For over 20 years, the French festival has become one of the largest gatherings for fans and fiends of heavy music – Hellfest. The annual event has curated the largest rock and metal bands amongst fire, ferris wheels, and a giant Lemmy statue year after year.
While headliners included Bring Me the Horizon, Iron Maiden, Limp Bizkit, and The Offspring – there were some notable international bands performing for the masses from around the globe this year. As a part of their farewell tour, Brazilian legends Sepultura were joined by Alissa White-Gluz (Dragonforce, ex-Arch Enemy), Dirk Verbeuren (Megadeth, ex-Soilwork), and Fernanda Lira (Crypta, ex-Nervosa) during a “Kaiowas” percussion jam. They also performed a few tracks off their new EP as well as hits “Refuse/Resist” and “Roots Bloody Roots.” It would’ve been perfect to have the duality of Max and Iggor Cavalera (previously of Sepultura) also performing on their Chaos AD tour on-site, but they unfortunately had a bus accident right before the fest.
Walking around the festival grounds of Clisson, you could stumble upon sets by the Indian metal pioneers Bloodywood, the groove-death metal band Decapitated of Poland, the symphonic metal of Greece act Septicflesh, Spanish-fusion death metallers Impureza, and Jordanian thrashers Esodic.
Easily, one of the most memorable performances would be the set by Behemoth. Bringing forth dramatic blackened death metal from Gdańsk, the set included opener “The Shadow Elite,” costume changes, and a Bathory cover.
In similar sacrilegious fashion, Ukrainian prog-doom trio Stoned Jesus played, followed by the infamous Greek goth ‘n’ black metal group Rotting Christ.
The lineup just continues to expand with the likes of the Bulgarian and blasphemous black metal band Non Est Deus, Greek thrashers Suicidal Angels, modern death-thrash from Brazil – Crypta, and the conceptual WWI metal act 1914 of Ukraine.