Hellfest 2024 report

Hellfest 2024 report with an elegant delay because illness finally caught me up when I arrived home.

So, 2024 edition of Hellfest was, let’s say, different. For me at least, and while I still can’t explain it for myself for 100%, I hope I will cope with this in the end of report. Long before the festival I was surprised by huge wave of cancelling and bands’ replacements. That’s not something new: last year some Ukrainian bands couldn’t come because of Ministry Of Culture and in 2019 Manowar cancelled their show literally the last moment. However, the number still seems pretty large to me. The choice of headliner was pretty surprising for me as well, but after a small research I found the article with the words of Ben Barbaud (the main man behind Hellfest) and something became clearer. Ok, Foo Fighters was never my cup of tea but there were a lot of other bands to see, so it wasn’t not a problem or a tragedy.

This year my friend Eugene and me decided to pay more attention to smaller scenes than to main stages, make more interviews and to see and try to understand some bands that were always ignored by us (spoiler: we failed.)

The show of the festival for me was definitely Kanonenfieber. I heard them previously, I liked their music but I had zero expectations when I came to the Temple to see them for the first time. Man, that’s exactly one of those cases when I searched for the copper and found gold. The decoration on the scene (cannons, sandbags, barbed wire),  pyro, smokes, lights, WWI uniform and black masks (faceless soldiers at the not needed war), Noise’s scenic image, his moves and clothes changing–it’s already not just a “show”, it’s a blackened death metal theatre and you just can’t take your eyes off it. Just take a look and you will understand, I promise. At the same time I don’t get why is not on the main stage with their impressive and thoughtful performance on headliners’ level? Is it too extreme, so Simple Plan will play at main while bands like this will huddle at Altar and Temple?

Something similar happened with French death metal band FT-17 from Nantes, who tells about WWI from the French perspective. The guys played at Hell Stage on Sunday and gathered pretty big number of people, which is quite hard for the stage located in the middle of Hell City. I hope, they will get the bigger stage next year.

I’ve heard The Dead Krazukies, French skate punk band even before the festival and they do their things great: their songs are driving, their lyrics can be serious and mocking, their choruses are catchy and of course they have “fuck you” and “who-oh”. NOFX, Bad Religion and Pennywise are their heroes. They are cool and very self-ironic and their videos are cool too. It’s a pity that they got only 30-minutes set an Warzone. I was lucky to have an interview with them and I really think that people need to hear about them.

Fear Factory surprised me pleasantly with the new vocalist Milo Silvestro. I was lucky to see Fear Factory with Burton C Bell in 2015 at Demanufacture XX tour and I must admit that Milo is very similar to Burton both vocally and with delivery (while his look is more striving to Dino’s, he-he.) The crowd was also happy to see the band, the set was great and there was no there was no disappointment or rejection. What can I say, let’s wait for the new album.

My old dream, to see Dark Tranquillity live, finally came true. The set list embraced the songs from all times, from the first albums up to the newest single, when fast and brutal songs were changed by melancholic ones. It was a great concert and Mikael Stanne interacted with the crowd greatly. Soon after them Sodom went to the Altar stage to close the first day: four long white-haired veterans of Teutonic thrash metal in cold blue lights looked stunning and from the first track they deafened the crowd with their aggression and might.

Talking about interaction with the crowd, I need to mention Khemmis: they didn’t have some decorations and were wearing regular outfit but their energy and the contact with the crowd do their job and people showed them love. Also the final “Conversation With Death” was performed greatly and accepted really warm. For me it was even more great on the contrast with doom metal act Morne, which opened the festival for me (it was not my choice, to be honest): a slow-paced, viscous music, heavy sound and almost zero action on the stage. Just four black dressed men play songs, that’s all. Icelanders Skálmöld also had no show, no stage outfits but they played their first song and immediately won the crowd, while there were countless horns in the air, metal and Viking ones.

Machine Head was one of two interesting headliners for me but I was forced to leave something like 20 minutes before the end of the show. Still it was great: I had zero expectations, just like with Kanonenfieber but the new line up, old Robb Flynn, lots of famous songs and fireworks–it was a great ending of the day. Music was loud, it was groovy, the vocals were almost the same as on albums and god damned it was great. However, my primary concert was The Offspring on the last day of festival. I’ve been there, in the center of mosh pit and I saw it all: Dexter and Noodles are not young anymore, the set list was made from all the loudest hits (I missed a couple of songs anyway) and there were no new songs starting from Splinter album. But you know what? It doesn’t matter: 16 years old me, with Smash in his Walkman and a whole summer ahead, a couple decades late but still got to the gig of his favorite band, ’cause childhood dreams need to come true.

Crossing bands is the eternal and insoluble issue of any festival. This year I got Orden Ogan on Mainstage and Dropout Kings at Warzone. I was scheduled for interview with both bands so I wanted to see two sets, at least partially. Well, Orden Ogan was very theatrical: stage outfit, pyro, mascot Alister Vale with top hat and red gas mask was periodically on the stage and the whole show was really good. At least, the part that I saw, but like I said I need to go so I left the stage with “Gunman” intro. Dropout Kings at their turn were full of energy, alternated rap and metal and one of the vocalists went off stage for a long time, then got back and again. I came when people were already into the music, so there was slamming and crowdsurfing and overall the band was accepted greatly.

Another crossing bands dilemma was Metallica vs. Korpiklaani on the third day. Seems like the choice is obvious but there was a huge weather factor: it was downpour and Korpikaalni played at Temple, which is nothing but a huge tent. However, we decided to stay in the rain and see Metallica, at least from a distance because there was a lot of people expectedly, much more than on two previous days and going closer to the stage was a real problem. But here ends “The Ecstasy Of Gold” and the first chords of “Creeping Death” are heard. I raise my head to see the screens on the stage and see some graphics with little squares, where were barely shown the faces of James, Kirk, Rob and Lars. Well, we were there another four or five songs and then we just went home: there was no sense to just listen to the songs if we know them by hear. My friend and I wanted to see the show, at least on the screens but it wasn’t possible. An embarrassing solo in “Master Of Puppets” I found only in a couple of days on youtube.

Almost forgot: there was Kerry King on the first day! Well, musicians are great, the show was good, decoration and everything, you know. However, when some new songs were played, there were just some sluggish clapping and cheering. Some fans in Slayer shirt went to the stage just to show fingers and go away. But when the band started to play “Raining Blood”, the crowd screamed and cheered like there is no tomorrow. Well, it shows what people really want.

Remember I said in the beginning that I wanted and to see and try to understand some bands that were always ignored by me? Yeah, well, Babymetal. Three tiny Japanese girls dancing and singing to the heavy music, what could go wrong? Actually, everything. Let’s start with the music: the material is not very interesting, j-pop with heavy guitars or something that reminds anime openings. There is nothing wrong about it but to be honest, Maximum The Hormone for example, make it much more interesting and diverse. At the same time, their live show is a huge platform on the stage where the girls dance and somewhere below, at the shadow of the platform, masked musicians play the music. The crowd, well, they not only cheering but some of them repeat the dance moves precisely, and when it comes from brutal long haired men or some punks with mohawks, it looks like… Anyway, people enjoy it much so who am I to judge?

That’s all about the music but I still have something to say about organization: this time it was top notched again. Water, toilets, lots of tasty food, people start to take all this for granted. However, if there a huge line and it takes time to go to the toilet or refill water, it’s not exactly the organizers’ fault–the number of visitors grows from year to year, so it’s not surprising you have huge lines and it won’t be better. This year the “Hellcare” was created, a bunch of volunteers that provide medical and psychological help. This is extremely important, especially with a big amount of warriors fallen in the battle with sun and alcohol. However, maybe it should be more roofed place where you can hide from sun or rain, at least at food court, for example. There were also some stories about people that fell during crowd surfing and broke their elbow or other limb but here we act on our own risk.

There was a new attraction, a mechanical sculpture “Keeper Of Darkness”: a huge construction with faun body, spider legs and scorpion tale. It moves, it spits fire and people look at it enchanted. As an engineer, I can only imagine how much work was made to create such a thing and it really captivating. However, it was at the place of usual bonfire and I needed it on a first day. Beside the warm, it was a great place just to have rest in the night, talk to people and make some new friends. Anyway, I can totally understand it: if Hellfest called a Metal Disneyland, you need to comply with this name.

Good writer will make some conclusions here but I won’t. Hellfest is alive and well, there are lots of people coming every year and 4 days passes already sold out, so, yeah, Hellfest doing great, I guess.

I’m grateful for the accreditation and in addition want to say thank you to the press center crew for fast solution of some of my problems. It would be much worse without you.