It was improbable but Clisson did it.

Well, yes, I know that Clisson is a welcoming city, that its history makes it an atypical city, but to understand it, you have to go back a few hundred years, precisely just after the Vendée civil wars, where the city of Clisson was 87% destroyed.

Abandoned, declared a martyr city, it was on the initiative of Pierre and François Cacault who came to settle in the old quarter of the Madeleine to open a school-museum…

WHAT, A SCHOOL MUSEUM?
Hellfest in Clisson

In a completely abandoned city? … They are rather vanguard the clisso people to accept that we make their city a place where artists can express themselves. It was quite improbable to bring artists to a site that no one had ever heard of (Clisson is a city that today counts some 7095 inhabitants). The Cacault brothers would invite a large number of friends they knew during their stay in Italy, including Frédéric Lemot, Napoléon’s official sculptor, he too was an artist, an art lover who, on arriving in Clisson, he fell so much in love with the town that he decided to settle there. He bought the castle and then had the gardener’s house built, an exact copy of the Tuscan farmhouses such as could be found in Italy….

WHAT, A TUSCAN FARMHOUSE?

In a completely abandoned town? what for? The Clissonnais accepted to make their town an Italianate style town when one can suppose that their concerns could have been other after the Vendee wars.

The Clissonnais are rather avant-garde, they expressed themselves in an architecture that is quite improbable. Time has done the rest, the whole town has been adorned with genoises, round arched bays… they have even planted umbrella pines, yews and even in recent years, olive trees…

And then, 10 years ago, a Clisson inhabitant proposed to organize there a “festival of extreme music” that could welcome 1500 festival-goers presented as such in the city office… no problem, it’s rather commonplace for the town of Clisson, we already have medieval, Italian, and painting festivals…. The success of this festival will be beyond all expectations, 1500 expected, the city of Clisson will exceed the 10000 festival-goers the first year

WHAT, A METAL MUSIC FESTIVAL?

Hellfest ? the festival of hell? they’re pretty avant-garde the people of Clisson to accept that we make their town a place where we invite artists?

Credit Ronin 2017

Credit OTVN

credit otvn

 

And then I went there, the first time eight years ago… the site wasn’t then installed like it is today and as it wasn’t my music, it was also improbable but I liked this crowd where everybody talks to each other… atypical you will say ? Yes, but so friendly!

 

Yesterday, I went back there, I had heard that the site was open every day to everyone… Strange feeling, there is only the warzone, from where the statue of Lemmy Kilmister, one of the many works that remained there, overlooks… Am I one of the conformists who have been resistant to this music for years?

Credit OTVN

Credit OTVN

Credit OTVN

 

The warzone makes me very uncomfortable…I have lunch and then I decide to go back there in the afternoon, so I don’t need to stay on a first impression. I spot the place again… seen from another angle, the war zone is finally only a means of communication… a non-conformist means of provoking, annoying, triggering, creating, challenging, braving, training, irritating but also inspiring, giving, encouraging, awakening, inflaming…

The various decorations of the Hellfest are a cathartic expression of human vanity with a recurring presence of skulls, clock, deliberate choice of metal sculpture now covered with rust according to many sociological studies published in recent years.

It was improbable, but at all times I like to imagine that the verbs quoted above were the ones used for each novelty.

It was improbable but Clisson did it.

Dalmasia reception officer and tour leader