Antwerpen

When we arrived at Paganfest, the first band, Swashbuckle was just playing one of their last songs already. These fun dressed pirates seemed to have given a funny show, judging on the last part of their show.

They were soon followed by Ex Deo, just like Groelsch (check out the cd review section) I wasn’t really impressed by their cd and found the cd rather boring. That’s why I was impressed by their show in Antwerp. It was a lot better than on cd. It will be forgiven that they used some music that made me think about Sparta and not Rome in the opening of their show

Time for more pirates (they can almost name this tour Piratefest instead of Paganfest!). This time the honour went to the guys from Alestorm. Though I find their music very funny I have to admit that I’ve seen better shows of this band. I guess they had a bad day. I was happy that they finished their show with their cover of Wolves of the Sea since I really enjoy this song!

Since this was an extended show, next up was Einherjer. They’re one of my personal favourites but until now I only saw them on festivals. That’s was I was very exited to see this band, and I have to confess that I enjoyed them a lot more while playing in a venue, than playing on a (big) festival! They played mostly some newer songs and not much of their old work. Happy I also was to hear that they are working on a new album that will probably be released in April 2010, can’t wait! Great band, good show.

Also part of this extended show was Moonsorrow. They started their show with their song Tuleen Ajettu Maa. They skipped some parts of the song but after all they managed to fill for about 20 minutes with this song. After Hello we are Moonsorrow and we have one more song for you” they started to play their song Tulimyrsky which filled the last 20 minutes of the show. Though some people can’t stand these long songs I can’t say anything else than this is Moonsorrow as it should be! Good show!

Next band was Die Apokalyptischen Reiter. Everytime I see this band I’m surprised by the energy of their singer. It’s unbelievable. Ofcourse Reiter played some of their most known songs as Seeman, Revolution, etc. they also played some songs I haven’t heard much often before. But unfortunately their show was the same as always. Though the rubber boats didn’t make it to the audience this time, there were of course some girls on stage etc. I still enjoy this band, but mostly because of their music and not the show.

A bit of a strange band on this tour was Unleashed. While almost every band on this tour is some kind of a happy (folk)metal band, Unleashed plays Death Metal. But the lyrics of Unleashed are about Vikings and are pagan, so they do fit in this tour. I have to confess that I prefer Death Metal more than Folk Metal so I was looking forward to see this band. Though Unleashed played pretty good I got a bit bored after a while, maybe because I wasn’t feeling that good and my stomach did hurt. Unleashed gave away a good show.

Unfortunately the food stand outside of the venue tried to food poison me so I had to miss Korpiklaani (I know we Dutch don’t always get along that well with you Belgians, but this goes a bit far don’t you think? *wink wink*).

All with all, I had a great day, even though I felt worse and worse the longer I was there. It was nice to be at the Paganfest tour again.

By: Ingrid

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