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During The Final Day Of Mystic 2024, Satyricon Was K.I.N.G.

Sadly, the final day of the 25th edition of Mystic Festival had arrived. It was to be the busiest day of the festival but we were rested and ready to take on whatever the day may bring. Earlier, the day featured many “Core” and screamo type bands but the late afternoon and evening schedule would consist of mostly of Black, Doom and Death Metal.

There’s always plenty of seating at Mystic Festival

I was talked into checking out Lord of the Lost by a fellow photographer friend a few weeks ago. I didn’t really know much about them and I didn’t bother to preview them before the festival like I normally do. When I arrived at the photo pit area, it sounded like a Ghost concert was getting ready to begin with all the mostly teen-aged crowd screaming at the top of their lungs. Well, I can say that are definitely not my cup of tea. I was impressed with their stage look and energy level, but they were a shoot my three obligatory songs and on to the next stage sort of band for me.

Chris “The Lord” Harms of Lord of the Lost

Next up was Greece’s 1000mods. They are unequivocally the Kyuss of Greece and perhaps all of Europe. There was a lot of excitement brewing around the Desert Stage when I arrived. How could I tell? I lost count of how many times I heard the word “Malaka” being shouted while waiting for them to take to the sun-drenched stage. The band was prepared on this bright and sunny day, sporting sunglasses when began their set with “Electric Carve.” This was my 2nd time seeing them and their formula is a simple one. Keep it simple and keep it grooving. It’s a simple yet effective formula, but it works for them. Maybe that’s why they’ve been a Stoner Metal fan favorite at every show they play since their formation in 2006.

1000mods

When Kerry King released his first solo band album earlier this year, there were a lot of mixed reviews about it. The most prevalent opinion that I read was that it sounded like leftover Slayer material that never made it onto their last recorded album. I felt that was a fair assessment. I only listened to about half of the album and what I heard wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t exciting either. The question now was, how would it his solo material translate to a live performance?

Kerry King

Overall, I was impressed with the set. Kerry King has a star laden backing band so that helped. Mark Osegueda’s vocal stylings for this band definitely have a Tom Araya-ish tone to them and personally, I like that. There was plenty of Slayer like pyrotechnics happening throughout the set and of course there were not one…not two…but THREE Slayer songs included in the setlist! I can’t tell you how impressed I was that they played “Black Magic.” I guess subconsciously, I really do miss Slayer. I’ll bet at some point they’ll reform and play a few special, one-off shows. I can almost guarantee it.

Phil Demmel and Mark Osegueda

Dark Funeral was next on the Park Stage. It was already late afternoon so a Black Metal band wearing corpse paint in daylight hours outdoors just appears a little strange visually. Dark Funeral has always been a little dramatic live so it wasn’t too much of a surprise that vocalist Heljarmadr was playing the part of Nosferatu throughout the band’s intro music. Dark Funeral are very good live, but they are known to use a lot of pyro. Today, there was none of that but they were still one of the better bands that I saw for the entire day.

Heljarmadr of Dark Funeral

I’ve been craving some Asphyx for quite some time, so the time had finally come to get my fix. I wasn’t much of an Asphyx fan when they released their first album because I was still in shock that vocalist Martin van Drunen had suddenly left the then red-hot Pestilence to join Asphyx. We’ll fast forward several decades and Asphyx is still packing venues. They’ve aged very well. Martin van Drunen is one of the best Death Metal front persons within the whole genre. He never has a problem getting the crowd whipped into a frenzy. Today’s Mystic crowd was no exception. I really wanted to stay and watch the full set, but something special was about to take place on the Park Stage, the return of Satyricon.

Martin van Drunen and Paul Baayens of Asphyx

This was Satyricon’s second live show after an almost 5-year hiatus. There was a lot of hype surrounding their run of European festival shows, especially with the addition of Frank Bello on loan from Anthrax filling in for bass duties. The photo pit at the Park Stage was the most crowded that it had been the entire festival, and the ever-growing audience behind me stretched as far as the eye could see.

Satyricon’s music and stage presence are so refined these days that sometimes I forget that they are one of the forefathers of the Black Metal. They are one of the few huge Black Metal bands that dumped the corpse paint look and never looked back. Vocalist Satyr’s trademark gigantic trident stand is the only visual cue remaining from their storied Black Metal past.

Sigurd Wongraven aka “Satyr” of Satyricon

The band played like they hadn’t missed a beat after their extended hiatus. They sounded so tight as if they were already in the middle of an extended world tour. Frank Bello looked comfortable on stage with Satyricon. He’s the same maniac from Anthrax but he was wearing a black, long-sleeve button down shirt and black slacks. Pretty much the polar opposite of what you’re used to seeing with Anthrax. One final note: The moustache works for you Frank; I urge you to keep it permanently when you return to Anthrax!

Frank Bello

After being blown away by Satyricon’s set, the remaining bands I had penciled in for the night were just desserts. I was pretty tired by this point but still managed to push my way through wave after wave of people to see the British Stoner Metal legends, Orange Goblin. Although Satyricon commanded about 75 percent of the Mystic Festival audience at the time, the remining balance of the festival attendees were already crowding around the Desert Stage. Orange Goblin performed as if they were playing in front of Satyricon’s 75 percent of the Mystic Festival audience but the smaller audience size didn’t matter at all to the super energetic Orange Goblin.

Joe Hoare and Ben Ward of Orange Goblin

After getting my obligatory shots, I pushed through the crowd once again and found a seat on the bleacher style benches across from the Desert Stage. This was the moment when it was starting to sink in that this year’s Mystic Festival was coming to an end. As I was watching vocalist Ben Ward dazzle the raucous Orange Goblin crowd, I was oblivious to the large and ever-growing amount of people entering Shrine Stage entrance behind me. Behind those doors, my final band of this year’s Mystic Festival awaited for me, the Canadian Black Metal legends, Blasphemy.

Blasphemy are unequivocally more popular now than in the past when only paper fanzines existed to discover new and TRVE underground music. All day long I noticed a ton of Blasphemy shirts being worn by the Mystic festivalgoers, so there was no way I was going to miss their set. The venue was bathed in red light and fog when I arrived at the pit and the front row of the crowd was already raving for the band to take the stage.

Blasphemy Fans

I saw Blasphemy only once before, many years ago and I was quite a distance from the stage, so I really didn’t get to see their live dynamic up close. This time, it was VERY different. There were times when I didn’t know who was louder, the crowd behind me, or Blasphemy directly in front of me? Blasphemy powered through their crude and raw style of Black Metal onstage and the crowd devoured it frenziedly. At some points, I thought the crazed crowd was going to tear down the security barriers. I could have sworn I heard the steel barriers clanging on the hard cement floor at times.

Besides Blasphemy’s crude and somewhat sloppy performance, what I’ll remember most about them is their stage garb. Nail laden spiked gauntlets, corpse paint, super dark shades being worn by all of them and one of the guitarists performing while wearing a gas mask. I’m going to assume that is considered to be TRVE Black Metal. I won’t lie, the whole experience was fun and the crowd really lapped it up.

Blasphemy

Leaving the Mystic Festival grounds I said to my wife to “Soak it all in.” Both of us needed to soak in the sights, soak in the smells, soak in the fatigue and most importantly, soak in the awesome memories that were created during the festival. Mystic Festival is one of our favorite metal festivals and for good reason, just read any of my road reports on any of them and you’ll see that they were all written with love. See you next year Mystic Festival!

If you want to see the full photo gallery from Day Three of Mystic Festival, click here!