Hellfest is an annual music festival in the French town Clisson. It is held in the outdoor sports complex Val de Moine, about 400 km southwest of Paris. The festival hosts a variety of heavy metal, hard rock, hardcore and punk acts.

Our crew and editors could not resist to attend this extreme festival once again, so now we’d like to share our experience of this 12th edition of Hellfest with you!

Day 2

Day 2! After a good night of alcohol-induced sleep, we woke up way too late. We missed the first bands already but oh well, that happens at a marathon like Hellfest. But today is another great day… Like every day at Hellfest because, well,… Look at that amazing line up and this weather!  

Bongripper

Anyways, first up for Saturday was the mighty Bongripper in the Valley. Bongripper has a really heavy sound. Bongripper doesn’t need fucking vocal mics. Bongripper plays only 3 songs and fucks you up! For those who don’t know Bongripper, they play some kind of stoner/doom metal, slow, full of really heavy riffs and songs that easily last 15 minutes or more. They built a massive wall (of sound of course, you weren’t thinking bout that orange ape I hope!) with little room to breathe. The mix was good, maybe a little too much drum. Everything sounded really compressed and limited, but that’s what made it so heavy and it totally fit with their style. The aluminum guitars (by Electrical Guitar Company) don’t only look cool, they sound really heavy too! They played the songs “Hail” and “Worship” from their best record “Satan Worshipping Doom” (2010) (with tracklist “Hail” “Satan” “Worship” “Doom”) and they played “Descent” (2014) in between them. This worked quite well live because at some point there was a change in tempo, in between the slow crushing repeating riffs, all of a sudden the pace went up which drew good response from the crowd. They played a quite good gig, but I have the feeling that it could’ve been better if they were later on the day. Maybe even better in the dark. But I’m quite sure that will happen in the future.

Pretty Maids

Next up was Pretty Maids. They brought songs from a lot of different albums, so you were sure to hear something you liked. Booking Pretty Maids is like a safe bet;  they always bring high quality music to the stage, and Hellfest wasn’t an exception. The sound was amazing, and the band also seemed to enjoy playing on this festival.

They started off with “Mother of All Lies” and ended the set with “Future World“, a song we were waiting to hear from the moment they came on stage.

Steel Panther

We’d have loved to take some great pictures of Steel Panther, but since it looked like we wouldn’t get into the photo pit on time, we decided to go and stand in the crowd. This didn’t seem to be the best plan, as the crowd was going crazy! Every single song, the band got the crowd so pumped up, that everyone was jumping and pushing. There didn’t seem to come an end to all the crowdsurfers trying to get to the front of the stage. Then again, with a setlist containing songs like “Eyes of a Panther”, “Death to All But Metal”, “17 Girls in a Row” or the song to finish it of, “Party All Day”, it was bound to be one hell of a party.

Although it wasn’t really any different from all their other shows… That’s probably not such a bad thing for a party band like this.

Decapitated

A little later we got ourselves ready for Decapitated at the Altar. We got ourselves a good spot up front, all ready for this new school Death Metal band. Their banner reads “from strength to pain” which is more than true if you know their background story a bit. It’s courageous that they still play after losing 2 band members in a bus accident on tour. But they somehow were able to turn this pain into strength and kept going. Respect!

When the soundcheck started, the crowd immediately stood up, waiting impatiently for the show. The show started with an atmospheric intro sample and soon the fast and heavy riffs were unleashed upon us. They played 4 songs from their new child “Blood Mantra” (2017) and 5 songs from their older catalogue. Sauron, the vocalist, is a born entertainer. He owns the stage and his headbanging with his long dreads is really impressive. In between songs and sometimes during the songs, he keeps encouraging the crowd, demanding energy and thanking us too. Which resulted in some huge mosh and circle pits despite the heat (more than 30°C) outside.

The sound was good in the beginning but after a while it got fucked up and the low mid of the guitars suppressed the rest of the sound. Luckily this didn’t last too long but it was a bit annoying for an otherwise really great show. Oh well, sound guys can have bad days too of course! Towards the end, Sauron started a short speech with “We have not much time to talk” before thanking us from the bottom of his heart and telling that they’re celebrating their 20 years existence with this tour. After that, they played crowd’s favorite “Spheres of Madness”. This is an incredible hard song to play and last time we’ve seen Decapitated (AB, Brussels) they couldn’t play it as fast and tight as the recording. But to our big surprise they played it tight and even faster than the recording this time! Towards the end they slowed it down and the crowd was chanting “Hey! Hey! Hey!” along with the rhythm. They did a great job getting the crowd wild and played a really nice show! Too bad for the sound problems, but shit happens of course and Decapitated clearly didn’t care about that!

Turisas

Being a big fan since the release of “Battle Metal” we stood there waiting vigilantly to bang our heads to orchestral symphonies and powerful singing. Before the show we had a chat with the band and we asked them if they had something something special prepared, we got a replay that there was nothing special today. THEY LIED TO US! When the third song started we noticed a little pattern. They were playing the whole album of “The Varangian Way” from start to finish!

A great performance from the first note to the last. We were pleased that the sound in the marque was perfect this time and the fabulous backdrop and visuals from the costumes made this a true viking feast. We will see them next time, as you should too.

Soilwork

Soilwork is always a bit hard to judge when it comes to their live performances. It is like tossing a coin, it could get bad or very exciting. Sadly the passage at Hellfest this year wasn’t one we would describe as amazing. The Altar stage sometimes has struggles to get the sound just right and with the melodic death metal tunes, where the singing switches between clean and grunts, lots of fine moments get lost in the blur of the wall of sound.

The setlist itself contained lots of diversity and some songs of the latest album going back to “The Ride Majestic“. You do hear the difference between the older and  the new stuff but that makes the live performance more dynamic. You still see they’ve come a long way but want to give a lot more in the future. Still a powerhouse, but we hope we can see them in a smaller venue anytime soon.

Alcest

We can imagine playing a gig in your homecountry on the Temple stage at Hellfest is a milestone for this band. The sweethearted yet enthusiastic vibe was breath of fresh air and we needed it. We expected to be blown away but the goosebumps we felt while hearing songs like “Autre Temps” are so breathtaking it was hard to say goodbye.

Goodbye Alcest, until our next meeting. Stay heavy..

Primus

The Valley was full with people who were in turn full of anticipation. Primus is described as a 1990’s alternative rock band (started in the 80’s, but big in the 90’s) but with a really special approach to music and really psychedelic shows. Fun fact: they wrote the South Park intro theme and their music is full of weird, quirky stuff like that. The show started and it was soon clear that it was meant as a total, psychedelic, almost psychotic, concept. The visuals and (lots of) lights were often in sync and the strange color combinations fitted really well with the music. We even noticed LED lights built in the bass guitar!

Les Claypool is, besides an amazing songwriter, an amazingly good bass player. So pretty soon he started with some short bass solo’s in between songs or sometimes unexpectedly in the middle of a song. Sometimes while funny-walking on stage like a giant psychedelic flamingo. On acid. The visuals were mostly a mash up of their weird clips and if this wasn’t cheeky enough yet, they had to mash up some songs too. In the middle of “Too Many Puppies” (1990) they changed over to another song, only to return to it a little later. After another unexpected bass solo of course. Some songs were played with a double bass, but played with a bow. This is quite an uncommon approach in rock music and to make it even better, he wore a pig-face mask while playing that. Besides the amazing and weird show, the trio played really tight. The songs were so groovy that when we looked around me towards the end of the set, half of the Valley was enthusiastically shaking to the grooves. Although there wasn’t that much interaction with the crowd, it was a really great show. Towards the end they played one of their biggest hits “My Name is Mud” and that song got stuck in our heads for the rest of the festival.

Wardruna

Traditional music surely has its place on metal festivals, especially when its Norwegian. The rate at which the ensemble conquered the world has been astounding and reaching this cult phenomenon has helped Wardruna get on the bigger stages of the European festivals.

Do not expect a crowd that is dancing or banging their heads but the atmosphere after a song was overwhelming, the French, us as humble reporters, the security and the employees of Hellfest all looked in awe and were taken to a place where only Wardruna can take us. A real vacation for the ears after a hard long day of brutal, blasting, fist pumping metal.

Aerosmith

Time for another popular headliner show: Aerosmith. With Joe Perry switching guitars for almost every song, the guitar lovers among us would most likely already be satisfied. As expected, “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” got played somewhere halfway the set, so people that only know a couple of Aerosmith songs were pleased, but the good amount of covers also helped with that. Covers of Fleetwood Mac (“Stop Messin’ Around” and “Oh Well”), The Beatles (“Come Together”), Tiny Bradshaw (“Train Kept A-Rollin’ “) and even James Brown “Mother Popcorn” filled up the setlist nicely.

That being said, we can’t deny the fact that their own songs were amazing to hear live again too! “Love in an Elevator”, “Janie’s Got a Gun” and later on “Walk This Way” to finish off the show, were a great combination!

Review by Ilse, Bernd, Frederik & Jonas
Pictures by Ilse