FemME – Female Metal Event (DVD)

Late September 2014 saw the first FemME (Female Metal Event) held at Effenaar in Eindhoven.  It was a one-day festival featuring bands with female members (primarily on vocals).  It was a great day, and this year’s event promised to be bigger and better having been expanded to a two day event.  Last year’s event was filmed with multiple cameras and the organiser has just released a DVD featuring the bands that played.

It’s not that often that festivals release DVDs – Wacken is a notable exception, but generally it’s unusual, particularly with a small festival like this one, so the announcement of a DVD release was good news.  The DVD features songs from all the bands who played last year’s event, with most of the bands having two or three songs featured (with Adeia being the only one to have just one song included).

The sound quality is excellent – presumably recorded straight from the mixing desk.  The video was filmed with several cameras so you get a mix of close-ups, shots from the crowd and wide shots from the back of the room.  The video quality is generally pretty good, but it’s clear the cameras were struggling with some of the lighting conditions as the quality does drop at times – either going out of focus or the picture being overwhelmed by a flood of red or blue light.  The variable picture quality doesnt spoil the enjoyment of watching the DVD though.

Having been at the event it was great watching the DVD – seeing the bands and a lot of familiar faces in the audience brought back some great memories, but even if you weren’t there it’s still a good DVD to get as there’s a great selection of music, ranging from symphonic metal to alternative metal, thrash/death metal and symphonic death metal.  Izegrim and Mayan were two bands that I hadn’t seen before, and both really impressed me as did most of the other bands on the bill.  Mayan, the side project of Epica’s Mark Jansen are yet to play the UK, so this is the first chance many UK fans will have to see what the band are like on stage.

A good DVD that is definitely well worth getting if you were at the first FemME event.  If you weren’t there then it’s still worth getting for the chance to see live footage of some very good bands .

The DVD is available for €17 (including postage) from http://femalemetalevent.nl/

Track listing:

1. La ventura – Cry
2. La Ventura – White crow
3. Revengin – Nine chains of sorrow
4. Revengin – Beyond the existence
5. Adeia – Inheritance
6. TheNAME – Image
7. TheNAME – Into my dream
8. Skeptical minds – Don’t tell
9. Skeptical minds – Living in a movie
10. Asrai – Ghost
11. Asrai – Child
12. Asrai – Overworld
13. Izegrim – The legion
14. Izegrim – Fuck your glorious nation
15. Izegrim – World power or downfall
16. MaYaN – Bite the bullet
17. MaYaN – Faceless spies