In the quiet fields of Kent’s Port Lympne Safari Park and Zoo it’s not just the animals making a racket but hardcore, rock and punk bands too; Hevy Fest 2011 has landed.
Friday got to a relatively slow start with small groups watching the opening bands including the excellent Bottlenex on the Rock Sound/Macbeth and the eccentric Turbogeist. This could be put down in part to the monstrous 3-4 hour queues suffered by many of the festival goers to get into the festival site. Although by the evening Friday’s Etnies/Front headliners Lower Than Atlantis overfilled their tent with a crowd of fans and tore the tent apart with their brand of melodic hardcore causing numerous stage diving attempts from the tent supports and crowd suffering bodies flying over into the pit.
Turbogeist
Sonic Boom Six also played to a packed tent and despite having technical issues with Barney’s Mic, put together a solid and enjoyable set. Later Friday evening Tek-One (Live) closed the stage with the Front DJ’s and girls continuing to stir the party into the early hours, though more tracks and less talking would have been appreciated.
Saturday morning gave festival goers a chance to break up their musical weekend and get back to nature by visiting the substantial Port Lympne Zoo and Animal park (included in the Hevy ticket price) and many took advantage. Families unaware of the festival would have had quite a shock at the pierced and tattooed masses roaming the zoo laughing at monkeys and baboons in a variety of compromising positions.
The critically acclaimed Arcane Roots kicked things off on Saturday to a larger audience than the early slot bands on Friday with Bastions taking to the second stage.
Due to Trash Talk’s withdrawal from the Jägermeister Main stage line-up, it was left for TRC and local Kent heroes Feed the Rhino to fill their vacant set. TRC were definitely above average but the general consensus amongst the crowd was that a full Feed the Rhino set would have proved preferable. Feed the Rhino really opened up the main stage with Lee Tobin conducting the ensuing mania ensuring that every in earshot got rowdy during their set.
Feed The Rhino
The Ghost of a Thousand followed and were always going to put on an impassioned performance as the Brighton outfit announced early in the year, that, after 7 years as a band this was to be their final show. They drew a large crowd and smashed out a 16 track celebration spanning their musical career.
The Ghost Of A Thousand
One Brighton band followed another as Architects ripped through the Hevy crowd with Sam Carter bouncing around arms out wide and busting shapes. Some would consider their performance as the highlight of the day despite the headliners still to come.
Headliners Dillinger Escape Plan were the icing on the top of a solid day of music although there was a musical distance between the band and some of the crowd with a visible number simply not getting it. If you were a big fan of the band at the front you would have undoubtedly had a great time but the impression was that they weren’t convincing the casual listener or newbie to their music.
Capdown provided a ska punk interval to the hardcore proceedings on the main stage and whilst it was difficult to tell beforehand how they would be received they got the crowd skanking and moving about throughout their set.
Capdown
Following came American punksters Zebrahead who can be credited with having the best band/crowd banter at the festival. Armed with a masturbating tiger and water pistols, Zebrahead will probably be one of the best remembered acts at the festival and it was clear to all they were enjoying their time on stage.
Zebrahead
Over on the Redbull stage almost all the bands over the weekend suffered the same problem, more people watching the empty Jagermeister stage than watching the bands on offer. This was probably due to the proximity of Redbull being right next to the main stage but also the lack of inspiring bands enticing the main stage crowd to leave their space at the front for them.
We Are the Ocean had a lot of fans in the crowd who receptively hung onto every word front man Dan Brown’s mouth. Again came plenty of crowd surfing and singing from their loyal following which was rewarded with Dan Brown’s wander through the crowd with his mic all the way to the sound desk before crowd surfing, mic in hand, all the way back to the main stage.
We Are The Ocean
Next up came Funeral for a Friend with a nostalgic set covering the entirety of their last ten years, “The next ten year’s will be great, because doing what I love, playing music with my mates” said lead vocalist Matthew Davies-Kreye. Cheers greeted ‘Streetcar’ but ‘Roses for the Dead’ stirred the largest of sing-a-longs after an emotional speech by Davies-Kreye about how he understood how much the song means to so many people.
Funeral For A Friend
Four Year Strong closed the festival’s mainstage and were unfortunately somewhat of a disappointment. It wasn’t that they were bad, they weren’t but it wasn’t the expected grand finale many were hoping for. There was a lot of talking and throwing out picnic food to the expectant crowd who did at times find the enthusiasm to form circle pits and crowd surf but in the most it was a sedate end to a fantastic weekend.
All in all Hevy 2011 had a good mix of music leaning well towards the hardcore end of the spectrum set in an intimate arena with stages no more than a couple of minutes away from each other. With a couple of minor problems ironed out Hevy is a festival which can grow and grow, if that’s the direction the organisers want to go in.
