UMEK is a Slovenian DJ and Techno producer I've been waiting to see live for a while now.
Every single week, he releases his 1-hour podcast entitled "Behind the Iron Curtain" in which he mixes the best Techno from Eastern Europe. I have not missed this show once in the past year and it gets better and better every time!
UMEK is also the creator of the label 1605 (among others) which has incredible releases all year round, with usually powerful bass and a very industrial sound.
UMEK himself was great live. His build ups bring you to an incredible level of excitement which is instantly released when the bass drops and your hair is blown away by smoke cannons. I can still feel the shivers induced by the magnificent rolling bass in his tracks.
I had heard mixed reviews about Ministry of Sound, but generally I think it's the artist who makes the night good, not the venue. Sure Ministry is expensive, full of tourists and can get quite generic when you leave the main concert room, but the main highlight was this exact main concert room. It is cosy yet not too crowded, the light shows are very decent and the 360 degrees sound system is absolutely amazing.
Four of us from Motts went to this event and I for sure enjoyed myself.
I leave you with a song from UMEK performed with the Slovenian Symphonic Orchestra, revisiting one of Vivaldi's favorite season: Winter.
This war cry echoed during 5 days of alternative music in the small Belgian village of Dour.
In the middle of
nowhere, not far form the French border, the 2015 edition welcomed 215,000 music lovers over the 5 days.
The atmosphere of the festival: relaxed and musical. Most people's priority is to discover new talent, and see their favorite artists, not get wasted like in a lot of festivals nowadays.
Bar du Petit Bois
The music there is far from the top 40, with the only big headliner being Snoop Dog (who in my opinion gave a disappointing performance).
Dour encourages sub-genres, alternative music and variety. While the majority is electronic music, you will also find Reggae, Blues, Indie Rock, Metal, Ska even Bluegrass!
Needless to say Evie and I were in heaven and saw as many artists as we could, which resulted in a timetable similar to this for 5 days:
9 am - 11 am: Wake up/coffee/breakfast
11 am - 3 pm: Chilling in the Camping
4 pm - 4 am: MUSIC
4 am - 9 am: Sleep.
Quite a heavy schedule for 5 days of madness.
Here is my review in 5 words or less of all the artist I
had the chance of seeing.
Wednesday 15th July:
SBTRKT (pr. Subtract): A dream come true
2manydjs: French Touch with class
Thursday 16th July:
Flume: Good music, terrible live.
The Underachievers: Way too much swearing
Siriusmodeselektor: Mind-Blowing collaboration
Squarepusher: Fast paced Bass madness
Carl Craig: Old-school Rave
Kaytranada: Chill
Blues Pills: Mesmerizing singer and guitarist
The Prototypes: Crazy DnB
Isaac Delusion: Evie's favorite discovery
FKJ: Funkiest one-man band
Blues Pills
Friday 17th July:
The Wombats: Flashback to teenage years
Adam Beyer: Still awesome
C2C: Unbelievable turntablism performance
Nina Kraviz: Short but trippy
Julio Bashmore: Amazing variety of House
Noisia: AAAAHHHHHHHHH! =D
Drenge: Mehlectro Rock
Zola Jesus: Self-centered singer, crap show
Worakls: Always incredible
Superpoze: Clam and complex beauty
La Fine Equipe: Very cool
Dope D.O.D: Craziest performers ever
Thylacine: Beautifully French
Saturday 18th July:
Ms. Lauryn Hill: 30 mins late and boring
DJ Hazard: Very good, soon in Fabric
Lone: Chill and beautiful
The Drums: Good ol' Indie
Dirtyphonics: Crazy Dubstep quadruplets
Rone: Absolute genius, magical live
DC Breaks: Pretty good as always
The Wombats
Sunday 19th July:
Snoop Dog: Didn't seem like he cared
Nneka: Great singer
Santigold: Eccentric and slightly boring
DubFx: Unfortunately moved to regular Reggae
Hudson Mohawke: Heavy and amazing sound
Nils Frahm: Best live of the festival (post will follow)
Chinese Man: Brass & Hip-Hop had a baby
Fritz Kalkbrenner: Live production and singing!
Infected Mushroom: Acid Trance God
JME: Short but good Grime
Scuba: Always the best
Little Big: Deranged Russian HardTek
Simian Mobile Disco: Incredible use of synthesizers
After a cold and short night, it's time to move to the gate of the festival: by the time we got in the festival, the clouds had vanished, leaving only a bright sky.
The running order lead us first to the Valley, the stage of stoner and psychedelic rock.
The French band Glowsun opened the festival in the Valley with their powerful stoner rock. A greasy bass and captivating guitar licks, what else can you ask for at 10.30am?
A little bit later, in the Valley again, the German trio of Samsara Blues Experiment took us on a psychedelic trip, it was just a pure bliss to be carried by the wonderful combination of pounding rhythms, hypnotic riffs and mesmerizing vocals.
I couldn't find any decent video but their latest is surely worth having a listen: just close your eyes and you're gone!
The Valley suddenly lost its peaceful atmosphere when the Swedish band Truckfighters got on stage. The catchy choruses and powerful riffs of their stoner rock was fuelled by a true dynamic stage presence!
The guitarist, with his Gibson SG and wearing shorts (see a pattern here?), took his shirt off the moment he got on stage and was constantly jumping, running, spinning, flipping his guitar on his shoulder. Crazy stoner!
The afternoon had his share of headliners! We took a bit of rest under the shade of the Muscadet Kingdom and gave a try at local specialities (food and drink stalls are amazing!), before going back to the crowd.
Heavy metal legend Motörhead was present! And despite Lemmy's health issues, obviously impacting his voice, the power trio delivered their classics on a crowd that was begging for more!
I'm really glad to have finally been able to see them live!
The Godfather of Shock Rock put on quite a show! Alice Cooper and his "big" band (yep, no less than 3 guitarists and those solos...) delivered a jaw-dropping performance, with spot on vocals despite a setlist covering several decades.
Moreover, the show turned into complete madness after "Feed my Frankenstein", when a giant Frankenstein puppet got out of the smoke and sparks caused by the Jacob's ladder that Alice Cooper was strapped on. Follows "Ballad of Dwight Fry", during which the singer is put into a straitjacket by a nurse and brought to a guillotine, then it's Alice's head that stroke up "I love the dead".
The show ended with the crowd pleasers "Poison" and "School's out" (with a few verses from "Another brick in the wall" sneaked into the song). One of my favourite performance of the weekend!
After their spectacular closing set at the Hellfest 2012, I was really looking forward to see Lamb of God again. And these guys never disappoint!
Their fusion of groove and thrash metal, fuelled by complex guitar riffs, hammering drums and Randy Blythe's growls, just make me wanna jump and mosh!
They just released a new album, "VII: Sturm und drang", with cleaner vocals, definitely worth checking! I'm pretty excited to see them again in November!
Without any doubt, the headliner of the day was heavy metal legend Judas Priest!
Lead by a Rob Halford in great shape, I was really surprised by the sound of his voice, compared to other band of the same era, the band delivered a flamboyant show!
I couldn't find any better footage, but "Hell bent for leather" is such as classic, with Rob riding a motorbike and insane guitar solos!
Whether you like Slipknot or not, you can't argue that they know how to move crowds!
Even at 1.am and after a long day, they make you forget the pain in your legs and jump instead!
The band suffered a line-up change following Paul Gray's death in 2010 and the departure of Joey Jordison, but kept the same energy as before!
The additional percussions, people constantly running around the stage and the pyrotechnics are key elements of their powerful live performance!
I was hoping to start right on with the festival but it is worth mentioning that in order to enjoy the first day of music, the metalhead has to wake up early:
7.30am: time to (try to) wake up...
8.00am: coffee is the key!
10.15am: arrival at Montparnasse station. Surprisingly we are not the only ones with a black t-shirt and a tent, time to meet some people!
10.30am: We just met a girl who left Marseille at 5am to be here, I'm glad I left London the day before! Beer.
10.50am: train to Nantes
11.00am: Beer.
2.00pm: arrival at Nantes, let's rush into the second train!
2.30pm: arrival at Clisson. The shuttle to the camping costs 2€, better walk an hour!
3.30pm: actually, better walk an hour and a half.
4.00pm: we're getting close to the camping! There is just a bit of queue...
5.00pm: finally we're in! Time to set up the tent and get ready for the night. Beer.
6.00pm: time to blend in with the locals (or not) and get supply at Leclerc!
7.00pm: Apero with the neighbours from the camping. Apero with friends from last year. Apero with friends that I didn't know they were coming. Apero.
...
And if you are more interested in exploring the site, there are quite many things already accessible:
the Metal Corner is the late night stage (even during the festival). Local bands are playing on Thursday, it's always a great opportunity to warm up for the coming days!
Food trucks and bars are never far at the Hellfest, and that's a good thing because the day can be quite energy consuming.
the Extreme Market is the ideal place to get CD, LP, t-shirt, merchandising of your favourite band or any kind of accessory. They also have some really shiny axes!
Every year, on June 21 is the "Fête de la Musique", or "Make Music Day", an all-day celebration of music originating from France.
For a weekend at the same time of the year, "metalheads" from all over the world are converging on Clisson, a quiet village of Loire-Atlantique (formerly Brittany). A lovely village with its 7000 inhabitants, its castle, its river, its architecture inspired from Tuscany and one of the biggest music festival in France (if not the biggest!).
The Hellfest is billed as an "extreme music festival". Well, it's a bit more than that: the programme features a variety of heavy metal, hard rock, punk and hardcore acts, from the genre's pioneers to rising stars.
Need a list?
Iron Maiden, Scorpions, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Motörhead, Kiss, Aerosmith, Candlemass, Slayer, Alice Cooper, Guns N' Roses, Saint Vitus, In Flames, Opeth, Emperor, Deep Purple, Machine Hear, Status Quo, Ghost B.C., Megadeth, Behemoth, Black Label Society, Meshuggah and so many others...
Another amazing thing about the fest, is the people!
Against all prejudices on metalheads, they don't offer goats as sacrifice! They are actually really friendly, helpful and easy to spot in a train.
Staying at the camping for the night is part of the festival spirit! If you need anything, just shout it: a tent mallet, where is Philippe or simply an "apéro". You neighbours will try their best to help you, offer you a beer or start shouting back, it's an extremely relaxing atmosphere (especially after 4am).
This year was quite a special year: it was the 10th edition of the Hellfest!
Successor of the Fury Fest, the Hellfest grew from 30.000 visitors in 2004, to more than 150.000 since 2014.
The site itself grew as well, when they changed of location in 2012, allowing the creation of 2 additional stages, for a total of 6 stages. The 2 main stages are reserved for the headliners but present an interesting variety of genres. The Temple and Altar are the lair of death and black metal band. A great place to start the day is the Valley, where one can wake up to the captivating sound of doom, drone and psychedelic music. Finally, the Warzone deserves its name: this area a bit aside of the fest is reserved for punk and hardcore bands.
For this 10th edition, the Hellfest crew paid tribute to its history with a 15 minutes long firework, in music, really a great moment!
To summarise, here are a few figures about the festival, in case you are not convinced yet:
Jose
Gonzalez played O2 Shepherds Bush on 28th May to showcase his album
‘Vestiges and Claws’, his first solo album in 7 years. The sell-out crowd did
not leave disappointed.
Christobel
and the Sea were the supporting act on the night, a four piece multi-national
band with French, Spanish, Portugese and English members. They appeared very
gratified to be playing what they called their biggest venue yet but their
performance showed little of the nerves expected to a queitly expectant crowd.
Their music clearly highlights the international influences they bring together
– crossing brazilian music with a classical flute and making excellent use of
an effects board throughout the set, they certainly had an unique sound. Watch
out for them in the future!
The
main act followed soon after. With a backing band instruments consisting of a
muffled drumkit, a set of bongos, a second spanish guitar and an effects board,
they did a good job of maintaining that folk/acoustic feel while filling the
2,000 seater venue with sound.
‘Vestiges
and Claws’ as an album makes heavy use of harmonic vocals, layered guitar
melodies and simple percussion which I found to be very easy listening. On the
night, I found myself trying to identify each layer of sound coming from each
individual musician. I couldn’t help but marvel at the seamless overlapping
between different musicians – it was exceptionally well put together.
Not
my usual kind of gig, I did wonder at the eerily well respected silence while
each song was played, ending with tumultuous applause, whistling and cheering
in between. I never heard a soul booming out the words of well known songs, and
in the odd chance someone spotted an opportunity to sing along, they were
promptly shushed into silence by the rest of the crowd. They, like me, I think
just wanted to appreciate what they were hearing exactly as they were supposed
to. The result was that the whole crowd seemed to be hanging on every note
being played, and I for one found it mesmerising.
While
the 10 song album was excellently played in its entirety throughout the night, I
would give special mention to the songs ‘Let It Carry You’ and ‘What Will’
which were played as the first and last songs of the set. Faster, more up-beat
songs than the rest of the album, watching them live particularly highlighted
the ease in which the band combined complex indivdual parts of the song to ones
which sound quite simple overall.
I was also delighted with the selection of additional songs included from
other albums which were dotted throughout the set. Making appearances were the
songs ‘Hints’, the very popular ‘Cycling Trivialities’ and his most famous song
‘Heartbeats’ which was played in the encore. They performed two well known cover
songs to great reception which were Kylie Minogue’s ‘Hand On Your Heart’ and Massive
Attack’s ‘Teardrop’, as well as one I had never heard called ‘This Is How We
Walk on the Moon’, originally by Arthur Russell. Finally, with members of his
old band Junip in the backing band, it was fitting that they play the melodic ‘Walking
Lightly’ which had the whole venue moving along with the music as one.
Easy for me to see why the gig was very quickly sold out. A unique one for
me, a thoroughly enjoyable night and a real desire to see him live again!
I'm going to leave you with a few select songs which I heard for the first time on the night, but really left a lasting impression:
OK, I'm going to start by admitting a mistake - this gig was definitely not
Arcade Fire. I had originally thought so, having bought the ticket from their
website. Then I had heard that the venue would have suited a solo act - this
led to the assumption that the lead singer Win Butler would make an appearance
with another band. Obviously I was still
uber excited about going – there is something about the range of emotions that
he sings at that just draws you in and hooks you on their music. The voice as
the headline act? Wouldn't say no to that! But alas... Win's brother Will was
the headline act (an easy mistake right?!) who is a backing instrumentalist in
Arcade Fire. With this backdrop of increasingly negative realizations I really wasn't
sure what I was to expect from this gig.
While they were setting up on stage you got the feeling they were going for
simplicity - plainly dressed in jeans with black t-shirts with different names
spread across them. I'm almost certain the guy with the 'Will' t-shirt was Will
Butler and I'm reliably informed the other band members were Julie, Sara and
Miles who I've never heard of before. Ready to go, they have less gear on the small
stage than you could fit in a small car. The drummer Miles doesn't even have a
chair. It was as if they were intentionally going back for that home-made
garage-band kind of gig. They definitely brought that feel to it, but I'm
afraid their sound gave them away. They killed it, simply.
I had the unfortunate condition of being slightly deaf in one ear in the
week leading up to the gig, which is never something you want going to any gig.
If I'm being honest, I don't think three ears would have been enough to take in
the range of sounds these guys are throwing out. They had everything – funky riffs,
building crescendos, melodic harmonies, bass lines (very important!) and lots
and lots of energy. One song even had a drum solo which is something you don’t often
see. You could tell they were just enjoying themselves up on stage and the
audience loved it.
Will Butler came across as a very funny down to earth person – early on he
snapped a guitar string and instead of carrying on impromptu he stops playing
and asked if anyone in the crowd could fix it up for him. While some chap goes
backstage with the guitar to restring it he starts chatting and joking to the
audience about rent prices and council tax in London of all things…It certainly
got the audience involved early on and if there were many people like myself
who didn't know their music beforehand, we were happy enough to bounce around
to great sounding music regardless of what it was after that.
I could have imagined that this small band set up as they were could have
been what Arcade Fire were like when they were just starting off. You could definitely get the vibe of Arcade Fire music off the songs they played which would have blended in seamlessly to any Arcade Fire playlist. In that
sense, I thoroughly enjoyed the gig as I had the chance to witness all of these
new songs for the first time, live. A great experience and one that I would do
again!
Here are a few of Will Butler’s songs which stood out on the night, which in my opinion they were even better live:
