The Chaoszine Hellfest 2024 report, day 1: Welcome to Hell!

Hellfest is one of the must-see experiences for any metal head, and having previously attended the festival only once over a decade ago I had to take the opportunity to visit Hell city again after such a long break. Getting to the festival area was very smooth compared to other experiences I’ve had with festivals of this size in the past, and upon arrival I noticed that the place looked very familiar compared to the 2013 version. I was travelling alone but met some nice people on the bus and we headed together to the camping area which was already quite full by Thursday afternoon. The weather was very pleasant, a few clouds in the sky but the temperature was just perfect, not too hot taking into account the heat waves in Central Europe during the current summer.

Once our tents were ready we explored the different corners, shops and landmarks of the concert area. The twin stages were strategically distributed in a way that overlapping concerts can be enjoyed without ruining the acoustic experience. Walking around gave me the impression that the organisers have also taken into account that people need some rest and shade during the long four days of metal frenzy with plenty of green areas where you can sit. On the food and drink front there were a fair amount of options to choose from, and the prices weren’t too bad if you compare them to Finnish festivals. Although French people are not famous for their English speaking skills I have to say that I mainly had no problems communicating with the staff and as far as I’m concerned everyone tried their best to give good customer service.

The first act I witnessed was Kerry King, who played mostly stuff out of their debut album “From Hell I Rise”, released earlier this year. The performance and the sound was great, with Mark Osegueda delivering powerful vocals and Paul Bostaph’s usual solid drumming. Their own material was highly entertaining but of course the one-two punch of Slayer’s classics “Raining Blood” and “Black Magic” took their show to another level of excitement and forced me to join my first mosh pit of the festival. Next up was France’s very own black metal rising star Sylvaine, one of the artists I was more thrilled to see since she has never played a show in Finland and because “Nova” was one of my favorite albums of 2022. Their combination of folk elements and shoegaze atmosphere worked very well especially in the more intimate Temple stage.

I quickly headed back to the main stages to catch most of Megadeth’s performance and although the band was on fire and the setlist was charged with pleasant surprises such as “Kick the Chair”, Dave Mustaine’s vocals were so bad that it made it almost impossible for me to focus on anything else. At the same time, Dark Tranquillity were killing it at a fully packed Altar stage with a powerful set including three songs from their upcoming album “Endtime Signals”. This was one of the toughest band clashes of the festival for me so I had to find a good spot to keep alternating between Megadeth and Dark Tranquillity depending on the song they were playing. Overall performance-wise, the Swedish melodeath outfit were far more consistent and Mikael Stanne’s vocals and stage presence were great as usual.

I decided to take a short break from concerts in order to check out the general merch stands and witness the endless queue to the Hellfest Official Merch Sanctuary and came back to the Altar to enjoy Sodom’s teutonic thrash attack. The now four-piece German legends delivered a relentless collection of old-school classics with emphasis on 1987’s “Persecution Mania”. The mix was very loud and although the band had to cancel their next festival appearances due to Tom Angelripper’s vocal issues I didn’t hear any problems with his performance. My last concert of the evening was Cradle of Filth’s highly anticipated show. The queue to take photos and to access the Temple was indeed impressive and you could sense a very strong energy while standing in the crowd. The Brits, fronted by a highly energetic Dani Filth, took the audience for a three-decade trip through most of their catalogue.

At 2 AM, after travelling by bus for most of the day and walking around with a heavy backpack for quite long, it was finally time to go to bed and give my legs a little rest before the second day of the festival, the first one with a full-day program. The camp was very noisy but I was so tired I couldn’t care less about that.
To be continued…