Hellfest 2007 by SpiriT

Saturday

Weather will be quite appropriated all the day. No rain, not much sun with cloudy sky. I will try the fest food… bad idea. 7€ for a cold "hot dog" with French fries not fried…

From Amon Amarth I will make pictures from the pit. The security has changed its organisation, and now photographers wait far from the right side of the scene, seeing nothing, hearing just the subs… And 40 minutes for less than one minutes of shooting, it's Disneyland without Mickey. I'm wondering how the vigil will take it if I ask him to put a mouse's mask… maybe Donald duck ?… no ? Bad… it would have worth my while.

Anyway, I'm here to make shots AND enjoy the music. I will be the only one out of the 80 photographers to take my chances in the pit. Cowards :p.

Gibson Stage

Salem, the first Israelian metal band I heard from, will be a good surprise. Good sound, good attitude, no doubt those guys were happy to play before us. During the rest of the day i came across the singer a thousand times…

Second are the French Core players of The ARRS, it's the fourth time I see them, and if it's not the best, due to the constraint of a 30 minutes show, it will be nevertheless a good fucking show with much enthusiasm and a good sound. During the morning, with no more rain and a little sunny weather, the mud has start to harden, so the crowd is far more aggressive this day. However, as always, Nico (the singer) will do his slam in a crazy pit. During those short 30 minutes, we will have two circle pit and also a braveheart, the first of the festival as far as I know.

Then it's time to see the attraction of the day : Korpiklaani "Pure Finnish Folk Metal". Apparently, there's much people waiting for them... they will not be disappointed. The show will be great, festive play with much rejoicing from stage & pit. Even if I have a strong preference for the German band In Extremo, I was near to start a jig ;). The finish song, "beer beer", clearly expected since the very beginning of the show, will be loudly acclaimed.

Absolutely different is the next group : Kickback is pure HxC. Their logo "Fuck Hardcore, fuck your scene, fuck you" well talk for the band. The singer will have a constantly extremely aggressive behaviour, insulting the public between each song starting by throwing the mike stand in the middle of the pit (thanks for us …). The result will not last, the crowd will answer with the only thing they got, mud, for the joy of the leader, clearly pleased. Apart from that, the band will perform well, with some nice songs, if you're able to forget the rest (unless you enjoy that kind of attitude, which is not my case).

Walls of Jericho will be the last band I saw on the Gibson this afternoon, since I cannot duplicate myself and will be after that stuck in the main pit. WoJ is an incredible energy condensed. Front woman Candace grunt's are awesome, the guitar player is a real Marsupilami and the band is really good on stage. A must see.

As I said, I did not attend the next shows, so here is what I've collected from the public. Cynic was particularly awaited since 14 years, and their return was a real success, even if some find that the lack of a second "death" voice is regrettable. Napalm Death was next, an average performance for the old death metal band, with a quite agitated Barney. Moonspell is my big sorrow of the day. I wished to see them, but their show was between Cob and Immortal, and by this time I was at the first row in the pit, ideally placed to shoot, so I had to forfeit the Portuguese. Apparently it was one of the best whole Fest show… Sic !

Therion was another story. For the last participation of their male singer, therion was the last band to play on the second stage. They did encountered some difficulties during their balance, and still get some troubles during their show and concluded their act with "this is the worst organisation we ever seen in 20 years". Besides that, show was good.

Gibson Stage

After Forever was the first group this afternoon, and certainly the last group I wanted to see during the Hellfest. Sorry for the fan, I dislike as much as possible their music. So when I saw on the press info that photo were not allowed during their show, I was quite amused. Anyway, since I'm not stubborn, I try to catch a glimpse on their live performance, and discover that photo were allowed (??). Quite nice, the band seems to enjoy their time and i suppose the fan are pleased, but two songs and some pix later, the verdict is still the same… after forever earns well its name (don't make me becoming more unsubtle than I already am).

I missed the next 3 groups (I was in the Gibson'pit), but I've heard Vader as Epica performed on average. The last of the three was Brujeria, and I've heard from the other stage two songs : "Marijuana" and "Brujerismo". Sounds good to me, but seems to divide the audience.

Amon Amarth was the first group I really wish to see on the main stage this afternoon. Their show started with an interesting 5 minutes warriors battle. The rest of the show was good, not their best performance of all times, but I did enjoyed the few I've seen (cf Mickey's rules :p)

I was quite afraid of how Pain of Salvation would dealt with the fest. The group's concepts are not easy to perform during a 40minutes show in the middle of the afternoon. Hopefully, the band played some songs from their last album, which reminds me some old Clawfinger and saved the show until to the quite out of subject Disco Queen. Crowd will literally flee during this funky song. Anyway, this will allow me to gain access to the first row of the pit for the rest of the evening. On the bad side, it's the return of the killing bass, astoundingly too loud.

So did I came right under the right side of the stage just for Children of Bodom's show. Good. Clearly cob is one of the big interest of the day for much people, as I can see a very large crowd behind me filling the whole field in front of the mainstage. I never had the opportunities to see the band live before, and only knew about their poor performance reputation. It was a real good surprise to see (at least this time) they did not earned this reputation.

Show was impressive, good sing, good play, good attitude. Fucking Alexis from Fucking Children of fucking Bodom was fucking pure fucking American fucking style (if you see what I mean ;)). Only regret, again the sound is TOO LOUD. Even with good hearing protection my ears were aching on every bass played, and a lot of people around me did not wear protection of any kind.

Last but one, Immortal was one the great band of the evening. Sadly they will have three false starts before they can play : each time the sound will crash after the first drum note, wasting the pyrotechnical effects. It was not Horgh's evening, for he will have problem with his stool. Besides that Abbath was incredible both for his great solos and awesome fire-eating.

Type O Negative was the last band of the night. Things started bad for them as a pale, hazed Peter Steele sing his firsts songs with a poor broken voice, far from what he's able to. But it seems Steele is a diesel machine, and after the third song he will perform well for the rest of the show. Besides that, it will be a good Type O Negative, with their usual foul play and strange acting sometimes.