LIVE FROM THE PIT:

BRUTAL ASSAULT 2013

Review and photos by Ilaria Posca

Closest to "ideal festival".

Brutal Assault has become an annual appointment that i rarely miss. When i decide which festival attend i have many requirements to fulfill and up till now Brutal Assault has been the only one to be the closest to my "ideal festival".

First of all, it isn´t a festival built on the " quantity"  of big names or bands, i love how any band plays more or less the same amount of time on the stage. Another good point it is how there are just two stages, one beside the other one ( there is a smaller one in a shedder smaller acts) that means you´re not gonna loose a good band because another good band is gonna play on the other side of the festival. Obviously there is also the price factor, it costs 80/85 euros for 4 days, beer in the festival area its around 1 euro  ( for a 85 cl) and camping is free, if you don´t want to have the "Vip Camp".

I don´t need to specify that the organization its far from perfect, in fact, it struggles every year more with its lack of a good plan. Since 2008, their audience has duplicated but the service still the same as before,employees barely speaks english and if they do it is rather poor, last year we got a 5 hrs queue for getting our ( already paid) ticket, luckily this fault has been finally corrected, every year Vip camp is expanding by leaving no place to those who wants to "free camp", probably in a couple of years they´ll overcharged you camp prices.

After this intro about the festival itself let´s arrive to the crucial point: music. Music it´s extremely good, and often sounds are amazing, but let´s start from the opening on Wedensday :

This year the opening day hand´t something really interesting and probably helped by the temperatures reaching almost 40˙ degrees most of us who came in good time spent the afternoon/evening in the beer tent trying to chill out, some joined the show to support band s from their own nation, other just willing to see the only two "famous act" of the day: Testament and Malignant Tumor.

Main festival begun on thursday with, but many started to gather under the stage already for Magrudergrind and the swedes Dr. Living Dead.

There were probably many good shows, but by collecting opinion around best act of the day were: Belphergor, Devildriver and Gojira, who had even one of the best shows in the whole festival!

Day two: Friday, wasn´t as "blessed" with good weather as the previous two days but  many band put out their best effort into keeping people standing under the two stages and judging by the crowd during the most "unlucky" gig of all  played by Orphaned Land ( due to pour rain) they actually managed, people danced, singed like at a folk-festival. Extremly good shows were played also by Malevolent Creation , Alcest also if in my opinion they aren´t a band suitable festivals, Fields of the Nephelim, also if the most amount of people got reached during In flames(who left many deluded by the quantity of new material played) and Carcass, that i haven´t seen since i got the luck to see them four times giving me the chace to prioritize the exclusive acoustic concert played by November Doom in the small stage by the metalshop and at the end, what was for me another of the best gig played: Cult of Luna

To name also smaller bands that i discovered at the festival: Glorior Belli and the czech Five seconds to leave

Saturday started really early and for me was a "Norwegian day" since most of the band i was waiting for were norwegians,  Vreid , Ihsahn  ( acclaimed by everyone)that did an outstanding gig with his fellow country man Leprous, the norwegian progress were absolutely amazing intgo turning their music in an heavier key. Solefald , were finally  both Jakhelln and Nedland could play togheter  with the collaboration of  In vain and dulcis infundo: Borknagar .  Besides the Norwegians Saturday was a day of many other good bands such as Behemot, who finally got back on stage  and a band extremely dear to me, Saturnus.  They had the honor to close the festival.

Review and photos by Ilaria Posca

©  Ilaria Posca and GryphonMetal.ch