By Sean Palmerston
This Friday and Saturday sees the return of Canada’s most unique metal festival – and I’m happy to say I am a part of it this year! Calgary, Alberta plays home to the fourth edition of the Noctis Metal Fest and Conference this weekend and I am about to jump on a plane on Thursday to be an active participant as a panelist during the Conference segment. It is something I have always wanted to do in a metal context – I’ve had the chance to participate in a few non-metal music conferences before, but never one to do with my real passion – and this this is going to be a pretty interesting time on Friday during the day.
I will be part of the panel for two segments of the conference portion. One is entitled “Author Author” and will deal with the struggles of being a music writer/publisher in this day and age, while the other one is being called “Beyond Myspace: Promoting Your Music”, dealing directly with what young, aspiring bands should do to get their bands played on the radio, reviewed in the press, etc. I’m looking forward to meeting some discerning metal heads and discussing these very things with them. I’m also excited to sit in the crowd and watch many of the other panels too. I plan on being part of one each and every hour.
The music festival itself is looking to be a great one. The Noctis crew have done a great job lining up some excellent international talent that wouldn’t normally come and play in Calgary, let alone most of the rest of Canada. Saturday night’s headliner is German thrash legends Sodom, who I have seen before but am very excited to see once again, and amongst the other bands of note that are playing this weekend are Rotten Sound, Root, Manegarm and The Devil’s Blood, all of which are traveling from Europe for what I believe to be one-off performances.
If you are going to be in Calgary and you have read this, please do me a favour and stop me and say hi. Let me know that you know about what we do over here at Hellbound.ca, what you like and don’t like about it and let’s talk about metal. This webzine is done for the love of metal, it is something that I still feel very passionate about and I am looking forward to filling my noggin with it all weekend long.
If you’re on the fence about it, don’t hesitate another second. This is going to be one fun weekend of metal – and one you are 0nly going to regret not having gone to later. This is going to be one for Canadian metal history.
Hope to see you there!
Sean
