—Video by CUTV Carnage
Day one at Heavy Metal, Montreal’s biggest and most extravagant metal festival, which takes place at Parc Jean-Drapeau. Once I arrived yesterday it was mayhem. Dust clouds, bloody noses, and a few metal-heads with broken necks. After 10 minutes, I saw a girl being put on a stretcher by medics on-scene after she landed on her head from crowd-surfing. Not a smart idea at a metal fest, but it doesn’t seem like she thought it out too much.
Right away, I heard that she wasn’t the first. Earlier on a young man in the mosh pit, the area in front of the stage where metal fans violently throw themselves into each other, landed awkwardly and broke his neck. He had to be resuscitated by medics, then he was taken to hospital. I guess no one is careful while heavy metal is playing. It puts you in a different mindset, that’s for sure.
Machine Head, the talentless Billy Talent, In Flames and Godsmack played day one. The headliner of the night was Disturbed, which underperformed and left concert-goers wanting more. The show of the night was local, Montreal metal band, Necronomicon. They’ve been called “the occult metal legends” and “the only black/death metal worth listening in North America” by BW&BK magazine. Quite a fitting label, because I was blown away by their performance on the Budweiser stage, which is isolated from the other two stages.
All in all, I saw a few bloody faces and scraped kneecaps, but the metal scene in Montreal gets the chance to shine at Heavy MTL.
Adam Bemma is a journalist, humanitarian, and media consultant based in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Adam Bemma 
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