Four hours on the Thames, live bands, metal DJs, and a pier booked directly under Big Ben. The LMF Pre-Party boards at Westminster Pier tonight, Friday 11 September, from 5:30pm. It is the official warm-up for London Metalfest, which takes over Camden tomorrow.
What Happens on Board
A four hour cruise past the sights, with live bands and heavy metal DJs playing on the boat as it moves. There is a fully stocked bar and exclusive merchandise only available at this event. One detail the organisers state plainly: the event will be filmed and photographed for future promotional use. Worth knowing if you would rather not appear in next year’s advert. Tickets go through Yapsody, sold by Kent Music Group. Listings currently show more than 850 people marked as interested, which is respectable for a first year event on a boat. Treat 5:30pm as your arrival time, not the departure. Westminster Pier is a booked slot and the boat will not hang about while somebody finds the right entrance.
Tomorrow: London Metalfest Takes Over Camden
Saturday 12 September, across The Underworld, the Electric Ballroom as main stage, and The Devonshire Arms. The pitch is a European-style boutique festival dropped into Camden rather than staged in a field somewhere outside the M25. Which in practice means packed basements, narrow staircases and a lot of people walking up and down Camden High Street between sets. Tickets are £45 face value, £52.53 with fees. Doors 12:30 pm, curfew 10 pm. This is a 14+ event. Anyone aged 14 or 15 must be with an adult over 18, and everyone under 25 needs valid physical photo ID.
Who Is Playing
Candlemass headline. The Swedish doom metal band have barely played London in years, their last appearance in the city being DesertFest in 2017, so this is the booking doing the heavy lifting on ticket sales. Underneath them: Burning Witches, DOOL, Crobot, High Parasite, Genitorturers, Cobra the Impaler, Aethoria, DeVere, The Heritance, Wretched Soul, Unnatural Order, Enquire Within and SILAS.There is also a secret set billed as flying in from the US, which the organisers have not named.
The Underworld’s early running order
1:00 pm Enquire Within 2:00 pm Unnatural Order 3:00 pm Wretched Soul 4:00 pm The Heritance 5:00 pm Aethoria 6:20 pm DeVereDOOL are the ones worth arriving for if you do not know the bill. Dutch, gothic, somewhere between heavy rock and prog, and capable of going from hypnotic to enormous inside one song.
If You Are Still Standing at Eleven
Camden Rocks Club runs an afterparty at The Underworld the same night, doors 11 pm, £7 plus a £1 booking fee. Cheapest thing on the whole weekend by a distance.
Getting There
Westminster Pier sits on Victoria Embankment, two minutes from Westminster station on the Circle, District and Jubilee lines. For Camden tomorrow, Camden Town station is the obvious route, though it regularly runs exit-only on busy Saturdays. Mornington Crescent and Chalk Farm are the usual workarounds, both about ten minutes on foot.