A heavenly inferno – Dagsavisen

The queue for Rockefeller in Oslo stretches around the corner and down the street. It’s the second day of the metal festival Inferno.

Two metal enthusiasts stand in the queue. American Layton Paris from Rhode Island, USA and John Barry from Sydney, Australia. They don’t know each other from before, but have become friends in one evening in Oslo at the music festival.

– I met Layton two days ago. It’s a very friendly and welcoming bunch here, and everyone is here for one reason: Metal. If I come back in a couple of years, I’ll probably meet Layton and say, ‘hey, I know you,'” says John.

They both live at the Clarion Hotel and have been in Oslo for two days.

– It is so stylish to live there. Suddenly you meet one of your heroes – I’ve met four already, says Layton.

Both have traveled far for, among other things, the evening’s band. Both are particularly looking forward to both the Carpathian Forest and Gorgoroth. They both think yesterday’s best band was Orm, a melodic black metal band with a Norse theme.

Inside Rockefeller you will find a lot more than just a beer queue in the bar and a stage.

You will find a record store, sale of band effects, sale of art and several tattoo artists.

An organization called Metalheads against Bullying also has a stand at the festival. In collaboration with the tattoo studio Symbolic Ink, they offer to cover up scars after self-harm with tattoos, twice a year. It might seem that the long, dark hair and studded leather jackets do not indicate a hostile clientele at the festival.

Then English Arthur Brown goes on the main stage Rockefeller. He plays psychedelic rock that can sometimes bear the touch of both The Doors and Frank Zappa, but with a far more rock feel.

Brown is 81 years old, but moves like a dancer on stage. On his head is a crown in flames. Yes – it is actually on fire. He still sings with a bell-like falsetto. At one point in the impressive stage show, the keyboardist bows in fear of Brown, as if straight out of an opera.

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Outside, the Australian John Barry stands smoking a cigarette.

– Arthur Brown was fantastic. I knew I had to bring him with me, says John.

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It’s getting dark

Down on John Dee, darkness has already descended faster than outside. German Vorga play a form of cosmic black metal – a neon-lit futuristic black metal.

A pentagram in neon red adorns the bass drum. The guitars have green neon lights that illuminate the fingerboards. The scene looks futuristic. The evening is coming, and the music is getting darker.

After the concert, Croatian Boris T. stands and talks with some friends upstairs in the Rockefeller venue. He himself is a musician in the one-man project Tryglav, which has hundreds of thousands of plays on Spotify. He has recently moved to Norway, specifically Moss. He, too, is clear about what he is looking forward to tonight.

– I can’t wait to see the Carpathian Forest and Gorgoroth. Yesterday both Crypta and Candlemass were amazing. Unfortunately I missed Kampfar yesterday, says Boris.

The Carpathian Forest and Gorgoroth are repeatedly mentioned by the festival-goers Dagsavisen speaks to.

On the main stage Rockefeller, Vltimas take the stage. The number of spectators has increased significantly, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to get forward towards the stage. The music is considerably harder than Arthur Brown who stood there before them. The darkness that began with Vorga in the basement seems to have crept up from John Dee to the floor above.

The pulse rises, but it is impossible to know whether it is actually the pulse or the double bass drums.

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Love for art

It seems that the audience themselves have a great love for the festival.

Amerikanske Kai has lived in Gothenburg for the past decade, and is impressed by the festival.

– This is one of the better festivals I have been to. All of the infrastructure seems to be in place and the volunteers know what they are doing. If you talk to people, you quickly find out that people come back, year after year. And the artist list is undoubtedly worth the price, he says.

It’s really starting to close in on the audience. It becomes impossible to move anywhere. In well-known Rockefeller style, the shoes stick to the floor as soon as you step off the carpet, directly in front of the mixing desk. Both because of the crowd and the fact that the shoes are stuck to the beer-covered floor.

The Carpathian Forest, which has been mentioned repeatedly during the evening, is about to go on.

It has certainly been a while since black metal was referred to as something dangerous like in the 90s, but let there be no doubt: the stronghold of black metal is tonight in Mariboes gate.

The metal is just as hard. Here there is no heat left. In this music there is no love for man. Carpathian Forest sounds like misanthropy.

The concert is nevertheless interspersed with humour. Vocalist Nattefrost plays harmonica during the concert, and cowbells can also be heard in the soundscape.

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Birthday present

American Sebastian Shriver and Kristin Kusma from Baltimore and Cleveland respectively are very pleased with the concert.

– It was insanely cool and hysterically funny at the same time. I love that they don’t take themselves too seriously, says Sebastian.

Kristin agrees.

– It was fantastic, very funny. A good mix of humor and great music, she says.

Sebastian has surprised Kristin with tickets to the Inferno Festival in Norway.

– It was her 40th birthday two weeks ago. We have been to Oslo before, and we like going to festivals like this. In addition to that, the artist list is absolutely fabulous, he says.

Kristin is enjoying herself in Oslo.

– In addition to the festival, we are looking forward to exploring more of the city. We have already found a couple of great places where we can eat and drink, and we are looking forward to exploring some museums and doing some sightseeing, she says.

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The darkness is here

The crowd seems to tire as the evening progresses. Along all the walls, festival-goers sit and rest their legs before the last band of the evening, Gorgoroth.

People are getting back on their feet. To the sound of an orchestral version of Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 2, third movement, entitled The Grave March, the audience moves closer to the stage, before it all explodes in Gorgoroth’s uncompromising brutality. The funeral march turns into a war march, with Gorgoroth’s vocalist spewing vocal rot and auditory hatred into the microphone.

On the outside of the premises, the security guards take it all with crushing calm. They do not want to give their names or provide a picture, but they think the audience has behaved, despite the high consumption of beer.

– One thing we have learned is that there is rarely trouble with such metal concerts, says one of the security guards.

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