Global Domination | Witnessed | Damnation Festival 2008

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Witnessed

Damnation Festival 2008

08/12/08 || Global Domination

Damnation Festival

Where: Leeds, England
When: 22nd November, 2008
Why: Death metal? Why not?

This review was written by ex-staffer/cocksmoker AMP.

After sipping a nice mug of tea and bowing to a portrait of the Queen, I set off for the premier British metal festival (the other two big ones in Blighty are focused on fellating Europe (Bloodstock) or America (Download) and thus don’t count) just a couple of miles from my front doorstep. The lineup was stunning (though I had to miss Napalm Death and Cathedral due to lineup clashes, which is retarded, lineup clashes get 0/10), the price reasonable, and I could sleep in my own bed. No question. (Also, parenthesis.)

After the absurdly long queue into a building which was designed for students to eat their lunch in, not for death metal festivals, we arrived at the main stage in time to catch the latter half of Taint‘s set. I was completely unaware of the band before I heard they were playing, but their hardcore take on Kyuss-style desert rock is pretty fresh and cool and the band played great. Twisted psychedelia isn’t my thing but I’d consider seeing these Welshies again, the groovy ass riffs alone made the band worthwhile. 7/10 for the band, 2/10 for shots of Jägermeister that cost £3, despite Jäger being the official sponsors of the main stage.

After hearing that Onslaught were recording a live album in a little while, we resolved to be there for it, but first a trip to the second stage to catch a bit of Desecration. More Welshmen were abound, this time playing grindcore with über-technical Cannibal Corpse style riffs. The riffs probably sounded cool – they definitely looked impressive – but as all I could hear was some fuzz and the drums (and some shouting from the front man to the engineer, which totally failed to fix the problem) I can’t really report with certainty on that matter. Desecration get the benefit of the doubt for the sound issues, and 6/10, because most grindcore is boring… Now if only Carcass were headlining… Hmm…

When we got back to the main stage, we realized there wasn’t supposed to be a band between Taint and Onslaught, and so only caught the end of the old thrashers’ last song. Which is a damned shame, because what I heard of it sounded killer. I guess I’ll just have to review the live album when it comes out, and learn to read the fucking timetables properly next time.

Next up, Sigh, the Japanese black-circle members turned avant-garde death metallers. Another impressive set, and the guy stood in front of me obviously thought so too – he spent the whole show taking close up photos of the backup singer, presumably entirely because of the great range of grunts and screams and nothing to do with the fact that she was wearing a studded leather bikini and dripping hot wax on herself. Singer Mirai did his best Abbath impersonation (while simultaneously looking like the bad guy from a Yakuza movie) and rocked up the keyboards like they have never been rocked up before.

Unfortunately, the sound was shitty for the second time in the night, all the guitars sounded a bit tinny and the saxophone remained inaudible throughout, though whether the second point is unfortunate is up for debate. Nevertheless the band almost stole the crown for stage shows from Aragorn (later…) and the energy was there, even if the low frequencies weren’t. 7/10. The cover of Venom’s “Black Metal” closing the set was intense.

Back, from our brief oriental excursion, to the UK, and My Dying Bride. One fucking word: HUGE. I accidentally hit caps lock when I typed that, but it can stay. Seriously fucking meaty sound right here, and with some of the chunkiest death-doom riffs ever conceived that’s a formula for absolute domination that Einstein would be proud to call his own. But he can’t because My Dying Bride are better at doom-metal calculus than Einstein was, the hairy twat. Fucking Huge.

I’d name some songs, but I dunno the titles of any of them. I’d only heard one of them before the gig (it was from “Like Gods of The Sun”, and it wasn’t “Grace Unhearing”, but other than that…) but it didn’t really matter – every song came across like gold. Giant, depressed, molten gold by the truckload. Aaron Stainthorpe (coming just above Adrian Smith on the list of trvest names for your baby) gave a passionate performance, writhing about on the floor in grief at times. It wouldn’t have been quite so metal if he didn’t look like Aragorn, but he does, so that’s okay. 8/10. And 10/10 for the hot keyboard/violinist.

Almost as soon as My Dying Bride finished (along with Napalm Death in the other room) the main stage began to fill up with people who’d kill to see the main event. Carcass are back and ready to grind us into dust. Except they weren’t ready, and the set was delayed 40 minutes. Delays suck, but by the time the band got on stage all was forgotten as the dulcet tones of Jeff Walker roared through some classic “Heartwork” material to open the set. Everything was ideally mixed, even the vocals (if there’s a problem with anything live, it’s always the vocals) and the set was flawless. And lasted forever, I think.

“Who’s here to see Carcass?”
“YEAH!”
“And who’s here for Mike Ammott half price?”

Gotta love the deadpan Mikael Åkerfeldt style of audience banter – we were also treated to stories about Bill Steer’s dad and complaints about technical difficulties with the stage show (“Usually at this point I Say ‘This one’s for all the girls, and some rotten penises appear on the screen.”) as well as the obligatory thank yous and “You fucking rule”‘s. And it didn’t get in the way of an immense set, either. Obviously most of “Heartwork” was covered – but there was plenty from “Symphonies…” and one or two tracks each from the others. One of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen is a couple, arm-in-arm, headbanging together to “Genital Grinder”.

Towards the end of the set, original drummer Ken Owen was invited on stage for a solo; okay, so it wasn’t all blasting and speed, but it was probably better than I could manage, and when you take into account the fact that Ken Owen was in a coma for 10 months… The man’s a fucking legend.

Back to the show though. Fuck. I’ll have to admit I don’t go to a lot of metal gigs (distance, money and company) but it doesn’t take a veteran to tell that this was something amazing. It almost makes me want to see Bill Steer’s suggestion that there might be more music to come a reality. 13 years since the last album and they sound more up to date than most new bands. Even the “Swansong” material fucked shit up as hard as anything from “Symphonies…” could. This is going down as one of the best gigs ever… 10/10.

Also: apologies for the lack of pics. I’m not the sort to take a camera out to a festival with me, and the email address listed on the festival’s website doesn’t seem to exist, so I couldn’t even ask nicely for donations…

Witnessed