RDB-Fest, La Fare les Oliviers, 150 spectators

Thanks to the French website Concerts-Metal, we found this festival on our trip through Spain and southern France. The only band known to us was Verdun, which we saw at Hellfest 2018. The venue "L´Humus" is quite well known in this region because some concerts take place every month. The RDB-Festival was organized by the Rising Dead Boys association, some of whom also played in the band "Bronca". We have been visiting concerts in all regions of France since 2008 and we are always stoked by the quality of the venues, the light, the sound, alimentation and also the quality of the bands. We left the festival with eyes wide open, whether what we saw, heard and ate between 3pm and 11pm.

The locals from "Bronca" did a great job. A well-balanced mix of Stoner, Hardcore, Sludge, packed in a well-grooving beat for a permanent headbanging. And the four guys really enjoyed to play and had great fun. Incredible, that this gig was their fourth and the band was founded in 2023; it rather looks like they play together since five or ten years. Great concert.

In the subsequent band ODD Beast, the pendulum struck more towards hardcore with deeper tuned guitars. It seemed to me that the individual band members still have second bands in which they also sing. Maybe that explains that the viewers were shouted by a three-part choir in front of a mighty sound wall. A really powerful bulldozer that ran over the audience within the concert.

Black Metal never was my cup of coffee and although I´m always interested in watching and hearing Black Metal on Festivals, I guess, I will never arrive to appreciate it. So it was with Råtten. Sorry.

We followed Jeanne with one ear, because we met Panagiotis, Odd Best´s bass player, who is greek and worked as a roadie for the Villagers of Ioannina City, one of our favorites. Jeanne did a noise version of Screamo, Crossover and Hardcore, in which we´re not quite into. Anyway, the band was brilliant, also the sound and the lights.

Inner Landscape delivered another fantastic concert. A blend of Postrock, a pinch of ambient Black Metal, various rhythms, topped off by controlled, tortured vocals that could have come from a Death/Black metal band. The musical direction is located between Russian Circles, A Swarm of the Sun and We lost the Sea. The band managed to create various moods, from melancholy to anger, from dreaminess to icy coldness. Without much interaction, the band managed to captivate the entire audience and the majority of all the bands. Fantastic concert.

We keep on being mesmerized by another class French band; Occult Hand Order, the new masters of dynamic composing and performing, took us for a ride through different sounds on different volumes, polyrhythmic beats, sung by clear, rough, growling and tender voices. Yes, at this time we decided to leave at the top of performing. Thank you.