Damnation Festival 2010 ReviewWe had been looking forward to this one for a while. A usually great festival venue, some fantastic
bands and copious quantities of reasonably priced alcohol. Damnation Festival 2010 had all the makings
of a bloody good day, so did it deliver....
We arrived at the venue in plenty of time, even allowing for the most insane city centre road
system in christendom. The road network centre of Leeds was not so much designed as thrown together
one hungover afternoon by some first year urban planning students, still we made it and got ourselves
organised before heading off to catch the first band of the day.
| Events on the main Jagermiester stage were kicked off by 'classic' thrash band Mutant who won the honour of
opening the festival when the first slots on the three stages were put out to a public vote. The
band were obviously made up to be there, after their victory was announced they said "Thanks to
everyone who voted, we are looking forward to blastulating with you all!", and blastulate they did.
The crowd swelled rapidly as the London 4-piece set the bar for tight, technical thrash metal. They
put in a storming set and fully deserved the amazing reception they got.
Our next port of call was the Rock Sound stage to catch some of the set from the winners of the
competition to open there, The Construct. They suffered the first of the inevitable festival technical
issues when the power went off not long after they started, but after a 5 minute delay someone put
another 50p in the meter and things were up and running again. We really liked The Construct's
debut release Titan and for a band playing for only the second time they really impressed. Definitely
one to watch.
After The Construct it was time for Diascorium, third of the 4 competition winners, after they tied
with Colonel Blast for the Terrorizer stage opening slot. Unfortunately at previous events in this
venue the sound on this stage has been terrible, and today was going to be no different. In spite of
this Diascorium maintained the high standards set by the bands that had gone before.
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We didn't think we were going to have the chance to see Panic Cell because of the usual festival
stage times clashing issue but got there in time to see them perform their latest single, an impressive
cover version of Seal's Crazy. This is the sort of thing that festival memories are made of as the
band got the whole audience singing along with the chorus. There were some rumblings from certain
quarters when Panic Cell were added to the bill for this 'extreme metal' event but they proved their
detractors wrong with a performance that was big on fun but low on taking themselves too seriously.
Only wish we'd seen more of it.
Bu the time Panic Cell were on the place was starting to get pretty packed and the venue was
starting to feel a little cramped, and this was going to get worse as the day went on, particularly
for the Rock Sound stage which was just too small to accommodate the bands that had been put on there.
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Another band we definitely wanted to make sure we didn't miss were the final competition winners, so
we battled through the crowds to the Terrorizer stage to finally acquaint ourselves with Colonel Blast
live.
From the opening, erm, blast of Blofeld Never died the band delivered a stunning set. We really
liked their debut album but live these songs are taken to a whole new level with 'new' vocalist This
Is Turin's Darryl bringing a new edge to the tracks and delivering an emotionally intense performance
while still connecting with the audience who were lapping it up. For The Greater Good and, particularly,
Ethical Betrayal benefited from what Darryl has brought to the Blast and for us this was the best
performance we had yet seen.
The added comedy value of guitarist Ben falling over, hurting his knee and still playing while
lying on his back was just the icing on the cake. It looked painful and we shouldn't laugh... ok,
maybe a little.
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Our next port of call was the by now clearly too small Rock Sound stage for an appointment
with Black Metallers Fen. It is a testament to the diverse nature of metal, and to the scope of
the event that so far we had had Heavy Metal, Thrash, Doom, Hardcore and now atmospheric Black
Metal. Those people who limit what they listen to by genre are missing out on a lot.
Fen put on another solid performance and, for it's limitations, the Rock Sound stage had no
crowd barriers and was at virtually floor level so it presented a rare opportunity to get up close
and personal with the band.
One slight niggle was that compared to previous events at this venue there appeared to be a much
more high profile security presence and, as usual, there were a mixture of sound people doing a good
job and others who seemed more likely to cause trouble than stop it, like the one who stood at the door
to the Rock Sound stage with his arms folded basically getting in the way of people trying to get
in and out.
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| We were really looking forward to what was to come next,
Lawnmower Deth are something of a legend in UK thrash circles. Although often dismissed as a parody or,
worse, a joke they have been pulling off a string of high profile performances at festivals since
they reformed a couple of years back. Many an old fart missed them first time around and judging
by the packed Jagermiester stage people weren't going to make the same mistake this time around.
If you had to sum up a Lawnmower Deth gig in one word, that word would have to be Fun. They have
some top bouncy thrash tunes that they play perfectly, but they cover that with a thick layer of
silliness. I mean where else would you see a crowd surfing race between a corpse painted guy in a
sombrero and a woman with red hair ?? In addition there was no need to worry about the setlist as
all the old favourites were played tonight, Icky Ficky, Betty Ford's Clinic, Flying Killer Cobs
From The Planet Bob. What more could you ask for ?
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This is feel good party metal at it's absolute best. As well as the crowd surf race the band also
invited a fan onstage to find out the answer to the age old question "How many times can you bounce
up and down on Satan's big old Trampoline?"
We had high expectations of hardcore crossover band SSS before the festival, but it was difficult
to form an opinion on them here as they suffered from absolutely appalling sound which pretty much
ruined their show for us.
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We like Brummie Necropunks Fukpig. We first encountered them at DeathFest earlier this year and were
totally blown away by the insanity of performance. The desire to see them again was heightened by the release of the
excellent Belief Is The Death Of Intelligence album and there was a buzz of anticipation in the Terrorizer
stage as we prepared for the onslaught.
As the band opened with Die Bastard followed by Britain's Got Fucking Aids is was clear they had lost
none of their edge, their intensity or their brutality. This was an aural assault of the most violent
kind as front man Drunk rammed the bands message into our faces and the room erupted with wave after wave of crowd surfers
going over the top. As a gig experience this was about as intense as it gets.
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Unlike DeathFest the venue had installed a security barrier in front of the stage and there were a load
of security staff lined up to keep people off. We were worried that this separation between the
crowd and the band would blunt their impact, but we needn't have as Drunk spent most of the set right in
our faces. Even a slightly heavy handed security goon couldn't spoil it, and credit to his
supervisor for telling him to calm down before he provoked something unpleasant.
| After the neck-wrecking devastation of Fukpig we wandered off to the Jagermiester stage to see the
recently reformed Earthtone9. This is a band who's reunion generated excitement far beyond what we would
have expected and, to be honest, it's still a bit of a mystery. They put on a good show and those who
like them REALLY like them but they just didn't do it for us here.
We were also slightly disappointed with Anaal Natrakh. Here they could be directly compared with
Fukpig who, we thought, were the better band. This wasn't a point of view that we could find many
people to argue with after their set either.
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Paradise Lost seem to be enjoying something of a resurgence of interest in recent years. Their last album
was a real return to form and they put on a good show in the cold and impersonal setting of the O2 at their
recent Ozzfest appearance, so we expected tonights homecoming-ish to be something a bit special....
But we didn't realise just how special it would be.
Tonight Paradise Lost were a band absolutely Ialthough thankfully not literally) on fire. They seemed
to be enjoying themselves more than usual and the home crowd were fully behind them
The band were clearly loving the reception they were getting and tracks like the opener The Rise Of Denial and
Faith Divides Us - Death Unites Us were performed, and received, with a passion.
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Paradise Lost are as good now as they have ever been. When a band have been together this long and played
this many shows they can become stuck in a rut and let things slip. There are no signs of that here and,
for us, this was one of the sets of the festival. After the gig Nick tweeted
"Back from Damnation, my favourite show in 45 years, Im serious. man & boy. Thanks to all that didn't throw
sharp objects at me for being shit". Well tonight Paradise Lost were anything but shit.
| The old adage about getting in touch with old girlfriends also applies to revisiting your musical heroes. The
addition of Punk veterans Discharge to the bill was something that we were initially not sure about and
after the modernised hardcore punk of Fukpig and Anaal Natrakh, they just didn't seem to work here.
Again they were buggered by the terrible sound that blighted this stage so it's difficult to be too
critical but we left after two songs.
And so, for us, the wandering round the three stages came to an end as we headed back to the main stage
for the headline act.
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It's confession time, not everyone here at CackBlabbth is a fan of New Jersey mathcore band The Dillinger
Escape Plan (I mean, mathcore ???), and a certain member of the team spent a couple of minutes in chatting
with 'some American bloke' in the press area, the American bloke being Greg Puciato, singer with the aforementioned
DEP. Doh !!!
And, to be fair once the band hit the stage it was easy to see their appeal. A more energetic performance it
is difficult to imagine as various band members climbed all over the stage and speaker stacks without missing a
note. Judging by the bloke who spent the whole show booing the band for 'not being metal' they're not to
everyone's liking but for those of us from this planed it was an enjoyable enough show. Greg said before
their set that the previous evenings show in London was their most intense UK date ever. I wonder what he
made of the MENTAL reception the band got here.
It's really difficult to pick our favourite set from Damnation 2010 as there were so many good bands with
totally different styles. Other folk we spoke to had Earthtone9 and Dillinger as their highlight, but for us
the top three were (in no particular order) Fukpig, Paradise Lost and Lawnmower Deth. Don't make us choose
between them.
Huge thanks to to the Lovely Damnation Press Officer Lisa for looking after us and plying us with Haribo.
See you next year.
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