Sunday's wake up call came from Holmgard and beyond from those Finnish battle metallers Turisas who only had time for a petit set but hearing 'Battle Metal' was the perfect alarm call I needed.

It was time for another quick visit into Clisson because I fancied a good full filling cordon bleu meal at a restaurant with an a la carte menu. Many had the same idea and the village was full of fellow metalheads, one cafe in the square had a death metal band grunting away much to the bemusement of the locals.

We got back to the festival in time to see Gus G widdling away on a solo before his band Firewind broke into the sassy 'Falling To Pieces' earning themselves an encore with 'The Fire And The Fury'. Gus G of course would be back later in the evening performing with the Double O.

Next up was Duff McKagan's Loaded who were plying us with some modern day punk, but the crowd didn't really respond until he served up his hors d'oeuvres at the end of his set with the Misfits 'Attitude' and the Guns 'N Roses classic 'It's So Easy' finally whetting their appetite for destruction.

Ghost were playing in the Terrorizer tent and the word has spread about this ghoulish band who play some transcendental ambient music influenced by the dark doomy sounds of early Blue Oyster Cult. The tent was packed out with many listening from outside. Every song was transfixing including a diverse cover of the Beatles smash 'Here Come The Sun'. George Harrison would be spinning in his grave, but this version is good enough to raise him from the dead. An enlightening set, and one of my favourite bands of the weekend it has to be said.

Having survived the coup d'etat from the Sepultura camp, the Cavalera brothers Max and Igor are brothers in thrash once again with the Cavalera Conspiracy delivering a force majeure set that had steam ascending from the heads of those down the front. Some Sepultura classics were pulled out including the frantic 'Refuse/Resist' and 'Roots Bloody Roots' and they nailbombed it with 'Cockroaches'.

It was then time for a subtle change of pace from Anathema who have totally changed their direction from their early death doomy days and now play some endearing progressive rock that would please fans of Radiohead or Muse. The band certainly seemed to be a lot more popular on foreign soil than they are in their native England.

Mr Big were something else today, this was a performance from a band alive and kicking and blowing out their sonic tapestries from every speaker. The sound was instant and the band was simply astonishing. The 60 minutes allocated to them was perfect for Mr Big with every song played an absolute winner. This was pure showmanship without becoming self-indulgent. It's because of people like Billy Sheehan and Paul Gilbert that I've never learned to play an instrument; I just can't figure out how I'd ever compete with them.

Some heads down no nonsense metal was next on the agenda from the femme fatale and queen of Euro Metal Doro Pesch. It was pretty much the same old set list but no one here was complaining. All we are, all we are we are, we are all Doro fans.

Judas Priest have become a cause celebre recently with the news that original guitarist KK Downing had retired from the band after four decades of service.  So all electric eyes were on his young replacement Richie Faulkner who was tonight playing the generation game with his metal god band mates, and in the words of the mighty Bruce Forsyth ''good game, good game, didn't he do well."   Faulkner was straight out front tonight delivering the goods with suitable aplomb, Glenn Tipton happy to point in his direction and applaud, letting the youngster handle most of the solo's. Rob Halford voice was in fine fettle and the band gave a tour-de-force set of molten painkilling metal from beginning to end.

A rapid fire set that had some surprises 'Never Satisfied' from the debut album 'Rocka Rolla' was given a rare outing as was 'Starbreaker' from their third album 'Sin After Sin', both of which were released before Faulkner was even born.  Rowland and myself were in serious risk of getting rusty from the metal tears that we were crying. Judas Priest were fucking awesome tonight, simply fucking awesome. You've got another thing coming indeed, as the Priest are back, Judas is rising, and they easily took my band of the weekend award.

More beers were needed after that whilst we listened to the symphonic strains of Therion who had a tough job ahead of them following the mighty Priest, but in the je ne sais quoi stakes they were merely okay .The band tonight featured two male and two female singers who literally murdered 'Summer Night City' a cover of the Abba track. This really was a case of Bjorn not again.

It was a bit of a case of deja vu for Ozzy Osbourne as he gave us all the usual tracks like 'I Don't Know' and 'Suicide Solution', but loveable Ozzy as always took joy from cajoling the crowd whilst spraying with foam and barking ''I can't fucking hear you'', and 'let's go fucking crazy'' and so the madness began.  Since having Gus G in the band Ozzy's sound has reverted to a more melodic sound which suits songs like 'Shot In The Dark' and on the face most of the Zakk Wylde era has been pretty much disposed off expect for a couple of slower numbers like 'Road To Nowhere' and 'Mama I'm Coming Home'. But having said that no tracks from last years 'Scream' were performed here tonight either which must annoy Mr G just a smidgen.  The night belonged though to the metal that came out of Birmingham with the earlier Judas Priest classics followed by Ozzy giving us some Black Sabbath via 'War Pigs', 'Iron Man' and sending everyone home on the crazy train with 'Paranoid'.

It was one in the morning and the festival was still going strong. Opeth took a carte blanche approach and played some of their more delicate moments which was just what we needed as we relaxed by a "coal fire", yup you read that correctly a coal fire, and what a perfect way to end our weekend

The 20,000 or so other fans that had gathered en masse this weekend must have all gone home as equally happy, as with over a hundred bands playing over the weekend I didn't hear a bad word about any band except perhaps for the unfortunate missed main stage slot from The Haunted. I'm reliably informed that the festival will return next year at a bigger site.

"Merci beaucoup Hellfest..." It was a blast.

As a footnote the next day at Nantes airport I saw Doro Pesch who was wearing a denim skirt... f'narr f'narr, but I didn't dare to ask her for a photo as after three days of rain, sunshine, sweat and metal i was starting to look and smell like Worzel Gummidge. Even when I returned back home, as I got up to get into the bath, my girlfriend sprayed the seat with an air freshener where I was just seating. Despite enjoying my long hot bath and cleansing myself nothing could wash away the memory of a truly great weekend away.