Heavy MTL post-mortem

Photo by Tracey Lindeman

More than 44,000 headbangers flocked to Parc Jean-Drapeau this weekend to rock out with their ponchos out (or on, as the case may be).

Heavy MTL’s fourth festival in five years turned Montreal up to 11 many times over the course of the weekend, with a significant heaping of major mainstream acts attracting a record number of concert-goers. Despite calls for bad weather and a rash of cancellations (Lamb of God, Dethklok, High on Fire), the festival was nothing if not well attended.

The recently reunited System of a Down, as well as Deftones, Killswitch Engage, Cannibal Corpse, Between the Buried and Me and the incomprehensibly popular Five Finger Death Punch alternated between main stages Saturday — and the crowds came out en masse to gobble it up.

The rain held off for most of Saturday afternoon, but came down in buckets during Cannibal Corpse’s set, turning the normally dusty field into a disgusting slip ‘n slide.

The nostalgia factor remained high on Sunday with Marilyn Manson and Slipknot acting as festival headliners. The number of people wearing Slipknot masks (including Slipknot) was immeasurable, countered only by dudes wearing bandanas Suicidal-style.

Fans of mathcore rejoiced as Dillinger Escape Plan took the stage in the late afternoon. Their affinity for a seizure-inducing lightshow was softened by the daylight, but their strobe light-like music was not. Regardless, their high-energy set was intense to watch — jumping up on overturned monitors, flinging guitars into the audience, climbing up the stage scaffolding.

Sunday also brought the thrash and/or death metal with France’s Gojira, In Flames, Voivod, Overkill — but few were more heavily anticipated than a rare appearance by Suicidal Tendencies. They opened with “You Can’t Bring Me Down” and closed with audience members up on stage for an impromptu moshpit.

The energy was equally high, if not more so, on the smaller Apocalypse stage, usually reserved for smaller bands. Though their set partially overlapped with Suicidal’s, at least a couple hundred dirty, sweaty and ebullient metalheads packed in for Toronto’s Cancer Bats before capping off their nights with Marilyn, Voivod and a buncha dudes in masks.

Check out our Heavy MTL photos here.