The UK festival season may be winding down, but there’s still some gems yet to come. One of such events is the rapidly approaching Butserfest, which takes place this coming Saturday (14th September 2013) in the South of the UK, or the lovely Hampshire countryside, at Queen Elizabeth Country Park to be exact. Butserfest could probably be described as the UK’s largest straight edge festival. That’s right, there are no drugs and no alcohol at Butserfest. What there is is two stages featuring two dozen bands, and a bunch of other fun stuff thrown into the bargain for free.
So, what’s actually on at Butserfest you might be asking? Butserfest has two stages – the main stage, and the wonderfully titled “Glory or Death” stage. The main stage features an interesting mix of some of the UK’s best loved younger rock bands to come along in the last few years, with a couple of surprises thrown into the mix. Headlining this years’ event are Butserfest alumni We Are The Ocean. Having appeared at the event in previous years, We Are The Ocean return from touring with Muse and with tracks from their third album “Maybe Today, Maybe Tomorrow” ready for an airing, WATO are sure to close the festival in fine style. Fresh from appearing on the main stage at Reading a couple of weeks ago Mallory Knox will be giving Butserfest a blast of their UK Top 40 album Signals and will be one of the event’s not to miss bands. One of the aforementioned “surprises” are the dance metal act Subsource, who have honed their act with countless gigs and festival appearances in recent times and very much deserve their reputation as an act who go down fantastically at any festival – so don’t miss them!
Over on the Glory or Death, as one might expect with a name such as this, Butserfest attendees will find some of the UK’s best in up and coming metal and hardcore. Following on from their recent tour with metal legends Megadeth and a headline turn at Redfest in Surrey a couple of months ago, Scotland’s hardcore metal mob Bleed From Within descend upon the south of England to once again lay waste to a festival with another headline appearance. With their new album being touted by many in the metal press as a huge breakthrough for them, we’d suggest if you like your metal of the brutal variety, you get along to see Bleed From Within. If Hardcore music is your thing, another band not to be missed are Palm Reader, who like their Scottish counterparts have been leaving a trail of destruction across the UK at festivals and gigs over the course of 2013. Their album was acclaimed as taking hardcore to a new level by none other than Metal Hammer and Rocksins’ own Stephen Hill, so we recommend you follow his advice and make sure to catch them. Crossover grime metallers Hacktivist will also be appearing, with their well established high energy aggressive shows often being a highlight wherever they appear.
We’ve highlighted just a handful of the acts appearing at the event, but the full list of bands for Butserfest 2013 is as follows:
Main Stage:
We Are The Ocean
Mallory Knox
Fearless Vampire Killers
Subsource
Natives
Arcane Roots
Max Raptor
13:32
The Bottom Line
A Tale Of Two Cities
Attention Thieves
We Start Partys
Death or Glory Stage:
Bleed From Within
Heights
Palm Reader
Hacktivist
Marmozets
Hildamay
Continents
The Valiants
Set Your Sails
Now Voyager
Aurora
The Call Back Academy
As well as all of the above bands, you can also take on events and challenges like Zorbing (not one for those with a weak stomach), inflatable bungee runs, inflatable wrecking ball human demolition derby style, and the always good fun laser quest! Try and cram all of this into your day whilst seeing all the bands you want to see, we dare you!
So, we’ve convinced you to go to Butserfest, or you had your tickets anyway and just wanted to catch up on some of the info. For those who need tickets, they are £20 plus booking fees, which is an enormous bargain, and can be obtained from the festival website on the following link —-> Butserfest 2013 Tickets.
Those who decide to leave it until the day, there will be tickets sold on the door but the price will go up to £30. As this represents a 50% increase in price, why wait? Just go and get them now! If you have a group of mates who all want to go together, there’s even a group discount scheme where you can get five tickets for £90 – £2 cheaper for all five people.
Festivals like Redfest and Butserfest are tremendously important for the UK rock & metal community. They offer great chances to see bands who may be the stars of tomorrow, along with some who are already stars of today at affordable prices in places they wouldn’t otherwise normally play. If that’s not enough reason to get along and bang your head for a solid ten hours, quite frankly we don’t know what is!
