The headliners of the festival will be Manowar and Heaven And Hell. Other bands on the bill include Anthrax, Amon Amarth, Sacred Reich, Stratovarius, The Misfits, Gorgoroth, Epica, Destruction, Cathedral, Napalm Death, Entombed, Devildriver, Enslaved, Backyard Babies, Heaven Shall Burn, Melechesh, Misery Index, God Forbid, The Business, Mad Sin, Aura Noir, Electric Wizard, Orange Goblin, Grand Magus, Gama Bomb, Whitechapel, Suicide Silence, Wolves In The Throne Room, Torche, Kylesa, Outlaw Order, Parkway Drive, All Shall Perish, Forged In Flame, Friar Rush and Holy Hell.

Seventy more bands (including a third headliner) are still missing and will be announced in the next few months. Next to the main stage, second stage and discovery stage, the 2009 edition will also have another fourth stage mainly covering punk and hardcore bands.


This very evening also marks the official sneak preview party of the new Hellfest 2008 DVD, held in five cities all around France (Paris, Nantes, Grenoble, Toulouse and Lyon). Next to a preview showing of the Hellfest DVD, these parties will also exclusively reveal the first 30 bands of the 2009 edition. The Hellfest DVD will be released tomorrow (November 28), but a trailer can already be watched in high quality at this location.


Oh, how I wish I could go.

I will buy the x-mas pack soon enough. Can't wait it beats the shit out of Wacken so badly. I can't believe there's so much stoner and doom bands, with some old thrash bands, retro ones, some great black metal bands (wolves in the throne room, aura noir), Manowar, it's such a great start. I have the impression I'll break my heart choosing to see a band over another, something I'm pretty sure would never happen at Wacken.

God dammit I wish I could go. Why aren't there ever any huge shows in America like this!? Especially in my area...

But seriously though.. Whitechapel, Suicide Silence, God Forbid, All Shall Perish, Parkway Drive!? Oh c'mon..

What a fucking awesome lineup. Fuck Wacken!!!

Damn. Unless Wacken pulls something amazing out of their asses pretty soon, that lineup completely and utterly destroys it this year.

Massive envy for those attending!

The Wacken line up really blows this year. Unless Manowar decides to play there too this is way better.

Fuck Wacken! This festival rules!

definitely a worthy festival. Wacken might get itself beat this year around.

I even add

Fuck Wacken, Fuck Hellfest, Fuck Graspop and all commercial festivals... where only money matters and where beers are expensive

Under the Black Sun
Dunkelheit Festival

those are great underground festivals

yeah, there are a lot of small festivals with great bands...

Shit. I'm gonna be in Europe until June 6th or something. I wish I could stay an extra two weeks for this.

Just need to find somewhere to stay for two weeks.

Euh.. Hellfest isn't commercial. The ticket was 109 euros last year with free camping. They went into some financial trouble in 2007 and saved their ass in 2008, if this year didn't work out, they'd probably wouldn't exist anymore. It was a huge success which allowed them to have a fourth stage and will have more than a hundred bands. There's crappy metalcore bands, but it's because they try to get bands from every metal subgenres, to be the most eclectic and for real "connaisseur" metalheads. I mean, does getting electric wizard, cathedral, orange goblin, bonded by blood, gama bomb, aura noir, wolves in the throne room is selling out? They have the perfect balance of big, cult bands and great lesser known ones. Until now, they had 1% of subventions from the town which threatened them to not let them make the 2009 edition. Hellfest seems like to be one of the best festivals around. And unlike wacken and other big festivals, they aren't owned by Live Nation. Hev you ever been to Hellfest?

Hellfest is definitely less commercial-oriented than the other two big festivals (Wacken and Graspop), but they still are what I consider to be a mainstream festival. There's a huge gap between underground festivals (Keep it True, Festung, etc.) and mainstream festivals, but I don't think one type is better than the other. Both types of festivals have their pros and cons. The line-up so far is great and I hope Graspop steals a bunch of names (which is extremely likely), since Graspop is the only big festival I'm planning to attend next year.

For example Ragnarök Festival is a more "underground" one...

Dunkelheit festival was interesting, sad that it's dead now.
Ragnarok festival looks great, one day I'll attend to that too.

I don't know what I will do this summer. Maybe there will be some good bands at the local festivals (Gods of Metal, Evolution, Metalcamp).

@CHRISTI: are you going to the Morbid Angel concert at Milan the 9th of December?

I'm considering going there, but most of the people I talked to said the festival sucked - bad weather, bad sound, bad organization (Many shows don't start on time etc.), not many people who speak English...
Can anyone who went there share their opinions please?

That was 2007, the organization had problems mostly due to the lack of money and the fact that it rained all 3 days. I attended this year and thought it was incredible and it was really hot for all 3 days. 40% of the attendees weren't from France. Some shows could use some better sound (Mayhem comes in mind) but overall it was pretty good and I don't recall any shows not starting on time. The was the pastors of muppets (don't know how you call that in english, some kind of orchestra with trumpets and those kind of instrments) who were playing from 2 am to 4, I think and were playing classics of metal such as fear of the dark or master of puppets. It takes place in a beautiful town pretty much in the middle of nowhere. I only had good times.

unfortunately , I'm going to France for the long week-end and I can't go but probably I'll be present to the Destruction gig on the 20th of december. Almost surely at the Kreator's one on february!!

Thanks for the reply Johnny, sounds really great! For now there aren't any bands I want to see except for Entombed, but with 70+ more bands I'm sure there will be more.

I'd love to go, especially to see Aura Noir, Anthrax, Manowar, and Cathedral. This lineup truely does destory Wacken, and that's not even all the bands they have confirmed for it yet.

holy crap Heaven and Hell as a headliner + a shitload of awesome bands, wish I could go. Hopefully I will be able to attend Masters Of Rock 2009 at least, I really want to see Blind Guardian

I hope it's not completely dead

From what I read there wont be a festival in 2009 as he lost a lot of money but I hope he'll do it again later

Sad that people did not move their asses, the line-up was great and the price quite cheap