HØSTSABBAT 2026 – review of Day 1
- Posted on 09-11-2026
Photo galleries from day 1
All photos:Jonathan Mazin
Text: Andrea Chirulescu
Oslo’s autumn musical tradition has already established itself as a small festival with a big big heart and dedicated fanbase: Høstsabbat festival, taking place this year on the weekend 23-24th of October at the same fantastic main location: the church or riffs or, for mortals, cultural church Jacob (Kulturkirken Jacob in local dialect). The church itself offers two stages, a big one by the altar and the Crypt, located in the basement and offering some out of the usual concert type as there is no elevated stage and the height of the ceiling can make the whole thing feel claustrophobic. Also if you’re not in the first two-three rows and over 180cm, you cannot actually see the concert. Luckily, there are some spots on the sides of the stage where you can compromise sound and viewing angle, for the sake of viewing something. A drummer and some bums, most of the time. And happy audience faces.
Given the space restrictions of the church, there has always been a rather big tent placed outside, and in the tent you’d have merch, food and drinks serving and some artists exhibiting and selling their work. There are also tables where you can sit and hang out with friends and actually most of the artists would sell their own merch so you can always go and say hi and ask them some questions and have some photo memories. This adds an extra level of coziness, keeping the festival at a personal level and having almost everyone know everyone else here, with a high chance to always make new friends. I find it extra cool to have a vendor (Vaterland bar&scene) selling spicy sauces – and having one of the sauces branded with the festival logo. And you can actually get a yummee festival themed pizza at Vaterland too, with their famous sauce. What is less cool is the too official looking and acting security folks. I am aware that in Norway you have to be protected from having too much fun and all public events are supposed to use budget (I think) on patrols, but it really felt like an overdo with so many suited up folks who seem completely out of place and who seem to have a quota of people that have to be sent out from the festival as they are too intoxicated. And obviously missing the intoxicated ones. These security companies have people with whom we are rather familiar at concerts, as you see them all the time and they are more discreet and probably concert goers themselves. I guess these were all busy during the weekend. Anyway…
I have left my office and made it just in time to catch the first show at The Crypt, Norwegian hedonistic hard rockers in Bong Voyage. Their party rock’n’role vibe music is suitable to be the festival’s warm up band, as its dirty and sleazy attitude and sound gets the necks banging and the good energy settles in. Some of my friends chose to start the day at Kafé Hærverk stage, the new addition to the festival’s stages and they watched Dune Sea there instead. It was apparently a very good concert too, but I was completely out of energy after some hectic weeks and a beer, which almost put me to sleep. After sitting down some minutes on the church benches, the main stage got completely dark and some wild loud drumming erupted, announcing that Feral Nature is starting their performance. It was so mesmerizing with those rhythms and the loud volume and I really wished I was more awake to fully appreciate Selma’s feral screams, which just didn’t resonate with me at that point. She is a fantastic singer and a force of nature and brave enough to crowd-walk/crowd surf, quite unannounced. This is an amazing festival opening act, as it gathered a lot of crowd and the relatively young band has made quite an impression during the past few years. I’m glad to see them being booked by festivals and I’m sure there’s gonna be more chances to catch them live and be in a better mindset to fully enjoy the massive show that they put on.
Back to The Crypt for Norwegian death metal act Reaping Flesh, another newly established act featuring members from Kollwitz, The Spectacle, Arv, and Gabriel. The band seemed to barely fit on the tiny surface dedicated to their performance and would surely be more impressive on a normal stage. I had opted for a place on the side of the stage and I ended up with lights shining right up into my eyes and when they turned into the strobe kind, I ended up leaving without really having time to make up my mind about the show. But that gave me enough time to go and catch a decent spot inside Kafè Hærverk, where another Norwegian death metal act was about to start – Voidspire. They had set up few candles by the stage and that had me hope the people are awake enough to prevent stupid accidents that happened in other venues in other countries. Luckily it did, only a photographer that hit the candles with his camera and the mad headbanging of the singer put off one candle while I was there. But the show and the music were so cool that I quickly forgot about the candles’ danger. Hats off to Voidspire for delivering a very pleasant (!) death metal show, which had everything it needed to quickly become a highlight of the day for me. Really great flowing music, not very pretentious but with its right kind of personality. A band not to be missed again if I have the chance to watch them live.
LA based act Deathchant followed on the main stage to enchant the crowd with their stoner music and heavy riffs. But, having stages where the capacity is around a quarter of the main hall’s allowed crowd and really wanting to the upcoming act playing at the Crypt, I found some friends who wanted to go down early and get a good spot so we didn’t get to see more than a couple of songs from Deathchant. The wait for the next act surely paid off. South African act Ruff Majik delivered way beyond expectations and stole the hearts of many people who have never seen or maybe never heard of them before. I saw lots of people dancing and smiling as the four piece and their fuzz rock’n’roll got wilder and wilder, having even the band members moshpitting on the stage. It got really hot in there and their vocalist decided to throw off his soaked tshirt for the final long song. I’m sure they will be welcome to perform on a bigger stage and hope it’s not long until that happens, as I’d love to go wild on dancemoves myself. This time I was kinda stuck with too little space around me. But I so loved every minute of this enchanting and sweaty performance.
Upstairs the main stage was wildly decorated with two huge nagas and a gigantic altar between them. Cult of Fire have another show that when I saw them few years back, and this time they base latest release, “The One, Who is Made of Smoke” inspired by, and dedicated to, Mahavidya Goddess Dhumavati (known as that who was rejected and cursed by Shiva to take the form of a widow). So the whole stage setup is aimed perfectly to support the story told with their tantric black metal and background incantations. The guitarists playing in lotus positions are also worth mentioning, but the eyes are always drawn back to the vocalist wearing a huge mask and performing well timed ritualistic moves with his hands. They surely achieved a very hypnotic ritual, enhanced by the very powerful smell of incense. For me, the smell and the smoke work in the opposite way as my eyes and nose can’t take it for too long so I had to watch the show from further and further away until I actually needed some fresh air and went to the tent.
Hippie Death Cult was another lovely experience for the evening. The trio acted as if they had the time of their life performing for the small audience gathered around ‘the stage’. They went wild with their riffs mastery and headbanging, there was a fantastic drum solo and a huge amount of good mood and smiles. Laura Philips on vocals is extremely charming and skilled at keeping the groove on bass, but the musical gimmicks are offered by guitarist Eddie Brnabic and he’s not shying away from small show off-like moments, but there’s always a lot of humbleness on their side. More gimmicks were to follow on the main stage, where the Icelandic retro-proggy wizards in The Vintage Caravan have simply enchanted everyone breathing in that venue. Especially if you happened to be around to watch their soundcheck, during which they perform a lot of covers with their own twist. Apparently, they are known for such soundchecks and I’m sadly I only found out about this during the last cover they played – namely Careless Whisper. So if you ever watch The Vintage Caravan live, do catch the soundcheck! Had I been more rested, I would have probably danced widly for the whole show. They deliver magic on stage, through their old fashioned rock music which takes you back in various times of rock music history, but bring you back to the present to watch their fantastic performance. The trio makes the stage feel too small for their massive energy and joy of performing live and I think I had a huge smile on my face all the way home. I’m so grateful such live performances exist and I get to witness them.