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Damnation 2015
Nov. 8th, 2015 11:54 pmOn Saturday, the still ringing tinnitus reminds me that we attended the Damnation heavy metal festival conveniently located at Leeds University. It was my first time there, but Wolfie had gone last year and highly recommended it to me so I decided to go, largely because I have seen very little live music over the last decade or so and would like to discover some new bands anyway.
With 27 bands over four stages and an 11 hour period, the event certainly didn't disappoint and there was quite a wide range of music on offer. Sadly, Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster were probably the only Rammstein-style band in attendence, my particular favourite genre of the scene, and so one of the highlights of the day was over by 1:30pm but alas there was plenty to keep us occupied as we bounced between the four stages and got to see the vast majority of bands playing. There were four of us who went - Wolfie, myself, Jay and Wolfie's colleague Adam - and I quickly worked out that my musical tastes were quite different to those of the other three. This was particularly the case during Sólstafir, an Icelandic band who were third-from-last on the main stage. Granted, they did play slower more melodic tunes and perhaps this was not in keeping with the festival in general, but they were still a fantastic listen despite both Wolfie and Adam warning me that last year the majority of fans had spent time queuing out of the building to avoid hearing any more. Indeed Adam spent a lot of the previous seven hours winding me up about my like for the band, which got a little annoying after a while. I tried not to take it personally and be too defensive but I do find this difficult for some baffling reason.
The vast majority of bands were of the typical thrash variety with loud guttaral shouting and these were the ones which were less popular with me largely because I cannot differentiate a melody from beneath the riffing. In my view, it is a shame as a lot of times the intros are very melodic, moving even, and then the song gets ruined by power chords and shouting. Still, it's not my cup of tea and was clearly favoured by the majority, so what do I know? The main headliners were At The Gates, the only band on the bill of whom I had heard before, but really not my sort of thing at all. What made this worse was the drunk woman dancing with her friend right in front of me who, regardless of how much space I gave her, still kept elbowing me in the chest. Towards the end of the evening I was getting a little tired and irritable so I had to leave the arena at this point such was the annoyance. Also, I did feel a little left out at the final act, with Wolfie, Jay and Adam all bouncing along and me being generally tired and needing to sit down to rest my feet.
The event was good as it did enable me to see a large number of performers though, the vast majority of whom I hadn't heard anything from. Of the four stages, there were only bands on two of them at any given time, with the start/finish times coordinated so you could see as many bands as possible. I had a listen to a sample track from all 27 on Thursday evening and marked off those I did and did not want to see, but this didn't particularly prove diagnostic of quality as some bands which were good on YouTube didn't translate well on stage and vice versa. One huge surprise was Primordial, a band I discounted online but one who were absolutely epic live, with melody and narrative complementing the heavy nature of the tracks. The stage presence was also epic. Another highlight was The Ocean, but then any band which has a cellist (or any classical stringed instrument) accompanying them is always going to be rated highly in my book, particularly when the lead singer dives from the balcony and crowd surfs back to the stage, with microphone wire tangling around him as he goes. Keep Of Kalessin are also deserving of a mention - another band I didn't rate much before I saw them but once I did, I definitely want to go and see them again. In other developments, I was also delighted to find out that Party Cannon with their fantastic un-metal-like logo are actually a real band - I thought they had been made up as a Twitter meme. I hope to discover there music more too.
As I have mentioned, the event was 11 hours long, which was perhaps a little too lengthy although it wasn't aided by the fact I was wearing my heavy boots which were hard to stand in after a while. In addition to the four stages, there were a myriad of different bars all offering some excellent craft beer including key varieties from Northern Monk. We also grabbed some food at regular intervals including a pasty from Leeds University's own dedicated pasty shop. Indeed, despite the venue being a testament to the multiple uses for concrete, I was very impressed with the services and stages that the University provided, even if the layout was somewhat labrynthine. In the end, the music was diverse enough for us to have a good time and with good beer and company on track, it was definitely a great day. In addition to this, I also discovered some great bands, with Wolfie telling me that he could tell I was getting into the music as I elevated my head towards the ceiling at key moments. In a way I regret the music didn't elevate me to insane bounciness as it often used to do, while I also avoided the moshpits this time as I largely wasn't in the mood, but I guess this is just me being harsh on myself. Indeed, I only really have two regrets from the whole affair - the first was not going last year when I had the opportuntity and the second was not saying hi to some friends from Cambridge I recognised from my university days over ten years ago. I was 99.9% sure it was them but I didn't have the courage to say hello - and they didn't recognise me either even though we were stood next to each other and it was towards the end of the evening when the arena was largely empty. Still, perhaps people to search for on Facebook. And in the end, this has rekindled my love of live music and for metal too and I hope to be back again next year.
With 27 bands over four stages and an 11 hour period, the event certainly didn't disappoint and there was quite a wide range of music on offer. Sadly, Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster were probably the only Rammstein-style band in attendence, my particular favourite genre of the scene, and so one of the highlights of the day was over by 1:30pm but alas there was plenty to keep us occupied as we bounced between the four stages and got to see the vast majority of bands playing. There were four of us who went - Wolfie, myself, Jay and Wolfie's colleague Adam - and I quickly worked out that my musical tastes were quite different to those of the other three. This was particularly the case during Sólstafir, an Icelandic band who were third-from-last on the main stage. Granted, they did play slower more melodic tunes and perhaps this was not in keeping with the festival in general, but they were still a fantastic listen despite both Wolfie and Adam warning me that last year the majority of fans had spent time queuing out of the building to avoid hearing any more. Indeed Adam spent a lot of the previous seven hours winding me up about my like for the band, which got a little annoying after a while. I tried not to take it personally and be too defensive but I do find this difficult for some baffling reason.
The vast majority of bands were of the typical thrash variety with loud guttaral shouting and these were the ones which were less popular with me largely because I cannot differentiate a melody from beneath the riffing. In my view, it is a shame as a lot of times the intros are very melodic, moving even, and then the song gets ruined by power chords and shouting. Still, it's not my cup of tea and was clearly favoured by the majority, so what do I know? The main headliners were At The Gates, the only band on the bill of whom I had heard before, but really not my sort of thing at all. What made this worse was the drunk woman dancing with her friend right in front of me who, regardless of how much space I gave her, still kept elbowing me in the chest. Towards the end of the evening I was getting a little tired and irritable so I had to leave the arena at this point such was the annoyance. Also, I did feel a little left out at the final act, with Wolfie, Jay and Adam all bouncing along and me being generally tired and needing to sit down to rest my feet.
The event was good as it did enable me to see a large number of performers though, the vast majority of whom I hadn't heard anything from. Of the four stages, there were only bands on two of them at any given time, with the start/finish times coordinated so you could see as many bands as possible. I had a listen to a sample track from all 27 on Thursday evening and marked off those I did and did not want to see, but this didn't particularly prove diagnostic of quality as some bands which were good on YouTube didn't translate well on stage and vice versa. One huge surprise was Primordial, a band I discounted online but one who were absolutely epic live, with melody and narrative complementing the heavy nature of the tracks. The stage presence was also epic. Another highlight was The Ocean, but then any band which has a cellist (or any classical stringed instrument) accompanying them is always going to be rated highly in my book, particularly when the lead singer dives from the balcony and crowd surfs back to the stage, with microphone wire tangling around him as he goes. Keep Of Kalessin are also deserving of a mention - another band I didn't rate much before I saw them but once I did, I definitely want to go and see them again. In other developments, I was also delighted to find out that Party Cannon with their fantastic un-metal-like logo are actually a real band - I thought they had been made up as a Twitter meme. I hope to discover there music more too.
As I have mentioned, the event was 11 hours long, which was perhaps a little too lengthy although it wasn't aided by the fact I was wearing my heavy boots which were hard to stand in after a while. In addition to the four stages, there were a myriad of different bars all offering some excellent craft beer including key varieties from Northern Monk. We also grabbed some food at regular intervals including a pasty from Leeds University's own dedicated pasty shop. Indeed, despite the venue being a testament to the multiple uses for concrete, I was very impressed with the services and stages that the University provided, even if the layout was somewhat labrynthine. In the end, the music was diverse enough for us to have a good time and with good beer and company on track, it was definitely a great day. In addition to this, I also discovered some great bands, with Wolfie telling me that he could tell I was getting into the music as I elevated my head towards the ceiling at key moments. In a way I regret the music didn't elevate me to insane bounciness as it often used to do, while I also avoided the moshpits this time as I largely wasn't in the mood, but I guess this is just me being harsh on myself. Indeed, I only really have two regrets from the whole affair - the first was not going last year when I had the opportuntity and the second was not saying hi to some friends from Cambridge I recognised from my university days over ten years ago. I was 99.9% sure it was them but I didn't have the courage to say hello - and they didn't recognise me either even though we were stood next to each other and it was towards the end of the evening when the arena was largely empty. Still, perhaps people to search for on Facebook. And in the end, this has rekindled my love of live music and for metal too and I hope to be back again next year.
