ECP
The not very official story of Metal Night! Part 1

This is the first draft of a longer series focusing on the concert events and a whole lot of extras that happened in Bergen from the early 1990 to about 1996ish.  Look out for more! This article was first available through our newsletter. So, please subscribe. 

The early Nineties was an exciting era if you liked your metal loud, scary and black. The general storyline is that metalheads was the outcast of society after the churches started to illuminate the night sky, but on the other hand Bergen Kommune or the Municipality of Bergen provided much and need support for the concert side of the scene. There were not many venues, and there probably weren’t that many bands either. The usual venues in Bergen like Garage, Hulen and even the smaller Klubb Fønix, which eventually became Padda Pub, had metal concerts, but would usually cater to more popular genres or prioritize less denim or even less leather. There was also the case of age limit. If you sell beer in Norway, your audience must be over 18, and Garage even had 20 years age limit (apart from students) so if you, like me, where under this you could hope for a No Age Limit show (Like Immortal´s release concert for Pure Holocaust at Garage) or sneak in,  lie or use a fake ID. If you were lucky the concert took place at the then Municipality driven house of Culture Verftet. Here they hosted numerous “rusfrie” concerts. RUSFRI meaning no drinking or drugs.

The Metal Night concept was started by the metal scene themselves as far as we know, but “curated” into being a part of the culture program for Municipality driven festivals like “Musikkens dag – “Music Day” or other events showcasing all the genres of music you can think of. Usually, a Musikkens Dag program would start Saturday at noon with rock, indie, punk (and all the et ecteras you could think of) and gradually evolve into the metal community approved portion of the program. We know some of the people who were part of putting these events together, but we must know more, so a larger update on this will come.

So, for now, let´s skip to Friday August 27^th, 1993. On this day our inspiration for the poster was held. Syrach, Asmodeus, Molested, Mortuis, Aeternus and Ancient all performed at Verftet. Playing about 30 minutes each with chaotic changeovers under the one-day festival name of METAL NIGHTL, which of course was a Type-o. There were earlier Metal Nights and there were later. Let´s return to this subject later, and for now focus on the lineup.

SYRACH – was a Doom metal band that started up in 1993, so this must have been one of the first times they played live. They eventually released 3 albums and a small bunch of demos, and probably didn´t get the attenion the deserved, but in the 2000s they  toured Europe with Trouble and Pentagram. Not to shabby a tour for a doom-band from Norway. Here is their first demo – Helferd.

ASMODEUS – was a black metal band formed in 1991 according to themselves. Both their demos “Garden of Eden” and “Melencolia” has been remastered and released on CD and cassette. Even tough not much happened with the band after the mid 90´s, guitarist Frode Helmich Pedersen eventually became a professor in Nordic literature at the university of Bergen. But that´s just peanuts compared to the career of the drummer. Namely, Heavy- Bård of MAGICK TOUCH fame. Here a clip from 1995, at the same venue a few years later.

MOLESTED, sounding like nothing else, perhaps a bit of Incantation, but probably the most brutal death metal band from Arna, just outside of Bergen. Mostly know for their members Øystein G. Brun, later of Borknagard, and drummer Erlend Erichsen, former Gorgoroth-drummer, artist and writer. Their demo “Unborn Woods in Doom” had just been released, and it sounded amazing. In fact, it still does, and you can get a copy of the re-release at our shop at Bryggen. The band signed a year later with short lived Norwegian label Effigy Records, who also released Obtained Enslavement.  Molesteds´s only album, Blod draum, was released in 1995. For some reason I always thought Effigy was french, but now I have learned.   This is a clip from the original Metal Nightl itself!

MORTUIS became my favourite. At least their rehearsal tape “From Hades” that also was fresh from the cassette double decker and xeroxer at the time. This band featured Krell who eventually started up Whoredom Rife and did vocals in Bloodthorn. Trønder-royalty in other words. According to Krell, Mortuis folded when the guitarist and songwriter decided to stop playing metal and head in a techno direction, but what a cool tape!

AETERNUS and ANCIENT you all now about more or less, as both are still in the game. Aeternus released their ninth album back in 2023 and recently returned from a European tour. Ancient has released 7 albums since their debut in 1994, the last album came out in 2016 and in the last years they have done a few reunion concerts with original drummer and singer Grimm. These bands are of course vastly different, but they came out of the same circle. Both bands sharing a few session and live members in the early, or eerily howling, years.