Hellfest
Clisson, France June 29, 2024
A special review written by Damien Coiffard
It is such a pleasure to be at Hellfest which is situated in the west of France in a small village called Clisson. At the top of the hill lies this fantastic festival. It is like Disneyland for metal heads and there is so much to see and admire even without the music. Hell City which is near the entrance of the huge venue is like one long street and you can buy every drink and food going. Once inside the venue we see the merchandise stand which is as big as an actual stage and usually has thousands of fans queuing each day for the latest Hellfest gear. There are many stages at the festival and I estimate that there are over 60,000 metal heads here. We have stages called Valley, Temple and Warzone although today I am concentrating more on the two mainstages inside the larger part of the venue that are called mainstage 1 and mainstage 2. The headliners tonight are none other than Metallica. Everyone is aware that Metallica are the biggest and certainly most successful of metal bands, and so for them to be at perhaps the greatest metal festival in the world, well then, this seems like a perfect match-up to me.
The first act I catch isn't actually a band but a guitarist; Yngwie Malmsteen is one of the greatest guitar players in the world, I believe that he didn't even make it in the recent Rolling Stone list of the best 250 guitar players in the world or if he did make it he was really low down. Anyone who knows their music knows that the list is a bit of a joke. Anyway earlier in the day Malmsteen told members of the press that his main influence growing up was classical violin. Not that he played violin but his ear took to it and in turn it helped him pick up a guitar. Malmsteen is something else and he makes his guitar sing so beautiful. He sounds perfect and the metal heads are here to appreciate such amazing guitar work. For me I want to go and see him again, but he's going to be more concentrated in the USA for the rest of this year.
This was my first time seeing Wolfgang Van Halen and of course his name sounds familiar right? He is the son of the late and great Eddie Van Halen and it's really cool that he uses a few of Eddie's guitars on stage. I wasn't so familiar with his songs but Wolfgang can play great. In fact I am starting to think that this day at Hellfest which is the 3rd one of the festival is a guitarists feast. I say this because later on Extreme play. Okay it's true I am not a huge fan of the band but they do have one of the great guitar players of the past 30 years in Nuno Bettencourt. Bettencourt does not like this stage, they are playing on Metallica's stage and so he is facing a quite empty snake pit. Extreme play some of their hits which includes the very acoustic and soft 'More Than Words' I think this is brave to play to this audience but gladly enough they respect the band and all goes well. Accept are celebrating 50 years of being together and I thought they were amazing. A real metal band who know how to entertain a crowd, they are playing more European shows later this year and will be touring North America in August with KK's Priest that promises to be a great tour.
At this point sadly it starts to rain when Iron Maiden legend Bruce Dickinson takes to the stage. Countless times he keeps looking to the skies and asking for the rain to stop. Fair play to him he gets soaked and although there are no Maiden classics to be played his solo material is really strong and he has a very good band. Finally we get the headliners Metallica who are only making their 2nd appearance at the festival after they played here in 2022. The band open with 'Creeping Death' and 'Enter Sandman' features early in the set. The setlist is a good mix of old classics and new stuff but I am so happy to hear them play 'Orion', this was original bassist Cliff Burton's favorite tune and it is only the 91st time it has ever been played live - not bad for a song that is almost 40 years old. James Hetfield and the band are in brilliant form and for the last few numbers Lars Ulrich’s drum set is brought to the front of the stage. They close with a fantastic triple whammy of 'Nothing Else Matters', 'One' and 'Master of Puppets'. I've been going to see Metallica now for the past 30 years and this was one of their finest shows, yes like a fine French wine in a fine French festival, Metallica and Hellfest are one and grow together and keep on getting better. If you've never been to Hellfest, do yourself a favor and experience it one day, you will not be disappointed.
Damien Coiffard, HMS
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