Brothers and Sisters raise your horns!

I'm back from France and Hellfest, a three day experience of standing in a field shouting at various long haired men with instruments to 'turn it up!'  I was head interpreter as I was able to ask, in French, for directions to the bus stop for Amiens and Dave, Ross and Glynn's level of French ended at telling someone their name and that they were eleven years old. Ah, the Comprehensive School: learning at its best. Armed with this Schoolboy level of the language and more Pot Noodles than even the most hungry student could possibly eat in a lifetime, we braved the Channel Tunnel. During the crossing Dave stared out of the carriage window the whole time trying to see fish and shipwrecks and eventually made some part of a foreign field forever England. It really was; our tents were enclosed on no less than three sides by Brits who had also travelled to bang their fucking heads. The little cunts next door to us kept us up all the first night by shouting French phrases in a shit Death Metal vocal style. So we got our own back the next evening, fortified with wine and Carcass, by shouting the phrase 'Thrash Metal' over and over again for about four hours helped by our French neighbours on the other side. That's the power of music right there, breaking down cultural barriers. All in all it was a great weekend, although it ended up costing me a lot as the price of festival food doesn't seem to bear any resemblance to the cost of food in the real world. A bag of chips from the local chippy would set you back about a pound, at Hellfest a tiny plastic tray with about three frites in the bottom set you back a whopping 2,381 euro. Even with a strong Euro there is a bit of a discrepancy there...

 Fucking Metal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is a list of the bands that I enjoyed the mostest of all, Carcass, Immortal, Tankard, Anvil, Marduk, Ulver, Watain, Ihsahn, Kampfar, Negura Bunget, Sigh, Urgehal, Jello Biafra, Dark Funeral, Kyuss, Brant Bjork and the Bros, Mondo Generator, Black Cobra, Slayer, Finntroll, Yawning Man, Discharge and MOTORFUCKING HEAD. But by far the best of the best award goes out to the reformed and almightyly loud GODFLESH. I haven't seen them perform live for twenty years and despite waiting 25 minutes for them to sort out their sound and them having to cut their set short by twenty minutes as a consequence, it was like experiencing a musical glacier. A crushing act of nature, an overwhelming experience like no other. A true Force Majeure. 

Devastator/Mighty Trust Krusher

The final evening was characterised by being kept awake half of the night by that group of 68 year old Jewish Grandmothers whose name I shall not mention's firework display. After wishing that they'd stick their fucking Love Gun up their fucking arses and 'pull the fuckin' trigger until it go click', the following morning at the crack of sparrows the intrepid travellers broke camp in wet and freezing conditions and walked what seemed like miles to the carpark. I was half excepting the Melton Mowbray Mini Pork Pie I'd left in the car over the weekend to have grown limbs and TWOCed the car in a bid for freedom. But thankfully it wasn't to be and Glynn drove us back without stopping (except for the Channel Tunnel) in a ten hour journey that would have tested the patience of even the most patient of patient saints. I arrived back in Rotherham clutching my new Sigh CD and my new Kampfar T-Shirt, tired and half mental from the chip overdose, but happy in my Heavy Metal Heaven!