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Hammerfest - Prestatyn, Wales - Friday 24th April 2009. DAY ONE Architects, Mutant, Opeth, Lethargy
Following the success of 2007 and 2008’s Hard Rock Hell events, the organisers behind the UK’s premier winter metal festival have teamed up with Heavy Metal Hammer magazine, to deliver a summer version. Hammerfest ticket holders can enjoy two days of every strain of metal imaginable: black metal, death metal, doom metal, reggae metal, pirate/battle metal, classic metal. And where to hold this two day celebration of all things metal? Pontins holiday village, of course!
Although Butlins’ less-famous cousin may not immediately spring to mind when you think of the heavier end of the rock spectrum, it’s amazing how well the holiday camp lends itself to such an event. Cheap and cheerful accommodation, complete with kitchen and private bathroom, replaces drafty tents. Enclosed arenas, complete with bars, seating areas, and food outlets, replace muddy fields. There’s even an on-site chip shop, adventure playground, karts for hire, swimming pool - and the beach is a stone’s throw away from the holiday village. Is this the future of festivals, for all of us who have a horror of evil-smelling festival port-a-loos? We can only hope.
The event is meticulously planned. There’s an outdoor acoustic stage, where festival-goers can sit on the grass and catch mid-afternoon unplugged sets from acts who will be wowing much larger audiences later on in the day. The two indoor stages are adjacent to one another, with only a short walk through the amusement arcades separating the two. Switching between stages really couldn’t be easier. The people who thought this up deserve a medal. By the time the checking-in, unpacking and obligatory trip to the off licence are out of the way, the first band I manage to catch is young guns Architects.
They take to the stage sporting a fetching range of bright T-shirts and emo-centric plaid shirts, and all have obsessively styled hair. They don’t look the part but, as soon as vocalist Sam opens his mouth, Architects become very scary indeed. Throat-shredding vocals, thunderous guitars and drumbeats that boom through the speakers and slam you in the face like a brick wall (I swear you can actually feel a breeze every time Dan hits those drums) all make for a crushingly heavy performance. Architects, like Bring Me The Horizon, are flying the flag for bands who don’t look metal, but can give the conventional black-clad, long-haired metal bands a run for their money, in terms of heaviness. A great start to the weekend.
Over on the second stage, newbie thrash outfit and Evile touring partners MUTANT are playing to an appreciative crowd. To say Mutant have just put the finishing touches to their self-released debut EP, they’re surprisingly accomplished in both musicianship and showmanship.
Fast, furious, and with a gravel-throated, possessed-looking frontman, Mutant ooze confidence and look perfectly at home on the stage. Add to this a liberal dose of humour, and Mutant are a thoroughly entertaining live band. “This is a song for the moshers,” announces Tom Luchtenstein “it’s called ‘Turbo Hyper Ultra Mega Power’ and, honestly, how can you not love a band who give their songs such ridiculous titles? Towards the end of their set, Tom demands a mosh pit where everyone’s having “an absolutely disgusting time. I don’t even want it to be fun, I want to see some pain,” and the crowd duly obey.
Mutant are one-hundred-miles-an-hour, goodtimes thrash to go nuts to at gigs. Any band who takes these guys on tour with them, can be guaranteed a well warmed-up crowd. Next up on the main stage are OPETH. The Swedish five-piece really shouldn’t be this high up on the bill, not because they’re not good enough, but because no-one wants to listen to one and a half hours of noodling at eleven o’clock at night. Opeth are amazingly talented musicians, crafting a rich and varied soundscape that’s jaw-dropping in theory but, in practice, is actually pretty boring. Limited vocals and a tendency to glower down at their instruments rather than engage with the crowd, completely drains the enthusiasm from the room.
By midnight the crowd isn’t even trying to enjoy themselves anymore; they’re stationary. The next morning, one disgruntled festival-goer informed me that he’d actually fallen asleep during Opeth’s set and, after enduring an hour, I can just about believe it.
Opeth are a band who should be enjoyed outside, at midday in the fresh air, preferably settled down on the grass with a pint. It’s impossible to give such leaden music your full, unwavering attention so late at night, especially in the dark, stuffy confides of an indoor arena.
After standing through an hour of Opeth’s set, I couldn’t take it anymore, and shot next door to see who were playing the second stage. It turned out to be the best move I made all weekend, because wowing the crowd were ace classic rock band Lethargy. Presenting themselves as “the only Welsh band of the weekend” and then hastily adding “apart from Skindred, that is,” Lethargy stick out on the thrash-centric second stage bill, but for all the right reasons.
They take their influences from Led Zeppelin and other veterans of the classic rock world. With good old fashioned rock and roll enjoying a bit of a resurgence as of late, Lethargy are definitely bang on trend. Lethargy have an excellent frontman in the form of dreadlocked bassist/vocalist Marc T. Jones. It’s frightening how good his voice is, booming effortlessly through the room. Added to this is a tangible rockstar persona, as he spends half the set backbending whilst playing guitar, in a manner that would put Mindless Self Indulgence bassist Lyn-Z to shame. The spectacle is made even more gasp-inducing by Jones’ masses of waist-length dreadlocks, which pile up on the floor as he bends over backwards. It’s impossible not to watch him without thinking “I wish I could do that.”
Lethargy have a powerfully-voiced, visually arresting frontman, and, more importantly, they seem to have arrived just at the right time, if current musical trends continue to move in the classic rock direction. Ones to watch out for, especially if you’re left cold by all the new, faddy Nintendo-core/crunk-rock/ cyber-punk sub-genres.
A quick trip next door reveals that Opeth are still onstage, and still as boring as they were half an hour ago. Suddenly, getting an early night ready for a full-day of metal festivities tomorrow, doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.
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