Rosie Never Stops, All My Memories, Overhate, and Rise of The North Star at Mennecy Metal Festival

So some of you may have read the article I recently wrote about Unscarred at Mennecy Metal Fest this weekend. Well I thought it might be nice to also cover some of the other bands that I got to see that most glorious day. Now, I’m not going to cover all the groups, (I had to leave after Rise of The North Stars set anyway) and I intend to focus on the bands I liked. As a whole though the festival was pretty well put together and the security and organization was top notch. With a free cloak room and cheap food and drink Mennecy was a great little experience.

The stage itself

The first band that I got to see was Rosie Never Stops who are now officially my favorite AC/DC cover band. These guys tackled the stage with a ton of energy and their riotous solos and on stage posturing was totally un-heinous. Sure the songs are old and have been covered by hundreds (if not thousands of bands) but Rosie Never Stops understand the raw power and magic of AC/DC’s music and when they take to the stage you can tell that this is what they love. Their set was replete with classics, and people seemed to be really getting into it. I had to cut out after a few songs to organize some photo’s for Unscarred but Rosie Never Stops provided a great start to the day.

All My Memories tearing up the stage

Next up was All My Memories a very tight deathcore band who are notable because they have a one armed guitarist (Who is frankly a guitar god) These guys don’t do any of that silly metalcore posturing, and when they got heavy, they really got heavy. Though the lighter moments kind of took away from the general ambiance these guys were still a lot of fun to see and I was excited to hear they have an album coming out soon. This groups vocalist can really rip it, the way he roars onto the stage is impressive and really gets the crowd into it. Again, it was early in the day so there wasn’t that much moshing action but there was certainly a lot of headbanging.

After that (And right before Unscarred) was a nifty death metal band called Overhate. Their approach to death metal is pretty impressive with lots of extremely fast passages and crazd solos. I honestly don’t remember that much of the set, but I do recall their singer. Here is a man who knows how to rip his face off for metal, he sings loud and proud with a voice that could tear the wings off an angel. The rest of the band is very tight, their rhythm sections are executed with an impressive precision and they definitely got heads banging. I think it would be cool to see them in a smaller setting though as the band didn’t seem entirely comfortable with the huge stage. As a while though, if you’re into powerful modern death metal Overhate is a band you’re going to want to check out.

Singer from RotNS crushing skulls

The last band I’m going to write about is Rise of the North Star, a  metalcore/hardcore band who strike me as a much heavier version of rag against the machine. These guys do not delve into any sort of melody or clean vocals but instead go for raw attack. This definitely got the crowd going and opened up a pretty impressive pit.  I’d like to see these guys again as I only caught about half of their set (I had an interview right before) but what I did see was very cool. They have a great live energy and some clearly excellent songs. It seems very listenable and with thirty five thousand Facebook fans already the future seems bright for them.

In short, I had a pretty excellent day with a lot of great bands who really knew what they were doing. All groups I’d like to see again it was cool how they all brought something a little different to the table. This is part of what makes Mennecy so cool, there is all sorts of metal for all age groups (There were small children watching the bands with their parents) and I’d be excited for the chance to attend this festival again. Precisely organized and overall brilliantly executed Mennec y is truly one of France’s great small festivals.

Find Rosie Never Stops on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rosie-Never-Stops/566215603418778?fref=ts

Find All My Memories on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AllMyMemoriesBand

Find Overhate on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/overhateband

Find Rise of the North Star on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rotnsofficial?ref=ts&fref=ts

Raphael Bobillot is the genius behind the pictures, many hailz to him! Find more from him HERE