Sunday was the day I least found what I was looking for so I apologise for covering less bands than the previous days. It was a day when I followed friends to concerts I wouldn’t have been on my own, gave a try to bands I thought would speak to me but didn’t.
So I indeed followed this one friend to the Valley to see Dool. They played dark rock, a genre and vibe I’m not familiar with so it was all about watching and listening how they sounded on stage. The show was nice, I liked the energy and the way the singer got things done by putting efforts into it all by preserving the aura and the atmosphere.
I then went to the Temple for Yoth Iria black metal. And I was served, but probably not in the best way. I’m sorry. I really am but I don’t have the choice. Such moment of unease, that long and that intense, can not go unspoken. It is different from the 15 minutes out of the 40 minutes set spent by Slaughter to Prevail so they could *virtually* create the biggest wall of death (which is not valid to me as it was not spontaneous enough, definitely one-man made) but it is at least as embarrassing. It even had the merit to be confusing for a good while. What happened is that there was a long misunderstanding about who was the real singer of the band. When the show started, there was this old school black metalhead warming up the crowd. He was trashed, completely dishevelled and he was a nightmare for both filming crew and security as he wandered between the stage and the pit. Most importantly, he had found a mic and sang the first two songs. Of course, he was not always in rhythm but fundamentally, why not. Maybe it shows the early years of the band with the trashy side of it. This thought I had on the moment was the first thing that made this show worse. The second was about to happen. The official singer eventually showed and everything became instantly serious and neat. There were heavy elements with light atmospheric ones and he was just as dedicated to entertain the crowd, simply in a less hardcore way. The compositions were correct and well executed but… I did not find them incredible either. It didn’t speak to me and it was not enough to make up for the embarrassment. Because more of it definitely happened and it felt off to me because the band itself contributed to it. As the bassist, Jim Mutilator, told he was one of the founding member of Rotting Christ and that they were going to play “Non Serviam”, the official singer handed the microphone himself to the drunken one. From that moment, the band lost the few control they had on this show and made themselves even more responsible for all the everlasting moment of awkwardness.
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I came back to the Temple for Batushka and while they played in the early evening, the pit was crowded as if it was 22.00 on the previous days. Their stage set-up was elaborated and beautiful, be it for the altar, the candles, the skull or the effort on samples and lights. The eight members arrived and made a strong impression with their large costumes covering their faces. They started their set gently, with a delicate percussion introduction and proceeded with their signature orthodox chant. It sounded a little muddled at the beginning but it was quickly fixed. A screamer eventually stood out from this deep bloc, his gestures were appropriate and balanced. They had a good unity on stage, went through various rhythms to avoid repetition, enlightned their setlist with different solists and mastered the atmosphere. What could have been overbearing and blurred was well adjusted and featured. I was glad to hear some diversity because it would have been easy to lock into such a precise concept. For that matter I would rather consider Batushka as a conceptual project much more than an actual band. The latest shines by the cohesion of definite individuals while individuality is pretty much suppressed in Batushka. Apart from their roles and their place on stage, nothing allows us to properly distinguish a member from another. Without talking to me 100%, they were much better than any other band I had seen so far that day. They were actually part of the last good new acts I attended of the whole festival.
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I would rather consider The Offspring as not competing. Not only because they are definitely not new to me but also because they are part of bigger bands that can not afford to go in-depth when it comes to their setlist and the atmosphere where they want to take they crowd to. Their international success in a way turned them into entertainers, more than just a band. This means that a good part of their audience doesn’t expect their refined, sometimes darker, and lesser known compositions. They want to hear their biggest hits and have fun. And well, we did. It was a special, somewhat long process for me to switch-off from my black metal mindset to find teenage me again and enjoy this show as an adult. Yet this somehow helped me to see where and how they exploited this small window allowing them to do something else. First option was to play newer songs like “Make It Alright” from their upcoming album Supercharged, out on October 11th. Second one was to include a gem only here and there in the various setlists from this tour and it happened to be “Hammerhead”. It’s a song that spoke a lot to me in the past months so I’m really glad they played it. It’s also a song about the mindset of a gunman in a school shooting, it’s one of their darkest lyrics. And that, in the middle of more laid back ones.
This is pretty much when the festival ended to me. I tried to stay for Dimmu Borgir but I could not find a proper spot to hear everything as I could already not see much. And I was exhausted. While the infrastructure of the Hellfest allows them to host that many festival goers, it was definitely not a pleasant experience for anyone it there. We can go around correctly but there is no place left to sit and take a break as there were people absolutely everywhere. I feel this festival had an exponential and steady development but now, as for many other things, it should be time to think about degrowth. Many major events go out of hands these days, not necessarily security wise as Hellfest really is at the forefront, but it’s simply killing the fun and thus, killing the point of it all.
