When you think of a music festival for goth / industrial metal, a beautiful picturesque castle on a pond in North Jersey may not be your first thought. However, the folks from VampireFreaks.com have done just that. They put on a very unique and entertaining annual festival at the Sheraton castle hotel in Parsippany, NJ. This year had over 35 bands, over 100 vendors, multiple food trucks, club events, costume contest, sideshow performers, and more!
Written by Stephen Moss / New Rock City
This was my first time attending, and honestly, I’m more into punk and pop punk so I had only heard of one band on the line up. Since this isn’t really my scene, I wasn’t sure how much fun I’d have. To my surprise, I loved it! I even discovered a band that I liked enough to get all their songs on Apple Music after their set. The two stand out bands to me were Stabbing Westward and Vision Video.
Stabbing Westward:
They were the headliner for Saturday. This is a band that has had major success throughout their career. They ruled MTV in the 90’s. Their song, “The Thing I Hate,” is the theme song to Sony Playstation’s smash hit, Duke Nukem Time to Kill. They have had two albums go gold. The band had some internal struggles and broke up in 2002. Christopher Hall started the band, “The Dreaming” which still had the soul and style of Stabbing Westward and in 2015, Stabbing Westward reunited.
I have been a fan of both Stabbing Westward and The Dreaming for a long time but never had the chance to see them live. Dark Force Fest 2024 was my opportunity, and they were amazing! You can tell they are seasoned pros because, not once, but twice, the electric breaker blew out during their set. Rather than panicking and freaking out, the lead singer Christopher Hall kept his cool and at one point, he even went up to the mic and started singing a song a cappella. The crowd loved this! They started to clap and sing along with him. In addition to the multiple power outages, his mic cord was loose and would unplug unless he manually held it together while he was singing. Despite all the potential set backs, Stabbing Westward rolled with the punches and put on a fantastic show! If you have not yet seen this band live, I highly recommend you do so. The band is on tour now.
Vision Video:
This band reminded me of a modern version of The Cure, with a bit of the attitude and the progressive political banter I’m used to hearing at punk shows. The band was very energetic, had lots of interaction with the crowd, and the music was really good. This is a perfect example of why going to live shows is so important. I had no previous knowledge of this band before I saw them at Dark Force Fest 2024. After seeing them, I got out my phone and added their albums to my library in Apple Music. Vision Video are currently on tour and I fully plan to see them again when they come back to the NYC area. If you like The Cure or the later albums of AFI, check this band out.
Meeting new people, discovering new bands, seeing all the great merchandise from all the vendors, and the fantastic food trucks made for an incredible time at Dark Fest 2024. I can’t wait to do it again next year.
DARK FORCE FEST online: https://darkforcefest.com/
Full Photo Gallery of music performance and festival attendees below. Photography all rights reserved by Stephen Moss / New Rock City.
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