By: Runar Pettersen
20 YEARS OF INFERNO HOW TIMES FLIES BY. INFERNO METAL FESTIVAL CAN NOW CELEBRATE TWENTY YEARS OF HELLRAISING IN OSLO, NORWAY. IT HAS BEEN A HELL OF A RIDE – AND THERE IS ENOUGH MATERIAL TO FILL A BOOK – BUT LET'S KEEP IT SHORT. LET'S TAKE A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE. remember it very well back in 2000 when it was announced that there would be a new metal festival in Norway – and it was going to be in my own hometown Oslo. Such a great idea! This was long before I started working for the festival. Back in 2001 metal festivals were not that common like it is today. Most festivals back than were mainstream and included all kinds of genres, like Roskilde Festival, Hultsfred Festival and Reading Festival. In Norway we had the Quart Festival and Kalvøya Festival. Both are long gone. There were some metal festivals around – like Wacken Open Air in Germany and Sweden Rock Festival in Sweden. Those were very popular also for Norwegians. In Norway we only had some very small metal festivals back then. One of them was Hole in the Sky in Bergen that started in 2000 in a very small venue called Garage and the four-day festival called Black Metal Nights at Lusa Lotte Pub, all the way back in 1994. The last one had the capacity of hundred people or so. Having a metal festival like Inferno was therefore a much needed event in Norway. Inferno Metal Festival 2001 had only Norwegian bands and one Swedish band on the bill and it was only two days. The complete line-up was announced Thursday the 25th of January at a Kick Off Party at John Dee. Cato Bekkevold, soon then to be in Enslaved, and Fenriz from Darkthrone, announced all the artists for the festival. while Crest of Darkness and Audiopain entertained us with their music. The headliners in 2001 were Enslaved and Borknagar … while Pain was the only Swedish band. Sweden's Hypocrisy was one of the first bands to be announced – but they canceled. Also from Sweden,
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Witchery, was on the bill, but canceled on short notice. Khold did their first gig at the festival, before even their debut album, “Masterpiss of Pain”, was released. Some of the other bands who played that year were Zyklon, Gehenna, Susperia, Hades Almighty, Cadaver Inc. and Peccatum. It all started when Jens F. Ryland heard the idea that his Borknagar band mate, Asgeir Mickelson, had been dwelling on for some years. The original idea was to have a Scream Magazine festival during the Easter, but Asgeir realised he would never actually bring this idea to life so he rebranded the festival as Inferno, gave the idea to Jens and joined in as the permanent designer. Incidentally, around the same time Jan-Martin Jensen, Radar Booking, asked Jens about setting up a one day festival with Borknagar, but ended up joining the team setting up a two day festival instead. From there on the snow ball started to roll. Back then, the famous Norwegian cartoon character Nemi was the mascot for Inferno, and was on posters, shirts, magazine and much more. Nemi was used as mascot the first two years. When the first year was over, and Jan-Martin and Jens were locking the door at Rockefeller, six o'clock on Sunday morning, together with Fredrik from Rockefeller. After he had put the keys away he turned around and asked “So, should we book Rockefeller for the Easter also next year?”. Without hesitation they both responded “yes”. Inferno Metal Festival 2002 had Dimmu Borgir and Witchery as headliners. Lower on the bill were Behemoth, Carpathian Forest, Nocturnal Breed, Vintersorg, Blood Red Throne and Source of Tide. Also worth mention is that 1349 and Windir performed at the
Jens F. Ryland, Borknagar
smaller stage at John Dee. The festival underestimated the popularity of 1349 and the line to go down the stairs to John Dee was huge. This was the moment when the Inferno audience learned to be early for the gigs at John Dee to not miss out anything. The line-up was presented at the Kick Off Party on 18th of January at John Dee where Pain and Windir performed live. On the negative side; both Aura Noir and Theory in Practice canceled their gigs. Six bands came from outside of Norway that year. Friday was completely sold out, while Saturday had a few hundred tickets left. Not that strange that Friday sold out with both Dimmu Borgir and Behemoth performing that day. Inferno 2002 also had something called the Inferno Award, that was held for the first and last time, and was in honor of someone who did extraordinary work for metal in Norway. The nominees were Fenriz from Darkthrone, Metalion from Slayer Magazine, Rune Hammer from Sound of Noise and Bjørn Nørsterud from Scream Magazine. The award went to Fenriz.
