Yes! Heavy Montreal (formerly Heavy MTL) is back in full force, and honestly I have never seen such an early crowd in such abundance. Even making our way to the tent to get our press passes was like swimming through a can of sardines… and yes, the smell of body odour was already there, pre-mosh.
So far we’ve checked out a lacklustre performance from Babymetal. Honestly, gimmick metal is a joke. Pink guitars — are you fucking serious? Who needs this shit, and it’s an insult to metal. Sure it’s cute and worth a look, but so is a 12-car pile up on the highway.
Thank the fucking lord that we could all be redeamed and have the guilt washed off of us with a performance from Overkill, who, well, who killed it. Nothing compares to old-school thrash metal played by some of the genre’s masters. And yes, they played tunes from their new album, White Devil Armory.
Right after, shifting total fucking gears, Pennywise hit the stage and killed it with their mix of hardcore, thrash, pop punk, and old-school punk — yes, that old-school includes a cover of The Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop” and an original song that’s 25 years old but never released (sorry I don’t know the title, but it rocked). On the downside of Pennywise’s set, the sound seemed to be off; it was just a little too mono for my tastes and the highs weren’t there.
After that, we headed off into the woods to get to The Forest Stage to catch the end of Ulocking the Truth’s set. Yes, these three teenagers rock, but it was hit or miss with the quality of their songs. What I mean is that some of them were a little repetitive and not so engaging.
Ok, we’ve got an interview to do, so we’re going to head out, but we’ll be back with more later.
Rock Hard \m/
