Female Metal Festival - Sat, June 16, 2007 - Minnesota

[SwordLord]

Okay, lots to say today about the festival!

First of all, the website FINALLY WORKS! It is:
www.FemaleMetalFest.com

Second of all, I appreciate very much all of the great suggestions for bands, but I am closing the line-up for this year. I think that too many bands in one day is not a good thing. Right now, we have doors opening at 3:30pm and I think that's a good full day of metal. (Incidentally I swore I was going to stick to the "Glenn-Rule" of no more than 5 bands per day and I couldn't even do it my first year ... aaaack!)

Thirdly, PLEASE email me your wish list of bands! You can post them here on the forum, but if they are sitting in my in-box, I won't lose track of them. My email is SwordLord2003@aol.com.

Fourth, BlackRoseMetalHeart has proven to be an amazing asset to this festival! She has single-handedly put together our Official MySpace page for this festival! Please view her work at:
http://www.myspace.com/femalemetalfest

I would like to publicly thank BRMH for all of her very hard work in helping me promote this festival. It's people like her that benefit the metal community and keep our music represented and thriving.


With each passing day, I grow more and more excited about this festival. I hope that you all will be able to join me for what will indeed be a mesmerizing day of glorious heavy metal!


About the music,
Nathan

 

[MetalNations]

Damn... B-Yotch!

 

[Pellaz]

Second of all, I appreciate very much all of the great suggestions for bands, but I am closing the line-up for this year. I think that too many bands in one day is not a good thing. Right now, we have doors opening at 3:30pm and I think that's a good full day of metal. (Incidentally I swore I was going to stick to the "Glenn-Rule" of no more than 5 bands per day and I couldn't even do it my first year ... aaaack!)

Not to worry; Glenn's already broken that Glenn-Rule, too.

 

[MetalNations]

I hope that I did not break Glenns rule either. I respect him a ton, and do not want to piss him off.

 

[BlackRoseMetalHeart]

Okay, lots to say today about the festival!

First of all, the website FINALLY WORKS! It is:
www.FemaleMetalFest.com

Website looks great, Swordsy!

BlackRoseMetalHeart has proven to be an amazing asset to this festival! She has single-handedly put together our Official MySpace page for this festival! Please view her work at:
http://www.myspace.com/femalemetalfest

I would like to publicly thank BRMH for all of her very hard work in helping me promote this festival. It's people like her that benefit the metal community and keep our music represented and thriving.

Thank you for your thanks! I'm only happy to help with something that has been a dream of mine for a long time as well - seeing an all female-fronted metal festival grace the states annually. I hope that the hard work of all those involved (especially you, Swordlord) will pay off and that our dream of this festival growing and continuing annually will become reality!

The myspace page will be seeing some revisions and additions over the next week, but it is essentially up and running with all the pertinent information. I encourage all of you to visit, add Flight of the Valkyries to your friends list, comment, and spread the word.

 

[SnakkDaddy]

If you only know Kate French through VainGlory, you're missing out. The first two Chastain CDs with her on them show EVERY facet of her voice---not just the beastly one.

And I like Don Dokken too....but I'm also well aware of his weaknesses.

 

[BlackRoseMetalHeart]

If you only know Kate French through VainGlory, you're missing out. The first two Chastain CDs with her on them show EVERY facet of her voice---not just the beastly one.

And I like Don Dokken too....but I'm also well aware of his weaknesses.

I knew Kate had done a few albums with Chastain, but I haven't actually been able to get ahold of any of their albums yet. I have been looking forward to checking them out though. Knowing that those albums display a wider range of her vocal capabilities makes me even more enthusiastic about picking them up.

 

[SnakkDaddy]

Avoid the most recent one--"In An Outrage"--it sucks. But "Sick Society" is reasonably good and features great Kate vocals and "In Dementia" is great from top to bottom.

 

[SwordLord]

If you only know Kate French through VainGlory, you're missing out. The first two Chastain CDs with her on them show EVERY facet of her voice---not just the beastly one.

Oh great, thanks for the tip! I'm loving the Vainglory work, so I will definitely have to check this out.

 

[SwordLord]

Thanks to everyone who has emailed me some great band requests, keep them coming!

SWORDLORD2003@aol.com

 

[SwordLord]

GOT BURNED AT MILWAUKEE METALFEST? GET INTO THIS FESTIVAL FREE!


SwordLord Productions is proud to announce some good news for anyone who attended this year’s disastrous Milwaukee MetalFest. Attendees of Milwaukee Metalfest can present their ticket stub at the door and receive FREE ADMISSION to the first ever FLIGHT OF THE VALKYRIES female metal festival in St. Paul, Minnesota. FLIGHT OF THE VALKYRIES is the first Midwest metal festival devoted solely to heavy metal bands with female lead vocalists.

“What happened in Milwaukee was a revolting tragedy of epic proportions. I am sick and tired of hearing about hardworking bands and loyal fans getting cheated and lied to in this business. I am making an effort to show everyone that there are still honest promoters working in the music industry and that the Midwest is not full of crooks and incompetents,” said Nathan Block of SwordLord Productions in a statement issued to Blabbermouth.

This year’s FLIGHT OF THE VALKYRIES festival will take place on June 16, 2007, at the Station 4 Nightclub in downtown St. Paul. Headlining this year’s festival is the legendary DORO PESCH formerly of Warlock. Also appearing at this year’s festival is VAINGLORY from Georgia; EARTHEN, a Chicago folk-metal band featured at Heathen Crusade 2; THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE from Wisconsin; SPIRTUAL DECAY and Minnesota’s own VISIDEON and SIRENS OF TITAN.

In order to receive free admission, attendees need only present their ticket stub from Milwaukee Metalfest. In addition, any band who performed on the bill is welcome to attend free of charge. Each band member may also bring one guest who will also be admitted free. The only stipulation for band admission is that the band must have been listed on the official line-up for Milwaukee Metalfest.

For more information on the FLIGHT OF THE VALKYRIES metal festival, please visit www.FemaleMetalFest.com.

For questions about this special offer, please email The SwordLord at SwordLord2003@aol.com.

 

[Pellaz]

GOT BURNED AT MILWAUKEE METALFEST? GET INTO THIS FESTIVAL FREE!


SwordLord Productions is proud to announce some good news for anyone who attended this year’s disastrous Milwaukee MetalFest. Attendees of Milwaukee Metalfest can present their ticket stub at the door and receive FREE ADMISSION to the first ever FLIGHT OF THE VALKYRIES female metal festival in St. Paul, Minnesota. FLIGHT OF THE VALKYRIES is the first Midwest metal festival devoted solely to heavy metal bands with female lead vocalists.

Hahahahaha, excellent idea! Gets you some good promotion and some goodwill, too.

 

[SwordLord]

Hahahahaha, excellent idea! Gets you some good promotion and some goodwill, too.

Having had my own rotten experience with JK, I had a premonition this was going to happen as many other fans did who obviously stayed away. I'm SICK of this sh*t ... so I'll try and take some action, in my own small way.

 

[J-Man]

You da Man !!!!!! Nathan that just goes to show there are still some of us honest promoters out there. Great idea. I slaute you.

 

[Pellaz]

Having had my own rotten experience with JK, I had a premonition this was going to happen as many other fans did who obviously stayed away. I'm SICK of this sh*t ... so I'll try and take some action, in my own small way.

So, you too have had a lousy experience with JK? I had a weird phone conversation with his chief toady, who was careful to remind me several times that, yes, he was Dave Grohl's brother. That, and $1.20, will get you a cuppa coffee at Waffle House.

He was pumping me for info about ProgPower, BTW. Apparently my glowing reports as to how good PPUSA is, and how to run a GOOD festival, that people actually want to come back to, were completely ignored....

 

[Diabolik]

It is interesting to hear all the horror stories about the Milwaukee Metalfest and still bands pay to play and are shocked when they are screwed over. You would think with the power of the internet that communication about this fest would have sunk it years ago. While I had some great times there....I also had some bad ones. I was able to see some great bands play like Windir, Naglfar, Cage, Vio-Lence, Nuclear Assault, and many others that I may have never seen or will see again. I knew things were not on the up and up when at the first time I was at the fest...I think it was 2002 and Jack kept on walking around and basically lying to everyone who was asking questions about set times and signings and stuff. The End Records has a great booth there and they helped bring over Enslaved at the time. I remember watching the guy who runs the label fighting with Jack over being lied to about what time they were playing and about what time thier signing was. It got really heated too. That was the year where Ice-T and Bodycount were playing. Basically Jack was more concerned about having a "celeb" there than putting on a good show. As usual all the set times were off and know one knew who was playing and where due to bands being switched around. That was the last year that it seemed like a real fest...they had Chuck Billy as guest MC, they had actual signings and a decent amount of caliber bands playing.

The next year is the year they had the white power record label there to sell stuff and a few skinheads showed up too. That year was a total mess and there was no organization with anything. No one knew wh was playing and where. They let some bands run on for 30 plus minutes and bands that people actually wanted to see for like 15 minutes.

The one a few years later....I think it was 2004, was a train wreck. It was the last one before this one. I went on friday....there really wasnt any complete line up advertised. I was hoping that they would have a few of teh bands I wanted to see playing friday night. Got there and the doors were supposed to open at 11. Well at 12:30 or so they finally opened. They handed out set times for the day. Within hours they were already off and bands were getting switched. This was the year they had Death Angel booked. Yeah right. There were a few bands I was interested in checking out. The one band I really wanted to see was Macabre. they always put on a good live show so I was waiting all day for them. 10 PM rolls around and I was waiting like the rest of the crowd. Out comes Cattle Decaptiation. I find the Macabre booth to find out they got bumped to saturday due to Jack not having sound permits for the outside stage after a certain hour and since they ran late they had to move the bands inside to the main stage. Thus bumping bands off and moving bands to saturday. There was almost zero record label support this time. Just Century Media. Compared to earlier years...there was tons of labels there. I think most got sick of dealing with Jack. So basically I sat all day listening to very generic death metal all day to not see the one band who I wanted to see. Walked out that day vowing never to go again.

I thought the fest was dead. Until a few months back when I saw the web site updated. I nearly shit when I saw Virgin Steele and Cage booked. I knew it was too good to be true. It sure was...they were off the site within weeks. We all know the rest of the story. It is a shame that this fest really went downhill.

It does after all these years bewilders me to see bands pay up to 1,000 bucks to play for 15 minutes on a saturday at noon in front of 20 people. I guess in a small way everyone involved is to blame. I know it is rough getting your band out there but paying that money and playing at some crazy hour with 80 plus bands isnt great exposure. You would have better luck getting new fans by a MySpace page actually.

I am sad to see Milwaukee Metalfest go in a way. But hopefully from its ashes we will see great fest like the Flight of the Valkryes, Prog Power and others carry on the right way. just my two cents.

 

[SkiBumMSP]

I have been very hard at work on this and I am pleased to announce the very first ever FLIGHT OF THE VALKYRIES metal festival - dedicated to metal bands with female lead vocalists.

This year's headliner is DORO, currently on her first US tour in sometime.

To dig up an old thread...

For those of you that are going to see this, you will be in for a hell of a treat! Friggan Doro was just AWESOME last night at Jaxx. She really plays to the audience, many times sticking the microphone down into somebody's face so they can sing/shout the lyrics into it, plus she was high-fiving nearly everyone in the front. She was literally right, and I mean, right in front of me. A couple times she's accidentally bumped her head in my arm while I was throwing the ! She was also very personable. Not only that, but that bassist was really getting in to it as well! Plus on top of that, we had the legedary Chris Caffery there!

Thus a taste....

 

[Pellaz]

Wow, you WERE pretty close. Low stage, too.

 

[SwordLord]

I think I'm going out tonight and buying her an engagement ring...

 

[BlackRoseMetalHeart]

Doro on this tour is fucking spectacular! I was also at the show at Jaxx in Springfield, VA. Overall the show was great (Concrete Prophet, Highwire, Division, Chris Caffery, Belledonna, Doro) but I would say the Doro was certainly the highlight of the night with such an active on stage performance from the entire band.

Her and Chris Caffery had great synergy on stage. Her bass player Nick is a hyperactive headbanger like no other - just fun a shit to watch. Johnny Dee is incredible on the drums. The guitarist who was filling in for Oliver (since he's on the Euro tour with Kamelot) - Luca Princiotta was also amazing. They played a great mixture of the newest album (Warrior Soul) and previous Doro and Warlock material. Maybe I'm just being a fangirl, but I thought their set was tight, and highly entertaining.

I couldn't wait for this festival before. But now, after getting a taste of what we are in for in less than a week ... Let's just say no one will be leaving this year's FOTV festival disappointed.

I did stick around for awhile after the show and got to meet Nick (bass player) and Johnny Dee (drummer), but I didn't stay long enough to see if Doro or Chris or Luca came out. Nick also mentioned that since she had said that she had a cold that night, that she might not be out until much later if at all. I figured I'd let her get some rest. I also had an early morning the next day, but ended up calling out of work "sick." :zombie:

I think I'm going out tonight and buying her an engagement ring...

I bought her a (belated) birthday card. She celebrated earlier this month (June 3), although I didn't actually get to give it to her. Nick told me he would deliver it.

Nice pictures by the way, SkiBum. I'll post a few of the ones I took as soon as they are done uploading.