Paganfest America V - Korpiklaani, Turisas, ChthoniC, Varg, Winterhymn - 4/25/14 at Empire, Springfield, VA and 4/26/14 at Ottobar, Baltimore, MD

So for some reason, Paganfest had two shows in my area this year - and as it's folk metal's biggest party of the year and I had to party with my best folk metal pit buds, and some were going to one show and some to the other...I had no choice but to go to both XD In order to make that happen, I had to take my kid along to avoid asking for two nights of babysitting, and thus, she accompanied me to the show at Empire :) (If someone has a pic of us, pls send, cause I didn't manage to get one! We were both wearing Turisas warpaint and my daughter got so many compliments for it :) )

Anyway, I'm just going to write both shows up together, cause no way I have time to write two separate reviews.

Unfortunately, both nights I missed the locals due to traffic. Cause of some silly sportsing event it took me twice as long as normal to get to Baltimore >.< So unfortunately, I missed Demiz who are awesome but did not even want to open for Paganfest XD And also Yesterday's Saints and March to Victory. Grrr!

But at least I got there in time for the first touring band. This year's US band on the tour was Winterhymn from Cinncinnati, Ohio. I didn't have a chance to listen to them before the show, so I was pleasantly surprised to find they had a solid sound, with a fiddle prominent in their sound, gruff vocals done by the portly rhythm guitarist and energetic guitars (including some galloping basslines). They started out sounding more Vikingy, but got more folky as they went on, peaking with the drinking and dancing song "Ale Song." They were a good start to the night both nights, with a decent pit going.

Next up was Varg from Germany (no relation to Varg Vikernes; the word means "wolf" in Old Norse and these guys just like wolves, apparently; the frontman kept calling their music "wolf metal"). I saw a song or two of them when they supported Eluveitie a couple years back, but didn't really get into them then. However, I was quite impressed this time. Especially at tiny Ottobar, they filled the venue with their racing drums, heavy guitars and the singer's harsh vocals, somewhere between a bark and a death growl, and some outright hellish roars in "Nagelfar." It was mostly dark, headbangable stuff with a few folkier moments in "Rotkäppchen" and "Guten Tag." My kid got into them and danced and jumped around a little.

I was perhaps most excited to see blackened-death-metal-with-folk-tidbits band ChthoniC (閃靈)  from Taiwan. I feel like they're one of the most original things lately in the international metal scene and the broad spectrum of metal-that-involves-folksy-bits. At Empire, I went up close with my kid, but she didn't let me concentrate much on staring at Doris, or at Freddy playing the erhu (Chinese fiddle). Besides, the sound up at the front was all distorted. In general, the kid did not like them much - I guess they were a bit dark and heavy for a five-year-old, more brutality than fun. It was disappointing, too, that Freddy played the erhu very little; most of the erhu and other folk instruments were piped in.

At Ottobar I got to headbang to my heart's content and hear them clearly from a bit further back (and I think I went in the pit for "Takao"). They seemed more confident and professional this time than when I saw them touring with Arch Enemy and Freddy's English seemed better, too. At both shows he proudly announced that the band was from "the country where the people have occupied Congress!" and interacted with the crowd a bit more than at the last show. They played mostly from their 2013 album Bu-tík, with just "Oceanquake" and "Takao" from (the previous album) Takasago Army, and nothing earlier. It would have been nice to hear something older, but I wasn't terribly disappointed since I'm more familiar with their newer stuff anyway, and it has a more polished, epic sound. Perhaps if they get up to a headline tour, they'll be able to play a greater variety, as well as some hidden gems like "Resurrection Pyre" from Bu-tík, which starts off with such an awesome guitar riff! After their set I talked to Doris and Freddy for a few moments by their merch table, and like every Taiwanese person, Doris told me I should go to Taiwan for the snacks! XD It's totally why I want to go, too. I almost got to pick up the Taiwanese version of Bu-tík for just $10 but I waited too long and they sold out! :(

Turisas-painted me with Doris and Freddy of ChthoniC!

After that great performance, the night was only half over; next was Turisas from Finland, second band of the night in red and black face paint and inventors of "battle metal." (Just kidding, I totally don't think that's an actual genre.) At Empire my kid and I enjoyed them from the counter at the side while finishing off some chicken fingers (her bedtime snack, as she fell asleep several songs from the end of the set); I couldn't wait to push people around to them at Ottobar! They came out to "Ten More Miles" ("Tu-REE-sas! You can count on us!") dressed in their new barbarian-biker-punk attire. I'm one of those old fans who is gonna complain that I preferred their old songs and their old barbarian look. But the new songs actually sounded ok live - epic choruses and some folksy bits courtesy of (fiddler) Olli - except "For Your Own Good" which was rather bland. (Song has a pretty good message, though; go read the lyrics.) And they actually played a great mix, with some epic old songs thrown in - "Rex Regi Rebellis" and "Miklagard Overture" - as well as the crowd-pleasers like "Battle Metal" and "Stand Up and Fight." Not only that, but, by popular demand as explained by Mathias, they played "Rasputin" both nights! Not unlike the last time, I got the crowd chanting at second show, cause damn if they were not going to play it when I could actually be in the pit. They actually went off and came back on to play that and "Stand Up and Fight," one of the few times I've seen a second slot band do an encore. At Empire, Mathias said they would play a different set at Ottobar, but this was not the case - they played the same songs in a different order, and there was perhaps one more song at Empire but I forget what it was. I was totally satisfied after their set, cause they played so many good songs, the pit was great, and the new songs didn't suck so that wasn't too bad.

I do wonder what they think of the fact that the song everyone wants to hear them play (and their most played song on Spotify, too) is "Rasputin," which is a cover XD

We left the Empire show after Turisas cause my kid was literally asleep. I wasn't too bummed, as I'd seen the bands I really wanted to see, and I would see Korpiklaani the next night anyway.

At Ottobar, I was worried that Korpiklaani wouldn't be very inspiring after Turisas - great respect for them, but they just don't get me as amped. After a little ginger beer, though, things were great, and Korpiklaani's set was a lot of fun, in spite of it being surely after midnight by the time they started (I left my watch and phone in the car to keep them safe from the pit). I think they played a lot from their latest album Manala - a lot of very folky, mythology-steeped songs with some joik vocals thrown in (yes!), and it seemed like less of the drink-themed songs than usual. They did play "Vodka," "Ievan Polkka," "Wooden Pints" and "Happy Little Boozer" to get party going, though. At Ottobar, they played "Pellonpekko" as the first song of the encore because D.P. kept shouting for it. In spite of recognizing hardly any of the songs, I had a great time dancing to the folky parts, and pushing people around a little for the heavy parts. (In general, the pits were a little fast and brutal for me, so I tried to stay near the edge.) There was a good mix of moshing and dancing in the pit, which has been a little harder to find recently around here. I was not quite as dead afterward as at Finntroll, though, so I must have been holding back a little XD

Personally, I thought this was the best Paganfest so far. Winterhymn started things off great, Varg and ChthoniC blasted our faces off, Turisas played an epic selection of songs and Korpiklaani's set was so much fun. I can hardly remember another show where I've had such a solid night of enjoyment. I know some people came especially for this band or that band but I was lucky enough to find something to enjoy in each of them \m/

Next show: Primal Fear, tonight! And then Negura Bunget, on 5/10.

Eluveitie, Wintersun, Varg - 12/19/12 at Mr. Small's Theatre, Millvale (Pittsburgh), PA

Wintersun's first ever US tour! I think we would even have driven to New York to see them, or even further if we had to, but as it was, the closest stop to us was in Pittsburgh, PA. The show was very well attended - several of the other tour stops were sold out, but I'm not sure if this one was. The venue seemed to have about the same capacity as Jaxxpire (a couple hundred people) but with a different layout. More on that later. The drive up to Pittsburgh, although long, was not bad because of the interesting terrain/roads/things on the side of the road, the mountain views and the proliferation of Sheetz along the way (I think we stopped at Sheetz four times on the round trip).I would definitely do it again for a group as phenomenal as Wintersun.

The show started at 7:30, but due to traffic and walking from a distant parking spot, we got there around 7:45, and then still had to wait in line to get in. Mr. Small's gave a new meaning to the term "Metal Church" - it literally was a big old brick church that had been turned into a concert venue (and recording studio and "funhouse"?). Inside, it was just one big cavernous room (former church after all) with a stage at one end and a bar at the other. On one side was the merch, and on the other a stand selling french bread pizza (every now and then during Wintersun's set, a garlicky smell would waft over the audience).

Because of our tardiness, we only caught the last song by Varg. They sounded much better live than on their recordings - more intense and more folk melody/vibe. It was too bad we missed most of their set.

Wintersun was great as expected. They played mostly songs from their newest album, but also a few old ones. They didn't play any of the "new" ones that they've played before like "The Way of the Fire." There were pits for most of their songs, with an especially wild pit for "Battle Against Time." I noticed that that song in particular sounds a lot like Ensiferum - not a huge surprise since Jari used to be the singer for Ensiferum.

Eluveitie was also great. They played the entirety of their latest album, Helvetios. I was pretty stoked about that since it meant I'd get to hear some of favorite songs from that albums, "Helvetios" and "Luxtos," which were songs that I didn't think they would play live otherwise. But I was also worried about having enough energy for the pit, because there are sooo many furious fighting songs on that album. In the end, I didn't go in the pit for every song, or stay in for the whole song when I did. There wasn't much of a folk pit in the beginning, but I managed to get people dancing, and we did have a few good jig circles, as well as pits full of jigging pairs. It was a fun time.

There was a wall of death (for "Meet the Enemy"?), which Chrigel invited with the words "I want it to look like fucking Braveheart!" I was behind some people in the wall of death, and during the crazy pit immediately after, a guy took me by the shoulders and literally pushed me out of the pit. The audience actually set up a second wall of death during the same song. A tall girl in gray sweater actually took charge of it! I wanted to say hi to her but she disappeared as soon as the encore was over.

Oh yeah, so after playing all the songs from Helvetios, the band left the stage, but they came back and played four more songs, including "Everything Remains...," "Inis Mona" and "Tegernako," energetic songs with lots of moshing and dancing, and a little sing-along for "Inis Mona." Not only was there a mosh pit for "Inis Mona," there were pits for slower sadder songs like "Rose for Epona" and "Alesia" which just made me shake my head. (But the same big guys who were moshing during the verses were singing along to the choruses XD) Chrigel apparently thought we were an awesome audience, and at the end of the show, he gave his necklace to a girl in the front row, so that she would remember him :P

The show was totally worth the trip up to Pittsburgh, not just to see Wintersun, but also to see Eluveitie with such a great crowd. I had almost no complaints (besides that the pit should have been more folky); it was an almost perfect show.

Next show: Enslaved, at the end of this month