Choose metal. Choose a style of music that can pulverize your anxiety. Choose a festival that takes it to the extreme, bashes your head in and lets you laughing silly. Choose toilets with a ceramic bowl. Choose reasonably cheap beer in dedicated designed plastic cups. Choose fornicating in the tent while Avenged Sevenfold are blasting away. Choose personalizing your Doc Martens in which you slept in for 3 days straight being too tired to take the off but all so happy to have. Choose buying 20 vinyls in the metal market. Choose having your left tit signed by your favorite singer. Choose having limitless drinking water when the sun is blazing at 30 degrees. Choose your burger or Argentinian steak wisely. Choose having burning meteors on top of the rusty steel bars. Choose curtains of water to take off the steam. Choose a pool in the VIP space. Choose either listening to heavy metal on the main stage or destroying your soul and ears for Satan in front of the Temple stage. Choose Dinking wine whilst listening to punk. Choose getting your picture taken whilst dressed as a pink bunny. Choose being free from hustle and frowns for 3 straight days. Choose befriending people. Choose Fireworks. Choose 1001 t-shirts with Judas Priest. Choose your speaker for he is your best friend. Choose getting hit on by a tall blonde tattooed metal chick that thinks you’re the bassist from Rise of The North Star. Chose circle pits that get you higher than a joint. Choose getting hosed on with fresh water. Choose green grass. Choose Hellfest.
Wasn’t like the other times as we reached Clisson two days early to indulge in some sightseeing and not plunge ourselves head on into the heat, the excitement, the music, the crowding streets and the maddening crowds. Wasn’t as hastily a shock and it was a refreshing trip by car. Being welcomed properly by our host we were free once again to sip in the beautiful town that is Clisson, with its Castle, winding streets of the old city, its tiny restaurants with plats à la française. A walk down the banks of the river by which just a small batch of kids were returning from a day trip got our feet heavy but ur hearts clear. As usual the giant E Leclerc supermarket did good in filling our bags and bellies with all that is good and proper for a metal festival. And beer.
Once having got our bracelets, we stumbled to enter on Friday morning so as to listen to Dopethrone as we indulge quite daily in a good measure of sludge and we are quite fond of Canadians. Got in some progressive metal with Tesseract and Sons of Apollo. Dint get very warm with Joan Jett and she didn’t seem go get warm with us either. Meshuggah as always took a battering ram to the crowds and not many a metalhead stood standing in the end. The sonic boom continued with Crowbar at the Valley. It was time for some super stars: Steven Wilson cracked some jokes, Hollywood Vampires sung some classics and Judas Priest gave the signal for the metal meltdown. There was a Corrosion of Conformity to end A Perfect Circle.
Being broken in half with a rather nasty hangover that only some French and English breakfast with a Romanian touch of beer could veer off, we took our bags and went on to take a glance at our Greek friends from 1000mods. Not that I wish only to listen to melodic extreme metal when I hear of Greek bands. Crunching stoner that really set us in the mood and warmed our hearts so as to take in Mark Tremonti and Powerflo quick on the mainstages. The festival entry was the same as last year, not to take any of its glory because it is a magnificent gateway and a sight for sore eyes. Being curious what Jonathan Davis is like without the madness of its counterparts from Korn we remained glued to the Mainstages. Next up Heilung in the tent stages and their folk metal. The remainder of the day was a magnificent display of new metal and metalcore, as Deftones, Limb Bizkit, Avenged Sevenfold filled our ears and hearts. And who said the 90’s didn’t produce good music or that metalcore is dead?
After 2 days of Hellfest burgers our stomachs were in need of some change and we found plenty of choice at the food stands. We also started realizing what effort was put on each year to bring more and more details into the scenery and make it worth a ticket of 200 euros. The walls designed with rusty metal, flames blazing from everywhere, a meteor shooting bursts of fire, clean water, German organization everywhere.
We were quite disgusted to wake up and realize it is Sunday already and in a few hours we would say goodbye to our friends and to another great Hellfest. We gave it all we got to encompass some of the best bands from the last day. Zeal and Ardor shook the valley and proudly gave us a good spanking. Maybe just for being white. What could have I got from the pharmacy to prepare me for the ultimate sermon of Batushka? Didn’t matter in the end. Kept me excited enough to see Megadeth though. As the night was coming to an end, Alice in Chains gave a good effort and Kadavar were quite wild in delivering their 70s stoner. A final fuck you was greedily offer by Marilyn Manson and we slowly took our carcasses to sleep.
Go? No, I wouldn’t go if I were you. The beer is too good, the toilets too convenient, the sound too clean, the food too edible and the lineups makes me cry each year. And I swore wouldn’t praise them this year. Cheers!
Răzvan Aprodu
1 x EUR
1 x GBP
1 x USD
