What is STEELFEST? It is already a good tradition to gather with trusted friends in the Finnish town of Hyvinkää on sunny May days to properly open the festival season to the sounds of the hardest metal. Every year the organizers of the festival improve the line-up: they bring strong headliners and look for black pearls in the black / death past of the 90s and 00s. And this time the 2019 festival was held in this direction, in addition, it is worth noting that the organizers paid attention to other aspects of the development of the event, for example, this time the open stage pleased, which was much more than before, and this made it possible to arrange real shows for the groups who performed on it. We offer you a fascinating digest of the best moments of the bus tour at Steelfest May 17-19, 2019!
First things first! As usual, we left St. Petersburg on Friday at 7 am. This time our big bus was full. What is especially pleasant, a third, or even half of the bus was occupied by our permanent crew members, with whom we are already going through this Finnish hell for the second or third time))) Without any problems, we got to the Finnish border, made our way through the fries and moved straight to the place of the festival. The already familiar school, converted into a hostel for the time of the fest (of which there were already two this time), hospitably received us and we went to the fest.
Starting from half past three, the groups were already performing, replacing each other on the open and covered stages. Of course, as we approached twilight, the darkness thickened and more and more eminent bands appeared before us. The first day was closed by Mysticum, Immolation and Horna, the performance of each of the bands, perhaps, should have been given a separate article, their set lists were so powerful, but what Belphegor did is no comparison. It was a real ritual that all participants remembered for a long time: streams of bright light, bloody body paint and a wall of sound - all this delighted, if not killed on the spot! The band gave it their all, but in spite of this almost immediately Hellmuth reappeared at the stage to meet with loyal fans. It is unlikely that there is another leader of the black/death group as terrible on stage and good-natured in life)
Those who still had some energy continued on the first day until 2:00 am when Mysticum ended their show.
The second day of the festival began just after noon at one o'clock in the afternoon. The program promised to be more than rich. Performances continued to be interspersed with autograph sessions. The beer flowed like a river, as did the merch from the tents dispersed into the hands of the fans. Once again, the day ended with such eminent bands as Marduk, Mgla, Nargoroth, but again, the most powerful and impressive performance was the performance of Vital Remains, who came to Finland for the first time in their long history. Powerful light, hard delivery and the most powerful tracks from American deathsters could not leave anyone indifferent. It would hardly be an exaggeration that the opportunity to see this legend live and hear, for example, Dechristianize, will be remembered for a lifetime. Also, don't forget that SteelFest is not only a hot spot on the map for all black metal fans, but also a place of the wildest live performances. Here you can easily "catch" musicians with a pint of beer or in a more "official" way - as part of open autograph sessions!
Further, perhaps the dark forces, not otherwise, continued to support all the fans who purposefully wanted to get to the final of the line-up, in which the last word had to be said by Marduk, who put a fat point at the end of the festival without any technical tricks. Only the straightforwardness and power characteristic of the Swedes, who performed Panzer Division Marduk completely in almost complete darkness on stage as 4 horsemen of the apocalypse, carrying not the most rosy news from the battlefields... The morning of the third day informed us that the mission of our journey had been accomplished: 2 most powerful days filled with blackness were left behind, the road back to St. Petersburg was ahead. We were overwhelmed with impressions, the realization of which did not come immediately, perhaps after a few days, in which there was confidence that we would definitely return to this hell again ... in a year ... Are you with us?
