paganfest live

After the U.K. being missed out entirely on the previous Paganfest tour we got a one-off date in London this time around.

Tonight’s festivities were kicked off by Russian band Arkona making their first ever UK appearance which, so it seemed at least, was a major draw for a large percentage of tonight’s crowd. The band’s mix of folk melodies and melodic black metal is fairly standard in the folk metal scene these days, though the folk melodies employed by Arkona have that uniquely Russian feel to them which give them a different slant on this type of thing than their largely Northern European compatriots. The band themselves were tight and powerful and frontwoman Masha Scream can not only pull off her vocals live but also knows how to work a crowd, constantly moving, occasionally with tambourine in hand and getting the crowd going often calling for a response from “my brothers” – and usually getting it as well, even from some of the “campers” who had gone straight to the barrier as soon as the doors opened to get their spot for Finntroll and clearly had no interest in any of the other bands. The only real disappointment with Arkona’s set was how much of their set was pre-recorded, though with so many “traditional” instruments on their recorded work that was unavoidable really and I was pleasantly surprised that the band didn’t just stick to songs from their recently released Goi, Rode, Goi! Album despite their short thirty minute set time. Judging by the crowd reaction for them tonight it shouldn’t be too long before we see Arkona invading our shores once again, hopefully with a longer set time.

Following a set as well received as Arkona’s was tonight is never easy and tonight that task fell to Germany’s Varg, who have been rotating the first two slots with Arkona throughout the tour. I have to admit that I’d never actually heard any of Varg’s music before tonight and while they were certainly entertaining live, with plenty of happy clappy folk rhythms to bounce about to interspersed with some decent thrashy riffing and a frontman who, once again, laid to rest the myth of Germans having no sense of humour with his banter (“this is our last song tonight – and you will enjoy it!”) they never quite threw off the shackles of their very obvious influences. Perhaps going onstage adorned in red and black “warpaint” had something to do with it but as entertaining as the band were they just came across like a Happy Shopper version of Turisas to me and while they weren’t bad they couldn’t follow Arkona and unless the band manage to find their own identity there’s nothing at all to differentiate themselves from the ever increasing hordes of folk metal bands.

After Varg came probably the most divisive band of the tour in Austria’s Dornenreich. Again, I’m not overly familiar with the band’s recorded work but their largely downbeat, somewhat avant-garde take on folk inflected black metal mixed with atmospheric rock was startlingly different to anything else offered by any of the other bands of the line-up. They’re certainly not a “party band” by anyone’s standards and those who just wanted a drunken jig were left either completely bemused or just completely uninterested (though it’s interesting to note that there was still quite a few “campers” down at the barrier despite their obvious disinterest in the band’s set). In truth Dornenreich are a bit of an odd band anyway, not really fitting into any neat boxes and while I enjoyed them personally, and will certainly be checking out their back catalogue more extensively, this was perhaps not the right bill for them and it would be nice to see them playing with similarly progressive / avant-garde bands where I feel more people would appreciate them.

Though technically Finntroll were tonight’s headliners Swiss band Eluveitie, whose name I still have to check several times to make sure I’ve spelt correctly every time I type it, had the same sixty minute stage time. In all honesty I find a large part of the band’s recorded work to sound rather confused, almost as though the “metal” and “folk” parts of their music were written separately and haphazardly jammed together in the studio later... and yet I have to admit that I’ve always enjoyed them whenever I’ve seen them live; somehow everything just seems to gel together better in the live environment than in the studio one for them. The happy, bouncy melodies typical of modern folk metal are all present and correct but there’s a sense of aggression in Eluveitie’s sound that many similar bands lack, with a clear influence from At the Gates’ legendary Slaughter of the Soul album shining through quite often and this aggression leads to some fairly sizeable pits breaking out for the majority of their set. I just hope that they manage to find that magical ingredient (I’m loathe to use the term “X Factor” these days for fear of conjuring up images of that purveyor of anti-music Cowell with his trousers pulled up around his neck) that they have live and manage to capture it on record one day.

Much like Varg had a tough task following up Arkona, after how well received Eluveite’s set had been Finntroll had a tough task to avoid their headline set being overshadowed. Unlike relative newcomers Varg though, Finntroll have five excellent albums of material to build a set from and have been one of the leading lights of the folk metal scene for over a decade now. Having said that though, despite how well the songs from the recently released Nifelvind fitted in amongst old favourites and the party atmosphere prevalent both in the crowd and onstage (the band’s crew indulging in what was surely some kind of in-joke at one point by presenting frontman Vreth with a “present” – which turned out to be a box of Disney princess things!) there was just a little something missing tonight. Not that the performance was bad by any means, far from it but perhaps people were a little partied out by the time Finntroll came onstage or maybe the truncated sixty minute set allocated to Finntroll forced them to cut their usual set down somewhat but I couldn’t help but think how much more powerful the band had been on their previous headline tour of the UK last September. By most band’s standards it would still be a fine show but, for me at least, Finntroll fell a little short of their best tonight.

All in all though the return of Paganfest to these shores can only be a welcome thing, here’s hoping for a more extensive run of UK dates next time.

Neil Woodfin

by Neil Woodfin