At Hellfest, hit by a rarely seen heat wave, tens of thousands of festival-goers tasted the flames of hell last weekend (June 17-19). The mercury flirting with 40 degrees did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of the metalheads, euphoric after two years of a pandemic which had deprived them of this collective recreation at maximum volume.
In bathing suits and other small studded outfits, all with tattoos in front, the 200,000 or so festival-goers took advantage of the giant misters installed near the six stages, bathed in the water points transformed into swimming pools and greeted the festival volunteers who regularly sprayed the front rows with a garden hose to bring down the temperature, which exceeded 40 degrees in the afternoon.
This ruthless dodger did not prevent fans of extreme music from dancing and poking around with tenfold energy at the Clisson rendezvous, in the heart of the Nantes vineyards, where beer, more than wine, flows freely.
As always, the show was as much on stage as in the audience and the photographers had a blast. Here are some take-home memories from those three scorching days of music which will be followed next weekend (June 23-26, 2022) by four more days of the same caliber, with a slew of stars to cheer on, from Metallica to Alice Cooper, Guns’n’Roses, Scorpions and Bad Religion.