Part I

Blastfest 2015 had a huge portion of its ticket sales bought by travellers from abroad. Actually almost half of the attendees travelled from outside of Norway. People came from all around the globe, with the UK and the US among the most well represented countries. What seemed to be the mantra of most of the foreigners was that they’d be visiting Bergen and Blastfest again for next year’s edition.

Well, that can surely not be the result of the Blastfest fjord cruise that saw approximately 300 people on a boat outside of Bergen. Embarking upon the ship off of UNESCO World Heritage Site Tyskebryggen, the lines were long, at least considering that the rain was pouring down. Thus the reputation of Bergen as the “rainy city” was kept alive and well. Especially considering the hour it took to get all the people onto the ship.

As soon as people were aboard the ship and had started to somewhat dry up, festival boss Yngve Christiansen greeted all, before they were treated to the first band of the festival, Purple Hill Witch. These stoner rockers from Oslo have been compared to the likes of Black Sabbath and Pentagram. Although maybe a bit downtempo for a festival opening act, the band were semi-successful. They pulled off the look and sound of the 70’s. But sadly, as soon as their vocalist opened his mouth, the tune became a very different one. Someone seemed to be killing a cat and channeling it through his vocal chords.

Things were a lot better for the next band up, Aspherium. One could hear people mumble and murmur “Who the hell are these guys?”, not as a valence-judgement, but rather because they genuinely had no idea who was on stage. From looking at album sales during their set, that tone became a different one, after the band successfully presented their own brand of technical and melodic death metal.

Sadly the veterans in Grimfist had to cancel their headlining appearance at the cruise due to unforeseen illness. Mr. Secthdaemon had succumbed to the unholiest of influenzas, just as he and Grimfist/Tsjuder drummer Christian Svendsen were supposed to drive from Oslo to Bergen.

This meant that the very first live performance ever from The 3rd Attempt would be the cruise’s headlining act. The band was founded by the two former Carpathian Forest guitarists Tchort (Emperor, Green Carnation, Blood Red Throne etc), and Blood Pervertor, and has that same direct black metal approach as the band they left behind. With a vocalist draped in barbed wire, corpsepaint, and wielding a big bottle of vodka , it was no doubt that people would be getting the full black metal experience. And they played awfully loud, also borrowing Carpathian Forests own Vrangsinn for bass duties. The songs were awfully catchy, and promise good for the band’s upcoming debut album. All the while during the cruise the upstairs bar had Hoest from Taake DJ-ing, which meant that lots of really old school black metal was on the menu.

Speaking of old (school black metal): the evening was still young as the ship came back into the harbour, and there were still many bands to catch at The Garage venue.

The first band out was the Scottish band Falloch, filling Garage with that sombre and highland folk-esque post-metal something something.

Kall took to the stage thereafter, and gave a convincing performance, drenched in misery and despair, just as one would suspect from a band essentially being a re-named Lifelover.

Then came the Greek hordes in Naer Mataron. Ironically, the band who, simply playing a small club stage during the festival, had gotten the most attention of all those playing Blastfest. Why? Because of their link to Golden Dawn, the greek fascist party. This of course not being a small link, with their main member being an official representative of said party (He sat this show out, being incarcerated back home in Greece). No doubt someone will catch on to news like that. Judging the band simply by musical aesthetics, there were also some doubts being had beforehand as to whether they would be able to put up a musical effort worthy of all the media attention. But so they did! It was incredibly convincing, oozing of testosterone, and with just the ferocious attitude one expects from the very finest of black metal bands.

Then there was time for a legendary Norwegian band, Gehenna. They took on the Garage audience with full force. Although that admittedly meant that they did their very “own” thing, and seemed to not even register that the audience existed as they pummeled out ‘Werewolf’, ‘Death To Them All’, ‘Ad Arma Ad Arma’ and the likes of them. They host members believing in a certain black metal ethic or aesthetic, so no bread and circus. Although one could say that is exactly what it turns into; bread and circus for the black-and-white thinkers.

Bömbers were the last band to descend upon the stage. They are not only a Lemmy-approved Motörhead tribute band, but also have Abbath of Immortal fame at their helm. They presented more than an hour of classic Motörhead material, and delivered full showmanship and lots of humour. This incited a very drunk and very English speaking crowd to not only mosh, and crowd surf, but to raucously cheer absolutely anything that Abbath said in Norwegian, even “Hey, can we make some room in the middle there”. In response to the Motorhead worthy crowd, Tore at one point announced “In the night…with sticks!” before tossing out a few drum sticks to an absolutely ravenous crowd. Basically the band once again established themselves as the Motörhead tribute band.

Thursday

As always happens during festivals, and especially the ones with as many bands as Blastfest’s sixty, one has to miss out on certain acts. Sadly Tortorum were playing as early as noon, only hours after people had left the venue the day before.

Not arriving in time for Dead To This World was never even an option though, and they delivered yet again, as they always do. Fronted by Iscariah of Immortal fame, they pretty much tore all present a new one with what has to be some of the most convincing black thrash around.

After Hecate Enthroned and Den Saakaldte had played their sets, people started moving in the direction of the main festival venue, USF Verftet, a 1300 capacity venue, which also houses the smaller Studio stage, a 300 capacity venue. Sadly the equation of the number of ticketholders and the limited access to the Studio stage became the main issue for the festival, as many had to sit out their favourite bands due to long queues.

Before Rotting Christ started it all off at the main stage, the local mayor held an official opening speech, saluting the crowd with horns up, and speaking of an overwatching Dio.

The first band at the Studio stage were Danish Saturnus, which downright set the blueprint for how death doom should sound during their four song long set. Although four Saturnus songs actually makes for forty minutes of sombre serenades.

Back on the mainstage Samael had their second coming in Bergen, and did so to an energetic crowd, and with all the stage presence one expects from a legendary band. They also, fittingly, played ‘Rain’ from their album ‘Passage’. They basically played many of their classics, including the trinity of ‘Into The Pentagram’, ‘Shining Kingdom’, and of course ‘Jupiterian Vibe’. The sound did come across as rather low compared to the sonic onslaught one would expect, but so did many of the bands on the mainstage. Or the bands at the Studio stage were just really loud!

Melechesh were absolutely amazing, and seeing them at the small Studio venue made it even better. It was crammed full of people, and we all witnessed Melechesh burn the place to the ground. They also came armed with a few new songs mixed in between the genies, sorcerers and Mesopotamian nights.

As if that wasn’t enough, one could head straight back down and catch the ever-professional Primordial, then head back up to a completely crammed room for Orange Goblin, featuring singer Ben Ward sporting the most epic Scorpions t-shirt and controlling the audience with authority and humour. Back down yet again, the main venue saw Dark Tranquillity showing off their absolute professionalism. Backed by a huge video projection the band played through ten songs, mostly new ones, also giving the audience a chance to hear classics like ‘The Wonders At Your Feet’ and ‘Therein’ between the more recent material on offer.

The best thing? Still there was Craft playing live for the second time ever, to a completely packed Studio stage, then Watain proving themselves worthy of a headliner position, ritualistic and all. But maybe even more impressive to many fans was the ability to see Moonsorrow finish off the night with an intimate set in front of three hundred people. We were all smiles, and there were still two more days to come.

WORDS BY  TRISKELION P.L. 

PHOTO BY STIG PALLESON