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First metal festival


Ceitidh

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So , basically I'm here for this one thing. This weekend I'm gonna assist at my first metal concert. A folk metal festival which Im really anxious to go. But as I said is my first metal concert and I'm not sure what I should do. Throw myself in the mosh? Enjoying it without risking for now ? Is a folk metal festival so I'm gonna dance a lot, but how ? I mean,what if I'll look like a fool out there without having an idea about how to behave ? Some advices from people with would really help.

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I once faced a similar dilemma. What you have to realize about one of these festivals is that everyone is there primarily to hear the same music and have a good time. At the festival my friends and I went to, I found that some people danced and some didn't. But I got along better with the ones who did. My friends didn't want to dance, so we got separated in the crowd. So what I learned is that you can dance if you want to. And you can leave your friends behind. 'Cause your friends don't dance and if they don't dance, well, they're no friends of mine.

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  • 4 months later...
  • 10 months later...

For me it wasn't exactly a metal festival but there was heavy bands there.  It was X-Fest 2002. It was the baby of a radio station that was big here in WV years ago called X-106.3. They had two stages. One for local acts and one for the bigger acts (lack of a better word.) This year they had Hatebreed on the bill. This was not only the first outdoor festival I had ever been to but Hatebreed was the first band of its kind I had ever seen live. It was intense. Extremely intense. The thing I'll never forget is the big Rob Zombie looking dude literally kicking the living crap out of this other dude. He punched him several times and got him in a headlock and threw him to the ground and as he tried to get up he kicked him right in the face. Scared me to death.

I found out later it was because the one who was kicked deliberately grabbed the Rob Zombie looking dude from behind and tripped him that he fell hard on his back. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

It wasn't a metal festival but there was metal music, back in 2005 I went for the first time to Exit festival in Novi Sad, Serbia. I saw Slayer at the main stage, that was kinda the first time I watched a big metal band on a big festival stage. If I don't count smaller metal festivals in my country, I think the first proper metal festival was Metaldays in Tolmin, Slovenia back in 2014. I went as a music journalist, watched a lot of stuff I don't even listen that much but it was cool, Children of Bodom, Grave, Prong, Satyricon, Volbeat, Megadeth, Amorphis etc.

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My first metal gig was a free King Diamond gig in a park in Copenhagen in the late summer of 1990. I was still a punk back then, but had been listening to metal for more than a decade. My first metal festival however was in 1993. And I can understand that you are a bit nervous, I was nervous back then, too. There is after all a difference between pogo and head banging: it was like how close should I stand to the pit and do people here even mosh? Compared to the mosh pits at punk gigs back in the day then the mosh pit at that metal festival reminded me more of a tea party :D Will someone try and drag me into the pit and things like that. 

I have however never been much of a head banger or mosher at gigs and yes, it is perfectly okay not to be! Just try to get a feel with the crowd. If I was you then I would try not wear to much brand new merc or it will look like that you are trying too hard. I would stick to wearing black if any doubts about what to wear,  and I would not wear  a too bright, heavy or pastel makeup. 

I assume that nobody forced you to assist, so you must be into the stuff already...my guess is then that you will very quickly feel comfortable ?

But I know how you feel, once I used to be very concerned about not being a fool at gatherings...these days I just don't give a damn :-D

And well, there is more forgiveness and a hell of a lot less bullying in the metal scene than in the club scene: you will not be picked on for not being exactly like everyone else or living up to some self acclaimed fashion guru's idea of how to look like a "real" metal head. 

 

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  • 1 year later...

First proper metal festival I went to was bloodstock 2016 as reading is not for me a metal festival. I had a great day. Rotting Christ were amazing live I can't say why but it really worked but they sounded great and looked metal as fuck? Paradise lost were amazing when they played there early stuff. The singer was right on it that day as not always the case. Gojira were excellent with lots of pyro????. Mastodon probably were rather good but I was getting really bad stomach pain so did not enjoy the Mastodon too much.? Only stayed one day as me and heavily pregnant wife did not fancy making a weekend of it plus at mid thirties at time felt we were a bit old ?as we've stayed all weekend before. 

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