If you have never been to Hellfest, you should definitely try to go. Yeah, that is the sentence I will start with. Every year it amazes me how the festival can get such an awesome lineup that makes you want to run around the whole festival ground. Hellfest has 6 stages on the festival ground. 2 main stages, The Temple, The Altar, The Valley and The Warzone. This year started a bit different for me because I have a neck injury and I had to be very careful where I positioned myself. That couldn’t stop me from going to Hellfest. We arrived a day early on the Thursday and my friends pitched their tents after we unpacked the car. We all went to get our wristbands and we made our way to the Hellcity Square.(That is just after the wristband entrance where they made a little town). In the center of this square there was a small stage and a wrestling ring that got me amped. After getting some food and walking back to see the bands playing on the small stage and I got to see The Rock n Roll Wrestling Bash. This was a live rock band combined with Luchador Wrestling. It was really fun but I was too tired to stay around and needed to go to sleep.
Rise and shine everyone! We started early in the morning with a Dutch band called Sick of Stupidity. With two vocalists, a guitarist and a drummer, they absolutely wrecked the stage with their ‘destroy everything’ attitude. It was fun to watch them preform and tear the stage apart! We were next hypnotized by the sound of Myrath. This Tunisian band plays progressive oriental metal and it was a great appetizer for what the day was going to bring. We quickly made our way to The Warzone for Booze & Glory. Although I totally misjudged them as a sleaze rock band (must have been the name), they were the surprise of the festival for me. This London based punk band just blew me away. The amazing energy, the catchy lyrics and the awesome crowd just made me love this band from the first time I saw them.
Back again on home turf for me when we went to see Textures. The Dutch progressive metal band announced in May of 2017 that this tour will be their last, so it’s probably one of the last times we got to see them. They played an amazing set and waved goodbye to a satisfied Hellfest crowd. Up next was Heavy Devy (Devin Townsend) and that was just great to see him make so many different faces while singing. This band is just something you have to see to understand them and they are great in what they do. One of the bands I really was waiting for that day was Powerwolf and they unleashed their Heavy Metal Mass upon Hellfest. Everyone was loving it and I couldn’t be happier. I even saw a wall of death and several people in wheelchairs crowd surfing. This happened to become a normal thing over the rest of the weekend but I never saw these things at a Powerwolf show. Ministry was up next with Uncle Al as a main attraction. The energy and raw power was intense and seeing Al Jourgensen tearing it up on stage was just a treat for the eyes. These industrial metal legends showed Hellfest exactly what Ministry is all about, even in the burning sun.
Deep Purple was the first headliner of the festival and they did not fail to amaze. The band is seen as one of the founders of “metal” and a lot of the bands playing this festival would not exist if there was no Deep Purple. The band set out to entertain and show the youngsters that they still rock and they did just that. Ending the night with Space Truckin’, Smoke On The Water, Hush and Black Night they delivered a solid encore and made the crowds at Hellfest look back with delight.
Sabaton was another band that burned up the stage at Hellfest. That’s all I can say about it. There was a contest which allowed the winner to come on stage and join the band for a song. Laurent Fabisz from Kryzees had the honor to join the band on stage and Joakim quickly left when they started to play Swedish Pagans. After Sabaton, it was time to light up the stage and bring out your dance moves for the legendary Rob Zombie. The band took their US stage production with them so the crowd was in for a treat. Mixed songs from the new album with a lot of the classics like More Human Than Human, Living Dead Girl and Dragula. They even played Blitzkrieg Bop and School’s Out to hype up the crowd even more after an electrifying Thunderkiss ’65. After the gig I was ready to go back to sleep.
(please read this following sentence in Chop Suey style).
Wake up, grab a beer and put on a little sunblock
My friends got really excited for IGORRR on the way over to Hellfest and I wasn’t completely sure what it was so I went to check it out. It’s very hard to describe this artist. it’s really weird and really awesome at the same time. Phil Campbell and The Bastard Sons were up next and they crushed it with a mix of their own material and classic Motorhead songs like Born To Raise Hell and Ace of Spades. We went to the Steel Panther press conference. It was funny and Michael Starr did a few metal impressions including one of Steven Tyler and Dee Snider. We walked back to the Main stages where we watched Pretty Maids entertain the crowd with classic and new songs. One of my highlights is when they played Back to Back, Ronnie’s voice sounded great and the whole band just had an explosive attitude and they rocked Hellfest to the core. Following Pretty Maids was Steel Panther and it was a really good show (and lots of on stage boobies or NICHONS as they would say in France). For me rock was going to make way for Finnish folk metallers Turisas who played their 2nd record The Varangian Way, finishing it off with Stand Up And Fight. Great set from a great band. It was then back to hard rock with Australian outfit Airbourne. Breaking beers over their heads and explosive mix of guitar and vocals this, band can’t be excluded on your ‘get psyched’ mix.
Aerosmith on their Aero Verdeci tour started strong and took me on a journey by playing nothing but hits from their illustrious career. The band sounded better than I’d ever seen before and personally, I don’t hope that this was the farewell tour because the band was in top form. It made us all ‘Come Together’ while we ‘Walked This Way.’
The next morning, we caught Ghoul who definitely delivered with guts and glory. The band is all masked and has monsters coming on stage like you would see with GWAR. These two are no strangers as they toured together in the US and they even recorded a song with Oderus. if you like gore, guts and blood this is a band for you.
Skindred is always a fun band to see live. Their charismatic frontman Benji Webbe knows how to hype you up. From the first minute you know it’s time to party and it makes you want to bounce up and down. If you are ever at a Skindred show just remember to take your shirt off and hold it over your head when you hear, “ARE YOU READY TO DO THE NEWPORT HELICOPTER!!”
Pentagram took the stage in The Valley without their vocalist Bobby Liebling and Victor Griffin instead and though it’s weird to see the band without Liebling, they still sounded great with their brand of heavy doom metal. Some would say even better than with Liebling as vocalist. However, the band is still a solid name in the doom metal scene and still seem to impress friend and foe. The Americans of DevilDriver demolished the main stage in the burning sun (as it was around 37 degrees Celsius). with crowd surfing wheelchairs and circle pits all over the field.
Alter Bridge took over the main stage as an evening pre-headliner. Fronted by Myles Kennedy supported by Brian Marshall, Mark Tremonti and Scott Phillips, these American rockers swept up the crowd with their energy. Ending with Blackbird and Metalingus, it was too bad that they only played an hour. Who can’t remember singing along to Don’t Fear The Reaper in the good ol’ days, at Hellfest you got to relive those days with Blue Öyster Cult playing The Valley. These rockers still hold their ground as they did back in the day and everyone seemed to enjoy it. A lot older but still rocking is all I can say. The Prophets of Rage took over Hellfest next and released the inner beast in us all. You take Rage Against The Machine and mix it with a few of rap’s finest (Cypress Hill, Public Enemy) and you get a love child called Prophets of Rage. The energy was just amazing and the on stage chemistry was felt all over. Spitting out rhymes and exploding riffs will make you Take The Power Back. The album drops in September and is definitely one for the books with a few original tracks by different members. The band ended with Killing in The Name Of and an instrumental version of Audioslave’s Like a Stone for the late Chris Cornell.
https://www.facebook.com/brealofcypresshill/videos/1881452538763488/
https://www.facebook.com/brealofcypresshill/videos/1881452538763488/
In 2014, Emperor returned to Hellfest with the 20 year anniversary of In The Nightside Eclipse and played the main stage. Many thought then that it was too big of a stage to truly embrace the music and that’s why in 2017, Emperor returned to Hellfest for the 20th anniversary of Anthems To The Welkin At Dusk in The Temple but this time, at a smaller stage at Hellfest, and everyone was absolutely right that the sound of Emperor gets its full potential on a smaller stage. It was a treat for the ears to hear them play Anthems in full and ‘I Am The Black Wizards’ as a dessert to the magnificent maincourse. While Linkin Park played in the background as the final headliner, we could see and hear the first sounds of Hawkwind, who still rock like they did in the 70’s. But because of the heat all day, I made it an early night, while the final band of the festival took the stage: The almighty Slayer. Fans in a 5 mile radius could listen to Slayer and with that Hellfest 2017 ended. Hellfest 2017 was amazing and I can’t wait to go back to Clisson in 2018 (22 – 24 June).