One show to rule them all.
There are metal concerts, metal gigs, sometimes even a metal showcase, but the Central Interior mountains will soon thunder with crushing drums, the valleys scream with banshee guitars, and the relentless throb of bass will march mercilessly into your homes, your rooms, your dreams. There is no escaping Metallion.
Beware an animal backed into a corner, hungry, alienated, nowhere else to turn and nothing left to lose. That's where Deveined found themselves, and they came out shredding. With a metal music scene currently devoid of places to perform, the local band seized the quest to make their power-chords heard and in less than a year it erupted into a full metal racket. The Metallion Festival cometh to the back yard at Brookside Resort.
"This festival came about by strange means," said Brad Foster, one of the main organizers and a member of the band Deveined. "My band played Armstrong Metal Festival last year. One of the bands on the bill was Tyrant's Blood out of Vancouver - a huge band from Van who have toured the world. Their members are all friends with our singer Sean Robinson. Their guitarist Marco Banco had mentioned he wanted to come up for some camping and fishing. Sean has contact with the Brookside Resort through work. They got to talking and Sean figured what better than to have a weekend metal and hard rock festival and invite all our old and new friends in the underground metal scene up for a concert and then they can stay and camp/fish with us and our band and friends. Metallion Festival was born. Funny thing is, Marco couldn't make the date we picked. He will have to attend next year."
There is no shortage of bands that were able to schedule in the upstart festival. The headliners are Over the Coals, Axis Disrupt, Zuckuss, Endast, Cocaine Moustache, Cradle to Grave, Blacked Out, and Witch of the Waste.
Support bands on the bill include Ashes Of Descent, Mathias Rock, Damned Before Birth, The Hellsmen, Crucible of Scorn, Kleaver, Seraphic Nihilist, Azrael, RED7, Deveined themselves, plus others still being arranged.
Almost all of them are from out of town, some of them from as far away as Montreal, and some "are notoriously hard to get to do shows," anywhere but they are making a stage appearance here on this special occasion, said Foster.
Along with Deveined, Axis Disrupt is also local, and coming off a career high. During the Armstrong Metal Festival they upset all the headliners to win the fans' choice award for all the acts at the event.
"The response from local acts was exactly what we expected: pure compliance and enthusiasm," Foster said. "It is hard to get gigs as a local band, it is even harder to get gigs as a metal band. For these bands to have big stage, a big crowd and a big buzz about them, it means a lot to a lot of people. The local metal scene is a fish without a bowl. There isn't a steady venue that caters to the metal crowd in PG like there is in Grande Prairie, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary and other cities around the west coast. It is hard to establish anything when there is no 'go to' venue. That being said, as you can see from our band list, that doesn't deter any of us. Every metal musician who wants to play, will, regardless of support."
When one sees the anti-establishment visual themes, the Gothic attire, the impressions of violence and Armageddon in the stage presentation, and the cataclysmic aggression in the instrumentation, some listeners turn away from metal. Some fear it. Many who support it in principle (any musician who attempts to play this stuff had better have the techniques practiced, you can't fake your way through these riffs) are turned off by the sheer tsunami of sound. How, one might ask, could it have endured as a globally popular genre of music?
"People who aren't comfortable listening to metal just aren't comfortable with themselves, I would say," said Foster. "They have been led by a dark force into the world of country or pop and maybe that wasn't entirely their choice growing up. Be yourself. If you want to listen to Bach, do it. If you want to listen to Cannibal Corpse, do it. The best part about metal is the freedom within the fanbase . No judgement. No bias. Just people who are happy being happy. What would make someone like it more: experiencing it live. Nothing like a circle pit to get the blood moving."
There is little doubt the musical skills required to play it are substantial. Metal practitioners are often classically trained. Former Prince George Symphony Orchestra conductor Bradley Thachuk's brother Steven, for example, was a guitar player for Ozzy Osbourne.
"Metal attracts such a loyal, devoted fan-base because , in my opinion, the people who listen to metal are intelligent," Foster said. "They read books, don't trust the government or the media and normal music is so slow and empty it leaves them unfulfilled. They need 5000 notes a minute to keep entertained. 'Normal' pop music isn't fulfilling . And metal bands can actually do what they record. Try getting Britney Spears to sing in person. She won't do it without all the flash and glam because she can't do it without the polishing touches. Metal bands play what they record - like bands used to in the seventies. Also, slamming around in a moshpit with a couple hundred other people is the best exercise one could ask for."
Getting so many people together on the Brookside Resort property was a perfect arrangement, Foster added, because it is in between Prince George and Vanderhoof in a mostly rural area and it has caused the resort owners to invest in the facility's infrastructure to ensure enough power supply and other amenities are available.
"The owners Pam and Percy have gone above and beyond what any promoter could expect as far as their commitment to this festival. They see it as a long-term, annual festival, as do we," Foster said.
The main organizers of the show alongside Foster are bandmates Sean Robinson and Les Figura plus major backer Robert Belanger. The amps get cranked on Aug. 15 and 16.
Weekend passes are $65 and a limited number of day-passes are available for $35 at the gate while supplies last. The weekend passes include camping. Those are available at Electron Sound and Percussion in P.G., The Fort Loonie Bin in Fort St. James, Earthenware in Vanderhoof and at the Brookside Resort itself 65 kms west of P.G.
