LIVE FOM THE PIT: Graspop Metal Meeting 2024

Thursday 20th June saw the beginning of a rather wet and muddy Graspop Metal Meeting. The festival, drawing in Metalheads from across the globe, is an annual event which takes place across 4 days each June, in Dessel, Belgium. The 2024 edition of Graspop had an uncertain start, with car parks being closed due to bad weather, and the festival’s campsite ‘Boneyard’ being flooded. Despite the patches of (rather heavy) rain, the spirits amongst the festival-goers weren’t dampened. The festival’s organisers were right on the ball, creating solutions to issues such as putting down straw to help with the muddy grounds. Despite some challenges, the festival was a joyous celebration of metal music, studded with so many brilliant bands and artists. 

The lineup to this year’s event was impressive, featuring headliners such as Tool, Bring Me The Horizon and Scorpions. Thursday saw Kerry King take to the stage, of course featuring a rendition of Slayer’s ‘Raining Blood’, which brought goosebumps to arms. Tool later headlined the South Stage, attracting a large audience and lots of raving reviews. 

Friday’s highlight was Electric Callboy, bringing the energy to the North Stage. The German group performed fan favourites such as ‘Hypa Hypa’ and ‘Tekkno Train’. Lead singer Sebastian Biesler adorned multiple pieces of funky attire, such as a disco ball helmet. Overall, they put on a great performance and they were clearly very well received by the Graspop audience.

Heavy Metal royalty Judas Priest later took to the stage, putting on nothing less than an astounding show. Lead singer Rob Halford displayed remarkable vocal ability, at the ripe age of 72! The band performed an array of songs from their vast discography, including ‘Invincible Shield’- the title-track from their latest album. From seeing this show alone, it’s no wonder Judas Priest has remained relevant for so many decades. 

Saturday was arguably the biggest day of the festival, with bands such as Limp Bizkit, Avenged Sevenfold and Bring Me The Horizon playing sets. Ice Nine Kills turned the South Stage into a movie set as they performed a great selection of their songs. Opening with ‘Hip To Be Scared’, from their most recent album ‘Welcome to Horrorwood: The Silver Scream 2’, the band graced the stage, suited and booted. The band’s vocals were remarkable live, appealing to the ears, and also the eyes as lead singer Spencer Charnas embodies ‘American Psycho’ villain Patrick Bateman, wearing a rain-mac and wielding an axe. Poor ‘Paul’ meets his fate after the bridge of the song, shocking any unsuspecting audience member. The rest of the set continued along this vein of great showmanship, vocals and stage presence. Despite having a set of less than an hour long, the band performed, and ‘acted out’, a good variety of songs from their 2 latest albums, helped out by a number of actors portraying characters from horror movies such as zombies and ‘Georgie’ from the movie IT. Their set was remarkable and it’s so refreshing to have them in the metal music scene. 

Later, Limp Bizkit ‘rocked the set’, with Fred Durst arriving in a grey curly wig and bright yellow high-vis jacket. Opening with ‘Break Stuff’, it was immediately evident that the crowd wasn’t playing around. Mosh Pit after Mosh Pit opened, making it difficult to remain standing, as a sea of crowd surfers made their way to the barriers. Despite it being a struggle to watch the set due to the rough crowd, the show was enjoyable, with a great setlist. Self-proclaimed ‘Idiot, loser, microphone abuser’ Durst performed each song with ease, bopping along to tracks such as ‘Careless Whisper’ between his songs. It’s safe to say Limp Bizkit remain Nu-metal legends.

Avenged Sevenfold graced the stage with great vocals and cool graphics. The band has recently been not-so-well received at Download Festival, so expectations were tainted. However, the band sounded brilliant live and put on a thoroughly enjoyable show. The setlist definitely was interesting, excluding some of their most popular songs such as Seize The Day, Shepherd Of Fire, Dear God and Bat Country. It seemed the crowd lacked energy at multiple points in their set, so perhaps it would’ve been a wise idea to include a few more fan favourites. Nevertheless, Avenged Sevenfold was a highlight of the festival.

Next, Sheffield legends Bring Me The Horizon headlined the South Stage. Unsurprisingly, the band drew in an enormous crowd of fans, singing each song word-for-word. Again, the crowd was chaotic, with an unprecedented number of crowd surfers. Even so, the band looked out for their fans, stopping the show when someone fell down or got hurt. The graphics for the show were amazing, featuring the AI ‘E.V.E’, speaking to the audience on numerous occasions, even producing elements of humour. The band’s frontman Oli Sykes had incredible stage presence, as expected. The setlist was great, featuring a great variety of songs from a number of their albums. Overall, the energy from the band and the crowd was insane and the set was very well-executed. It’s no wonder Bring Me The Horizon is so popular!

The last day of the festival soon came around. Though, undoubtedly, everyone was exhausted from so many days of headbanging, the turnout on Sunday was brilliant. A notable act was Corey Taylor’s performance, a relief to many after his recent cancellations due to illness. The Slipknot frontman’s set was very enjoyable, including renditions of Stone Sour, Slipknot and solo tunes. The sun beamed down as fans enjoyed his rendition of Spongebob Squarepants, an unlikely companion to Slipknot! Later, Scorpions headlined the same stage, the perfect way to close out the festival.

All in all, Graspop Metal Meeting 2024 was an incredible experience and a triumph. This year is just one example of the successful annual meetings. With so many great acts performing each year, in a lovely place, surrounded by thousands of like-minded people, it’s definitely one for the bucket list of any metal fan.