To kick off this day of immensely hot weather, Helmet storms onto the stage without an introduction, with nasty guitar riffs and solos to make you melt even more. Page Hamilton, the only member left from the band’s inception, gives an impressive performance on lead guitar and vocals. Even though they weren’t very talkative or enthusiastic during their performance, the sound and the music spoke for them. And the audience that had already arrived at this hour clearly took a dip into the nostalgia of genres that dominated the 90s. The songs they played were mostly from their classic albums such as Strap It On, Meantime and Betty, with no mention of their most recent album, released in 2024. They also surprised us with a cover of Black Sabbath‘s sixth record Sabotage, namely Symptom of the Universe, as a tribute to the Prince of Darkness himself, Ozzy Osbourne. For the first act, they succeeded, but the intensity of the music is only going to increase from here on out. 

As the first show at Club Studio Brussel Stage, the Swiss trio Coilguns set the bar extremely high. The show was only half an hour long, but the audience was clearly ready to mosh even longer to their modern take on post-hardcore. Their performance was equally crazy, with frontman Louis Jucker jumping around everywhere and walking among the audience from the first song onwards. The lighting made the atmosphere even more extreme, with flashing white lights and pure darkness for the rest. Their setlist consisted solely of songs from their latest album, Odd Love, to show that their new album is the new sound of their band. It will be a challenge for the next acts to reach this level of audience madness. 

Due to their album Tarantula Heart, it is still unusual for old fans to see two drummers on stage (Dale Grover, Coady Willis), but for modern Melvins listeners, this has been common knowledge for some time. These icons have been influencing everything related to sludge/alt metal since the late 1980s. For a band that has been around for several decades and has undergone countless changes throughout their career, they have still retained their charisma to put on a good show. With their highly alternative clothing style and comical remarks, they keep the crowd entertained. Buz Osborne may be getting on in years, but he still has plenty of energy in his performance, which makes him seem like he’s back in the 90s. They kept a well-balanced setlist by playing classics from over the years. What surprised us was that they didn’t play anything from their latest album, Thunderball, even though it was released on 18 April. But all in all, it was an atmosphere that concluded that sludge is alive and kicking! 

After the explosive performance by Coilguns, a group takes the stage that is probably the furthest from home of anyone present today. The screamo/post-hardcore band Envy from Tokyo, Japan, came to touch the emotional side of the audience and get them headbanging. This group is very dominant in the hardcore scene in Japan and has a unique sound both in their own country and in the West. They are currently on their European tour for their 30th anniversary. Having just performed in Darmstadt, Germany, the day before, they are still motivated and breathtaking for the Belgian audience. The very high-pitched voice of Tetsuya Fukagawa, who was on a two-year hiatus (from 2016 to 2018), has retained its power with their latest hit album Eunoia and sounds more soul-crushing than ever before. The band members were not really visible in the setting, except for their silhouettes, which gave a sadder tone. There is still a lot to explore in the Japanese scene for Belgium, and after this performance, more people are guaranteed to be open to it. 

The sun is setting and it’s time for pure Belgian post-doom metal. The pride of our metal scene, originally from Kortrijk, Amenra creates a dark and erratic atmosphere like no other. The pain in Colin van Eeckhout‘s voice can bring anyone to tears with the raw screams in songs like Silver Needle, Golden Nail, and also with his soft, sad vocals in A Solitary Reign, he shows his phenomenal versatility. After bassist Tim De Gieter recently leaving the band, they announced a new member on 6 March with Amy Tung Barrysmith! An amazing artist who has picked up and mastered the essence of the band. If you are standing in the audience among the packed crowd, you should look around and see that everyone is in a trance of silence and shock. That’s how powerful this set was. Of heartbreaking French texts in plus près de toi to Dutch poetry in de evenmens, the group proves that they master several languages and not just English. They are one of the inventors of the melancholy in doom and not only with their songs, but also in their decor. Grim images that remind you of a cemetery, together with a lot of smoke, leave your body cold. An experience for many to remember that there is beauty in the dark and in the pain. 

Compared to the previous act, Red Kross from sunny Hawthorne, California, were a complete contrast. They brought a more enlightened sound with feel-good licks in their guitar and vocals. A band that originally started out as punk rock under the name The Tourists, who opened for Black Flag as their first gig, they have taken a completely different direction in recent years. Red Kross is very well known in American culture and is known for rarely coming to Europe, which makes the performance a unique experience and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for fans. With a surprise cover of It Won’t Be Long by The Beatles and a perfect balance of new and old work from their discography, these American icons carried the audience through their years on the West Coast scene. 

A stage with a more special layout, fire that shoots so high that even the people at the back can burn their faces, a cover of Black Sabbath‘s Vol. 4 track Under the Sun, and drummer Mario Duplantier holding up signs to stir up the audience, announcing that he will be playing double pedals for five minutes. This is just a brief description of this extraordinary performance by the quartet from quiet Ondres, France. Gojira is one of those bands that you know are making history. For a technical progressive death metal band, their name is already huge and continues to grow with every album, serving as a gateway to the more extreme genres of metal for many generations. Lokerse Feesten stood before these giants with an overwhelming audience where you could look around at screens displaying all kinds of art and negative colour effects. From playing Flying Whales in its entirety to the emotional and epic finger tapping of The Gift of Guilt, they played a favourite for every fan, balancing between the albums L’Enfant Sauvage, Fortitude, Magma and, of course, From Sirius to Mars. With their latest song Mea Culpa, from their Olympics viral performance, the show was complete and satisfying for everyone. 

After the main stage closes, a band featuring an icon of the Killing Jokes (Paul Ferguson) will come on to turn off the lights in style. Influenced by his previous band, which was disbanded due to the tragic death of Geordie Walker in 2023, he passed the torch to his new project in collaboration with Pauly Williams on guitar and Fred Schreck as frontman/bassist, called Light of Eternity! With their first album Collateral, which fuses two EPs together, they show their love for music similar to Ministry and Sisters of Mercy. An audience that goes into a trance for the last time with a calmer genre than that produced by the main stage is just what an evening like this needs to end on a high note. With an unexpectedly large crowd at this hour, Paul Ferguson proved that he is not done with his music career and that there is more to come.