Iconic. Explosive. Diabolical. The 2024 rendition of Beyond the Gates Festival in Bergen, Norway delivered.
The festival started Wednesday, July 31st. Opening day crowds arrived into the fjordland town of Bergen amped and ready for a weekend of black metal in one of the birthplaces for the genre. In this regard, the festival is unique in its own right, but Beyond the Gates offers a few other unique features such as providing festivalgoers with a variety of indoor concert spaces differing in size, sound and style giving attendees a change of atmosphere throughout the weekend and a listening experience in year-round concert halls and club stages as opposed to temporarily constructed platforms of your typical music festival.
The festival relishes all that Bergen has to offer for black metal fans as well as anyone visiting this beautiful northern region interested in guided tours, landmarks and local culture with specially created side events guised under the name, Beyond the Gates Experience. There was also the return of the beloved tattoo convention, Beyond the Ink, which curated the diverse and talented work of black ink tattoo artists from around the world who set up stations at the two main venues, as well as a market consisting of local vendors, and events such as album listening parties, the launch of the official festival beer, wine tasting, art exhibitions and panel talks happening throughout. Plenty to do as both a festival attendee and visitor! Additionally, the festival teamed with local restaurants and institutions to provide discounts for anyone with festival wristbands over the course of the weekend which was very appreciated.
The two main venues of the festival this year were the USF Verftet and Grieghallen, both rich in historic importance to the city of Bergen and Grieghallen offering historic richness to the early Norwegian black metal scene. Albums recorded at Grieghallen include In the Nightside Eclipse by Emperor, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas by Mayhem, and Vikingligr Veldi by Enslaved. USF Verftet offered a very different climate from the upscale modernist vibe at Grieghallen. Serving as an old sardine factory repurposed into a concert space, USF Verftet welcomed attendees with tall-steel ceilings and concrete floors almost as hard as the crowds that occupied them.
USF Verftet hosted the festival for Days 1 and 2, and then everything switched to Grieghallen for Days 3 and 4. The two middle days of the festival included an additional venue space called Kulturehuset i Bergen which satisfied the musical hunger for sundwellers and night owls alike with the early afternoon Day Shifts and the extremely late, post-headliner Night Shifts.
Before any of the music kicked off on Day 1, USF Verftet opened its gates at noon to the public for the Beyond the Ink tattoo convention which was down the fall from the the stages, followed by the opening of the market at 16:30. When 17:30 drew upon us, crowds flocked to the main stage Hallen to witness Norway’s own Whoredom Rife officially blast us into the four days of dark and demonic oblivion. Polish black metal band, Mānbyrne, took stage next inside on Røkeriet followed by the ritual damnation of Watain who baptized front-row fans with blood carried in a chalice. Huge props to production design for this act. The fiery stakes emitted a hellish glow across the stage, illuminating the skull and serpent motifs and carefully designed altars. Following Watain was New York City’s Black Anvil who thrashed us to a pulp, leading us to the much anticipated and incredibly crimson set of no one other than Mayhem.
The set started off with an unique video montage curated of archival footage over the last few decades of the band’s creation, surmise, resurrections, and transformations as the year counted from 1984 forward all the way to the present day. Once the montage hit 2023, everything went black only to hear a deafening roar echoing across the metal walls of the old industrial building. Current vocalist Attila Csihar could be seen silhouetted on stage as the rest of the band came out. The lights came on and the first notes of sent us into a desecration. It was obvious who in the crowd was there for Mayhem and Mayhem alone. And what an honor to witness live not only one of the founding bands of the genre but in the founding site of Bergen, Norway.
The final performance came at 23:00 by another of Norway’s own, Trelldom back on the Røkeriet stage. Unfortunately, I missed this set but was luckily able to catch Gaahl perform during the Bathory Tribute set on closing night.
The USF Verftet venue is very well laid out with many places to chill with a beer in both the restaurant cafe and the outdoor deck by the fjord. The set times were scheduled well with crowds shifting between the Hallen and Røkeriet stages without anxiety of missing an act and also without too much dead space in between. It was easy catching just enough time to recoup between sets and witness the sun shining brightly all the way until the 22:30 hour.
Day 1 came to a successful close with the gates fully opened for another three days of metal. Festival attendees left thirsty for more and the pulse of Bergen was palpable.
As a heavy music concert photographer, this day marked my first time shooting in another country which was a trippy experience in a few different ways. Other than the obvious jet lag of flying halfway across the world, there were some noticeable cultural differences at heavy concerts between Norway (and perhaps Europe at large) versus in the states.
Navigating crowds was seemingly so much more difficult than usual. As a photographer, it usually takes a bit of perseverance and assertiveness to get through to the front of the stage in order to enter the pit, but you can usually achieve this by holding your camera up near your head so folks can see you’re just trying to get through in order to do your job. This was nearly impossible to achieve with these crowds. They didn’t give a fat f*** if you were there to work or not. People were extremely unyielding. It didn’t help that everyone was also really tall because shooting from the crowd served equally as difficult unless you did a hail mary and held your camera above your head hoping for the best. I also cannot tell you how many times beers were spilled on my lenses. Is it the end of the world? No. Is it a little frustrating when festival attendees aren’t considerate of folks working onsite? A bit. Another American music photographer and I connected on this shared experience and how unnecessarily difficult getting to the front of stage and back out was.
Day 2 was the last day at USF Verftet and the first day of the club shows at Kulturehuset i Bergen located centrally in town. A huge perk to this festival that is different from many other festivals is the way it’s located inside of a city instead of one single walled-off area out in field or a park. This gives it a much more inclusive and also liberating feel because you can enter the festival spaces but then walk outside and just be in Bergen. You’re not limited to food and beverages inside of the festival, you can walk down the street and have all the amenities a city offers plus some pretty amazing scenery.
Day sets kicked off at 13:30 in the afternoon and took us all the way to the late afternoon main stage sets. Club sets included piercing screams by Bad Omen, Doombringer, and Ritual Death. Back at USF Verftet commenced the main stage sets with a jam-packed evening of doom. Cult of Fire started us off with their musical depth and masked guitarists who were seated on giant cobras within the industrial Hallen stage. Portrait ripped and shredded us next on the indoor Røkeriet stage with raw energy and leather vests. Following came extreme metal vets Venom back on Hallen stage who gave us equal parts grit and glory. What a band to see live after learning they had helped give a name to the black metal genre with their second album Black Metal in 1982. Black metal ambient band Darkspace took us back inside and gave us quite literally a dark space to decompress and reset in with only their painted white faces illuminating at us in the dark. The self-reflective palette cleansers that I strongly felt we needed amongst the endless high-decibel chaos. I love the ferocity of the thrash, but only when balanced with a moody middle tone. Darkspace delivered.
At 21:30 with the sun still shining bright, the masses migrated back into the old industrial factory Hallen stage for an incredibly legendary set from Behemoth. The intro could not have been more epic or better suited for a band with their title. They brought us in with the daunting chanting of “Post-God Nirvana” while Inferno the drummer was silhouetted larger than life on a silk covering the stage. Strobing silhouettes of Nergal and Orion followed as they made their way to stage and then a behemoth profile of Nergal chanting filled the silk screen. As a photographer, it’s hard not to comment on a well-designed lighting scheme, and the perfectly-timed strobing mechanics of this intro was it. The band was kept in this mysterious way until “Once Upon a Pale Horse” got started and the silk dropped down on the first acceleration of screams.
This entire set was on point. Behemoth brought torches and tenacity. When “Ora Pro Nobis Lucifer” came on the pyrotechnics set the scene ablaze. The enthusiasm of the crowd was immense. Then the real banger “Ov Fire and the Void” came on to massive praise. Cheering and hollering was louder than for any other set so far, and a sea of horn fists stayed saluted throughout.
Nergal and Orion matched with a high-energy performance jumping around the stage, taking stances on monitors and high up on a platform. From a musical, visual and energetic perspective, this set was reigned for me.
By 23:00, the Norwegian sky barely kissed by dusk, audiences crowded to the Røkeriet stage for Italian horror metal group Death SS. The band named after the initials of lead singer Steve Sylvester, who gave a punchy performance amidst a full, vivacious costumed performance.
This concluded sets at the USF Verftet, but the music continued. Akhlys and Old Tower took over Kulturehuset i Bergen for the Night Shifts at 00:30 and 1:40 in the morning. On account of jet lag and old age I missed these later shows, but with regret as I was yearning to check these bands out live. The new Akhlys album House of the Black Geminus has all of my favorite dark flavors including a slow, daunting sense of doom, mysterious musical builds that take their time, eerie melodic organs, not to mention A+ on their aesthetic designs of fine art meets horror.
Dark ambient is among my favorite of the genres and made sense to schedule during the deepest, darkest hours of the night (which for July in Norway really only exists in these select few hours). I was bummed to miss the looming, haunting sounds of Old Tower but I am confident those present greatly enjoyed it.
Part 2 coming soon:
WORDS AND PHOTOS BY KIMBERLY MORAN
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https://www.instagram.com/kmoran.creative/