Posts by Author : Stewart Lucas
Live Review : Damnation Festival 2022 - Part I

So, this is it. Damnation Festivals’ grand step up into the big league. And if you are going to move home then do it in style. Whilst we were in the end sixty-six sales shy of the blazing “sold out as fuck” sign, shifting 5,934 tickets (double the capacity for even the busiest previous Damnation) is phenomenal. And then there is the bill. A smorgasbord of special sets, UK exclusives, and representatives from every corner of the extreme metal world. The fact that the absence of billed headliner Ministry was a complete non-event, is kudos to the strength of the bill as a whole. In many ways (in terms of performance, crowd size and participation, and general buzz in the room) it felt distinctly like Pig Destroyer were headlining and everything else was building up to and away from them. But more about that later.

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Live Review : Damnation Festival 2022 - "A Night Of Salvation" on November 4th 2022

Night of Salvation provides Damnation festival with an intimate opportunity to road-test its new home at the Bec Arena in deepest and darkest Trafford. Tonight, manages to be simultaneously low-key and auspicious. Low-key in the fact that there are only around 300 of us on site, but auspicious in terms of the quality and the prestige of the bill that they have managed to pull together. The closing two sets (Celeste’s performance of “Assassin(s)” and We Lost the Sea doing “Departure Songs” as their UK debut) are both world exclusives and according to both sets of artists unlikely to be repeated anytime soon.

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5 Bands To Not Miss At Damnation

So this new stair-free incarnation of Damnation festival means that with a good wind, a willing bladder and a packed lunch you can actually plan on seeing 17 bands back to back. But for those of you more discerning folk who are still trying to work in merchandise shopping and beer perusing, we at ROCKFLESH are proud to present our five must see sets of the weekend. Based entirely on the subjective views of our black/death metal correspondent Stewart, these are the acts that he will personally get very grumpy if you dare not grace them with your presence (yes we know that he has not included Converge doing “Jane Doe”, yes we know that is not on and yes we will supply you with this email address).

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Why I love Damnation!

My first Damnation was nine years ago, back in 2013. I went for one reason and one reason only, the (supposed) only UK show by my beloved Carcass (I say supposed as they were then added to an Amon Amarth UK package tour a couple of months after they were confirmed for Damnation). I went for the grind but ended up seduced by the variety of metal goodness on offer. It was a smorgasbord of diverse aspects of metal’s duplicit personalities.

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Live Review : Arctangent Festival on August 20th 2022

The level of respect and admiration within our world for cellist Jo Quail is frankly quite astonishing. Her midday appearance on main stage attracts a larger audience than any of the three headliners. The atmosphere is one of silent reverence, interspersed by an almost fanatical outburst of appreciation when she reaches the end of each of her three pieces.

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Live Review : Arctangent Festival on August 19th 2022

Last Hyena are another Bristolian outfit pulled into Arctangent's gravitational field. Their take on maths/post-rock is laid-back with an almost loungecore lethargy. There is no urgency at play here and to be honest, there does not need to be, they are the first band on and we have a whole day in front of us. Their proggy-like inclinations fit beautifully with their audience’s hung-over state. Very much music to do (a liquid) breakfast to.

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Live Review : Arctangent Festival on August 18th 2022

One of the Arctangent's beauties is the way that the stages are scheduled. On one side of the site the Arc and Bixlar stages alternate, as do the Yokhai and PX3 stages on the other side. It's all exquisitely organised so that if you are suitably focused you can see around 15 bands in one day, without any clashes and without walking far at all. Our journey through Thursday starts with Traps on the PX3 stage.

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Live Review : Arctangent Festival on August 17th 2022

Arctangent is very much the thinking person's metal festival. It's a wonderfully eclectic argumentation of all those "difficult" bands that operate at the fringes of our world. Every act and subgenre that your mainstream Maiden fan would considered as being "odd" is represented here this weekend. Compared to Bloodstock’s beer and amphetamines fuelled masses, this is a much more refined and even cerebral audience. This is not just metalheads with degrees, this is metalheads with doctorates and plethora’s of letters after their name.

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Live Review : Download Festival - June 12th 2022

Well, that's went blooming quick. No sooner has it all started than the final day is upon us. But it is all good. The sun is still shining, there are still some alcoholic beverages available to purchase (it's cider but any port in a storm) and we have a brace of bands to watch. The first port of call is Bristolian symphonic metallers Control The Storm. Given the price of fuel these days they must have blown their appearance fee in the first track as there is an awful lot of pyro present.

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Live Review : Download Festival - June 11th 2022

It's Saturday morning, the sun is shining and the shuttle buses are shuttling. In fact, I have got very little to moan about, so let's go straight into the bands. Our day starts with Californian natives Dirty Honey who are playing their first show on the shores. Their retro-fuelled sound brings to mind The Black Crowes’ electrifying opening set on these very grounds thirty-one years ago. They share the ability to feel simultaneously authentic but also thoroughly modern. They have taken a much-trodden route and made it very much their own.

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Live Review : Download Festival - June 10th 2022

It's been three long years (whilst it was awesome Diddy Download doesn't count) but here we are reunited on the hollow grounds of Donington Park. The first point to make is how normal it feels. There is something weird about entering those gates and automatically you know where everything is. Dogtooth is over there, second stage is over there and the bars are there, there and there. The layout of the Download festival is so ingrained in our psyche that it actually didn't feel that I left in 2019. My soul's been here all the time hanging round that space where the dog should be just waiting for my body to return.

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Live Review : Damnation Festival 2021

Damnation Festival is at the end of the day a labour of love by a couple of fan boys who felt their distinct tastes in Metal were not be catered for elsewhere. Over the last sixteen years it has morphed, moved and grown, but it has never ever lost its deep-seeded independence. It is that independent spirit that has so connected it with its immensely loyal fanbase, to the point that the festival sold out in March this year, over nine months before the actual show. Damnation is not a corporate money-making exercise, it may now have a capacity of three thousand (soon to be nearer six) and command a headliner of Carcass’s stature, but it is still very much that labour of love for the organisers.

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Live Review : Damnation Festival 2021 - "A Night Of Salvation"

We ended our Damnation 2019 review by stating that we were already counting down the 365 days till the next one. Well, we got that spectacularly wrong, didn’t we? Damnation 2021 has been a long-time coming and has faced many hurdles during its elongated gestation period. But here we are back together once more at Leeds University Students Union.

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Damnation Festival 2021 Preview

We stand on the edge of the precipice. This time next week we will all be deep in the bowls of the Labyrinth that is Leeds Student Union. You see, even though it felt that it would never come around, we are now a mere seven days away from Damnation 2021. Well, what a journey it has been. For obvious reasons Damnation 2020 went off with the fairies and the bill that we will feast our eyes and ears on next Saturday bears little or no resemblance to the one that they launched late last year. BUT it is testament to the tremendous work of Gavin McInally and Paul Farrington that, not only, has it been sold out since March this year, but they have managed to put together a much stronger bill than they had at the start. There is also the small matter of an absolute cracker of an opening party in the shape of Night of Salvation (this Friday, tickets still available!!!).

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Live Review : Badgerfest - Sunday, October 17th 2021 at the Bread Shed, Manchester

It’s day three of Badgerfest and our Sarah has taken a well earnt early bath and gone home to put her feet up. I’ve taken on the reviewing baton and steel myself for a full on day of metal. As said, this is the third and final day and as an urban city-based festival it is always going to be a struggle to get punters out of their own beds/ hotel rooms / friend’s couches and into the venue for a 1.30pm start. The answer is simple. You stick the most hyped local band in decades into that opening slot.

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Live Review : Bloodstock Festival 2021 - Day 5

By day 5 it has all become a bit of a chore. Our hangovers have melded into one, our backs all hurt, and we are all thoroughly sick and tired of being asked if we are overjoyed to have live music back. Look we have had live music back for five whole continuous days, is it home time yet? It is starting to feel less like a music festival and more like an endurance event and there is an increasing hope that when we go through the exits tomorrow morning there will be well-wishers awaiting us with silver foil blankets and medals. But before we dream dreams of flushing toilets, full English’s, and comfy beds, we have Sunday to contend with.

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Live Review : Bloodstock Festival 2021 - Day 4

Well it’s day 4 of the festival that never ends. I am already becoming delusional that my permeant home is in fact a canvas shelter in a field and that my adopted family are those people surrounding me. I am struggling to imagine what life was like before I entered the gates on Wednesday. My day beginning with the sludge-tastic Horse called War. With distorted guitars and murky melodies, they manage to blow away the most stubborn of hangovers. Netherhall are progtastic and sound like Marillion fronted by Francis Dunnery (formally of It Bites). Back in the New Blood stage Black Atlas are deftly combining grunge and stoner rock. The result is remarkably danceable, laced with filthy riffs and scuzzy beats. My first visit to the main stage is next for the much lauded Conjurer.

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Live Review : Bloodstock Festival 2021 - Day 3

Friday morning finally sees the main stage splutter into life. By this point we have already had two nights under canvas and are beginning to feel like we are in some Kafkaesque nightmare where we are perpetually doomed to roam the wastes of Catton Hall. It may well be quarter to eleven, but Foetal Juice are determined to make as much nasty primal noise as humanly possible. This is metal at its most puerile and putrefied, and they do a grand job of sending all those hangovers packing.

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Live Review : Bloodstock Festival 2021 - Day 2

And so onto the extra day, essentially a heavy metal take on the leap year. Thursday is a full additional twenty four hours of metal on all stages bar the main one. The lack of big big draws means that the day is one of exploration as we are given the opportunity to try and test many of the exceptional home grown talent that haunt small venues across the breadth of the country. Sophie Lancaster tent opener Mother Vulture turn out not to be Mother Vulture at all and instead much fancied West Midlander’s Fury (though not the Chris and Luke Appleton fronted Fury UK).

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Live Review : Bloodstock Festival 2021 - Day 1

I am not a hugger. At best I find it intrusive and at worst it makes my skin crawl. However over the bloodstock weekend I hugged, I hugged and I hugged. I hugged people that I consider life-long friends, I hugged people I have only ever seen at a distance and I hugged complete strangers. And it wasn’t just me, everyone was hugging. It was like some well-behaved orgy, where everyone kept their clothes on. Bloodstock was emotional and a celebration, but it was also normal. By about band three it felt no different to other years at Catton Park and the idea of not being able to be near people seemed preposterous. Though the one evident difference was the length. Five days of unrepentant Metal at the start sounded like manor from heaven but by the end it felt like you were jogging through custard to get to the finishing line. In fact, I was expecting silver blankets and a medal as I exited the site, like I had finished some endurance event. However, we need to start at the beginning….

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