Event:	Motocultor Festival 2023
Written by:	Ansercanagicus
Published:	02.09.2023

---

Motocultor Festival was visited by 55,000 persons this year, which is a record in the festival's history, and it was held not in St Nolff (56) but for the first time in Carhaix (29). It happens to be my hometown, so I see no reason not to party there. Motocultor is not really famous, and I prefer it to Hellfest since it's smaller, and has a better and less mainstream programme. It's also renowned for not really being well organized, but over the years I can see they are improving, however slowly.

The trouble begins on the website, as the map of the event doesn't show in which part of the town it takes place and how to access it. The guidelines to come by car from the highway are also unclear. Thankfully I'm a local and know a bit about the surroundings. Also, I was parking in the town and going in on foot, so I don't have much to say about the organization of parkings and lanes. A team of volunteers helped people to find a spot in the huge fields nearby.

My objective was to see Warbringer, but I did not anticipate how long it would take to check in. After walking for a bit I discovered a big queue, with people stating that would take 2 hours. I thought they were exaggerating, but it turned out the queue was even longer if you looked around the corner. I sadly missed Warbringer. The check-in system is theoretically simple: first, you exchange your ticket with a wristband, which contains the pass and a virtual wallet (cashless). However, it took 1h30 of waiting to do this. Then, it took a further 30 minutes to enter the site and be checked by the security team. If you didn't think about putting money on your cashless account, you also have 30 minutes to wait at the booth.

It's normal to find so many people at the festival's ouverture, since everyone comes at the same time, but the queue management was really bad, with only two booths to check-in, resulting in a kilometer long queue in which you're not sure what you are waiting for (some people took the wrong one and had to requeue for one or two more hours after their painful realisation). Only 30 meters upstream you'll find a "wristband" sign handwritten on a sheet ducked to a trashcan. Well... Other main signs were also not high enough and concealed by the number of people. Thankfully, later in the day when people had got their wristband, going in and out of the site was pretty quick.

Entering the site felt like a relief; I could move freely now and find shelter from the nasty sun, and from the old drunk lady in the queue who kept on repeating she likes death metal and the young and the old and the pop and the metal and the mess, etc... with a caricatural drunk voice I won't attempt to transcribe. By the time I found the second half of Burning Witches' set, I was starting to acclimatize to the festival ambience. I see all ages between 20 and 60 years, boys and girls, some oldies and some children: hardly any teenager though.

---

Burning Witches: I had already heard their album, and didn't think much of it, but of course live it's a different setting, and here, it did the job. Although the songwriting is basic, with only 4/4 rhythms, kick/snare etc... it was effective in getting people to headbang, but quickly became boring. I'm amazed by the talent of the singer though. She's enjoying her voice, and a lot of times I thought I was hearing Leather Leone. I was also a bit disappointed by the sound, since all I could hear were enormous low frequencies, with some drums and vocals above. The kick drum was pounding and I couldn't understand what the bass is playing, never mind hear the guitars. That's a problem, and I'm not blaming the band; this mix issue was common throughout the festival, especially on this stage (Massey Ferguscene, the biggest stage).

I wandered around, looking for bands to listen to and checking the geography of the site, which was heartshaped. On the farmost end, toilets and bars, nearer was a line of foodtrucks, and in the interior there are two stages, one of which was covered by a big top. That was the left side, and the right side was pretty symmetrical, adding up to 4 stages. Opposite the stages were the merchs and cashless bank. Some big trees here and there, great to provide shade and sonically insulate the stages.

The population density is alright; you have to mind where you go not to walk into or onto someone, but it's pretty easy to navigate. Motocultor is not a big festival anyway. Similarly, during the concert, plenty of people were gathered, but it rarely exceeded 4 people per square meter, and once again going in and out was fairly manageable. The site also offered lockers to keep your stuff safe, and a parking for bikes (outside of course). Toilets seemed to be better organized than previous editions, with more room and the queue not blocking other booths. My only complaint would be the absence of a promised water point; the only way to drink is paying at the bar, even for water (however, I found out on the last day that you were supposed to look for a group of volunteers with a white flag and bottles of water walking around).

Talking about the drinks, you didn't have a lot of choice; only two beers and a cider (and softs) were available, which was a shame when you know how many local breweries are around. Motocultor announced that they wanted to promote more local beers in the future, but also won't break their contract with 86. For eating, there were a fair bunch of food trucks selling hot dogs, wraps, Thai, Japanese, Lebanese food, pastas, crêpes, fries, ice cream, and so on. Still, "no burgers", I heard someone complain.

Worst Doubt: It is a French hardcore band. The frontman's attitude was to encourage people fighting each other. Well, the music was alright, but they only played a short set of half an hour, leaving a gap in the planning.

Hällas: With a friend not enjoying either of the bands playing, we first sampled some Angelus Apatrida, before quickly leaving to also get a glimpse of Hällas, who seemed preferable to both of us. The whole crowd sang along; Hällas have definitely got some fans here. Despite the singer struggling a bit with his voice, the show was great and we were mesmerized by this mix of alcohol and psychedelic rock. My friend said it was a nice discovery.

Wolfmother: It's there as background music while we eat, as foodtrucks are in front of the main stage. I get a ramen box for 11 bucks; unsurprisingly, the food vendors here took advantage of their monopoly to charge super hard. Everything here is at least twice the actual price. But at least queueing for food is not very long and the cashless system works on point. They always show you your balance so you can watch how quickly it falls. Meanwhile the band is doing alright; it's just not metal enough to fully grab my attention.

I head towards Coroner, expecting to be in the front. Then comes a man speaking in a loud voice: "You're not ready for what's to come! Don't you know what's to come!" I'm like "yeah, Coroner". He's intrigued: "Well, I didn't know the young knew about Coroner..." I began to learn about the teenage past of this 57-year-old man, assuming I had no clue about the band I was as eager as him to see. So we discussed the album titles, the musician names, etc. Soon it appeared that I was a true one. We then began a long series, namedropping thrash bands and stories of past concerts. I advise him to listen to Besieged; he proposes Holy Moses. He also came for Carcass, so maybe I would meet him again. The concert was about to start, so he shared his beer with me to empty the cup before things turned crazy.

Coroner: I'm on fire for the first song "Internal Conflicts", singing along and headbanging like most of the crowd. Strangely my newly met Coroner superfan is pretty stiff. Maybe he's just old, after all. The bassist explains that he dedicates this concert to the German transport company that lost all of their luggage, so Tommy Baron had to borrow a guitar from Burning Witches. Concert is thrashing hard, people are singing along, but I can't help but think the mix is way too bassy. I had a hard time recognizing "Divine Step", and it's really hard to enjoy songs I'm not familiar with. Also, at a point that felt far too soon, the concert manager came to raise a timeout, so they played one more song and stopped. I almost grabbed the drumstick launched in the crowd, which would have been a real treasure. Best concert yet.

Hatebreed: I've seen them previously and they rocked hard, but this time I felt my legs heavy and my friends not feeling well, so we preferred to call it a night and I headed back home. From what I've seen, I have no doubt they put on a great show as usual, dealing high enery and making everyone jump around.

---

Gggolddd: Well, I heard some of Gggolddd's albums and liked them, but I guess they were playing in the background, because now that I have this music in front of me it's pretty underwhelming. They are missing bass and drums and play digital instruments, the rhythmic section only consisting of kick and snare played on a synth pad. I think I could take the drummer's job. The songs were long and relied on alternating heavy electro sections with evanescent atmospheric parts, which felt too on the nose as they passed by. The singer, despite singing really well, was often standing there doing nothing (as well as the rest of the band) while the rest of the pre-recorded atmosphere was unfolding. I guess this kind of music is not made for a live setting. I also heard the sound clipping, I guess the band's DAW at play. Then, she brought out her past as a sex victim, using it as an inspiration to make liberating music, and it started to drizzle; I felt like I didn't belong here (like I came to have fun in fact), so I moved on to the next scene.

Arka'n Asrafokor: Under the red top I hear some nu metal and hip hop vocals; I'm already afraid, although the music has a lot of groove and the singer seems to be enjoying himself. From afar I distinguish two drumsets: a classic one and a more tribal one. Then came the other songs, and they were filled with African rhythms and tribal chanting; it reminded me of Soulfly, but from another continent. Well in fact it was Arka'n Asrafokor, a metal band from Togo. They had high energy and laughed a lot, even using laugh as a musical idiom, and the music was really entertaining. The biggest joy I get from all these concerts was hearing a loud cheering from the crowd, and they definitely did here. A great discovery.

Hypno5e: I quickly glanced at their MS page and expected a math band, and once again I was disappointed because it was more of a modern/progressive metal act. No amp on stage, it's all digital. They played very well, especially the drums, but I wasn't really digging the music, with once again the problem of relying on a soundtrack underneath the actual playing. Sometimes none of the musicians were playing, just letting a pre-recorded voice speak in some harmonic texture. The speeches in French were unintelligible, and broke the momentum of the concert. Additionally, the post-metal sections consisting of a single arpeggiated chord bored me to death. To each of his own.

Insomnium: Your habitual slow-paced melodeath, it was nice, but didn't impress me that much. I found everything displayed on main stage to be fairly generic to be honest; that's also why my friends were sitting there all day (the ones who say "A-Tuh-Breed" and "Alley-Storm"). In fact the bands I didn't get into happened to be the ones using a background layer of synth, vocals, or noises (damn I keep on repeating myself). It just bothers me that they would do anything not to sound raw and live. No offense to the actual performance.

Carcass: One of my favorite bands, who were great as always. They just play well and don't give a shit. Jeff Walker missed his entry coming too soon and was like whatever, and drank some beer in between songs, which is strangely not something I see often. Bill Steer managed to pull out solos despite playing sloppy, the other guitarist did well. It's a pleasure to meet up with this groovy, thrashy, yet melodic kind of death/grindcore. Well, the music is always better when you know how to react to it already. They didn't play anything from their first two albums, and of course tended towards the latest one. By the end of the concert I had the impression I've heard the same kind of riffs and the same pace over and over, and indeed the new album sounded like a rehash of their previous work to me. Anyway, great concert spent dodging the slammers: security has been busy there.

Haken: I don't know why I confused them with Kaleikr, but it was progressive music anyway. The singer used a wide variety of tones, as far as a remember. Good concert but it didn't stay in my memory.

Epica: The band with the most expensive backdrop I've seen, they had giant serpent statues and bursts of flames. Also the only band to use fire. They performed well, and Simone Simons' vocal ability is beyond perfect, which always brings me to suspect if there's a trick.

Napalm Death: They arrived a bit late, but put up a good show. Barney was angry as ever and also took time to throw a speech to welcome refugees ("Contagion"). I really like all this raw energy and controlled sloppiness from the drummer. However, the sound was a mess (and I was right next to the sound desk), it was just a bit sad trying to get into the music; I thought twenty minutes were enough and went to check Health on the other stage. It's a shame because most of Napalm Death's videos on internet have an awesome sound.

Health: I was just tripping there. Electro and noise. I'm surprised so many people knew about them. I'm still unable to fathom if it's a guy singing or a woman or if it was pre-recorded (I was far from the scene). I remember a song that was only one single chord loudly played once every second or so, in between silences. If you're in the mood that's great atmosphere, but to a passer-by it was just awkward.

---

Wow, there were plenty of people today; it's difficult to see any piece of land when you look afar. Twice as many people as yesterday I'd say, and that must be on account of it the weekend, or maybe the headliner being Bullet For My Valentine (and Little Big after them). I catch up with local people not seen in a long time, and I'm amazed by my brain being able to identify faces despite the years gone by. Not many bands interested me today, so instead I walked around a lot; also, my back hurt a lot from 2 days of queuing and standing still, as well as not standing still at all.

Akiavel: French female-fronted hardcore band, with some hints of Angela Gossow for the vocals. Not something I'd listen to on a daily basis, but they're having fun and we did too, that's alright. They took time to thank all the staff, and invited a friend singer on stage.

Bleed From Within: Scottish hardcore band. When they proudly said they were from Scotland, everyone in the audience flipped them off. Yes it's Brittany here, silly fraternal squabbling. They put on a show and I'm starting to wondering how many more hardcore bands would be playing in this festival. Heavy metal is lacking, with only Sortilège on this day that I could think of.

I then visited the merch; you can buy mostly t-shirts, bobs, leather items, CDs, vinyls, patches, spikes, ammunition belts, mugs... nothing extraordinary I guess. But Motocultor is also the opportunity for me to meet with music vendors totally absent from the market in other occasions. Indeed, buying music has become really difficult, even in specialized stores, and I'm not even talking about metal music, which has just shrunk to a pile of AC/DC and Iron Maiden forgotten on the highest shelves. I'm trying to find Blessed Are The Sick, but they only have Formulas Fatal To The Flesh here, which will do. By my side is an audiophile buying vinyls for a hundred bucks: Dawn Of Possession, Breeding The Spawn, The Erosion Of Sanity and Covenant. I commend him for his taste.

Sortilège: Legendary French heavy metal band, freshly reformed. The fans were there clamoring for the band, a real pack of afficionados. The original singer Christian Augustin is in good shape, with still an impressive voice despite his age, although I suspect some technology was involved for the highest screams. Everybody knew the lyrics and sang along. The singer also asked for some audience participation, since most of the songs are tailored for this, and the deal was honored. I'm amazed they (we) managed to keep the choirs loud and clear as the singer was doing a counter-melody on "Chasse Le Dragon". Most of the songs were off the new album, which didn't do much for my taste, but it's ok. I can't help but think there's something missing in their attitude though; they seem a bit haughty, bigheaded maybe, but really like the way they were received.

Dog Eat Dog: Was it hardcore, I don't remember, but they had a saxophone and were playing Mexican music in between songs. The music didn't entertain me; I pity the sax player repeating the same three notes as a gimmick for the whole song. I spent the rest of the day gathering with friends rather than paying attention to the concerts, none of the bands being for my taste.

My friends confirmed that the sound was actually bad on main stage. They told me about the terrible performance of Ic3peak last night, producing a mess of noise and clipping. Like I said, bass frequencies were I guess 30 dB too loud and obstructed the rest of the sound. In fact, I had to back off from this zone a couple times because of how bothersome it was. It's 24 h later and I'm writting this with tinitus in the lows, which I hope will fade soon; I wore ear protection all the time, by the way.

To my disappointement, Brutus (BEL) was not the brutal death band featured on MS but something closer to a pop/rock band. My friends knew about them so I wouldn't like. Can't say much for the rest of the day, although I queued to eat some Senegalese specialities, and I should have done right from the start since the taste was great and my plate was full. Most festivaliers assured it was the only food truck where you don't feel like being scammed, so shout out to them. Here I am sharing my meal with people I don't even know but were friends of friends and cool to hang with.

I'm told last night stories of my friend crowd-surfing half naked in a trashcan (1000 L model), and also him waking up saying "look I have a Batman cape" when in fact it was a survival blanket some guys laid on his dead body at night. Now he's completely drunk and sings "Les Lacs Du Conémara" to every passer-by, before he instantly falls asleep on the ground. RIP pal. Others say they are tired of doing baby-sitting. When I head out I stumble upon yet another friend I haven't seen in a long time, and he falls crying into my arms, because he lost a guitar pick among the crowd. So sad.

---

Messa: Ah, good music today. I only noticed now how beautiful the singer was, and this elevated my experience of watching her sing with her angelic voice, until the guitar and bass spit their fire and I headbanged to quality doom. I realise there hasn't been a lot of oldschool stuff in this festival; most of the bands sound alternative to me, so it's a relief to come back to this kind of music. Their song structure is always this alternation of quite dreamy moments and stomping riffs, but it's efficient. "Dark Horse" was especially nice and more elaborate.

Archspire: Yes, I went straight from Messa to an Archspire set. I'm really impressed by their performance; each of these musicians is a monster. It's incredible how tight and fast they play, from the sheer intensity of the drums, to the always perfect solos of Dean Lamb, mindblowing technique of the singer, gargling growls at lightning speed, and the bassist mostly using tapping. There's also all the tricks involving the band muting for half a second, to burst again with some added sub-frequency shockwave. It was properly executed. They pulled out some humor, the first joke being "the Archspire show is canceled" annoucement, "they have been replaced by five balding motherfuckers". But I was quickly fed up with it, thanks to all the dick and anal jokes. They also made a game where you had to crowdsurf to the right colored target, like a twister. Well, entertaining and impressive concert.

Dying Fetus: They opened and closed on famous disco tunes. The guitarist managed to improvise to "Y.M.C.A." with his highly saturated death metal guitar. Less technical than Archspire but still brutal. I didn't now they were a three-piece band, that's impressive. They were quite funny to headbang to, but I had to withdraw to recharge my batteries, as I was staying late this night.

During an interlude, since I had nothing better to do, I went back to the CD shops to see if there's anything worth buying. Tying another vendor, I bent over the shelves to see what's in there, but all the CDs are in a very long, narrow box, only showing the plastic side. To know what it is I had to pull them out, since they were too densely packed to be able to tilt them and see the face. I asked the lady there if it's ok to put albums on the side, so at least customers can see titles from above, to which she agrees. I then proceed to pull out and turn every album from the shelves. The work was dull, but I had nothing better to do and maybe that will grant me a discount. The lady smiles at me.

I'm 20 minutes in, having flipped a third of their stock, when suddently the big boss arrived and I'm being shout at "why the fuck are the CDs upside down, why you do this idiot" followed by endless hassling. I'm struck in awe, I only wanted to help. So I propose to return them all on what he calls the "right" side, while being disputed and trying to argue the reason for my action, plus the fact that I asked permission. The lady says she didn't heard what I said and thought I was just checking the albums. So she watched me for 20 minutes not realising what I was doing. The big boss argues that this way, the letter markers could not be seen, and it is true that the CD boxes are rectangular so larger on the side, hiding the big letter. But being able to see the title seemed more important to me. He also demonstrated to me his customer how I'm supposed to tilt every CD in his 1m50 long box (and I mean from front to back, not from right to left) to see 1 cm of cover art and try to guess what it is by the color.

So not to make a fuss I undo all my progress in the shelves, when comes another employee telling me "no, keep them this way, so one can read the titles". I have CDs in one hand, he's at my right, the big boss is on my left, and my brain fails to decide which side I'm supposed to put it in. These people... Also since I previously helped sorting out the shelves, the Illud Divinum Insanus that was in the "I" is now next to his brother in the "M" for Morbid Angel. The manager seems to unpleasantly discover he had two issues of this album and told his employee to put one in the trash. The situation resolved, but seriously screw this scumbag.

Avatar: While it seems to be the headline tonight, this band is really not my thing. All the audience participation attempts and clown impersonations left me frowning. Apart from that the singer really is a great one, effortlessly putting on high or gritty screams. I'd rather listen to Eyehategod (which I always confuse with Crowbar, although both were playing today).

Eyehategod: Since I'm tired and my back is broken, I was sat far away. Still, Eyehategod managed to have me moving, their sludge being quite groovy at times. Nothing more to say.

Carpenter Brut: The synthwave band Carpenter Brut was one I was waiting for, as I was impressed by their performance at Motocultor 2019. But it seemed I was not alone; I tried to get a good place in the front but slowly the space was getting super dense, with more and more people trying to seep in. I had to go back not to suffocate; I guess this band is pretty famous nowadays. The show unfolds without any of the band members saying a word, only the music blasts. We were greeted with a drum solo, quite nice. I and some girls around were headbanging to the beat, but I've got this tall guy just in front of me, standing still. He had almost a meter free before him but wouldn't step forward and just oppressed me with his back. Shame. Also the music seemed a bit tame compared to my previous experience. The lightshow was nice and the music well delivered, and I received confirmation that not everything was prerecorded since I heard some rare mistakes in the synths: nothing of importance really. Obviously the concert ended with the cover of "Maniac" and the whole crowd singing to it.

Elder: I headed to Elder afterwards; there were surprisingly few people (due to Alestorm on the other stage). At least I had space to move now, dropping my whole body to the kick and snare and having trouble keeping balance. The sonic boom of their stoner was incredible and uplifting. Here, all the instruments worked together; I could hear bass and guitar and each hit from the drumset giving me a blast. Oh yeah, that's what I've paid for in the first place, listening to music. Headbanging fast or slow, being tricked by the little intricacies of their music and occasional polyrhythms, it was bliss. Their songs are long, but the uplift stayed all along. My favorite concert, but also the last one.

After that we slowly departed, with a glance at the giant ducks of Alestorm on the other stage, wondering if I should start to look for people I haven't met this day to say goodbye, but it's no use. We headed outside, applauding the staff for their work over the 4 days. On the road were several police cars, controlling everyone. Even they were chill, but I'm not drunk nor drugged, maybe that's why. Time to sleep now.

---

Nice iteration overall, moving from St-Nolff to Carhaix was a success; despite some early organization trouble, everything went fine. I spent four afternoons trying to see bands I like and struggling with fatigue, and managed to get a good time. I only saw like 20% of the 110 bands proposed. Attendants and staff were nice. This was the first year that the festival had a positive balance, encouraging them to grow bigger, so I hope they get more serious. I also hope they hire good sound engineers, because this year was rather a miss. Different beer booths please. Finally, inflation was to blame, but my wallet took a hit.

Best concerts: Elder, Messa, Arka'n Asrafokor, Carcass, Coroner, Hällas