Hi everyone,

it’s Steve here. We’ve taken a couple of days now to reflect on our first Fest of Hades, which was a success if you ignore the overall attendance. But I’m quite happy to say that the lack of people attending was the only disappointment of the day, as all of the bands including ourselves, played their hearts out and everyone who did attend (I believe it was 18 or there about’s from tickets and door entry on the day) witnessed a special event and one which I’m incredibly proud of. The line-up in my eyes surpassed both the Armageddon and Apocalypse shows, both of which had fantastic bands on, but I do believe that a lot of people really did miss out.

But enough of the should’ve, would’ve, could’ve been. At the end of the day, it’s about the music, the love of it and the fun, which there was heaps of. Seas of Scarlet came dressed up in some great costumes, and Aonia had some great face paint done by Stevie Hunter I believe. The best I did was a floppy top hat and I’m not sure what happened to that afterwards. I loved some of the covers that were played, Aonia know how to open the door to my heart by doing an Iron Maiden song, namely ‘Man on the Edge’ which was brilliant, and they ended with Bohemian Rhapsody which was great too. I think Mel remembered me requesting that after seeing a video of them performing it at a Wedding earlier in the year. We met some already good friends again and made new ones, which is one of the best things about the metal community, and it’s that there are some incredibly nice people in it and it seems quite easy to make friends with other bands and fans. I must admit I’m not the most social of people, more down to shyness if anything but it was great being able to talk to people. I had a good chat with Felicity who was taking photos throughout the day, really looking forward to seeing those.
So, Claire and Faye who came a long for the day took some videos of nearly every band, only Sacrilege seems to be missing, so here are them all for you. Among these, well, I’ll leave them at the end, there are two videos of both of our new songs ‘Traitor’ and ‘The Dark Tower’ from the new album we’re working on.

Hamerex – Traitor & The Dark Tower

So there we have it. Will I do another Fest of Hades? I’d certainly like to, and I had intended to do one for 2016. I even have a list of bands I was considering on getting in touch with for it. But given that I believe there’ll be more money required to put it on (I did get in touch with one of the bands managers a couple of months back to enquire) and just the poor attendance for this year I’m having a bit of a rethink. Couple that with the amount of promo I’m going to be involved with doing for our next album, I’m wondering if it’ll be a wise decision to proceed. A better call maybe a couple of smaller shows that have the same spirit and line-up quality of the festival, likely with the same bands. But whatever the decision, there will definitely be a second Fest of Hades somewhere down the line where I’ll strive to somehow better this years.

But saying all of that, I think it was more down to a bad choice of day. Of course, Halloween is jam packed full of events around the country, Whitby Goth Weekend, Halloween Parties and Gigs and everything else.

As always I have to thank all of the bands, they made it such an amazing day, you guys, the fans, the familiar faces that I’m always delighted to see when we play a gig and the people we’d never met or played to before, of course Bryn and Joe at Warehouse 23 and the rest of the staff at Warehouse 23 for allowing me to put the festival on and making sure the sound was great. Personally have to thank Dan from Amethyst for filling in on bass for us again, we’re looking forward to playing Sheffield with him again later this month and Felicity for doing photography for the day. Also thanks go out to both Hellraiser and T-Shirt Emporium shops in Wakefield for taking some flyers to help promote the gig.

If I can get a video from Sacrilege’s set I’ll update the post for you guys. We’ll definitely see you all again, hopefully very soon. In the meantime check out all of these links to the bands, venue, photographer and shops.

Coyote Mad Seeds – http://www.facebook.com/CoyoteMadSeeds / http://coyotemadseeds.tk
Seas of Scarlet – http://www.facebook.com/seasofscarlet
Six or Five? – http://www.facebook.com/sixor5
Kaine – http://www.facebook.com/kaineband / http://www.kaine-metal.com
Sacrilege – http://www.facebook.com/Sacrilegerock / http://www.sacrilegenwobhm.com/
Aonia – http://www.facebook.com/aoniauk / http://www.aonia.co.uk/
Fest of Hades – https://www.facebook.com/festofhades/
Warehouse23 – http://www.warehouse23.co.uk
Felicity Dell Photography – https://www.facebook.com/FD-Photography-790121827751959/?fref=ts
Amethyst – http://www.facebook.com/AOVUK
Hellraiser – https://www.facebook.com/hellraiser.records/?fref=ts
T-Shirt Emporium – https://www.facebook.com/T-Shirt-Emporium-Wakefield-256911147832539/