Hammerfest: Shakenstir & Burn was there ALL weekend bringing you the lo-down on the head-bang!

Following the hugely successful sold out Hard Rock Hell in 2007 and 2008, Hard Rock Hell teamed up with Metal Hammer to announce the inaugural Hammerfest. What a weekend! What a festival! Chalets, beer and rock ‘n’ roll!

With a welcome from The Dark Side, I thought I’d accidentally arrived at the 51st inaugural Pontin’s Comic Con but no, it was the Hammerfest weekend and there were true metal warriors already raring to go albeit just 12.30pm. Keys to the dreaded 1960s chalet collected and we’re off to see whether we get a sit down, 2ft square bath or vintage duck egg blue bathroom suite. I’m not complaining! It’s a tad better than camping.

Cue the music. The Queen Victoria public house was the venue for the Hammerfest listed ‘Stage 3 – Buzz Metal’ and this is where the weekend kicked off. Am I getting old? What’s Buzz Metal? Answers on a postcard. I recall the time when Nuclear Assault went all environmentally ‘Green Metal’ but Buzz Metal???? – cattle prods & tasers to the ready people! The Queen Vic is not the best venue in the world for the number of attendees, but it provided a platform for up and coming bands to play to their newly found fans as they commenced their weekend-binge-drinking exploits! I popped in briefly to see Tesseract but… the sun was shining so I left after a couple of songs & needed to fuel up too for the evening ahead.

Oh! And what a start to the evening. Trigger the Bloodshed opening, fast as f*ck incidentally… followed by Hammerfall. Awesome band that offer an education in onstage metal performance to bands that aspire to reach the main stage at festivals like this. I’m not saying we need a cheesy show or stage set (and for this show there was a fakery castle on stage) for all performers but there is something to be said for it because the main stage room was packed wall to wall. And the energy from the band spilled out into the crowd and spread across the room and beyond. Absolutely amazing performance! And Joachim Cans’crowd interaction demonstrated that years of dedication and experience really do pay off.