With a whole host of festivals in the UK being a little bit on the light side in terms of quality line ups this year it was time to look at what our European cousins were up to.  For years now Wacken has been raising the bar, but many others are starting to follow suit, Graspop, Keep It True, Masters Of Rock, Metal Camp, Roskilde and the Sweden Rock Festival have all been growing in reputation but it was the Hellfest in France that was the crème de la crème for Jimmy Rowland and I this year, with a mouth watering line up that made us take a sojourn over the channel for a weekend of heavy metal mania.

Flying into Nantes late on Thursday night we shared a taxi with a Russian metalhead for the short 27km journey to Clisson. Our first rendezvous was to collect our press passes and then set up our tents at the stroke of midnight. It was no fun setting up a new tent in the darkness but once the job was done it was time to celebrate with a little drinkie. Other Hell-festers were already a few hours ahead of us in the drinking stakes and it's never fun to join in at a late stage when you're sober, so we decided to stay put for the evening in our cosy little patch next to the vineyard (Which incidentally was also very handy for a early hours pee - it's nice to know that I'm doing my bit for contributing to the French wine industry.) A bottle of vodka was soon polished off whilst sharing many stories, and I laughed so much I almost châteaux-ed my pants as we slowly drifted off to slumber.

I was awoken at 11am by the roar of Valient Thorr. Our tent was perfectly pitched to hear the bands loud and clear whilst we tried to do our best to unscramble our brains and come back to life. Before finally entering the festival main arena, we had a mercy mission to stock up on food, wine and fags, especially fags as you couldn't buy any cigarettes inside the arena itself and under French law now you can't even get them in the local supermarket, so it was a 20 minute walk into Clisson village to find a tobacconist.

The job was simple, get into Clisson, get our groceries, return in time for The Answer as we promised the band themselves that we would watch them and hopefully meet them after their show in the V.I.P area after chatting to them at Nantes airport as we had all been on the same plane.

Clisson itself is a picturesque village complete with a medieval castle and church built in the 13th century with some scenic untouched views from the gothic bridge. In the village square we found a nice little cafe that served steak chavel, which went down very nicely with a couple of beers. Whilst there the heavens opened, and 'Answer Time' was soon approaching, but the question was ''One more beer and stay dry?'' We both nodded in agreement as we had both seen The Answer deliver an excellent set just a few weeks before at the Borderline.

Alter Bridge were on at 4pm and I was looking forward to eventually seeing them live, I asked Jimmy ''shall we have another?'' ''No" came the reply, "lets go and see some bands'', and with that the skies opened once again with yet another downpour. "Shall we have another?'' I asked a second time'', ''Yes'' came the reply. So Alter Bridge were unfortunately given a miss but at least we did stay dry for the rest of the weekend as things really brightened up the following two days.

With time now getting on we got a taxi back to the festival and dumped our groceries in the tents getting into the main arena just in time for The Cult. I bumped into a friend from England who told me that cigarettes were actually on sale in the VIP bar..... Aaaaaarrrrgggghhhh!!!  The Cult played a metal friendly set full of all their greatest hits. It was the most enjoyable I've ever seen The Cult although Ian Astbury is still the most humourless soul I've ever known front a band. At the end of the set Billy Duffy trashed the stage gear and threw the drums into the pit. Yeah really groovy baby!

There are two main stages sitting side by side at Hellfest a bit like Reading Festival used to be before it went all indie, and the changeover is no more than ten minutes. Punk legends The Exploited were soon prepared to beat the bastards with anarchic anthems and I couldn't understand what Wattie was screaming but I'm sure he was angry.  Their great set included  single 'Dead Cities', which suddenly reminded me of Nantes at ten in the evening.

It was now time for some heavy sludginess with Down, who duly blitzed the Hellfest crowd with some of the heaviest stoner riffs know to humanity, and stone the crows if they weren't joined at the end by members of EyeHateGod and Corrosion Of Conformity burying us all in smoke.

Iggy and the Stooges are an exhilarating live band that searched and then destroyed the Hellfest on its opening night. Billed as headliners but going on before Rob Zombie, Iggy Pop is a man growing old disgracefully, spending as much time in the audience as he did on stage. The Hellfest was turned into one big fun house.  'I Wanna Be Your Dog' was the song of the day with Iggy Pop baring his behind to all at the end. 'No Fun'? This was the complete opposite.

After such a pulsating set I needed to quench my thirst whilst Morbid Angel read out their Immortal Rites returning stage front for Rob Zombie. Now Zombie may have a cool theatrical stage show but there's too much electronic beats going on to give his songs any real depth for me. Once I'd heard 'More Human Than Human' it was time to find the Rock Hard tent for some Possessed and for me to hand the writing over to Jim for the first time this weekend

Although Saturday was undoubtedly the day for thrash at this year's Hellfest, thrashers were able to get an early treat tonight in the Rock Hard tent as US death/thrash legends Possessed put in a highly welcome appearance. Only original vocalist Jeff Bacerra remains from the line-up that delivered the seminal 'Seven Churches' album, but the likes of 'The Exorcist', 'March To Die' and 'Death Metal' went down a treat. Bacerra is of course confined to a wheelchair these days following a shooting incident a number of years ago, but he wheeled himself around the stage like a Tasmanian devil, and delivered the songs with the same demonic passion of those early days.

With the music going on until well past 2am and the choices of In Flames, Mayhem and Monster Magnet on offer, we conceded that Iggy Pop and the local French vintage had already won the day and it was time for us to return to our tents to open another bottle for a relaxed night of wine and cheese.