Decibel Philly Metal & Beer Fest 2025 Notes Part III: Day Two, The Fillmore
by J †Johnson
Saturday, April 5, 2025
Is it already Saturday? Is it only Saturday? Have we ever done anything except go to metal shows? Are we gonna get some corpse paint today? Is goth metal really a thing?
It feels different each day, but we’ve established a ritual of having a beer at Other Half before entering the fest, after walking past the line, silently disapproving of standing in line. Today we get there at 4, right as the people in line realize they can just walk up to the entrance like all the people entering the Fillmore while they wait in line. America.
The Other Half Sunday crowd at the start of a Phillies game is not metal. The couple who say we can’t sit at their communal 4-top because they are expecting friends to join them are toxie normals. We check on them 20 minutes after finding another seat. They are still sitting next to empty seats, touching their phones.
We want to see Vicious Blade open the day—2024’s Relentless Force is accurately named—so we better settle up & scamper.
Vicious Blade (Pittsburgh)
We are happy to report that Vicious Blade do in fact smite.¹ Some of the best screamo vocal projection (from Clarissa Badini) of the festival, strong hardcore energy, and a full catalog of metal moves are framed by a tight band.
Also, we get a flying kick off the drum riser, motherfucker.
When you announce the name of the next song, it’s the start of the song. Vicious Blade get it.
We love a hybrid vocal approach that keeps its priorities straight.
This is the band late arrivals miss & hear about, like a myth.²
Funeral Leech (NYC)
Larpers & Geeks, we have a singing drummer (Lucas Anderson)! Or, you know, a growling drummer. With the mic on.
We also have floor-length hair up front (Alex Baldwin on guitar). Mesmerizing drapes. The Grudge for real. Try to look away.
The drummer hides behind the curtain.
We’re here all weekend.
Anyway, this band is rad. Doom before 5:30🤘🏼
Is a funeral leech a slimy thing attached to a corpse, or is it attached to the mourners, feeding off their despair, or is it a person who gets off on going to funerals? Is it the band from Pallbearers Club?³
These guys seem kinda down, but it’s working for them.
This song is going to be our last song of the night. Don’t worry, it’s long.
(Already an entry for best banter of the evening.)
If we’re worried, we’re worried for you guys. You seem sad.
This is sit-down singing. Keep that core low.
We love an extreme metal nap, and this is perfect for that. They should put out an album called Nap Time for Dead People.
If there was a pit we could all be sleeping in it.
Sonja (Philadelphia)
I just want to fuck all day and then fuck all night.
Way harder than it sounds, but a worthy goal and a lyric that does what it says.
Sonja are bringing Philly glam, which is considerable despite what you’ve heard.
Melissa Moore is a riveting guitarist and a vibe. The ’80s fantasy is fully inflected.
This band is kind of an ordeal and if you go there with them, you swim in the affect. Who cares if we drown.
Progressive festival sound design gives the impression of going back in time to the demo days, then taking us forward to high production. The first bands sound old school in all kinds of ways.
Power trios are rad. You can always tell where every sound comes from, and you can dissect the texture. You don’t have to worry that anyone is unplugged.
The mood, though, is strong here🖤
It calls my name!
The name? Satan🤘🏼
If we are going to make it to the end of the evening we will have to embrace being undead. We will also have to come to terms with phone typing. It would be just as fun to stab ourselves in the faces.
We haven’t found the beer fest, by the way. Seems like you have to pay upstairs money to tilt the plastic cup. We were under the impression you could still purchase “select” beers without the drink til you puke pass, but we’re seeing a velvet wristband between ground level venue brews and upstairs plastic cup waste. Another Yards, please.
Devil Master (Philadelphia)
Little bit of corpse paint, yeah.
Ooh, somebody has a cape!
Two capes!
Capes for everyone?
This is when we have our first notable pit action on Area Bands Day.
A headbanging center forms in advanced metal pits. People run circles around the perimeter to stir it up (spurred by guitarists twirling their fingers), and lazier, cooler people station themselves in the middle to toss hair & horns. Fierce.
This is another one of those bands that requires moody timeouts to vibe and catch their breath. We appreciate the chill wolf howl piped into ambient passages.
Pit vibe is exultant. Saturday night metal, baby.
This is the night for metalers who also like Bauhaus.
There’s, like, a heavy breathing break.
It’s super helpful that most bands have their logo projected behind them, and we appreciate when it’s fun to look at for half an hour.
If you’re into hair, this is your crowd.
Band takes another metal nap, with sort of a textural guitar collage to hold the space. Work. Or don’t. Don’t work.
The vocal reverb is strong with these ones.
We retreat to the couches in the back and have a quality extreme metal nap for the second half of this set. Compliments to the band. We come to right as they bow out, which is exactly how the most successful one-side metal vinyl naps go down.
Eternal Champion (Austin)
is lagging a bit. Sure, they are just 3 (three) minutes late, but they are still going check check thank you and asking for some more shit in the monitors. We have come to expect the goats to run on time, praise Decibel.
Saturday. Saturday? It’s 8 o’clock and we don’t know how close our 7:55 Eternal Champions are to grabbing their laurel. Not close, it seems.
It’s day-3 petty but it’s real. 8:02 pre-set noodling. We’re soaking in it.
8:05. We have video and pre-recorded intro. These champions know their worth. Count-in at 8:06. The singer (Jason Tarpey) has a chain-mail hood. We have 2 (two) supplementary projection screens. We are deep in vocal reverb. It would be cool to watch Vicious Blade and Sonja fuck these guys up.
Eternal Champion might like that too. There are signs that they have a sense of humor.
Look, you don’t need our shit. It’s a privilege to be this jaded. Like Eternal Champion, we’ve been through endless battles.
Plus it’s obvious these guys give powerful hugs.
Here come the power orbs, the invisible oranges (thanks for that one, Adam), the motherfuckin spirit balls.
I feel like this guy Jason the Relentless makes a mean quiche, but he watches every bite you take. You kind of appreciate it though. He’s so considerate.
Stop thinking about Sting and think about Conan. The barbarian, not the ginger. This band is OK with you getting high but they’re gonna pass. It’s cool though. They like hanging out with stoners.
They also know we like to say Ough! which is solid of them.
The vocal reverb is Very Strong with these ones. Sounds like an old tape.
Do you think they’re ever like I’m not sure it’s worth it to bring all these extra screens?
First DS vibe all fest. It’s almost like dungeon synth exists, Decibel!
No, look, you’re doing something else this weekend. We’re probably just salty because Select Beers are not actually available for us Just Metal goats. And OK we’re pouting because Mortiis was on the other Decibel tour, the Metal & Mead Fest.⁴
There are so many people here right now who did not see Vicious Blade steal the show.
These guys seem totally likeable though. You know when you’re getting high with a friend and they’re packing the bowl and not even smoking anymore, but being super attentive as you burn their stash? OK, that’s not a thing, but it’s kind of what Eternal Champion are going for, and people are into it, brother.
The thing about being in a band is you always wonder if everyone else in the band is into it. Sometimes everyone is, and sometimes the drummer would rather be someplace else. The festival format makes it pretty clear which bands, and which band members, are clocking in and which people are living their fucking lives. It’s not a simple distinction. Life is like that. But we know the difference.
The word BAND is quite similar to the word BOND. Have you thought about that? A band is a bond between people. A band can emerge unexpectedly, when you talk or suddenly say the same things, or mention the same references. You harmonize in conversation, create rhythm. That’s the beginning.
...
When I die, I want to be part of a bond, get rolled into the bond, as though dying were stage-diving off the ledge and sensing someone there to catch you.
The magic of community, of the defeat of death and loneliness.
—Jenny Hval, Girls Against God
Demolition Hammer (NYC)
is a mosh pit
& a party
we get into
the casual embrace
hanging on each other to rest
the singer’s hilarious motormouth banter⁵
pulls us together
Exodus (San Francisco)
We’re gonna get murdered standing here, Adam says, so we move to the side like reasonable old metalheads and enjoy the end of the festival.
By now we recognize most of the people in the audience, which is a good thing today, when the vibe has been less erratic than early Friday when it felt like a fight &/or barf chain might break out. Today is also about smokin hot lycra & pleather clad people who smell of oud. All the glam & strut of the first half lineup seems to have summoned it. Each day has its vibe: Thursday’s clubhouse intimacy, Friday’s wild moodiness & volatility, Saturday’s languor & swagger. Credit to the programming, the performances, and the community for bringing all this gloriously fucked up energy. Let’s do it again next year in whatever death metal cover the world becomes by then⁶ 🖤🤘🏼🍺💀
¹ You probably noticed that we’re a card-carrying member of the Shitty Concert Photo Club (shout out to founding member Gina Myers). Check out Decibel’s feed if you want to see the real deal from photographers Hillarie Jason, Shuvam DasGupta, Alyssa Lorenzon, and Ephemeral Photography.
² Later, we meekly approach their merch table after Badini arrives with the chip reader. I’m all scrambled, Badini says, banging the device on the table to get it to work. So are we, so are we. The tape is getting heavy play, the T-Shirt worn with pride. It’s important to note that Badini is also in a band called Castrator🤘🏼✂️🖤
³ See the Paul Tremblay novel, which gives horror adjacent, slow-burn, enigmatic friendship saga like an alternate reality I Saw the TV Glow. While it’s not a metal novel—stay tuned for a couple of those—it is a novel about being in bands, with chapter titles from Hüsker Dü songs.
⁴ It wasn’t called that, and it didn’t hit Philly proper, but the lineup was stacked, and included Imperial Triumph (whose new one, Goldstar, rules) and, um, Mayhem.
⁵ Steve Reynolds, festival drunkle
⁶ See also: Corpsepaint, a truly metal novel by David Peak that may or may not take place in a Pieter Bruegel the Elder painting, “The Triumph of Death.”
Did you miss parts ! & II? You can read Part I here and Part II here.