INFERNO FESTIVAL 2017 – Day two #2 – Rockefeller & John Dee

Starting off John Dee on the Friday, was Vinterblot. They gave an energized show and played a rather tight show, as well as being interesting to look at. The audience looked quite happy with the show, and in the end, this was a solid start for the third day. Now, it was still rather early, so Vinterblot did not pack John Dee completely, but they still did pretty good, concidering the time. The music of the band is quite folky, and the band played nicely off of that with their way of acting on stage. All in all a pretty nice and somewhat light start.

Anaal Nathrakh delivered an extremely energizing show that were borderline chaotic to watch, but in a very good way. The only issue was the long breaks between songs that more or less killed the energy in the room. This basically made the show into a weird rollercoaster. Musically, the band is ok, and they are insanely tight. Anaal Nathrakh also seemed like they resonated well with the people watching, so their fans didn’t really seem to care about the almost nauseating changes in energy between the songs and the intermissions. Good on them and good on the band! Not the best of the inferno gigs, but definitely not the worst.

One of the most interesting looking bands out there, Samael, was playing a special anniversary show for Inferno this year, and it was generally a good time, though not without its issues. The band’s interesting set-up with the midi drums works best when they are performing their newer, more industrial material, and it just loses alot of the intended energy when they play the more black metal based albums without a proper drum kit. It was definitely a a good show, and Samael is never a band that doesn’t give it their best, but in this case, it would just have been better with the old school drums. Musically, the bands newer material also far outperforms their older stuff, seeing as it is way more innovation involved in it. Samael has both been better and worse before, and this gig probably falls into the "ok, but not really that memorable" folder for their core fans.

Let’s just all come together and start agreeing that the glory days of Gorgoroth are behind them. They will never reach the sort of occult and extreme status they once had, both inside and outside of the metal scene. Hoest is an ok frontman for the band, but he is better with Taake. The music hasn’t really aged that well (for the most part, anyway), and the band just isn’t as tight as people remember or wish they were. They are absolutely not a bad band, and the concert was ok, though not anything special. Gorgoroth is known for having extreme shows with extreme visuals. That has sort of been their thing, atleast since the Gaahl/King era. So when they hit the stage and look less interesting than alot of the other bands on the festival, and they don’t do any of their gimmicky stuff, they just lose their purpose a little bit. The sound was decent, and the Gorgoroth fans in the audience didn’t really seem to care that what they were watching was basically a shell of it former self. The band did an ok job, but again: nothing out of the ordinary, and nothing their fans haven’t seen a million times before. Sadly not a very memorable experience.

http://infernofestival.net/