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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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"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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Browse Bands by Name
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 Bands Main
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Even before ultra-technical Australian death-metallers Alarum kick off the weekend's festivities with their 'Fest-opening set at 2:30 p.m. on Friday, the scene outside the Palladium is booming. A huddle about 50 strong is stationed in front of Metalfest's unofficial eatery: "Simon's Pizza, Subs, Salads, Pasta, Gyro, Falafel and Middle Eastern Foods." You've got to love a restaurant with a name that doubles as its menu. There's already vomit on the sidewalk.
It only takes a couple of hours at the Palladium to notice that there are generally four types of T-shirts at Metalfest: the probably ironic (Britney Spears, Velvet Revolver); the way-too-obscure ("orthodox" black-metal band Watain); the humorous ("My Other Shirt Is Also Black"); and the none-too-subtle ("There's a F---ing A--hole Staring at My Shirt"). Men with incomplete arm tattoos, unkempt facial hair, black jeans, sneakers (with matching black socks) and flowing, well-conditioned, pitch-black manes admire each other's black shirts. The general rule here is: the more Scandinavian and obscure the band name on your chest, the better — and if the shirt's so old it's nearly gray, that'll earn you even more metal cred.
"That's an awesome Darkthrone shirt," one of them says, but the throng's attention quickly turns to examining — and ridiculing — a gaunt lad in a Bullet for My Valentine tee, white belt, "girl jeans," eyeliner and arms wrapped in fishnet stockings.
"Check it out — a Peppermint Patty," one of them says to the Goat, pointing to the target's greasy hair, which sweeps across his forehead from one side to the other. "Oh man, I've seen a dozen of those already today," replies the Goat, who is such a metal snob that he carries around a "Box of Grimness" — containing CDs by such obscure and brain-bludgeoning bands as Funeral Mist, Ofermod and Deathspell Omega — to spread the faith anywhere there's a boombox. "Randy Rhoads did not die for that!" he exclaims. "And unless your name's Nikki Sixx and you're mainlining whiskey, you can't wear eyeliner."
Inside the Palladium, Virginia death-metallers Arsis practice their technical wizardry from the main stage, delivering one of the festival's more sinister-sounding sets. Upstairs, the vendors who make the pilgrimage to Worcester each year to peddle their metal wares — Living Dead dolls, Lamb of God belt buckles, and tough-to-find CDs (although this writer's search for Weakling, Wigrid and Lurker of Chalice proved futile) — are handing out free CD-samplers no one will ever listen to, but take anyway. A kid in corpse paint and a Behemoth shirt is passed out next to the Relapse Records booth, where two dudes bicker over which XXX Maniak album is the better purchase.
"Put your hands in the air if you love metal!" shrieks Leonard "Lenzig" Leal, Cephalic Carnage's lead singer, before the band launches into "Black Metal Sabbath." As the track explodes from the amps, a circle-pit bursts into frenzied action, complete with reverse roundhouses, windmilling fists, and jutting elbows. They all look as though they're kicking the ass of some invisible Limp Bizkit fan. Some of them rush out, cupping bloody noses. From the balcony, we spot a man holding a cup of beer. He splashes the crowd of moshers with it, and later reveals to us that it wasn't actually brew: "There's so many people here now who are wearing my pee!"
Outside the venue, three sweat-drenched, haggard-looking kids in shorts and T-shirts sit on the sidewalk, holding signs: "Help Us. We Have No Place to Stay." They've driven six hours from Pennsylvania but didn't think far enough ahead to book a hotel. Now they've got two options: Go home, or sleep in their Nissan Sentra and freeze. "We have one blanket in the car," explained Danny, 19. "And we don't plan on heading back tonight."
Someone runs by and shouts that the Red Chord are about to take the stage — they weren't even listed on the bill. "Holy sh--!" Danny roars, throwing his sign to the floor and making a beeline for the main stage's pit area. Frontman Guy Kozowyk has planted himself atop the barrier between the stage and the audience; one by one, the moshers lunge from the pit to Kozowyk, hurtling over the crowd to belch into the microphone.
After a pummeling set from Necrophagist — accentuated by the prowess of Turkish guitar prodigy Muhammed Suicmez — that made the Goat "want to bleed on snow," a large group of revelers heads back to the Crowne Plaza to find some of the notorious room parties already under way at the early hour of 9 p.m. The side streets along the way are filled with idling vans filled with idling bandmembers trying to keep warm, sleep and/or sleep it off.
Unfortunately, for reasons that remain unclear, the level of depravity this year is failing to live up to the legend of previous years. Highlights of Metalfests past include: people hurling everything in their hotel rooms that wasn't bolted to the floor over the balconies and onto parked cars lining Highland Street, recruiting exotic dancers for a 3 a.m. swim in the heated outdoor pool, and hurling all kinds of potted plants and deck furniture into that same pool.
By comparison, the height of the excitement Friday night found members of Ringworm and Demiricous, with bottles of bourbon hidden in their jackets, racing several pink-and-white bicycles — complete with flower baskets — down the street. Oh, and an unidentified member of Black Dahlia soiled the carpet in the hotel's second-floor hallway. "Be glad he didn't poop," his friend says.
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Photo: MTV News
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