Nov132009
Heathenfest: Something for Everyone?
Filed under Music by Kim at 5:32 pm on Nov 13 2009
I was pretty impressed with the total variety show that Heathenfest was. The Paganfest shows have been more consistent, maybe a little doomy here and a little more folky there. What you get when you follow the intense military precision and violent rage of Vreid with happy Scotsmen Alestorm and then follow that up with demon-obsessed black metal Belphegor is pretty bipolar. The number of pirate hats I observed in the back bar during the Belphegor set were many.
Without doubt for me the musical highlight of the show was Vreid. Their drummer was so good – you could see how hard he had to work, not in the bad way, but in the was that makes you go, fuck, dude. This was the band that had me so into the music I wasn’t really caring what was going on around me but just experiencing it. I was standing right in front of Ese on guitar and he practically was in the audience half the time, he was so engaged. It was intense. I am going to check out their back catalog though I know some of the lyrical content is plenty challenging. When I saw that the metalsucks commenters all thought that Vreid was the only worthwhile band on the bill I expected not to like them. Wrong!
Alestorm came out next, and the audience was clearly really really into them. Watching the pit for this was pretty amusing. Musically thought I believe by the end of their set I was experiencing a little pirate metal fatigue; they seem to get really loose from the recordings which can be really good, or it can just make it seem like the band is tired. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed a full-out rendition of “Wenches & Mead”, “Captain Morgan’s Revenge”, and of course their most well-known song “Over the Seas”. Their music is meant to be fun, and I think they delivered.
I’ll skip commenting on Belphegor ’cause… yeah. Not my bag.
But I survived because headliners Eluveitie are worth the wait. They embrace the folk-metal blend intelligently and with artfulness, and well, I don’t think any of the other bands on the bill embrace it at all so it’s a completely different experience. They kept a pretty good balance of lighter and heavier songs in their set… oh who am I kidding. I wanted them to skip the more acousticy stuff but the audience seemed to like it and it was a rest for my neck. But they did play SlanÃas Song which pleased me greatly. Meri and Anna’s voices sounded excellent live.
The fest as a whole didn’t blow me away like Paganfest did that time, but it came pretty close. I was surprised that the place wasn’t packed and that the show didn’t sell out. I kind of wonder if it didn’t have something to do with the way the lineup was.
