Hi, I hope you're okay.
As I've said a lot recently, I'm obviously a very lazy festival goer!
From July the 4th until July 7th 2019 (this past weekend), there was the event known as Techfest taking place at the Newark Showground, which is probably about a five or so minute drive for me.
Last year I went on the Friday night, because somehow I got the Friday off that week (but not the whole weekend), and went there to check it out, particularly for the bands The Contortionist and Sikth. Those are performances that I thoroughly loved! I especially enjoyed Sikth, and felt a bit weird really, because I found myself transfixed by the almost effortless bass playing of James Leach. Afterwards I upped my game on bass playing, especially with trying to get more tapping technique practice!
So, I enjoyed that experience so much, that I thought to myself "you need to have fun"!
This year then I booked time off work, which included time for the festival. Unfortunately, I couldn't pay until on the second day of the festival, which irritated the hell out of me! I really would have loved to have caught the sets on Thursday night by Jon Gomm and Polaris, and I like what I've heard from The Mechanist! Next year I will make sure that I have paid up front, and I will check out the Thursday as well!
As it is though, my festival going started on the Friday, and by that I mean my first full-on festival, albeit lazily, as I mentioned earlier.
Let me be honest here... So, where I live is only a very quick drive from the venue. This means that I don't see the point in camping there, although it would have meant that I'd have caught more of the bands et al, but I like creature comforts. I'm not one for camping really. In a tent with creepy crawlies all over the place, standing in a portacabin toilet set-up with a lot of other people washing and doing their teeth in a queue, and at the beginning of a songwriting challenge, which means that I have to be writing and recording songs at home, and I can't really do that with a single instrument in a tent, with noise all around bleeding through to the recordings.
That's really an excuse I suppose, but then I don't really have the time during my 62 hour working week of night shifts to knuckle down and seriously write. If I'm working those hours, and then take a couple of hours a day to write and record songs, then that will leave no time to spend with the love of my life, Louise.
That's also a reason why I only really saw the evening acts at the festival, because Louise spends so many nights alone at home when I'm at work, that to do the whole festival would have been worse for her.
Before you ask, loud metal based music is not her thing in any way, unless you include Europe, Heart, and other soft metal acts.
So, on the Friday I got to the festival for the deathcore band Black Tongue (I don't think that I got footage or photographs of them, I'm sorry), who were on at around 8pm. Dark riffs, deep vocals, and a whole slew of killer metallic goodness. I find that this type of music is incredibly rewarding and actually therapeutic. It calms me so much - that raw heavy energy absolutely gets rid of my feelings of tension and anger, even though I'm not really one to get carried away with music too much - I don't really headbang (it hurts), but I thoroughly love the music!
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| Dying Fetus at Techfest, photo by me. |
Actually, many years ago, I used to follow a great band named Psylence, who are no longer together. I knew that they were going to play a gig at The Town Mill in Mansfield, where I lived at the time, and I suggested to Craig & Lee from the band that I could join them on stage to sing along to the chorus for their song Take On One And All.
As the gig approached I thought "Marv, what the hell have you got yourself into?" When the band got on stage, I was already chatting with my friends "Stoff" & Luke (Hymas). I said to "Stoff" and Luke, "do you fancy joining me on stage to add vocals to their song?" "Hell yes," they both said!
The song came up, I got called up, so Stoff & Luke joined me. The guys in Psylence were so happy about it!
We did the vocals, and I was the only one not getting carried away with the music, sweat going all over the place... It was like a band video, but with real sweat as opposed to someone spraying water on you to make it look like you really going for it! I know, I spoiled the magic there, but that's how it is!
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| Dying Fetus live at Techfest 2019, photographed by me |
I was so happy when the song was over. I love the guys still, but I didn't half feel self-conscious!
Anyway, back to the festival!
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| John Gallagher, vocal and guitar for Dying Fetus. Techfest 2019 photographed by me |
After the band Black Tongue finished there was obviously a little bit of time before Friday's headliners took to the stage.
Dying Fetus are a Death Metal trio from the US. Featuring original vocalist/guitarist John Gallagher alongside vocalist/bassist Sean Beasley, and drummer Trey Williams, their set was absolutely on fire from start to finish, consisting of material right the way through their career, from their 'EP and demo beginnings in 1991, right up to material they're working on for a forthcoming project.
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| Sean Beasley, vocal and bass for Dying Fetus. Techfest 2019 (rubbishly) photographed by me |
With that in mind, a band with a longer career and larger body of work can cherry-pick from a whole wealth of material, and create an absolutely stonking set that will blow everyone's minds.
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| Dying Fetus at Techfest 2019, photographed by me |
This is exactly what Dying Fetus did. They had a great rapport with the audience, chatting between songs with each other and the audience, seemingly in their element, and absolutely loving the event. Every band that I saw over the weekend seemed to be enjoying the festival so much! The guys in Dying Fetus were constantly introducing songs from different releases (they even mentioned playing a song from an early 'EP), with all of the songs "taking no prisoners" with an absolute onslaught of cuttingly dirty riffs, deep vocals, and proving that a trio can sound so big! The sound coming from that trio was absolutely HUGE!
A fantastic first night to the festival for me, and second night for a lot of others!
I'll leave this here for now, and carry on in part two, which is coming soon!
Thanks for reading.
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