Welcome to Hell!
Hellfest 2009
Hellfest is more than just another summer festival; it is an apocalyptic heavy metal experience that makes you feel like you have entered the thunderdome from Mad Max. Wondering around the dust and rock strewn main arena you encounter oiled up Fuel Girls, forests of perfectly groomed mullets, rusty flaming towers, stunt motorbikes in spherical cages, giants, midgets, and whole lotta growling. Hellfest is one of the worlds most revered metal festivals, taking place in the idyllic of Clisson in western France, and 2 weeks ago i had my first taste of hell. And it tasted meaty!
The first thing you notice about Hellfest is the sense of camaraderie. Unlike festivals that have a wide range of music genres, Hellfest brings together like minds from all over the world, united as outcasts in the real world but brothers (and a few sisters) in arms in this world. Rarely a time went by without hearing a gut wrenching roar from someone, promptly followed by response roars from people all around you. In fact, on the friday night a ‘mexican’ roar started on the campsite and seemed to echo from tent to tent well into Saturday morning.
There is of course a wide range of sub genres to metal, and Hellfest goes all out to represent the whole picture. The line up for this year illustrated this, featuring, for the stadium rockers, WASP, Motley Crue & Girlschool. Anthrax and Slayer took up the reigns for the 80′s thrash heads. The Doom plaudits went out to Electric Wizard and Orange Goblin, plus Sludgecore from Eyehategod. And for the younger revellers, there was Cardle of Filth and Saturdays headliner, Marilyn Manson. Also on the bill were Europe (looking scarily young!), Cathedral, Grand Magus, Machine Head, Gama Bomb, and to close the festival, Manowar. Plus a whole heap more.
The first band i saw, having arrived pretty late on the friday, was Motley Crue. I think it may have been unfortunate introduction to Hellfest though, as they were shambolic to say the least, and imbued with an arrogance still strong since their heyday. Particularly cringe-worthy was when Tommy Lee was called from his drums to the front of the stage to greet the fans. Either he wasn’t prepared for this or was so wasted that he couldn’t string anything coherent to say together. But hey, i was pretty tired from driving for 8 hours and was probably being slightly harsh. And who can help but get pumped to ‘Girls Girls Girls’!
There are 3 ways to get your food hit at Hellfest. Either at the stalls in the arena (only for hardcore meat lovers), from the local Supermarche, or from the lone MacDonalds restaurant located behind the car parking. The MacDonalds proved to be the most popular choice and from open to close it was a buzzing next of metal heads demanding big macs and the use of a clean toilet. The staff were very accommodating though, and by Sunday had procured some metal cd’s which they were playing through the sound system at full blast. In fact the whole town seemed to give in to the swathe of black shirts and skintight jeans, and there was a general air of acceptance. After all, there is serious money to be made from a festival crowd who need to eat, drink and smoke lots of cigarettes.
The first thing you saw when you walked into the main arena was the Monster sponsored stunt ball. You got to watch dudes on motorbikes driving around the inside of the sphere while half naked chicks climbed all over the outside of it. For some it was the ultimate wet dream and they could be seen glued to the same spot, day and night. That is, of course, when they weren’t in the chick wrestling tent.
Grand Magus – Rock Hard Stage
We left on monday morning, battered and bruised, in body and mind. But with a constant feeling of inner glee and fire in the pits of our darkened souls. And smelling of lobster. And we chased a battered white van that had 666 in the number plate and a Slayer logo on the bonnet. Maybe it actually was Slayer? Id like to think so….
