An underground metal and punk festival based in Barrow is getting ready to put on its most ambitious event yet.
Funeral Fest has been running for several years showcasing metal at its most extreme and obscure, bringing internationally renowned bands and rising talent to the town.
This year, metal legends Raging Speedhorn, who recently toured with Skindred, and Discharge – who famously had Metallica cover one of their songs – will be headlining the event.
While the festival normally runs for one day, this year, it will take place over two, with a total of 20 acts performing at The Soccer Bar on June 30 and July 1.
Organiser Matthew Davidson, 34, from Ulverston said: “It’s all very much grassroots – we’re just doing what we love and putting on good music that we want to see around here.
“I am quietly confident about this year, more than anything else I’m going to enjoy it myself! But I’m feeling encouraged, we had a one day festival last year with a big headliner which was quite a success, so this year we decided to up the game and have two major headliners.
“There’s definitely that sense of hoping the gamble will pay off and I think it will, the amount of people talking about it and the amount of positivity about it so far has been great.”
Other acts performing include Derbyshire thrashers Devastator, Bristolian Death metallers Seprevation, Yorkshire Doom metallers Iron Void and London based theatrical grindcore act, Basement Torture Killings.
Representing death metal, Barrow’s Repulsive Vision, Hartlepool’s Vulgar Dissection and Didcot’s Public Execution will perform and representing black metal, Lancaster’s Andracca, Manchester’s WB and both Reign of Erebus and Völniir from Yorkshire will also play.
Doom metal bands including Glasgow’s Dead Otter and Rotherham’s Bodach alongside metalcore and punk band Midlands based Bury Me Where I Fall and locals Cash for Silence and Wendigo will also attend.
After-show performances for both nights include Merseyside 80s Metal cover band Hollywood Ratz and Cumbria’s premier tribute to Lemmy and Co, Motorbeard.
Matthew, who is also the guitarist for Repulsive Vision and bassist for Swedish metal band Wombbath, added: “I think in Cumbria in general there’s not many people doing this kind of thing – but especially in South Cumbria.
“It doesn’t tend to have much at least in the extreme side that we’re looking at and with us locals its a two hour journey to Manchester to find this sort of thing elsewhere.
“What has surprised us this year more than anything else is how many people live locally and interested in this stuff but haven’t been to these gigs yet. I actually had one of my neighbours ask if I was going to see Discharge at this gig and I said I’m actually the organiser would you believe!
“What I love about that is you can’t really judge a book by its cover and the amount of people living in this area that are excited about it has been the biggest shock for me.”
Matthew added that he hoped the festival would also benefit the local economy by bringing people from outside the county to visit Barrow and its surrounding areas.
He said: “We’ve thought a lot about the local area and I have friends who come to every single gig and they love that we’re bringing this stuff here – but the vast majority of ticket sales are outside of Barrow.
“We’ve sold tickets to people from Glasgow, London, Wales and Bristol and these are all people who would likely never come to Barrow and we’re going to try and encourage them to visit Ulverston or Windemere while they’re up here to hopefully help the local economy.”
After nearly 11 years of running the festival and growing it from a small gig featuring just five bands – Matthew said that music was a hugely important part of his life.
He said: “I’ve been in bands since I was an early teenager and I always loved how close knit the scene was and I wanted to get back to that. So I did the first festival nearly 11 years ago with five bands.
“I actually decided to give up running these festivals a few years back and at the time I thought well as my last one I’ll have a Funeral Fest as the final one and it ended up being our most successful festival with Skelethal headlining.
“Then after COVID hit, it inspired us to properly revive the fest again with everyone really wanting to return to live music again and now here we are.
“To the detriment of everything else music has a huge place in my life, the community gave me a great sense of belonging and because it’s very niche you tend to find people who are very very deeply into it.
“I want people to not be scared off by it. I know some people might think it’ll be a scary metal event with a lot of long haired people – but I want them to discover the community and the friendly nature of the people in it and if this year’s successful, we’ll hopefully get to have a 2024 event too.”
Tickets are available from funeralfest23.bigcartel.com for £30 for a weekend or £16 for a day ticket.
