The Heavy Underground - Alive and Free…
There is freedom here. A little wilder. A little less cultivated. And yet, somehow, so much is organized with remarkable care. Much is deliberately left untouched, allowing you to simply do whatever your heart desires. And in that space, your heavy underground spirit can spread its wings and take flight. This is the Underground coming alive, swirling through the dust and the beams of light, dancing beneath the scorching sun as it burns down on the grass beneath the often bare feet of all those beautiful souls gathered here. This is Stoned From The Underground, hidden away in Erfurt, Germany.
Roughly the same size as Freak Valley Festival, it might be filled with a greater number of German and Eastern European heavy rock devotees, simply because it is quite a journey from our little corner of the Netherlands. But the road there is beautiful, and the festival is worth every single second of the drive. The crudely painted sign on the road from Stotternheim, simply stating that STFU! is to the left, is a perfect introduction to the festival’s character. No grand entrance. No polished monument. No carefully designed highway sign. Just: turn left here!
And suddenly, we find ourselves among a wonderful tribe of German friends, slowly woven together over the many years of STFU. Some have been returning for nearly twenty editions. Their campsite is less than fifty meters from the festival entrance, although even the furthest corners of the campsite are only about 500 meters away. And that only means you are closer to the beach bar, the lake, and the Hodenhügel hill. Yes, that hill was named by festival-goers many years ago, and climbing it at least once during the weekend has become a sacred tradition. From there, you can watch the sun set or rise, observe the festival lights slowly flickering into life across the grounds and campsite, and simply surrender to its wonderfully uncouth beauty...
STFU began as a one-day gathering back in 2001. It quickly expanded into two days, and when people started arriving a day early, it naturally evolved into a three-day festival. And, of course, people eventually began arriving a day before that as well. So the organizers invited two bands to perform at the beach bar on Wednesday, effectively transforming it into a four-day celebration. Unfortunately, traffic delayed our arrival just enough for us to miss those performances. But it gave us time to settle in, meet our new and old friends, and prepare ourselves for Thursday...
Waking up on the first morning of a festival after too little sleep and perhaps a few more beers than planned is always slightly disorienting. But STFU makes it easy. Grab your swimming gear and head to the lake. Take a refreshing dip, order some food at the beach bar, and wait for Zerynthia to begin. Kraut garage with a distinct dirty and doomy edge... Exactly the kind of sound needed to blast your eyes open and send your energy levels soaring. And over the following two days, Sheev’s ferocity and Zaphod’s witty brilliance would continue that mission...
The biggest surprise might have been Year Of The Goat. I had seen them before, but the way the second vocalist Maria Eriksson brought out the very best in Elin Gårdfalk and lifted almost every composition to unimaginable heights was astonishing. Their interplay became something almost alive, moving like quicksilver, while the vocals turned into pure gold. What a performance. Of course, the following set by Elder existed on its own level of perfection. But by now, we have come to expect this from Nick DiSalvo and his companions. And yet, there was something different this time. More fire. More fury. More intensity. Especially in his voice. The increasingly complex compositions reached a frightening level of precision and brilliance. For some, perhaps exhausting. For others, exactly the show they had been waiting for. Combined with the raw power and wildness that filled Nick’s voice that night, it became a performance that will stay with me forever. It might now be my second-favorite Elder show I have ever witnessed...
It was my first time at Stoned From The Underground though, and we can only hope to return. No queue to enter the campsite on Wednesday. No waiting endlessly for a drink at the bar. No lines to collect those wonderfully confusing, differently colored chips needed to order food and drinks, and even free hugs when you receive them. No endless toilet queues. The only thing I would suggest to the organizers is providing free drinking water on the festival grounds. With temperatures like these, it feels strange that it is not available. People do not drink less beer because they can drink water for free; they simply stay healthier and happier.
But beyond that, everything, just like so many of the performances, reached a level of beautifully uncultivated perfection. The wildness is allowed to grow freely. It is not controlled or polished; it is nurtured by simply being left alone. And in doing so, it brings out the very best in everyone around it. It creates the festival the heavy underground could only dream of. Now, as we return to the less successful version of what life has become, we hold onto those moments: the fist bumps with complete strangers, the conversations with fellow heavy music lovers somewhere beneath the shade, and the endless waves of heavy riffs drifting across the festival grounds and the lake toward the crazies sitting on “testicle hill,” waiting for that glowing orb to slowly disappear beneath the horizon....
Oh, that reminds me…
O.R.B.
Yeah. Those were freakishly cool as well...
