Decibel Philly Metal & Beer Fest 2025 Notes Part I: Pre-Fest, The Foundry
by J †Johnson
Thursday, April 3, 2025
I arrived at 5 to grab a pre-show beer at Other Half, and there was a line of people dressed in black, waiting politely for the doors to open at 6:30. Why? I wasn’t ready to be social, and wasn’t feeling the sort of community that waits in lines when they don’t have to. Whatever. People make their own fun.
Around the corner, Other Half Brewery properly serves an attitude adjustment.
We join a shorter line right before 6:30, and figure out the other line is for a show at the Fillmore—the ground floor venue below The Foundry where days two and three of Metal & Beer Fest will take place. There seem to be at least three lines. One is a VIP line for the show at the other venue: Poppy. The dudes in line around me say they think it’s a metal karaoke act. We decide it’s a good place for kids to start their metal journey, and maybe in a couple years they’ll be in line with us for the rest of our lives. We’re kind of being dicks but it feels good natured. We too make our own fun.¹ The guys in front of me turn out to be band parents here from out of town to see their kids play tonight. It’s incredibly wholesome.
It will be fascinating to see the difference between the Thursday and Friday show. The Pre-Fest feels like a warm up event. The bands are all great—this is not to say they feel like opening acts. No doubt though this is a more intimate crowd. We watch the first band try unsuccessfully to get people to mosh. The pit forms slowly over the night. At its peak during Incantation’s closing set, it’s like four dudes ramming into each other with a lot more space than they need. The etiquette is solid, though. There are pushers to keep people in the front from getting sucker punched. A couple times we get drawn in, fall, and are immediately picked up by multiple surprisingly gentle people. It feels awesome.
Incantation are also awesome.² John McEntee is a captivating, rousing, gnomic front person, and everyone on stage seems as into it as the crowd. Countless horns get thrown with utmost sincerity. McEntee grimaces, grits his teeth, and sounds great. It’s actually kind of goofy at the same time it’s fully committed.
Already at 1:30 the next day, the four sets are getting hazy, but we recall loving them all. Walking Wounded, Mammoth Grinder, and Ripped to Shreds are the other bands. We recall Walking Wounded feeling like a hardcore band, effectively getting things off to a high-energy start (despite their failure to incite the pit). Mammoth Grinder is a new favorite band, and we got so into it that all memory of the set is wiped out. It was around that time that we started growl-screaming along with the bands—never mind that we don’t know the words—and we’re feeling it today. We kind of fell into a trance. First we’d echo particular grunts—those forceful pre-linguistic, throat-clearing exhortations that we call ejecta in the extreme metal book we’re writing with Livy Snyder. Eventually it felt like we were vocalizing at the same time as the singers. It ruled. Bring throat lozenges tonight.
Anyway, we regained consciousness for Ripped to Shreds, and couldn’t stop staring in fascination at their headless guitars—weird and cool, super fucking geeky. Obviously, they live up to their name. No crumbs. Thrilled to say we didn’t catch anyone in the audience playing air guitar.
We got a little carried away at the merch tables, but not nearly as much as we wanted to. Picked up two Mammoth Grinder LPs and a long sleeve shirt, a couple Incantation LPs, a Walking Wounded tape and a Morgul Blade tape. Will try to show a little more restraint tonight, but can’t promise anything. It’s for research.
Had one special beer—a tasty sour—when we found the festival menu, after downing a couple Yards PPAs.³ The beer part of the festival really kicks off Friday. Again, we caution restraint. We didn’t get the beer pass for a reason. We’re too old for this shit, but here we are anyway🤘🏼💀⚰️
¹ Later Gina points out that we saw Poppy on Dragula as a guest judge. We loved her and feel extra warm now toward all the people in the other lines. To make up for acting a little superior we’ll try to push a little harder next time we nudge people away from being metal snobs. Our comment that Maybe they’ll be in this line in a couple years for the rest of their lives was a half-ass attempt to steer conversation in a more generous, less us-v-them direction. Also, we’ll watch a Poppy video so we have a better sense of what we’re talking about. OK, we’re watching “the cost of giving up” and it’s incredibly weird. The show was probably epic, and it certainly had the more dynamic audience.
² Earlier in the evening, we rest at a bench along the wall. After a few minutes, we have a gregarious moment and turn to the person on our right:
May I ask you a question?
Sure.
Why are you here?
Incantation.
Anyone else you’re excited to see?
Just Incantation.
We talk a bit more about music and they recommend Grima and Volcandra, whose names we scrawl on a notecard. They were listening: these bands are in our forest.
³ A few days later we check out the beer fridge at Jaxx Steaks Taproom (lol), where we go to watch the NCAA women’s basketball final and suffer through Ryan Ruocco’s Paige Buekers and Sarah Strong puns, and find a tall can of Blood Ice, a watermelon mango pineapple sour collab between Xul Beer Company and the fantasy metal band Eternal Champion, who play Saturday. The bartender says someone dropped off a case after the festival. Pretty sure that’s the jawn we had Thursday. It’s good Sunday, too, and gives us an added appreciation for Eternal Champion, who clearly don’t take themselves too seriously.