the main stage to see Eluveitie who continue the semi-historical theme with their songs about ancient Gaul. I do find it hard to take their Inis Mona song seriously though, considering it's about an island where the main claim to fame these days is the presence of a nuclear power station.
Later came Behemoth. I'd heard a lot of positive things about these guys but never really given them a listen. They play black/death metal, they dress in the black metal costumed style, and they were on one of the main stages at 4pm in the blinding French sunlight. Doomed to fail, right? Wrong. I thought they were pretty amazing and despite being an extreme metal band more accustomed to small and dingy venues they acted as if they had been playing festivals from the first gig. Admittedly at this stage of the festival I'd seen 5 or 6 black metal bands (or death metal bands in black metal trappings, as arguably Behemoth are) and I was becoming hypnotised by the super-loud and super-fast KICK-SNARE-KICK-SNARE-KICK-SNARE-KICK-SNARE sound all these bands had. So you could have put any competent death metal band out there and I would have loved it.
Still, it was time to escape to less aggressive music, and 5 minutes later Katatonia delivered it over on the Rock Hard stage. They lost 2 of their long-standing members recently, and although I was worried about how this would affect the band, they replaced them with men with long blonde tresses who make Katatonia more metal again, headbanging at every opportunity. I know a band shouldn't be judged by their hairstyles but when you see people who look like that you know they don't intend to go off and write an electronic album any time soon (cf. Paradise Lost, circa 1999). I've seen Katatonia enough times now to not be amazingly impressed by what they play or how they play, and I was just a little disappointed that they didn't play Murder, but then they didn't play that in Nottingham when I saw them recently either. It was a good show nonetheless.
Over on the main stage afterwards was the Devin Townsend Project, and I didn't listen too closely as I'll see him at Bloodstock, but my main impression was that he's a very funny man, but that his music isn't terribly interesting. The former was a pleasant surprise, as I don't find his lyrical matter very funny, despite it being deliberately comedic in places, but he is a genuinely funny frontman. The latter was what I expected though - I just don't rate his music very highly. Very talented guy, just writing stuff I don't care about.
We were starting to run out of festival by this point. I spent a short bit of time watching Nile but they were, in technical musician terms, 'fucking shit'. I really don't see the attraction there. After that I found a nice spot to watch Slayer for what I think was the 3rd time (the previous 2 occasions being supporting Iron Maiden in 2000 and at Donington 1995 - I AM OLD) before relocating back to the Rock Hard tent for Bloodbath. I ran into
velvet_noise and Greg again while waiting around and had a terribly civilised chat before half of Katatonia and half of Opeth came on to deliver their dose of Swedish death metal. I am not a big fan of how Mikael Akerfeldt has changed from the polite frontman I first saw in 2003 to the overconfident and sometimes insulting person of today but I'm assured it's just a stage persona so I can half forgive him that. Despite playing a style of music that doesn't really appeal to me, Bloodbath were good fun to watch and a worthy band for me to close my Hellfest 2010 experience with. When they finished at 12:30am on Monday morning, I slowly trudged out of the arena, taking in the sights as I went, because I might not go back. Who knows.Monday
The alarm was set for 7am on Monday as we had a 4pm ferry to catch, with the prospect of a 7hr drive through France ahead of us. Thankfully the act of packing up the tent was a lot easier - and a lot drier - than putting it up in the first place was. Compared to Wacken, with the long queues and the 8hr traffic jam outside Hamburg, escaping from the festival site and Clisson was much easier, and we were on our way in no time. The journey - this time with added
jellybearwhore - was again largely uneventful, thanks to the mostly deserted French toll roads, although at one point shouting "left! left! left! left!" at Laura made her turn right - bless! We stopped off at a pleasant French service station along the way which boasted a fine array of flags and odd sculptures, and I took this opportunity to buy some Red Bull and a packet of Pringles. Incideltally, the packet of Pringles have a picture of the French footballer Nicolas Anelka on it, and in it he looks genuinely happy and proud to be representing his country in the World Cup, which makes me almost sad that he got sent home after the second match. Amazing what sentiments a packet of crisps can bring out in me.Anyway, Pink's driving would have made Lewis Hamilton proud and despite overshooting Calais and nearly ending up in Belgium, we still managed to turn around and get on an earlier ferry than we had been booked to be on. I think we were back in Nottingham by just after 8pm, whereupon about 4 people ambushed me on MSN asking how Hellfest was. The short answer was that it was pretty good, but I don't know if I'll go again. The language barrier is frustrating and the camping was awkward so I'll need some persuading to go back. We'll see.
Pictures, for the curious, can be found on Facebook here. If I find the time I may upload some of the better ones to Flickr too, but don't hold your breath!
