SHoD '99 was last August 14, 1999. This retrospective was written by Dang Vu:

Stoner Hands of Doom festival 08/14/99, Bull Run State Park, Virginia and the Phantasmagoria, MD
Having missed most of the great doom bands of the 80's and early 90's on account of my being born too late and various other things (I discovered metal right around the time Saint Vitus, Trouble, The Obsessed, and Candlemass called it quits and Cathedral completed their last US tour), I was thrilled to be able to attend this festival, whose lineup consist of some of the best acts in this new resurgence of Sabbathian metal.

Having driven from Boston to Virginia late the night before, I missed the opening set by Massachusetts's very own Warhorse, which I was told was incredibly heavy, as was expected of Warhorse. From then on, though, there were still 18 hours of crushing music, great comfort facilities and PA courtesy of promoters Rob and Cheryl Williams Levey, and most attendants as a result had the time of their life. It was a shame that the OzzFest occurred on the same day nearby and drew much of the potential crowd away from this undeniably heavier and more deserving event.

To give a set by set account of the festival would take up too much space, so here is the lineup, in order of appearance, followed by selected highlights. Warhorse, Smoke In Sunshine, Pale Devine, Fireball Ministry, Las Cruces, Solace, Revelation, Penance, Spirit Caravan, Rotors to Rust, While Heaven Wept, Clearlight, Trouble, Leadfoot. Las Cruces hit the stage sometime in the afternoon. (I've long since lost track of the time through the haze of contentment that accompanies stretching out on a grassy lawn on a beautiful sunny day and watching band after band groove out on stage.) What an amazing live act! I can't stress this enough - Las Cruces know what they are doing and it's obvious that they love doing it. I'm just beginning to understand through my own gigging experience how important certain undefinable qualities are to a live show, and Las Cruces certainly possess these qualities. They played a good selection of materials from both their albums, which, at the time, I was not familiar with but which impressed the hell out of me, as well as other concert-goers to the extent that Las Cruces CD became a rare commodity among the various merchandise providers at the fest. "Black Waters" off of Ringmaster was especially heavy live. There was also a song in the middle of which the vocalist, the very friendly and cool Mark Zamarron, suddenly started howling the words to Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" to the delight of the audience.

Revelation, reunited for one set, had the misfortune of being the band whose best song is interrupted by a freakish rainstorm that appeared out of nowhere and wreaked havoc upon the grounds before disappearing mere minutes later. Dennis Cornelius, Jim Hunter, and Steve Brannegan were in fine form and performed well both outdoors and inside the Phantasmagoria, where the festival was relocated. The highlight of the set was definitely Grasping the Nettle.Morning Sun. Too bad these guys never got picked up after Hellhound Records died.

Penance, a contemporary of Revelation, also delivered a great set, although I would have liked to hear more songs off of their first two albums. As it is, they played mostly songs off of their new self-released CD, Proving Ground, which I hope to get my hands on one of these days.

Spirit Caravan - the legendary (to too few) Wino's (St. Vitus, Obsessed) new outfit - delivered hands down the best set of the night. They were supposed to headline the outdoors portion, but were even better in the crowded and restless indoors and knocked Motorhead off the top of my list as the most intense band to see live. Playing a REALLY long set (~1h30) consisting of most of the songs off of their debut LP Jug Fulla Sun, a couple off their new, just released that day EP Dreamwheel, a few old Obsessed songs and ending with rocking covers of Eric Burdon's Inside Looking Out and Black Sabbath's Wicked World, Spirit Caravan had the entire jam-packed Phantasmagoria grooving. It was such an incredibly good feeling to be able to absorb all this heaviness along with a decidedly old-school crowd. I have not seen an entire club move in unison before, and, man, it was quite a sight.

After Spirit Caravan, I could barely stand up straight, so I sought refuge in a dark corner table and tried to recover in time for night headliner Trouble. Nevertheless, While Heaven Wept, with Revelation's Jim Hunter on bass, somehow managed to make quite an impression on me. The set reminded me of a more bottom ended Candlemass without the operatic vocals. I can't remember much, though. I'll definitely have to buy their CD.

After a mostly instrumental set by Clearlight, I heard through a haze that Pentagram was up next. A contemporary of Black Sabbath and one of my all-time favorite bands, I was severely disappointed to hear that Bobby Liebling was not able to put together a line-up to perform. However, it turned out that Trouble's Rick Wartell and Ron Holzner play Pentagram songs in one of their side project and agreed to take the stage with Bobby Liebling and Joe Hasselvander to give a rockin' rendition of "Relentless." The response and the felicitations of the crowd overwhelmed Bobby Liebling after the one song set. Last I heard, he's almost ready with a new line-up and a new album follow-up to last year's excellent Review Your Choices.

Trouble was up next and gave what they said was their last performance ever. With Exhorder's Kyle Thomas adequately filling the shoes of Eric Wagner, they played through mostly material from their first three epic doom albums, which is a shame since I'm a big fan of their more psychedelic efforts as well. No matter, the set was still incredible, with highlights being "The Bastards Will Pay" and "Pray for the Dead." It was also really cool to look around the venue and see all these musicians that inspire me also headbanging along and enjoying the set of a band that inspires them.

The doom scene has roots that go way back, to the very beginning of metal itself, and this heroic effort on the part of promoters Rob Levey and Cheryl Williams Levey and others should ensure that it'll have a illustrious future as well. After Trouble's set, I made the decision to leave and go back to my campsite - I certainly would not have been able to last until the festival finally ended at 4:30am. As it is, I owe my safe return to the fact that most people prefer not be out on the road and in my way at ungodly hours in the morning. There's another Stoner Hands of Doom festival scheduled this year. I can't wait and I hope to see lots of the Koffin's readers there - you won't be disappointed.

 

 

	Web www.cherylsweb.com/shod