Damnation 2016
Nov. 7th, 2016 03:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lupestripeSaturday was Damnation, the annual heavy metal festival that Wolfie has attended three times and me twice. Due to our impending trip and Wolfie inadvertently failing to print out on of the boarding passes, we were slightly delayed, missing the first bands by arriving at 2pm, two hours before doors opened and one hour before the music started. We bee-lined straight for the pasty company concession, which undoubtedly has the best pasties in the whole of Leeds, before heading to the Terrorizer stage for our first act of the day. With 27 bands across four stages, there was certainly plenty to keep us occupied, with us bouncing between areas through the course of the day. Due to our busy week, we hadn't had chance to listen to the bands on YouTube so we let Adam, Wolfie's former colleague who accompanies us to the festival, be our guide. He's into more extreme stuff than I, but knew my own personal taste from last year and tried to accommodate, so we did see a range of bands although there did seem to be less diversity and more screamy vocals than last year's event. We avoided the third doom stage, largely as it wasn't Adam's thing, centring our attention on the other three.
The main revelations came from Enslaved, who headlined the second Terrorizer stage along with an Australian band on earlier in the day who incorporated violins into their music. They also had proper singing interspersed with screaming vocals, which at least provided a nice contrast. Yorkshire gothic doom band Darkher highlighted just why I like female vocalists in this genre as the high singing was hauntingly beautiful, particularly when accompanied with eerie atmospheric music. Akercocke, led by a smiling Satanist (I just love that very concept), were also particularly good while The Cult of Luna featuring Julie Christmas are worth mentioning if only for the name although again they are another band with whom I fell in love due to having a female vocalist. The final headliners less so though, Ingested were just screamy and the small 4th stage was far less packed than it had been for other bands earlier in the day (this stage always suffers from being too thin, even with the bar now moved to the other side in a more ergonomic place), while it was clear that the sold out attendance had thinned on the main stage too for the soporific Electric Wizard, with beautiful psychedelic music but perhaps not something to finish the night with. After all, nine hours of standing and drinking was taking its toll, although we did at least space our beers due to our early start the next day (the Northern Monk cans of Festive Christmas Porter and Opeth Communion Beer were excellent for this), buying rounds but in a controlled manner. My mood was enhanced further by a late Boro goal at Man City, securing a 1-1 draw after we had defended so resolutely. Two successive away draws at Arsenal and City highlight that we do have a reasonable chance of survival.
The event as ever attracted a large number of metal fans and the atmosphere was good natured. I saw a couple of people I knew from my days in the Cambridge rock society some fifteen years ago but alas they left the show before I got chance to speak to them. Adam was a laugh as usual, jiggling Wolfie's flabby hips and making jokes about toilet things at his expense, while in general it was a relaxed day listening to some music. We rarely ventured towards the front of the shows, largely because they weren't bands we knew and didn't feel like being crushed, although everyone was quite respectful apart from being flicked in the face by the flailing hair of moshers. The acoustics in the main stage area were quite divergent as the raised corridors on either side distorted the sound but the Terrorizer stage, where we spent most of our time, was built for this. The food at the event was good if you stuck with pasties, the burger we had from the student union was quite dry and gristly, but all in all it was an excellent festival and great value for money (£38), particularly for a cold November day when you are unlikely to do much else. We hope to return next year.
The main revelations came from Enslaved, who headlined the second Terrorizer stage along with an Australian band on earlier in the day who incorporated violins into their music. They also had proper singing interspersed with screaming vocals, which at least provided a nice contrast. Yorkshire gothic doom band Darkher highlighted just why I like female vocalists in this genre as the high singing was hauntingly beautiful, particularly when accompanied with eerie atmospheric music. Akercocke, led by a smiling Satanist (I just love that very concept), were also particularly good while The Cult of Luna featuring Julie Christmas are worth mentioning if only for the name although again they are another band with whom I fell in love due to having a female vocalist. The final headliners less so though, Ingested were just screamy and the small 4th stage was far less packed than it had been for other bands earlier in the day (this stage always suffers from being too thin, even with the bar now moved to the other side in a more ergonomic place), while it was clear that the sold out attendance had thinned on the main stage too for the soporific Electric Wizard, with beautiful psychedelic music but perhaps not something to finish the night with. After all, nine hours of standing and drinking was taking its toll, although we did at least space our beers due to our early start the next day (the Northern Monk cans of Festive Christmas Porter and Opeth Communion Beer were excellent for this), buying rounds but in a controlled manner. My mood was enhanced further by a late Boro goal at Man City, securing a 1-1 draw after we had defended so resolutely. Two successive away draws at Arsenal and City highlight that we do have a reasonable chance of survival.
The event as ever attracted a large number of metal fans and the atmosphere was good natured. I saw a couple of people I knew from my days in the Cambridge rock society some fifteen years ago but alas they left the show before I got chance to speak to them. Adam was a laugh as usual, jiggling Wolfie's flabby hips and making jokes about toilet things at his expense, while in general it was a relaxed day listening to some music. We rarely ventured towards the front of the shows, largely because they weren't bands we knew and didn't feel like being crushed, although everyone was quite respectful apart from being flicked in the face by the flailing hair of moshers. The acoustics in the main stage area were quite divergent as the raised corridors on either side distorted the sound but the Terrorizer stage, where we spent most of our time, was built for this. The food at the event was good if you stuck with pasties, the burger we had from the student union was quite dry and gristly, but all in all it was an excellent festival and great value for money (£38), particularly for a cold November day when you are unlikely to do much else. We hope to return next year.
