Festival: Day of Darkness

I meant to review this festival ages ago considering it was in July! However, the small matters of getting married, going on honeymoon and general apathy conspired to get in the way.

I have admit that I don't make for a great reviewer. It's not that I can't write and I like to think that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to things metal. However, when I go to gigs or festivals, I have a tendency to stay in the bar for as long as possible and get very drunk and miss a lot of what happens.

This is exactly what happened at this year's Day of Darkness, Ireland's premier metal festival. In its sixth year, it takes place at Pedigree Corner in Co. Laois in the midlands and has started to attract fairly big names on the underground extreme metal scene. Most bands are Irish, but the headliners are generally a "big name" international act. It's value for money at €35 for a one-day ticket. Buses (for €15) are run from all the major cities in the country to bring you there and back, as the venue is in the middle of nowhere.

I only saw four bands this year, which is absolutely criminal. With country beer prices, there was no getting me out of the bar! The first band were death metal. I can't remember their name - I had been drinking on the bus on the way down, so I wasn't even sober when I got there- but I do remember not being that impressed. So, it was back to the bar!

My mate and companion for the day Eric managed to coax me out to see Mass Extinction. I was very impressed by them. They play old school thrash reminiscent of the '80s Bay Area scene, although I think they were still in nappies when this style was popular. Nevertheless, their songs were chock full of good riffs and they were well received by the crowd. I even had a drunken conversation with their bald singer at the bar afterwards. I'm such a groupie, me.

After a brief respite in the bar, I missed another two bands, but ventured back in to see Primordial who are Ireland's biggest metal band. A favourite of mine, they've been around in one form or another since 1987. I've felt that they haven't matched 2000's superb Spirit the Earth Aflame, but that could be down to me getting a little bored of metal as I have got older. They concentrated on material from the last two albums, which I'm not mad about, but they did play tracks from the aforementioned Spirit... and their excellent debut Imrama. They played a good set; however, due to time constraints, Primordial were unable to play an encore. I was most disappointed, as this is generally their best song and a fave of mine 'To Enter Pagan'.

This year's headliners were Destruction, a third of Germany's Unholy Trinity of thrash metal. I don't know them that well, being more au fait with the two of the Trinity, Kreator and Sodom. They were good. However, as you have probably guessed, I was very, very drunk by this stage. I thought their songs all sounded the same and they also suffered from sound problems, which at one stage caused them to restart an entire song. Their frontman Schmier also made the fatal error in saying (in accented English), "we're so glad to be in Ireland, in the United Kingdom". D'oh! As you can imagine, this did not go down too well with the crowd. I'm sure I heard someone say, "we've been independent for 80 years, ye prick!", but that may have been me. However, Destruction did not let a little wounded national pride get in the way. They soldiered on and managed to win them back.

When it all ended at 2am, I was glad to be on my way home. The weather had been awful, but this actually helped the festival, as it forced everyone inside to watch the bands. There's a great atmosphere and it was good to see that the underground has got bigger and better organised since the days I was going to shitty gigs in The Attic and upstairs in Slattery's in the early and mid-'90s. I really enjoyed myself, but I was knackered. So, it was back on the bus for a quick kip before being dropped off in the city centre about 4am. I managed to stagger to a Nitelink and get back to Chez Horan safely.