Fear Factory, Butcher Babies, Ignea and Ghost of Atlantis

We started the evening with the Ghosts of Atlantis. Five men from England gave us a crazy performance. Looking like characters from a Mad Max film, they were almost terrifying. Earplugs welcomed…. We were right in front of them and it was a blast. Their music is a mix of melodic death metal with lyrics about Atlantis. The concert was fairly short, around 30 minutes to leave the stage for the others three bands.

Now it was the turn of Ignea from Ukraine. Four men and a woman rocked the venue with their music. Their hair swinging back and forth. The audience was hot. There was more and more rhythm. Helle Bohdanova, the singer gave a melodic and guttural aspect to the songs. She managed to change her style at every moment. The drummer was on fire! He was shirtless and hitting the drums with all his force. The singer took off her black coat and wore a red dress. She put on a great show and started dancing on the box.  Yevhenii zhytniuk played with a keytar, which was very original. The crowd started clapping along to the last song, ‘Leviathan’. And here we are again with our hair flying in the wind (I don’t have much hair… they don’t want to stay any longer…). This band was a great discovery for us. We were offered 7 songs, on the tour the song “To No One I Owe” is sometimes played. We didn’t get to hear it live.

We arrived at the third concert that everyone had been waiting for: Butcher Babies from Los Angeles. We were sad to hear that Carla Harvey won’t be at the show. She had an emergency operation on her eye. We wish her a fast recovery. Heidi Shepherd, the singer took on to the stage, dancing and moving her hair as she sang. The energy was insane. The band was jumping up and down and giving it their all. Henry Flury, the guitarist and Jason Klein, the bassist, alongside Heidi, were having the time of their lives, playing from the heart. Chrissy Warner, the drummer was also impressive! The crowd went wild after the first song. The singer got the audience involved. She knew how to get the crowd moving. She’s a very charismatic woman who gave everything she had. The audience started jumping and then one person was carried above the crowd. Then it was an incredible moment when the singer went into the middle of the audience and started singing and dancing with the crowd… The concert came to an end, but the audience wanted more. Heidi put on quite a show all on her own. It was an intense show that lasted just under an hour.

The fourth and final concert of the evening was Fear Factory, also from Los Angeles. The venue had filled up, allowing the balcony to be opened to the public, some people preferred to go upstairs to admire their favourite band. Three men in enterd the stage in the darkness, and to the rhythm of the strobe lights was in sync with the music.

We didn’t expect to see Tony Campos on stage as we’d seen the news that he was busy with another side project called STATIC-X. Dino, guitarist and founder of the band, gave it all. The new singer Milo Silvestro is very good. The vocals were pretty great. We also saw the new drummer, Pete Webber, who joined this year. The concert lasted a long time, around 1h30 with a setlist of 17 songs. There were a lot of circle pits and crowd surfing during the evening.

The following day, the same bands played in Zürich, much to the delight of the Swiss-German fans. The biggest fans got to see them 2 times in 2 days. All in all, a great evening of metal at the Docks in Lausanne. The four bands, each with their own specificity, each distinct and different, were all on top form. We went home with music in our ears and hundreds of photos to sort through. Good luck colleague!

Many thanks to Les Docks for the accreditation!

Report Writing by Nat
Translation and pictures by Kevin