Skate Or Decay Fest. Two Days. Eighteen Bands. A Weekend That Took Time To Process.

It took me over two months to sit down and write this. Not because I didn’t want to. Not because the festival wasn’t worth talking about. It’s because Skate Or Decay was the kind of weekend that hits you in the moment, then hits you again when you finally catch your breath and go through everything you shot. There was so much happening so fast that trying to force a recap right away would have felt empty. I needed time for the noise to settle before I could see the bigger picture.

Two stages. Constant movement. Bands switching out before the sweat dried on the floor. Eighteen sets that all demanded attention in different ways. I spent most of the weekend running between the indoor room and the outdoor stage with almost no time to reset my gear between sets. It was nonstop, but that’s the kind of pace that makes shooting live music worth it. You get pulled into the flow and you stay there until the last light drops.

Day 1. A Reminder Of How Much This Scene Has To Offer

The festival brought a mix of bands from Lethbridge, Alberta, and beyond, which made the first day hit with a lot of variety. Punk into Death Metal. Metalcore into Doom. Power Death into whatever impossible category Built To Decay live in these days. Seeing that range packed into one night showed how wide the spectrum of heavy music is in this part of Alberta and how many bands are out there pushing hard.

Some sets were so high energy that it was hard to stay behind the lens. Some bands pulled in the room with personality as much as sound. Some hit me harder looking at the photos afterward than they did in the moment. That is the beauty of shooting live shows. Half the moments didn’t hit me until I was going through the photos later. That’s when everything came back and I realized how fast the weekend actually moved.

By the time Balrogath wrapped up the night, the room felt cooked and my legs were done. It was the kind of finish that tells you day one delivered. And that was only day one.

Day 2. Faster Pace. Heavier Crowds. Nothing Left In The Tank.

Day two came out swinging. Pollux threw everything they had into their opening set. The Devil’s Sons rolled in with rockabilly swagger. Vargouille brought tabletop fantasy to life with crushing hardcore. Asylum of Ashes and Glasscult made things uncomfortably heavy in the best possible way.

The photography on day two felt different. Louder crowd. Faster energy. More bodies moving. I had to decide set by set whether I wanted to stay safe behind the barricade or get swallowed by the pit for a better angle. It was the kind of day where your lens gets sweat on it and you don’t even care because the shot is worth it.

Slaughterhouse Effect, Citizen Rage, Fire To The Grave, and Vibes shut down the weekend with some of the heaviest sets of the whole festival. Those four back to back drained whatever energy anyone had left.

The Bands That Made Skate Or Decay What It Was:

Final Thoughts

Skate Or Decay was two days of noise, sweat, effort, and community. Not every band was from Lethbridge, but every band added something to the atmosphere here. It proved how stacked the Alberta heavy scene really is. Different styles. Different cities. A crowd that actually shows up when you give them a weekend worth attending.

This one took me a while to get down, mostly because I didn’t want to rush something that deserved more than a quick blurb. This festival deserved more than a quick recap. The festival needed some time to sit with me, the same way I needed time to recover after shooting eighteen bands in two days.

If they’ll have me back next year, I’ll be ready for another weekend of loud music and the sore shoulders that come with shooting two full days straight.