A free metal concert? Yes, it happened! “Skull Session” was held on the 8th of September, as “a free event for all Heavy Metal enthusiasts featuring a selection of some of the best bands in the Lebanese Metal society today: Blaakyum, Phenomy, Turbulence, and Qantara”. As Bassem Deaibess told us in an interview, the concert was held in order to encourage metal heads and people from the scene to attend, promising entertainment and good music!
I’m not sure if we have had free concerts in the past, or maybe I am just not familiar with them, but that is a really rare thing to happen. It was surprising, but also very encouraging and I was really looking forward to attend this one.
The Review:
Two announcements were made on the event page prior to the event date, both good and bad. The good announcement read “There is food tonight by Manghal!” which got me and everyone else all excited! The second announcement was that Qantara was sadly not going to perform.
The event was was organized by Blaakyum and sponsored by BACH Music Institute, Wicked Solutions, YMevent and Lebanese Metal Society. The latter also worked on the design and digital marketing of the event, and Metal Bell Magazine was the media partner. It was held in Station Beirut, Jisr El Wati, a relatively new venue for the scene. It was an outdoor venue, quite spacious and pretty neat.
I was a bit late in arriving, so I only got to watch the last few minutes of Turbulence who were the first band to perform. I was told that the concert started at 9 sharp, and due to the fact that Qantara was not performing there were no further delays in the event.
Turbulence, who play progressive metal, as always, had great stage presence and the crowd looked pretty amused and entertained, and everyone was singing along. As I got closer to the stage, the first thing I noticed and yelled out was “the sound is actually really good!” which is something that I think everyone else seemed to agree on, as I heard some other people talking to each other and saying the same thing.
Up next was Phenomy, a melodic thrash metal band, who are currently recording their first album. They had a great performance and the crowd just went nuts when they came on, especially at the end with their infamous breakdown.
Since I was standing first row, I couldn’t help but notice the annoying flashing lights that almost blinded me. What was up with that? But then the smell of food filled my nostrils and distracted me…just as soon as Phenomy were done I made sure to grab a grilled meat sandwich before Blaakyum went up next. And it was delicious!
The final act of the evening was the most exciting part of the whole concert, not only did they give off their best performance, but we got to have a wall of death, after many failed attempts of any sort of moshpit! Their set list was building up and building up, and then BAM! That was a crazy ride which left everyone satisfied!
All in all, I think it was an excellent event, with great bands, an amazing crowd, good food, and awesome sound for once! And just for the record, there were more than 300 attendees! There were even more but apparently they didn’t let them in because it was over packed! I hope future events will be as successful as this one was, and I hope that everyone keeps supporting this tiny scene of ours by attending more concerts even if they were not free.
FEATURED:
An Interview With Onslaught
Skull Session 2016 Reviewed!
Want to join Metal Bell? We are looking for authors, editors, reviewers, photographers, and designers.
Send an email to: joinus[@]metal-bell.com.
Would you do something like this? Leave a Comment.
Leave a Comment