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Hole In The Sky 2006
Bergen Metalfest VII
Bergen, Norway

Two years on since the last time we reviewed HTS, I find myself here once again, not least to see the mighty Celtic Frost, who have chosen to play only a few selected dates in Europe, in the more intimate surroundings offered by this festival. This time it was a more organised trip, 2 days in all (although the festival was a 4 dayer) with a direct flight and a nice hotel room compared to the spontaneous chaos of the last time.

Blessed From Below - Fri 25 Aug 06
Grimfist, were an up coming Norwegian death metal band who kicked off proceedings but the eerie soylent green light that shone into the crowd made it impossible to take any fotos unless you wanted to capture silhouettes. All I remember was that the vocalist had impossibly long dreadlocks that I was praying (being in the front row) he didn’t flail the audience with! The poor guy kept disappearing offstage and ice packing his head when he returned so I guess the locks didn’t work for him either ha ha!

Witchcraft Whaaa?! No one told me that Wolfmother were guesting! But no, it wasn’t the Aussies even though their vocalist / guitarist was a deadringer for Andrew Stockdale or even T - Rex what with the white jacket and the top hat. Sheesh, if I stretched my imagination further maybe even Donny Osmond ha ha! Originally intended as a Pentagram tribute band, they have evolved in their own right into a more mainstream 70s hard rock band (complete with cowbell) in the vein of Fu Manchu rather than a doom band to the god figure of Bobby Liebling. Witchcraft surprised me by pulling a big audience so early in the day and there was a quiet confidence about them as the aforementioned vocalist / guitarist bashfully thanked the audience after each song - even when his lead fell out mid song he managed to wisecrack a joke amongst friends before unhurriedly plugging it back in to finish off the song.

Gojira Every now and then, a band will come along and push the boundaries out a notch or two. We saw it with Morbid Angel and later Vader. Now its the turn of the French. Creating a huge buzz in the press, Gojira (the Japanese pronunciation fer Godzilla) arrived with the intensity that was expected. Each song was an extreme metal composition with intricate speed riffing, shifting tempo changes and a healthy use of sampling. Onstage the guys cavorted, bounce and strutted every inch of the stage as if to say ‘vive la France!’ - even a drum solo was chucked in for good measure and their performance was appreciated by the roaring crowd (even though 24 hours later I couldn’t remember one of those intricate songs - so much for simplicity!).

Atheist Aha. Atheist were another band I was keen to see simply cos I missed them in the late 80s. I wondered how they’d fair after such an intense showing from the French stalwarts but I needn’t have worried. Pot smoking vocalist Kelly Shaeffer was anything but laid back and cut the crowd no slack as he set about working them. Arguably Atheist’s music was also technical (if a few gears down) like Gojira but it was way way more off the wall with songs that ranged from thrash metal to Primus style funk bits to almost jazz sections. In between and during songs Kelly worked the crowd expertly and got them participating probably much more so than the previous bands and the crowd in turn appreciated his embracing frontmanship. The only song I could tell (the closer) was ‘Piece of Mind’ and clearly by then Kelly had had a piece of everyone’s in the audience.

Destruction After the technical blasting from Gojira and the total mind fuck of Atheist, I almost welcomed the predictable workmanlike style of uncomplicated 80s thrash metal. So did some of the crowd, opting to take a breather before the day closed with Satyricon. At the start the giant figure of Schmier, already sweating before he basked in the red light of the stage, demanded a mosh pit start going even before the first song would be cannoned out. Not an easy task in the USF, which has gotta be the strangest venue I have ever been too: in the middle of the floor there is a massive i.e. 10 feet each side support pillar which makes it damn near impossible for any kind of real crowd action to take place cos everyone is crammed in to get the best view. The band belt out ‘The Butcher’ and my old personal fave ‘Bestial Invasion’. Halfway thru the set out jumps a topless Johnny Hedlund from Enslaved! Now I’m not sure if this was planned - I doubt it cos he was very drunk - and he begins bouncing around the stage and has everyone including Destruction laughing. He then stops and announces to the audience (translation): “Ok, I’m done, now I’m going offstage” and everyone was laughing even more! At the end Schmier praised the festival and crowd for its diversity in welcoming different metal styles.

Satyricon I looking forward to seeing Satyr and co after meeting them many years ago when they were upcoming (and I’d to get em over to the US to play their first show). Gone is the shaven headed young gangly lad that I met in Berlin, now there is a black maned bulked up man onstage, not dissimilar to Pete Steele (of Type O Negative). Drummer Frost however, is ever still the shy boy, hiding his face behind his hair and drumkit, and seemingly nervous as he runs on and offstage without even looking at the audience (someone told me he turned up to a show in his cloak and make up on a mountain bike!). A complete contrast to when he is behind his kit where he’s anything but a wilting petal but a truly demonical presence as the grimaces in his face in the lights and strobe make him look truly maniacal and possessed! Satyr once again praised Quorthon by playing ‘Raise The Dead’ as well as his own songs like ‘Now Diabolical’ which show an shift from traditional black metal to modern extreme metal with thought provoking lyrics that the crowd could sing along to. I’m not sure how popular Satyricon are in the rest of Norway given I’ve read criticism that their sets are the same but clearly in Bergen (and at Hole in the Sky) this was not only a big show (there were so many people, once in no one could get out!) but a special one judging by the rapport between Satyr and the crowd and the humble thanks and respect he showed to them.

Morbid Tales - Saturday 26 Aug 06
Being the last day of the festival the guys at Hole in the Sky pulled out all the stops with the mighty Keep of Kalessin opening up proceedings. With a sorta medieval chains and armour look straight out’ve a De Laurentis movie set they had large crowd who had clearly showed up for them singing along to just about every tune they cranked out. Of course their guitarist is none other than Obsidian C of Satyricon who despite playing the night before until 2am looked none the worse so I’m guessing it no after show party for him!

SAHG A big bonus this year was that Hole in the Sky had not one but two doom bands, SAGH being the second. Complete with two large candles burning either side of the drum kit Sabbath style, they were the first band since friday to use flamejets, which meant the fotopit had to be empty given the small stage. At one point the pyro went off nearly taking the guitarist and vocalist out but all in all SAHG were more stoner rock but with some (very) heavy tinges when needed that got the crowd rocking.

1349 Arguably the most intense band of the two days, 1349 had me wondering just how much more intense a band could be. They had it all from their carefully applied make up (not the standard panda look but varying colours that made them look like decayed corpses) to their songs to their show. Man, they even brought a fuckin huge steel helmet complete with fire in its glowing eyes that looked like the face of Sauron especially when after fire breathing, the vocalist set fire to the whole helmet! Fuckin awesome! The crowd was ablaze too and I wondered how much hotter the venue could get - then, the sound and stage lights cut out! At first everyone thought it was part of a show but soon it became apparent that 1349 had overloaded the power! But rather than die a death the guys just stood there flicking their tongues out, doing devil signs and actually goading the crowd on - what cocky fuckers! Sure enough the sound guy was hauled onstage - he duly apologised for being an asshole (thankfully the band didn’t set him alight as well!) - and when the band came back on they insisted on playing their full set which they did - put it this way, no one was gonna move their 300Ib drummer!

I Along with Celtic Frost, I really wanted to see Abbath and his new project. However, I was somewhat disappointed that I is nothing like Immortal or even a development on from that great creation but rather straight metal music. The second guy to dedicate a song in memory of the founding father Quorthon, its amazing that almost 2 years on the impression that he made on the likes of Satyr and Abbath (not to mention the rest of the crowd which duly sang along to show their solidarity) is still very much alive. Not that Abbath himself is lacking any dues given how many young girls worshipped him - not the best looking guy in the world as one girl confessed to me - but more out’ve respect and a father type figure in the world of Norwegian metal. As I saw Abbath wince and roll his right shoulder about 45 minutes into the set I thought ‘uh-oh’ and sure enough he announced the last song - seems the old tendonitis that had caused his withdrawl from Immortal had showed up once again which provoked the question - how long will I survive?

My Dying Bride And now for something completely different. The decision to bring in My Dying Bride by Hole In The Sky was a challenging one given that this was a goth band but it proved to be an excellent one as they brought a real level of class and diversity whilst still in keeping with the other bands of the day. Along with own crowd of goths whom I hadn’t previously noticed cos they musta been hiding in the dark recesses of the USF, My Dying Bride brought a decidely English reservedness to the show with vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe almost embarrassingly accepting the crowd’s applause in between songs while during them he contorted himself in all manner of positions ike a man possessed, his wrist bearing blood dotted cut lines on them. I was impressed by their music which is melancholic and yet romantic. Clearly the audience too found the band’s set emotively enthralling as the girl next to me was moved to tears when vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe dedicated “The Forever People” to the audience as a sign of appreciation. A moving experience indeed.

Celtic Frost Everyone was in the house for this one - apart from the nut who tried to break down the fire door - including most of the bands who were amassed on the overhead walkway of the USF. For me, it was about 20 years since I’d last seen them and arguably the main reason for being here. Walking onstage with an art house look, Warrior was resplendent in a dark suit complete with a muslim style wooly hat, whilst Ain contrasted by going the whole hog in a monsignor style robe, complete with a giant mane of hair and a wild beard to boot - man, was it John The Baptist we were bearing witness to?! Certainly Ain thought himself so, ranting a religious anti religious diatribe that linguistically (given his thick Franco Swiss accent) and intellectually left the Bergen crowd unmoved. Still, Ain was true to his form furiously banging his head as he always used to and that thunderous bass sound had plastic cups falling off the PA from the rumbling reverberations! The new material is disturbingly dark and morbid so much so that it is depressing and emotionally difficult to take in (especially at 2am in the morning), but it just isn’t as catchy or avante garde as the old stuff. The new guitarist looked more out’ve a nu metal band although I did appreciate the barbaro-corpse look to the drummer although the man lacks the power of Reed St Mark. With the bulk of the material being drawn from the ‘Monotheist’ album and a dire version of ‘Usurper’ early on I was fast getting the impression that this was a promo tour. For a band making a comeback I would’ve expected these old classics - that most of the crowd and bands watching had turned up for - to be note for note perfect and upgraded. Thankfully the band also caught the vibe and there was a huge roar of approval when Warrior asked if the crowd ‘wanted to hear stuff from ‘Morbid Tales’’ - as if he needed to ask! Luckily Frost pulled it together for ‘Circle of Tyrants, ‘Return To The Eve’ and ‘Into The Crypt Of Rays’ - mebbe they were shaking off the rust - but these classics should’ve come sooner. Thankfully none of the pretentious commercial crap from the truly dire ‘Cold Lake’ reared its ugly head so hopefully the band have got the message on that one! Celtic Frost were so ahead of time that their full appreciation only took place years to materialise after their demise, today I was left with that same impression - that the material in ‘Monotheist’ is also far ahead of today - lets see, Warrior will probably be 60 for the next reunion......!

I spent Sunday recovering by taking a laid back fjord cruise to the spectacular Sognefjord, the longest and deepest fjord in Scandinavia - no glacier walking this time - and certainly the festival and its location in the city (as well as the friendly festival crowd and staff) which is the fjord gateway of Scandinavia make this highly recommended for a combination of music & great (if expensive) place to vacation.

-Shan Siva