After the resounding success of last year, Plane’R Fest had to set the bar even higher for 2024. However, this didn’t prove easy given how many big names of the Metal scene played there in 2023. At first glance, this year’s headliners were not as consensual as before and gathered a more specific audience. However, many of these choices were good surprises and this year again Plane’R Fest did not disappoint in any way.
Wild Hair Day
Drive North were the first on the small stage “Terminal 2” to open the festival. Surprisingly the turnout was much bigger than the previous year for the opening band. While they played a maybe not very subtle or versatile brand of modern hardcore, they compensated with an incredible energy that would infuse the whole crowd for the day. For the first time but not the last, the crowd had quite a bit of fun tossing around the new unofficial mascot of the fest: a pair of inflatable crocodiles.
While Blackrain originally gained popularity through a French talent show, they have since made for themselves a steady career at the service of Glam and Hard Rock. It was even a bit surprising to catch them so early in the afternoon. They played for their home crowd a series of hits from their whole discography in the same good mood as earlier. For the few who did not know them, they still were able to join for the cover of “We’re Not Gonna Take It”. Highlights of their set: the classic “Wild, Wild, Wild” and “Neon Drift.”
In a completely different style Point Mort and their Posthardcore foreshadowed the shift to more extreme bands that would play later in the evening. For amateurs of the genre, the band has many strengths: they created an extremely dark atmosphere (perhaps more to do with Black Metal than hardcore) and their singer’s powerful growls truly shake the roots of the earth. It’s a band to keep an eye on.
Family Time
While bigger festivals may not be appropriate for kids to run around, there were a lot of kids around sporting Beast In Black t-shirts. The band truly set off a big party for them with a host of gimmicks and disco rhythm from their latest album Dark Connection, but also their new single “Power Of The Beast.” The band delivered a show exactly as advertised: fun, energetic and epic!
After that, it was only big names on the program, first with T.T.T (Tribute To Thrash) on Terminal 2. Gathered on the same stage, the pioneers of French Thrash Metal , this supergroup seems at first a treat, but it remains, in truth, a bit disappointing. It is still a cover band and however dedicated they are to the cause of Thrash Metal, their covers don’t bring much to the original songs. Only the energy of the project and the guests make it interesting.
Let’s call it Avant-Garde
After several years of growing in popularity, Igorrr is one of the big names on the French metal scene, while remaining an unclassifiable UFO. We’ll use the catch-all term avant-garde to describe their music, where the idea of melody and structure is abolished. Igorrr is like the marmite effect of metal, you either love it or hate it. On stage, it’s a bit different and catchier than on their records. Their opera singer was impressive, and even if the experience is puzzling, it’s worth it.
We Live For This
To round off the first evening, the Plane’R Fest offers a more extreme line-up, starting with a supercharged show by Black Bomb A. Big rhythmics, and aggressive double vocals in growl and scream, it’s impossible not to get carried away.
Headlining the day, Hatebreed took to the stage with big smiles on their faces, the antithesis of their pure hardcore. There’s something fundamentally direct and simple about Hatebreed, something that grabs you by the gut no matter what you do. And they are perhaps one of the best bands to introduce you to the genre. You only have to listen to their tracks “Destroy Everything” and “I Live For This” to understand the craze and join in.
To end the evening on a high note, Mars Red Sky may not have been the most obvious choice, but it was a good one. Thoroughly drained by Hatebreed, the middle of the night was the perfect time to enjoy the band’s soaring, out-of-this-world ambiences. Mars Red Sky is the kind of band that melts your brain, or what’s left of it after a day like that.
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