Day 0

My Journey to Obscene Extreme began down a random road in Trutnov with all the camping and personal equipment weighing us down, as well as a few packs of beer. As we crossed a bridge, I looked over to the side and spotted a shopping cart toppled over in the dirt.

We crammed all our shit inside and moved on to the festival with ease, except for the fact that we had no idea where it was. After strolling for a while, we spotted in the distance a guy with a black shirt and camouflage pants, and a girl who I can accurately describe as a rainbow, both also burdened by a lot of shit. Figuring that these two stood out from the more bland looking people of Trutnov, we followed them in hopes that they would lead us to the festival.

As we got closer, the two confirmed that they were going to the festival, we offered them our cart to stash their stuff and they lead us to Obscene Extreme.

Upon arrival, the entrance already looked damn impressive and as we rolled to the camp site, the fence was decorated with big pictures depicting all those incredible moments from past editions that people saw on youtube and thought “shit, I gotta go to this”.

We unloaded the cart and got ready to set up shop. It was at this moment I realized I had forgotten the structure rods of my tent, meaning I was in a country more than 2000 kilometres away from home and my house for the next five days was a bag, a bag filled with water later on when it rained like a motherfucker and I actually needed to use it.

Thinking about my fucked up tent, I paused to contemplate my situation with beer and weed and to get to know our very nice Dutch neighbours, which included our guides to the festival. I got distracted and ended up missing the dumpster race and the freak Olympics.

At six o clock, I did not miss the “Gutalax Toi Toi show”. Sadly for me, the atmospheric pressure from the airplane landing was still raping my ear holes pretty roughly, so everything I heard sounded slightly like it was underwater. It was still a sight to behold, although the show did not compare to the one from last year at the SWR main stage, they played in an arena surrounded by portable toilets, before the show even started the stage was already packed with all sorts of crazy characters, seriously, this festival was like a mix of comic con with beach birthday party and the raiders from the fallout franchise.

I couldn’t even see “Gutalax” for most of the show due to the amount of people partying hard right on top of them, but the party was a massive one. It helped to fuel everyone’s insane membrane knowing that the band was actually recording a live DVD, everybody cheered for the very balanced guy jumping from toilet to toilet and capturing every sweet moment of shit filled freakishness so we can all show our kids when we get old.

After “Gutalax” said their goodbyes, I explored the premises further, the rest of the day was going to be filled with wrestling. At the time I saw a little of it in the company of beer and weed (always great company) completely oblivious to the matches taking place, I don’t even know who won or who was fighting. But it was good to see that stage for the first time, it was good to see people punching and throwing each other on it and it made me eager to see more shit going on up there.

Later on, the Dutch “PPTA” opened the musical part of the stage with their wrestling lover, bay area style thrash metal and the party was on. Just like XXXICKEN Party back in Portugal, every band was a party from beginning to end, even the bands I didn’t see (which where way too much) I trust the party was good.

Straight from the U.S.A., “Eat the Turnbuckle” played next continuing the wrestling metal frenzy from the previous hours, smashing themselves and others with various objects, flying all over the place, bleeding for our entertainment and beating up Donald Trump lookalikes. I did not see most of the concert because suddenly the rules for entering the precinct with a full cup of beer changed, forcing me to stay at camp for a while longer. Still getting used to beers being half a litter, I chugged as fast as I could to see the finishing moves and tunes of “Eat the Turnbuckle”. I was not disappointed.

After the wrestling was over and the ring disassembled from the stage, more gore and blood came to Trutnov in the form of Selfie the Clown, an Israeli guy who punctured himself with needles, took stuff out of his butt, hung an anchor on his nipples and nailed his balls and penis. Did I forget to mention he had his dick sewn in? He also took out the stiches from that to reveal that he did have a dick. He made various tricks with hardware tools and his body trying to figure out how deep he could go.

The stage was closed for the day and all that was left was the after party in the beer tent. What kind of music do you think they play at the Obscene Extreme after party? Slayer? Opeth? Napalm Death maybe? Or even Brutal Truth? Nope, they played Cher, Enrique Iglesias, Toybox, Black Eyed Peas, ABBA, Eiffel 65, Ricky Martin, Lou Bega, Aqua, Mc Hammer, Vengaboys, Rednex, Scooter and a lot more hits from the eighties, nineties and early 2000’s.

And oh boy, did all us scary looking spiky punks and metalheads danced their asses off all night to these tunes. I even joined in when they started doing push ups in the mud, I never drank more beer in any other day in my life than in that day, and it was day 0 of the festival, I got royally fucked up and nearly fell asleep in a tent that had a drum kit inside before I realized I had no business being there, I crawled through the mud back to my flooded shit bag of a tent and collapsed until the first day of the festival.

Day 1

Having slept in a mud filled bag with my feet in the rain after a night of drinking and smoking, I woke up after a few bands had played. I managed to reach the stage just as “Serrabulho” were starting their rave. It was a very nice party as usual, songs like “B.O.O.B.S.” and “Lèche moi les couilles” among others, showed the international audience how it’s done in Vila Real. It was ironic that throughout the concert I had a huge need to do a number two and this was the one time I saw them that they didn’t play the very popular song that translates to “I want to take a shit but I can’t”.

I did manage to eventually do it and wander around Trutnov and the festival grounds. Fortunately for me, I found two german friends I had met at XXXICKEN Party, they offered me a tent which saved my life for the following four days. No words can express my gratitude, I would have been buried with my old tent without their help.

After getting my shit together and finally having a proper place to sleep, I headed for the stage and caught “Palm” live. A group of Japanese grinders who tore it up properly, the band had amazing presence on stage. It was raining but no one cared, even I didn’t care after sleeping in a bag of wet dirt and looking at my shoes with a crust of mud thicker than the shoes themselves. You really didn’t notice the rain, regardless of how intense it was, if you were looking at that stage. At camp, everything was already wet and fucked so there was no reason to care anymore.

Worries of any nature just didn’t have impact during the festival.

After wandering around meeting people and drinking beer, I returned to the stage and saw “Dead Infection” from Poland, a band I missed past January at XXXAPADA NA TROMBA due to delays of everyone who was supposed to go with me. Their show was good enough to make me regret not seeing them before. Someone told me “Dead Infection” are bad live when they are wasted, but everyone was wasted since the previous day, so if the bands were too, no one was noticing too hard. It was a good show.

Then came an avalanche of freedom in the form of four mostly American bands. “Venomous Concept” came up and gave a brutal show. With members from Napalm Death, Brutal Truth and Nuclear Assault it was very unlikely that the American group would suck ass, and zero ass it sucked.

Following this was more American music. “Incantation” another band I had seen previously at SWR, came to the Obscene stage to shower everyone with their old school death metal goodness, for everyone’s delight. They showed everyone that grey hair is just a color so you can still be a badass motherfucker and give awesome shows at Obscene Extreme.

Next was “Lock Up”, Sharp and Embury came back to help everyone fuck shit up the right way and they brought their friends Anton from Brujeria and Criminal (which I missed, fuck) as well as Nicholas Barker from every metal band ever including this one, just as well, if this man is in a band it means you should probably go see it. Accordingly, it was one of the best shows of the night, they played the song “Birth of Ignorance” from Brutal Truth, which made me be more at peace with knowing I will probably never see those guys live ever.

Last American band of the day and to end with a bang, “Toxic Holocaust”, Joel Grind’s baby all grown up, roaming the countryside blaspheming and mass murdering. I had seen them three years ago with Exhumed and the only part of that concert that was better was the run time. The show was great, filled with classics such as “Reaper’s Grave” and “666” as well as not so classic but still good songs like “Bitch”, “Silence” and “Acid Fuzz”. The final strike of the show was “Nuke the Cross”, a great ending for a great performance.

After all the American bands were done, the headliners of the day took to the stage, Mexican legends “Brujeria”! Shane Embury returning to rape everyone’s hears along with his bandana clad amigos. The battlefield had a full house to see the full cartel metal power in action and it did not disappoint. “Raza Odiada”, “Colas de Ratas”, “Brujerizmo”, “Marcha de Odio” among others, culminated in a brutal show that closed the first day of the festival. They even played the new song “Viva Presidente Trump!” in which they got everyone shouting “Fuck Donald Trump”, then proceded to kill Trump on stage again (This festival could use a Trump Owned count, so far 2).

Afterwards there were some more delightful events for the whole family with the “Fly High Tribe” and the “S&M Project”, I did not witness them but I heard it was quite impressive. I was too busy drinking more beer at camp with good company, which is where I stayed until the next day.

Day 2

Day 2 of Obscene Extreme and the bands started playing at ten in the morning. Ten in the fucking morning? My natural relaxed inner clock does not allow me to wake up that early, especially after a night of serious drinking. So because of this I ended up missing a shitload of bands, some of them sounded good and I regret the missed opportunity. On the other hand, ten fucking am?

I got my lazy ass to the stage in time to catch the Japanese trio “Speed! Noise! Hell!” and they were tearing the place up. A really intense show filled with attitude from the band and a brutal pit. But something confused me as I looked at that fine display of music, where are the damned vocals coming from? I was looking right at the three guys on stage and not one of them was singing what I was hearing.

Then I saw them. In the middle of the fucking pit was this scrawny punk looking spiky Japanese guy screaming his soul out into the mic as if he was trying to drown it in spit. Then I looked better and saw another one, two vocalists in the pit and they weren’t taking a walk, they were there for most of the show tearing it up among the rest of the crowd. It was fucking good, a tremendous star for my second day of Obscene.

Back at camp, we relaxed with substances and good company for a while until we heard the porno calling us inside. Returning to the stage for yet another band I had seen this year at SWR, the sexy, sexy “Spasm”. It was double the party than at SWR and it was pretty damn good at SWR. The place was packed with people dancing and flying all over the place to the sound of great songs such as “Suck my Dick”, “Masturbation (no pain, no gain)” and “Beautiful Human Toilet” (which everyone knows because it’s the song from the videoclip).

After that, I returned to the stage a while later because my friends insisted that “Defeated Sanity” was so good they would gladly suck the band’s dick. This intrigued me deeply so I went to see the band which did not disappoint. A very nice display of brutal death metal and a lot of action from the audience, well worth the dick sucking.

Afterwards I missed more bands that I really shouldn’t have and eventually returned to watch “Insect Warfare” tear it up. That shows was fucking ridiculously brutal, the intensity of the band, the music and the insane audience was just fucking proper. Every song was an extremely satisfying explosion of power in every direction, I was slack jawed at the sight when my head wasn’t banging my brain back and forth. Great stage presence from the vocalist and the others as well, even the band members deep oozing love for each other fuelled the intensity of the performance into something unique. The vocalist also had a deep fetish with saying the word Obscene, I get it, it’s a good word.

After the bugs scuttled away, it was time for the fruit to dissolve. “Melt Banana”, an insane, crazy, wacky duo from Japan who play some kind of random wild music that I really wanted to watch. The vocalist had some kind of cell phone looking thing with several bright colors on the screen, I have no idea what she did with it but both put out an amazing show. The audience went as crazy as the band’s music sounded like and it was delicious, like melted bananas. A truly enjoyable experience, worth re-watching without a doubt.

Next was time for punk, the crusty grind kind of punk from the good old days in England, “Extreme Noise Terror”. I always had a tainted view of the band due to a certain Anal Cunt song called “ENT are afraid of us”. When I saw them live at the Battlefield in Trutnov that day, I realized Anal Cunt were just trying to find the meanest, most fearless looking bunch of fuckers so that their song would sound more intense. Extreme Noise Terror played a tremendous show that made me quite sure that they are afraid of no one. The audience exploded everywhere and the band was incredible on that stage. I had never heard any of their songs, never knew nothing about them but the name and reputation, on that night I was thoroughly impressed and “Extreme Noise Terror” left a very positive lasting impression on my brain.

It was nice to know that certain death metal legends were for the first time at Obscene Extreme just like me. I remember almost 7 years ago, a friend of mine turned to me and asked “Why didn’t you come see Vader, Marduk and Fleshgod Apocalypse yesterday? I could have gotten you free tickets!” Thank you so much, what a good friend you are. Anyway, I finally saw the polish death masters “Vader”, at Obscene Extreme of all places. It was “Vader” which is a great compliment in itself, the crowd as always partied their asses off to tunes like “Come and see my sacrifice”, “Reborn in Flames”, “Decapitated Saints”, “Cold Demons” and the final blasphemy of the show “Helleluyah! (God is dead)”. Fucking good.

Afterwards, I returned to camp for a few beers and some weed with my Dutch neighbours. They insisted we should go see the last band which was also Dutch and fucking good, so we did. “Gewoon Fucking Raggen!” They told me the name means something along the lines “fuck shit up just because”, whatever it means, it’s a very fun name to yell at people or just yell because reasons. Anyway, those three bastards gave one hell of a show, not a lot of people were there but the band was fucking good just as I had been lead to believe. The happy tree friends cartoons that were showed during the concert fitted in perfectly with the music. Fast and relentless, I can picture those three tearing it up back in my country and I certainly hope they swing by Cave 45 someday.

More beer and weed ensued until sleep came, half of the festival was over, I was still wet and covered in mud all over, but these are just observations, the party goes on and nothing will stop it.

Day 3

Day 3 of Obscene Extreme I really missed a lot. To all the bands I didn’t see, I’m sure I missed out, I feel bad for not seeing as much as I did and I’m confident there were plenty of amazing shows, youtube is going to make me regret this for sure. Don’t feel bad that your band isn’t included in this report, feel sorry for me, you probably deserved to be here and I definitely should have been at your show, but I couldn’t see everything. The parties I must have missed, I don’t even want to think about it. Karl Willets was there and I missed it, fuck, fuck, fuck.

When I dragged my sorry ass back to the stage, “War Master” were playing, that’s right, I missed hours of live music and I don’t even remember why. I guess the line to take a shit at the gas station was huge and some guy took twenty minutes to unload his bowels. That’s no excuse though. “War Master” were pretty good, Rahi from Insect Warfare came back to show everyone how good he looked in a leather jacket and to kick everyone’s ass old school death metal style. It was a nice show in spite of the burning heat that was fermenting all the muddy crap from three days and making if stink all over the place. Not that anybody cared, we smelled much worse.

Next up were the Germans “Excrementory Grindfuckers” and everyone was super horny about them. With good reason, people went nuts and the party was intense, the band had great stage presence and the audience danced along with them. The last song was a grind version of the final countdown, aptly named “The Final GrindDown”.

Afterwards things got slower, but not too much, with “Skullhog”. The first band I ever saw at my first real festival, where I saw men running around with toilet brushes and hello kitty hats for the first time as well, so it was very nostalgic to see them again. It was a great concert to smoke some weed and slowly bang your head to the rhythm, then the band would suddenly burst into a speedy goregrind frenzy and remind you that you were at Obscene Extreme. The Dutch trio know their stuff, and the show was very enjoyable. So much speed for so many days was good, but it was also good to hear some doom for a change, dragged out, blood splattered, and disgustingly heavy doom, delicious to my hears.

I wandered around the premises some more, got beer, got company and headed back to the stage just as “Putrid Pile” was about to start. Hat’s off to Shaun LaCanne, a one man brutal death metal machine that required only himself to get the party started. People piled all over each other, they flied around like the beach balls, and brutality ensued. You could really feel the drums and the vocals partnering up to fuck you in the ears and the guitar laughing at you while it happened.

Afterwards the mood turned over to a more classic kind of Thrash metal, blackened up by Satan’s cum and filled up with alcohol, the Swedish “Gehennah”. I didn’t see much of it but what I did saw was a great show happening, with the band being just as wasted and stylish as the audience, everyone was in perfect sync and those old school riffs of pure thrash blackness made for a proper party.

Then came the time to slam and slam hard. “Devourment” came to everyone’s delight and slammed with the audience. Every infant living creature within earshot must have certainly died when these brutal death slammers rose to the stage and made the festival quake. The public span fast then slow in a uniform mass of slamming power that left everybody dizzy in a good way.

Afterwards “Rotten Sound” were up and I missed it. Yeah, I missed it, but it’s “Rotten Sound”, they don’t need some random guy on the internet to give them a good rep because they got it already. I saw them in January at XXXAPADA NA TROMBA and it was great, I’m sure they were even better here and I fucking missed it. My loss, it was “Rotten Sound”, you are probably laughing at me right now, I totally get it.

Then came the headliner, “Sodom” which I saw for the first time right there at Obscene Extreme, I don’t think there was room for more people in front of the stage. For years I have wanted to see them but opportunity was scarce. Finally they were there and they opened with a newer song “In war and Pieces” with tremendous stage presence. Not that they have to do a lot to have stage presence, its Sodom and the second it began the crowd exploded. They played “Sodomy and Lust” to get everyone even hornier with some old Sodom material, two very nice covers, “Iron Fist” dedicated to Lemmy from “Motorhead” (I’m sure he could hear it) and “Surfin Bird” from the Trashmen, a song very much associated with Vietnam but screw that because most people just started dancing like Peter Griffin, it was beautiful.

“Nuclear Winter” got every ass in the pit moving, if it wasn’t already, and every head banging. “Sacred Warpath” was the only other newer song they played, it didn’t slow down the people nor did it tone down the excitement.

They went further back into their old days and played “Outbreak of Evil” and “Blasphemer” getting all the people thoroughly horny. “Saw is the Law” was when the party was so intense that people forgot to say the chorus the first time around, prompting Tom to shake his head in disappointment, but the second time around the entire festival shouted in unison as loud as humanly possible, THE SAW IS THE LAW, and Tom nodded impressed, falling in love with us all over again. “Agent Orange” was also another song that got the extreme party juices going (of course) and keeping up that spirit afterward, “Tired and Red” which might describe the physical condition of most people there but certainly not their excitement and enthusiasm.

They wrapped up that great fucking show with “Remember The Fallen” and “Asgebombt” and it felt short, incredibly sweet but far too short. Maybe because of all the fun oozing around.

But more fun was still to come. “Cattle Decapitation” were up and the last time I saw them at SWR, not a lot of people went to see them, it was fucking great and I loved the show, but not a whole lot of people were there. Not this time, their show at Obscene Extreme was packed with crazy fuckers, when they went into “Forced Gender Reassignment”, the super sayan next to me just put on his luchador mask, gave me a thumbs up and disappeared into that huge pit.

As I expected from my last experience, their stage presence was fucking intense from the first second of “Manufactured Extinct” to the last minutes of “Kingdom of Tyrants”. In between they raped everyone with songs such as “Circo Inhumanitas”, “Your Disposal” and “Pacific Grim”. Overall they played news songs, from the last two albums, this is usually a bummer at metal shows, but since both their last albums are probably the best they did so far, everyone was happy and sore by the end of the show.

After the show I returned to camp and smoked two joints thicker than my thumb. I went back to the stage and caught some short minutes of “Tibosity”. I remember the party was still going strong, the party was always going strong at Obscene Extreme, but that weed made me really slow and distant, so I just wandered around for a while until I ended up at the tent some random time I don’t remember.

Day 4 TOTAL AFTER PARTY, DANCE TILL DEATH!!!!

It was sad to wake up the next day and see everything being packed up and disassembled. But wait, there was more music to come. Sadly I had heard the rumour that tents were being robbed left and right so I was reluctant to leave the camp site by itself.

Half of our Dutch neighbours left that morning so we spent the day playing cards, throwing around beach balls and finishing the weed with the other half of our Dutch neighbours. Until it rained like a motherfucker again and we huddled up under a tarp we found and put up at the right moment. Everything related to the festival was completely shut down, even the toilets were closed. We had to wait until six in the afternoon for a portion of the festival to return and even then I only managed to see two bands due to the rumours of swindlers.

First time I managed to leave the campsite, “Shackles” were playing and they made a good job at making me regret missing their show during the festival. The audience, the few remaining strong who were quite a few more than I thought would be, made a fucking intense party with no sign of slowing down.

And even more no sign of slowing down occurred during the surprise band that wrapped up the festival and the after party. Who wants to try and guess what it was? Like it isn’t splattered all over youtube already. Yes, “Insect Warfare” came back to make everyone bloody all over once more. A lot more people were static this time around but there was still a mighty and proper mosh pit before us that was a joy to watch. The love between band members was still palpable and the stage presence intense. It was a shorter version of the first show, understandable since it was in the small beer tent. This however, did not in any way affect the enthusiasm and frenetic energy of the crowd.

After came the after. The same cheesy electro pop hits from the nineties and early 2000’s made everyone dance till death, or in this case until three in the morning, noobs. People were dancing on tables while others picked said tables up, then they fell off, hit their heads on benches and broke them, went back up on the same tables and danced some more because beer is fuel for life. It was apparently an established and accepted action to throw handfuls of trash over the crowd if you didn’t like a song that was playing, fine by me, a clever and fair tradition in my opinion, this should be a thing everywhere.

The party ended early yes, but after five days of extreme debauchery and obscene living conditions I can’t complain. I can’t complain at all, this was the best festival in my life and it really put in perspective the festivals back in my country. It’s a truly unique experience, the bill doesn’t even matter, yes the bands were great, yes I should have seen plenty more, but it’s the essence of it, the spirit, everything goes, everything is all right, everyone is nice and everybody gets along.

Go to Obscene Extreme, it’s an aptly named festival and it is fucking amazing.

Text by J.P. Alves

Photo By Carlos Coelho