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With the spirit of Ozzy Osbourne circa 1982 in our hearts, we plunge ourselves knee-deep into evil ...
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Page 2
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"There's so many people here now who are wearing my pee!" ...
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One girl peels her lips from the other woman's mouth and whispers ...
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"If this doesn't summon the madness, nothing will." ...
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New England Metal & Hardcore Fest: The Visuals
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— by Chris Harris
WORCESTER, Massachusetts — It's 2:30 p.m. on a sunny April Friday, and most of the people gathered inside the Palladium are in a state of advanced refreshment.
"Dude, it's Metalfest," reasons a hulking bald guy clad in a faded black Slayer T-shirt, who is sporting an elaborate goatee that'd make Anthrax's Scott Ian jealous. He's fisting two plastic cups of beer, and remaining upright is becoming more and more of a problem. "Wanna do a shot?" he asks.
"It's Metalfest" is a phrase we'll hear often this weekend in Worcester — host to the eighth installment of the New England Metal & Hardcore Festival, one of the world's single largest annual gatherings of the metal elite, and the one to which every heavy metal disciple worth his or her (OK, mostly his) salt will be coming to worship.
See someone stumbling out of the mosh pit with blood gushing from his nostrils after catching an elbow in the face? "Dude, it's Metalfest," says Tim, who drove up from Ohio, with a shrug as blood drips onto his Crotch Duster T-shirt en route to the cigarette-butt-laden sidewalk.
Meet another guy who blacked out on some stranger's hotel bed for 10 hours, then awakened to find his wallet, cell phone and "stash" gone? "It happens, man," says Greg, who's driven three hours from Connecticut and is digging frantically through his car and pockets, hoping to find his missing possessions, knowing all the while that they're gone forever. "It's Metalfest."
"It's Metalfest": An all-purpose excuse this weekend for doing what you want, when you want — preferably to excess, and to the discomfort of outsiders.
To wit: The Black Dahlia Murder's rotund frontman, Trevor Strnad, has drifted from an "underwear party" on the second floor of the Crowne Plaza Hotel — the epicenter of the weekend's misbehavior — and is now wobbling through the lobby in skin-tight, blue boy shorts, cradling a bottle of Kokanee beer.
Unfortunately, "It's Metalfest" doesn't mean much to the gown- and tuxedo-clad, chaste-looking students from Leicester High School whose prom is taking place in the hotel's ballroom. All they know is that Strnad's bulbous gut, emblazoned with a "Heartburn" tattoo, isn't swollen enough to cover his privates.
The New England Metal & Hardcore Festival — or, as my cohort for this expedition, a Satan-worshipping scoundrel known as "The Goat," calls it: "Sodom and Gomorrah with bands" — is an intercontinental caucus of cretins who love crushing, face-melting metal. This blitzkrieg to the senses and soul happens during the last weekend of April each year, drawing 2,000-odd metalheads and Suicide Girl aspirants a day from as far as Germany and Sweden, from as close as three bus stops away.
Several years ago, New England supplanted Milwaukee's long-running Metalfest as heavy metal's pre-eminent cotillion, and the musical element of it — which has largely taken a back seat to the scene around it — has become a credible proving ground for bands who may be a little too green or obscure for the Ozzfest crowd. It's a tough test, too: The bands have just 20 minutes to leave a lasting impression on the quick-to-condemn horde.
Several metal bands — be they of the death, power, black, or doom persuasions — and hardcore outfits who've graced the stage of this crumbling Art Deco theater have graduated to the Ozzfest and Sounds of the Underground tours, including Killswitch Engage, Opeth, Shadows Fall, Arch Enemy and Mastodon.
This year's highlights include Black Dahlia Murder, Between the Buried and Me, Lacuna Coil, Arch Enemy, Chimaira, Gamma Ray and the first North American appearance of British power-metallions DragonForce.
Into this maelstrom go the Goat and I.
With the spirit of Ozzy Osbourne circa 1982 in our hearts, we shall plunge ourselves knee-deep into evil, through 90-something bands, two stages and three days of the most vile shenanigans. Or at least that's the plan ...
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Photo: Jeremy Saffer/Jeremysaffer.com
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