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Hellfest Open Air 2011
Part 3/4
Day 2: Metal Thrashing Mad.
In case you haven’t noticed every day has a subtitle named after a metal song. And none other than this Anthrax hymn could describe day two any better! Featuring the Big Three of Teutonic Thrash on the same day, together with some other great Thrash bands and also some great names of Death Metal, this was clearly a day devoted to the more extreme end of the metal spectrum. This was also the day of the first big flood of people on the festival, with names such as Scorpions and Coroner headlining it.
The day was going to be very long indeed, so again I skipped the earlier bands of the day and instead jumped right into the Whiplash concert. What a blast from this power trio, beginning the Thrash marathon with a great deal of Speed Metal all around. A lot of classics from the first two albums were played and they seem like they’re still up to the task. This also marked a tendency for the whole day as this concert was already packed full of people.
A jump from Main Stage 2 to Main Stage 1 and Angel Witch were already playing, another power trio from the eighties but now with a little help from a second axeman. And it was none other than Bill Steer from Carcass/Napalm Death fame, which demonstrated that he can play and have fun with any type of music. Blazing NWOBHM glories from the past, carried on with their debut album which was nearly exhausted in its entirety during the concert, and an added surprise in the form of “Hades Paradise” from their 1980 EP. Sadly Kevin Heybourne seems to have lost most of his high notes with age, which is a real shame considering that his screams where part of Angel Witch’s magic. Still a great show though!
The morning was pretty much nonstop and at the end of Angel Witch I was already heading back to Main Stage 2 to see Mekong Delta, a fairly underground band that is pleased to compete with Voivod for the trophy of most “out there” Prog Thrash band of the planet. With only Ralph Hubert (bassist) from the original line-up, the band demonstrated immediately that they were serious. The amazing leads of the vocalist started what was a pretty much stellar concert, filled with moments were my mind just travelled to the space beyond, but ultimately it proved to be too much for the hearts and minds of the crowd. Filled with twisted and demented riffing it was yet another great show, and it wasn’t even 2PM!
The final concert of this second day’s early part was given by a band that’s been generating a lot of fuss, Dutch supergroup Hail Of Bullets. Let me just tell you that if I was already fuelled up from the earlier shows then this one destroyed everything in its path. A forty-ton tank rolled over me as the small intro “The Eve Of Battle” ended, and what followed was simply devastating! This was one of the best shows in the entire Hellfest and I can assure you that whoever missed it must be sobbing badly because it was simply amazing! With a special mention to the mighty Bolt Thrower (the best Death Metal band in the world according to Mr. Van Drunen) on “Full Scale War”, it was a constant and unrelenting storm of riffs while still retaining some of those great grooves that they are known for. Really amazing and one of the best shows this year!
A little pause was needed after four shows in a row, and to help a bit The Haunted didn’t play because of “technical difficulties”, although they would end up playing later that night at the Metal Corner stage. So after catching my breath I was back on the Rock Hard Tent for another beating, namely Exhumed. And trust me, it was a real beating! Opening up their show with “Necromaniac” and covering mainly their albums Gore Metal and Slaughtercult, it was a savage concert that left no one indifferent. There was still time for “Waxwork” and a new song “As Hammer To Anvil” which complemented the set really well. There was also time for Matt Harvey to gush a severed head over himself at the end of the show, ending it in style!
Municipal Waste was making the crowd move a bit at this point, and there were already so many people in the concert area that it was becoming hard to move around with ease. Not really interested in them I made my way to the bar. Thin Lizzy played but again it wasn’t my thing so I decided to grab a bite at my tent, which proved to be a not so smart move since I missed the Destruction show due to…ahm…falling asleep! Plus I had to hear everyone in camping say that they were very brutal and that it was an amazing show. Oh well…maybe I can see them next year as Schmier announced the intention of a Teutonic Big Three tour. We’ll see about that!
Despite having missed Destruction I still had something like six more shows to attend that day, the first of which by the Norwegian band 1349. At this point I realized that it would be impossible to reach the pit since I spent twenty minutes in line on this show and still couldn’t get into it. That was the tendency for the remaining shows of the day and it made it impossible for me to take any more photos. As I said before there were thousands of people there that day and now add to that three hundred photo reporters! A shame really since there were a lot of bands that I wanted to photograph and couldn’t. Anyway, 1349 started off nice with a bit of the usual fire-breathing, but then the concert degenerated into a display of blasting and tremolo riffs that didn’t get me moving, despite playing songs like “Chasing Dragons” and “I Am Abomination”. And I happen to like 1349, it just wasn’t the right time of the day to see them I suppose.
Next in line was another part of the German trident and another power trio, Sodom. What can I say about their show? Simply put, all hell broke loose! With a set list comprised with songs from a big part of their career, including the horrific “Blasphemer” from 1984, they delivered a ten megaton bomb into the crowd. If you ever want to see a brutal Thrash concert check Sodom. It went as far as having a guy in a wheel chair doing crowd surfing! True story!
The marathon of shows continued, so I was back again to the Rock Hard Tent for the Greek demons, Septicflesh. I’ll be honest; the fact that Sotiris Vagenas doesn’t accompany the band for tours hinders their shows, as his clean vocals are the perfect complement for Spiros Antoniou hellish screams. That added to the fact that they had some sound problems during the show made it a bit less than it could be. It still was a good show, with Spiros always pushing the crowd and even demanding a wall of death! The set was pretty much based around their last couple of albums and the crowd was very enthusiastic.
Back to Main Stage 2 where the Thrash trinity was about to be completed with one of my favourite bands, the German Kreator. Again it was a very brutal show, with the usual “Pleasure To Kill” and “Flag Of Hate/Tormentor” combo accompanied this time by a surprise in the form of “Endless Pain”. But the fact is that the band seemed happy enough in just playing songs from the last ten years and leaving out of the set albums like Terrible Certainty, Extreme Aggression and especially Coma Of Souls. Why they do this I’ll never understand, and how “Phobia” has a place in a Kreator show is even weirder. Thanks for not playing your best songs Mille, thanks a lot!
Two more shows remained and two of gigantic proportions, Bolt Thrower and Coroner. Yes, I didn’t see Scorpions but I wasn’t ready to lose the mighty war machine was I?! Actually I’m glad that I lost the Scorpions show in favour of them because Bolt Thrower was single-handedly the best show of this year’s Hellfest. Sure personal taste comes to matter but it was a brutal display of how mythic this band is. I could spend half a page describing them but I’ll just say that they opened with “The IVth Crusade” and played songs like “World Eater”, “Cenotaph”, “When Glory Beckons”, “No Guts, No Glory” and almost half of the Those Once Loyal album. Jo Bench demonstrated why she’s one of the most enduring women in the metal world as her low-end leveled the ground like a bulldozer. An amazing display from a legendary band that barely gives any concerts, and those fortunate enough to have witnessed this show will remember it forever. Fun fact was that I happened to bump into the guys from Hail Of Bullets at the show. Cheers Gebédi!
Before Coroner started there was time for one of the best moments in the festival, the homage to recently departed Patrick Roy, crusader for the equality of rights and staunch defender of Hellfest. The fact that a politician defended a metal festival in the French Parliament is noteworthy and admirable, and he was well remembered at the sound of AC/DC’s “For Those About To Rock We Salute You”. Photos of him during the earlier editions of the festival were displayed and fireworks accompanied the rocking crowd that burst into a spine-chilling wave of applause. A moment and a person to be remembered! There was still time for honouring other recently departed metal gods as Dio and Peter Steele.
So end of the line and Coroner to hit Main Stage 2, with a packed crowd that was just too big for estimations. The Swiss trio unleashed a show revolving around their later material, namely Mental Vortex and Grin, preferring the technical groovy rhythms to the sheer speed of execution that they were know for on their early albums. Songs like “Masked Jackal” and “Why It Hurts” served as an appetizer for fans of their older albums, but it was with the closer “Reborn Through Hate” that they ended in style. Despite having a more recent set list and a bit of tuning differences in some songs (check the interview with Tommy) they displayed a clinical precision that turned out to be a bit like Mekong Delta earlier that day, just too much for some to comprehend. It was a great show albeit stripped of the sheer intensity of some classic songs.
This time around I didn’t pass out immediately and was able to chat a bit in the camping with some of my friends. It was a really tiresome day and another one was already in the horizon.
