Velnias: OK, scratch that, Chicago can more than hold her own. I saw this trio open for Wolves in the Throne Room a few months back, and they were good, but not nearly as good as this. I’m not sure what the difference was, maybe it was the fact that they were backlit only in blue and candlelight. Stringing all the songs together without a break also helped build that powerful atmosphere. So yeah, why couldn’t Opeth have made music like this after their first two albums, instead of getting all prog and dorky?

Chaos Moon: The first real amateur-feeling band of the fest. Falsetto screams of evil, blast beats, and grrrrr! They were ok when they stopped blasting and grooved for a bit, but they didn’t do that nearly often enough.

Oakhelm: A pretty straight Viking metal band from the PacNW. Fairly aggressive, but still with some ale-swinging moments. Good (particularly the bass-playing frontman), but not quite major league. They had recently suffered another Heathen casualty, and thus had a replacement-guitarist who had only two rehearsals under his belt. He did a darn good job considering that, but did lose his place a couple times, so I’d want to see them again at full-strength before passing judgment.

Nechochwen: Solo acoustic guitarist from Appalachia who did 3 mini-sets over in the bar. He did an amazing job persevering under nearly impossible conditions (competing with sound checks in the main room and drunken revelers in the bar), and those who made the effort to listen were justly rewarded. In contrast to the Scots from Ohio or the Norse from Mexico, Nechochwen fits the ethos of Heathen Crusade perhaps better than anyone. Though the songs are purely instrumental, his introductions revealed that they are inspired by his own geographical and cultural heritage: Native American and early European-American history are frequent themes. Who would’ve thought I’d learn about the Gnadenhutten Massacre at a metal festival? It’s too bad we couldn’t hear these songs played outside around a campfire, but it was still a great addition to the fest.

Wolven Ancestry: By their name and Canadian origins, I was expecting a more natural and organic form of black metal rather than the keyboard-heavy sound they presented. They did have a big presence, particularly the vocalist who donned a fur cape and a horned wolf’s-head headpiece, and they were musically competent if not especially remarkable. Another between-song growler, but unlike the Grand Demise of Civilization guy, this guy was more comical because he was growling about such evil things as their merch sales.

Metsatoll: This is the kind of band that I go to Heathen Crusade to see; in a 40-minute tour de force, they defined what the festival is all about. They were HCIII’s Mael Mordha: a little-known band dug up by the HC guys from a small European country (Estonia in this case) who come out with such energy, power, and joy that they had the crowd eating out of their hand halfway through the first song. In addition to that HC spirit, they also had their unique folk instrumentation (bagpipe-thing, flute-thing, zither-thing (kantele?), and drum-thing), and multi-part vocals, but really the key to their music is the incredible rhythmic punch they have in their sound. It also helped that the lead-singer/bass-player had both the look and charm of “Wolf” from American Gladiators, and he had us singing “Hey-Ya!” in a way that would put Andre 3000 to shame. Best band of the fest.

Woods of Ypres: A special set consisting of “Your Ontario Town Is A Burial Ground” (the awesome standout track from their new album), followed with the complete 5 songs of “Against the Seasons”, their first release. I actually like “Pursuit of the Sun…” the most, so it was too bad not to get anything from that, but it was still a good intense set. For such a DIY-band, their presentation is surprisingly professional, but not in a plastic way. For some reason I kept being reminded of Isis. Maybe it’s because mainman David Gold has a vague aura of Aaron Turner about him, or maybe it’s the sexy Milo Ventiglimia bass-player, or maybe it’s just the three guitars.

Moonsorrow: Finally for the headliner, the crew unbolted the band members’ legs from the stage. Although Metsatoll and Woods of Ypres had started some movement, the Moonsorrow guys ran around more than every previous band combined. That, in addition to their barely-seen banner and privileged use of the 3 green lights made it obvious that these guys were the real pros. Though again, that surprised me a bit, because I had assumed their unconventional songs would have kept them from quite developing that Wacken-circuit level of polish. Unfortunately they didn’t play any 30-minute songs, but I’m probably the only one who would have been made happy by that. Beyond that, their set wasn’t quite as familiar or catchy as I was expecting, though it came on strong towards the end. And it’s always good to see the whole band (even the drummer) chipping in on vocals. So, a worthy closer, but I think among the headliners I’d take Ancient Rites, which I wouldn’t have guessed going in.

Overall: The lights, never Station 4’s strong point, were especially poor on the second day for the early bands; as I said, I don’t think we even saw a green one light up until Moonsorrow (unless this was a requirement of theirs?) In contrast (and much more importantly), the sound was top-notch for the whole fest. Only occasionally would there be a low guitar or something, but by-and-large, every single band sounded excellent. And the schedule was hit nearly to the minute. After the success of the Pagan Fest tour earlier in the year, I had wondered whether the rising tide would lift all Viking boats. I think the answer must be no, since attendance seemed similar to HCII, meaning 300 attendees would be pushing it. But I think attendance was stronger throughout all bands this time, though that was surely helped by the later start-time on Saturday. Anyhow, another great festival, and if there is a IVth Crusade, I’m pretty sure I’ll be there.

Lunarium: First, yes, they have dedicated sword-bearer in the band. Well, in addition to swords, he also bore various Halloween decorations, including a skeleton and a giant troll. Everyone else was kitted out in their best Scottish/Renaissance-Faire gear. Luckily the singer owned up to the Spinal-Tap-ishness of it all. The best moment was when he was digging around in a rabbit-skin belt-pouch: “Next time, I need a better place to keep my guitar picks!” Musically, it was folk-metal in the Falconer vein. Lead singer was actually quite good, and their 3-part harmonies were some of the best moments. So a fun early band, and good for the fest, but you could tell they were from Ohio and not Edinburgh.

Ulveheim: If you can have Scot-lovers from Ohio, I guess you can have Odin-lovers from Mexico, right? They seemed good enough, incorporating some Viking choruses into their thrashy death metal, but I left after a few songs to grab some dinner. If they would have sung about Aztec warriors and their death-sports instead, I might have stuck around.

Inquisition: Two members, a croaking vocalist/guitarist and a pot-bellied drummer, heavily corpsepainted, playing headbanging rock’n'roll thinly disguised as black metal: must be Immortal, right? Nope, it’s another I-band (and not “I” either!) This, is Inquisition. Anyhow, Immortal is so good that even an Immortal-clone is still pretty awesome. Hair was flying furiously throughout the audience for their set, and they were the biggest draw of the night. Not much more to say about a band where one guy is hidden behind the drumkit and the other is tied to the microphone most of the time, but they rocked hard.

Ancient Rites: It took them 20 years to make it to this continent, and along the way, they lost a drummer and nearly lost a singer to some sort of exploding skin infection. But like true metal warriors, they soldiered on, flying in the drums from a tape, and beating back the infection. They were also short a bass-player, but it seems this may be normal for them? Their odd mix of catchy, epic choruses and keyboards, mashed together with un-catchy thrashy riffs (a mix forged in the days before bands discovered how to do this more elegantly, I presume) actually works really well in the live situation. It certainly helps that the singer is a really charismatic guy, and they had already built a relationship with the audience by partying with them the night before. He ended up in the crowd at the end of the set, so I hope that infection isn’t contagious!

Overall, a strong first night, which bodes well for the fest, since I think this was considered the weaker night of the two by a fair margin. Everything appeared to run smoothly and on-schedule (even though Inquisition might have gone over), and my favorite little touch is the low volume on the between-bands music; thanks for that!

I’ve seen Dub Trio twice before, but not as Dub Trio. Instead, they were the backing band for Mike Patton’s Peeping Tom. So I knew they were an instrumental force to be reckoned with, but did they have the songs to match? I think the answer is yes. It’s really just instrumental metal, with no dub to be found, and I wished that they would spend more time on the crushing grooves and less on the jerky, technical rhythms, but I suppose it’s the contrast between the two that makes that groove so cathartic when it comes.

The question for Isis was how this tiny-club show would compare to the the last-minute tiny-club show they did at the Bottom Lounge a couple years ago. While it wasn’t as brilliant as that, it was still better than than the two times that I’ve seen them at larger venues. This crowd also seemed more into it than that Bottom Lounge crowd, even starting up a mosh pit during the encore. Isis has to be one of the consistently best-sounding bands that I’ve ever heard. From the smoothly thumping and un-triggered bass drums, to the three guitars which completely respect each others’ space, to the active bass which slides in between all that respect, to the roars and unchallenging-but-effective singing of Aaron Turner, everything stays apart yet comes together in a way that few bands seem to be able to match.

Municipal Waste - I arrived shortly before they started. They’re pretty terrible. They play thrash of the worst sort - purely backward-looking (by decades), and neither hooks nor heaviness are anywhere to be found. Paying $1000 for the privilege of playing the 1:15pm slot at the Milwaukee Metalfest in 1997 is where I’d expect to find them, but due to some crazy rip in space-time, they actually have fans in 2008 that were going all crazy-mosh for them. Congratulations to their marketing team, I guess. I started down in the pit, but left after a few songs. Not to avoid the violence, but just because I was really bored. Their cover of a punk song was the best thing they did, along with their chant of “Municipal Waste is gonna fuck you up!” or some such at the end of their set.

Darkest Hour - I saw them open for Tomas Lindberg and The Crown six years ago at the Fireside Bowl. I liked that version of the band a lot more. In comparison, the 2008 version is a lot less energetic, and seems to have less melody in their melodic death metal. But, they have much fancier lights, banners, and risers! Someone should tell them that that stuff won’t hide boring songs though. It was a boatload better than Municipal Waste, but nothing I need to go out of my way to see. Crowd was noticeably less enthused than they were for MW, but not to the point of hatin’.

At The Gates - First, I must establish my postion. I bought “Slaughter Of The Soul” in 1997. The band was already dead and gone by then, but I would guess that purchase date still puts me in the upper 60th percentile of tr00ness among those in attendance. Because, you know, that was 11 years ago. It hit me instantly, and to this day, I consider it a masterwork and one of the defining albums of 90s metal. It’s not at all “overrated”, and since I’m not dumb, it’s not even the slightest bit diminished simply because it inspired a million other bands who I don’t care for. I acquired “Terminal Spirit Disease” not too much later, but never warmed to it, or anything else they did.

So I was there solely to hear this resurrected band play “Slaughter Of The Soul”, and they did not disappoint me. I think they played every song from it except the atmospheric instrumental “Into The Dead Sky” (”The Flames Of The End” was used as the outro music). And they played it all with the same slicing precision, pained ferocity, and ruthless efficiency that made the recorded version such a classic. Ok, maybe the pain that the 22-year-old Tomas Lindberg felt wasn’t quite as evident in the screams of the 35-year-old version, but nowhere else was there a hint that they had been away from this for 12 years. The guitars still produced that groundbreaking sound that is simultaneously massive and penetrating.

In between the SOTS songs they played plenty of older material, apparently at least one from every release they ever did. I feel no shame in admitting I could have done without any of them; they were ok, but hearing them mixed in with the SOTS songs just highlighted what an incredible and out-of-nowhere leap they made for their final album; nothing in their past hinted that they would produce anything with the sound, style, and most importantly, songwriting featured on “Slaughter Of The Soul”.

But at least they did a nice job of mixing the old and “new” songs so that the sold-out crowd’s interest never flagged. Following the lesson of SOTS’s three-minute songs, the set contained a minimum amount of bullshit. Perhaps the longest break was a genuine show of respect for the Chicago metal scene by the band, who were wearing Trouble and Nachtmystium t-shirts. Even when they went offstage to the fading outro of “Need”, the enthusiastic “At The Gates!” chant went for only 30 seconds before the iconic sounds of shearing metal signaled that the encore would start with “Blinded By Fear”. That equaled the climax of Iron Maiden’s “Rime Of The Ancient Mariner” earlier this summer for the most intense concert moments that I’ve felt in years. The intensity continued through the next song (”Unto Others”?), but then unfortunately faded a bit when they insisted on a traditional closing with “Kingdom Gone”, an old song. But that’s about the minor nitpick, and I would have put up with far worse in order to witness the highlights that I did.

And, the music: Chandeliers was a drummer and four(!) guys playing keyboards/synthesizers. So pretty electronic sounding, though I think I did see an analog synth or two in there. Nothing too great. Baby Teeth was enjoyable; drums, bass, and a frontman playing keyboards. Good, simple, groovin’ pop songs, including lots of vocal harmonies from the drummer. The singer had an interesting keyboard setup: he almost always played with both hands, but the left hand was on a full keyboard, while the right played a smaller sequencer thing, often creating two quite different sounds. And sometimes I think he might have been manipulating the sound of one through the other, particularly when he’d do bendy, guitar-solo-type stuff.

I’ve wanted to see the spectacle created by the headliners, Mucca Pazza, for more than a year, but this was my first time. Instrumentally, they’re a 20- to 30-piece marching band, but aesthetically, they’re gypsy punk freaks. The lineup is about one-third brass, one-third percussion, and one-third miscellany (guitars, clarinets, accordion, violin, melodica, cheerleaders, etc.) Their mismatched, rag-tag marching band uniforms and their complete lack of marching are strong clues that the music coming out of their instruments isn’t going to sound like a traditional marching band. Instead, it often has a strong Balkan vibe to it, which means that this little-known Chicago band is (independently?) doing something surprisingly similar to little-known bands Alamaailman Vasarat and Estradasphere. It’s been a while since Estradasphere has done their whole ‘circus’, including their Death Metal Cheerleaders, and the guys in Mucca Pazza can’t match the mind-blowing instrumentalists in E-sphere, but they’re clearly drawing from similar influences. Especially since Mucca Pazza even had some “spy”-sounding numbers as well. They come even closer to the wall-of-sound style of Alamaailman Vasarat; although MP doesn’t have the bass-and-distorted-guitar of AV to provide the weight to their sound, they more than make up for it by sheer numbers.

Mucca Pazza made great use of the space; since only a few instruments required amplification, they frequently infiltrated the crowd, used the balcony at the rear, and one guy even made it up to play his horn out of the little decorative cutout high above the stage. With a band so large, I wondered if it would be difficult for individual members to keep the energy up, since very few of them are ever in the spotlight. But when your band is as large as the audience might be at a lot of other shows, that means that the rest of your band CAN be your audience. And since most of them are surely former(?) band geeks, they clearly enjoyed performing for each other as much as they did for us. So it was a ton of fun for everyone. I don’t know if they ever get this conglomerate on the road (actually they’ll be at Rothbury, along with…Estradsphere!), but if they do, see ‘em, because it’s not something that you’ll see every day. Actually, instead of touring, they should just franchise out the concept, since I bet it would be pretty easy to find 30 band geeks in most cities in the country who would want to be part of something like this.

I showed up at around 6:30 for the listed 7:00 show. Not being familiar with these arena shows, I didn’t really know how they schedule them, and wanted to make sure I wouldn’t end up standing way at the back of the floor. Less than a quarter of the floor was filled when I arrived, so I killed some time sitting in the upper deck for a while. Eventually I wandered down to the floor, after finding the place to trade in my ticket for a floor-access wristband. I walked up to a spot that was about the same distance from the stage as I recently watched Testament from at the far smaller Pearl Room. The opening band actually started around 7:30, which was about what I was expecting, though there was still plenty of room on the floor then.

So, Lauren Harris, Steve Harris’s daughter. She’s pretty easy on the eyes, which is about the only positive thing I can say. Her singing ranged from pedestrian to cringe-inducing, her band was straight from Spinal Tap, and her songs were pre-fab. She did this strange running around the stage that made it feel like she was always rushing to hit her marks, but maybe that was just because she had no shoes on. Best part of the set was when a big guy near the front got up on someone’s shoulders, and then lifted his shirt to show her his tits. That earned him a hearty round of applause. Oh, and the other good thing was that we got to see at least one Harris still wearing skin-tight pants in 2008.

So then around 8:30, it’s time for Iron Maiden. There were about 4 separate surges as the crowd packed into the front: once when Lauren finished, again when the lights went down for Maiden, again when the flying-on-the-Eddie-plane video started, and last when the fireworks went off and the band launched into ‘Aces High’. A bit more jostling after that, and I ended up about five rows from the front, where I spent most of the night. Despite the large mass of the general admission audience, it was only about half as intense up there as it was seeing Iced Earth (and presumably Testament) last month, at a much smaller place. My guess is that the combination of a somewhat older audience and the more casual music-love of fan at an arena show combined to help keep a lid on things.

So musically, it was pretty good. Even though I was only 8 when they did this concert the first time around, it really hit my nostalgia-bone perfectly. Especially since it also included ‘Somewhere In Time’/'Seventh Son’ songs as well; those and ‘Live After Death’ seem to be the ones that I remember hearing the most when my brother was cultivating his Iron Maiden obsession in the late-80s/early-90s. I think what I appreciated most was all the atmospheric bits that are included in many of those songs…I’d almost forgotten how important a part that was to even “classic” Maiden songs. Thus, ‘Rime Of The Ancient Mariner’ was easily the highlight for me, and the minute or so of music (and then fireworks) when The Mariner’s curse is finally lifted was probably a top-5 concert moment for me. Bruce sounded great, and the band performs just as well as they always did, which is amazing given their continually advancing age.

But it wasn’t all roses. I derive about 80% of my enjoyment at concerts from jammin’ to the grooves, and for some reason, I had a really hard time doing that at this show. My theory is that there was some massive echoing going on in the large space, so from where I stood, it was really hard to find the genuine beat and lock in on it. Perhaps if I would have moved back it would have sounded better, but then I would have lost the intensity from being right up front, so I stayed.

Maybe another reason I should have backed off is because there was this really annoying group of guys who were baked off their asses up front, constantly stumbling and crashing into everyone. One of the guys apparently annoyed someone else even more than he did me, so Mr. Super Annoyed began beating the crap out of him. Twice I broke up the fight (well, it wasn’t a fight, it was one guy whaling on someone who was essentially defenseless), and received a sharp punch to the wrist for my trouble. I don’t really like seeing people get the crap beaten out of them, even if they completely deserve it, but by the third round I said “fuck it”, and just let ‘em go. In short order the offender had a mask of blood covering the left side of his face, streaming from a direct blow to his eye. That freaked the shit out of everyone, which made security notice, and drag him out of there. So, problem solved, but not really the method I would have chosen.

That sort of thing might not be solely due to the size and nature of the audience at an arena show, but I’m sure it’s a contributing factor. Add in the $15 parking, the long exit time, and a bunch of other little things, and it becomes something that’s not really worth it for me. Even things that I thought would be benefits, and are impossible at smaller venues, turned out to be non-factors: the massive spectacular stage show was fun and all, but it still seemed a lot less “huge” than my memories of watching the ‘Live After Death’ VHS 15 years ago. And the atmosphere created by ten thousand screaming fans went almost completely unnoticed; from where I was, with everyone unseen behind me, I could have been at the Metro and the show wouldn’t have felt much different.

In summary: good show, and I’m happy I went, but I’m also happy because now I know that I’ll probably never need to attend an arena show again. I won’t completely rule it out, but the only way I could imagine it happening is if Iron Maiden’s next album completely blew me away, and they were going to be playing most/all of it on their next tour. But I don’t really see that happening, and now having seen Iron Maiden 7 times, I won’t be sad if it’s my last. Especially since it probably was my favorite of the 7, and, they even closed with “Hallowed Be Thy Name”; and what better way to go out for a lifetime?

01. Intro - Churchill’s Speech
02. Aces High
03. 2 Minutes to Midnight
04. Revelations
05. The Trooper
06. Wasted Years
07. The Number of the Beast
08. Run to the Hills
09. Rime of the Ancient Mariner
10. Powerslave
11. Heaven Can Wait
12. Can I Play With Madness?
13. Fear of the Dark
14. Iron Maiden
—————————–
15. Moonchild
16. The Clairvoyant
17. Hallowed Be Thy Name

I stuck around for Clinic, who I’d never heard of before. A quirky English group playing some kind of post-punk indie pop or something. Their gimmick is to wear surgical masks when performing, and apparently Hawaiian shirts. They didn’t seem like terribly charismatic performers to begin with, so then when you cover their faces, it gets even worse. Some of their songs were pretty good (they played their whole new album to start the set, and I recognized every song after only listening to 30-second clips of them earlier in the day), but something about their melodies just didn’t fit with my melody receptors in the right way. I actually left halfway through the second set, which is rare for me to do, but it was also getting pretty late (it was a 10pm show, after they had already done a 7pm show).

Again, just the walk from the car gave hints as to what kind of night it would be. It was a much older crowd, both in age and school. And also much more mainstream. Black Label Society and Misfits t-shirts were popular ways to express support of the underground. After Darkane’s set, I decided that I would stay up front to have a good spot for Testament, but when Pantera’s ‘Walk’ started playing over the PA and this group of 10 people around me raised their cups and started singing every single word as if it was the awesomest thing ever, oh god, I had to make a beeline out of there. I’m sure that alcohol sales were more lucrative on this night than the night before!

Twelfth Gate:
I arrived in time to hear their last two songs, and didn’t hear a single hook anywhere in either one of them. I guess I just don’t understand the point of making music without hooks.

Suidakra:
They were easily my most anticipated non-Iced Earth band of the two nights, and they lived up to that expectation. Sound was a bit dodgy, particularly in the beginning, but eventually their melodies came through, even if the clean harmony vocals never quite caught up. This band could have been on the Paganfest, but one thing that separates them from those bands is that they have a more genuine extreme-metal background, so their music has an extra intensity to it. And when that intensity is combined with sing-along melodies, it’s just awesome. Also, they have no special outfits; by their look they could have been an old-school thrash band. They did a bold move of playing an instrumental for their third song, but it was so hooky that it worked out great. An equally bold move was to walk offstage in preparation for an encore, even though they were two bands away from headliner status. Luckily for them, someone must have pushed them right back out, because no one in the audience had any idea that we were supposed to call for them! Question: did they play their song “Darkane Times” specially for the band who would be following them?

In contrast to the old folks, there were these two high-school aged couples going absolutely nuts for Suidakra, so after their set, I asked them, “so, I guess you guys really like that band?” “No we’ve never heard them before we just came here and this is awesome!!” The incongruous jumping up-and-down and ill-advised moshing continued through Darkane’s set until one of the girls tried crowd surfing one too many times, which quickly brought an end to their night. Too bad, they were a nice contrast to crotchety Testament fans yelling “get off the stage” to Darkane. Like, really, is Darkane so far away in style from Testament that they’re that intolerable, or is Testament truly the only music that they listen to? I can only imagine what they would have thought if they were there the night before!

Darkane:
I’m not too big of a fan, but I have their first album, so it was very nice of them to include the two “hits” from it, “Convicted” and “July 1999″. The vocalist even did a good job of changing up his growl for those songs to match the style of the original guy. Beyond that, the songs near the end of the set worked out better for me than the earlier ones, partly because I think their sound got a bit better. Sonically they can be a bit of a mess on the fast stuff, so I imagine it helps to know their songs. But by presence, they were easily the biggest non-headliners of the weekend. They’re a strolling band, meaning that all four guys up front constantly roam all around the stage, changing positions, which is actually fairly rare, but a simple way to make a performance seem more active. It also helps that they’re Swedish, and thus, tall. Definitely a much better and more memorable performance than what I remember from seeing them at the Milwaukee Metalfest years ago.

Testament:
I’m only a mild fan, but if I was as big a fan of them as I am of Iced Earth, then I’m sure this performance would have equaled Iced Earth’s for me. As it was, I just hung way back and enjoyed it in the sweat-free zone. It was difficult to gauge since I was in a different location both nights, but the crowd sizes seemed pretty similar, and the only way to move up would be to bash my way through. Testament’s sound was amazingly good, their lights far surpassed anything Iced Earth had, and their presence was excellent. I had just listened to ‘Live At The Fillmore’ before heading out to the venue, so it turned out that I recognized most of the songs that they played. Best for me were the two I knew the best, “Low” and “Trail of Tears”. Chuck Billy introduced the latter with a plea for human rights and environmental awareness, for which he received an enormous collective “meh” from the crowd of metalheads. Some of the other singers in the fest could really take a lesson from him in how to make the most out of a limited vocal range, because he really sounded good (it helped to have a very active soundman, who would jack up the reverb in time with his growls). Oh, and they could take a lesson from him in stage presence too. Actually all the guys in the band were quite fun to watch, although it seemed like Skolnick was going a bit overboard on the solos (or maybe I’m just not used to listening to music where guitar solos are such a focus?) On the other hand, one of my favorite parts was when the whole band was doing some improvisational jamming during the sing-along call-and-response of “Alone In The Dark”. It would have been cool to hear more of that. All in all, it was an impressive, headlining performance. And I now see that when the place is packed, including the balcony, it can be a pretty fun place for even “big” bands to play.

Overall, it was a great three nights of metal. Though for me, “nights” is a bit of a stretch, because the success of each night (excluding Paganfest) was heavily dependent on the headliners. And I think that I even got a lot more out of the undercard than many people there, who seemed to come *solely* to see the headliners. So, quite a different approach than last year, and a vastly different result in terms of attendance. Hopefully that also translated into a vastly different result for CRJ. I have a hard time imagining that they’d get as lucky with headliners next year, but if they do, it really calls into question the role of the undercard…I just can’t imagine that the attendance would have been much different if Iced Earth and Testament had been the only bands playing the last two nights. But maybe the imbalance this year was just an anomaly.

The only organizational issues were the above-mentioned lack of communication, and the line for the (men’s!) bathroom. It never really affected me, but it’s unbelievable that a venue with the Pearl Room’s capacity has only one smallish bathroom available. It’s like when they built it, they never expected they’d actually get a crowd to fill the place. The security seemed reasonable, succeeding at keeping crowd surfing to an absolute minimum, while still allowing freedom in the mosh pits. Occasionally they would take a shockingly active role in the pit, but hey, some of those guys probably deserve to be flung down to the ground anyhow.

So hopefully this was good enough for the guys to keep it going, because I look forward to next year!

Arise and Ruin:
Completely unimaginative and by-the-numbers non-melodic metalcore, but it was actually executed quite well. The guys seem ok at playing their instruments, and the vocalist gave an energetic and convincing performance. As I listened, I thought that some of their mega-downtuned breakdowns actually would be pretty cool if they were expanded into full songs, where they’d turn into some kind of dirge-like hypnotic post-metal. And their last song even had some washes of melody, so it wasn’t half bad. But the best part was their attitude: they clearly recognized that no one was there to see them, so instead of exhorting the crowd to cheer for them (which would have failed miserably), they kept the banter to a minimum, and used the cleverly-dropped names of Iced Earth and Testament to keep the crowd involved. Oh, and one guitarist wore an Iron Maiden shirt too.

Ion Vein:
Umm…wow. Where to begin? Well, the beginning, I guess. It seemed to take them forever to set up, mostly because the entire drumkit was being assembled from scratch, and when you have 400 cymbals to forge, shape, and then screw onto the stands, that’s going to take a long time. I can’t understand why they weren’t more prepared, did they only remember at the last minute that they would need drums for this performance? Finally the music starts, and those drums are deafeningly loud, and horribly triggered. Up front, we have the other two guys on guitar and bass shouting angrrry-isms into their microphones gang-vocal style while they play some nondescript groove-metal. Hmm, do we only have a trio? Nope, out sashays the singer, with blond spiky hair, oversized mirrored sunglasses, and enough flamboyant prancing to make Boy George blush. Mixed with that persona, we also have him channeling Martin Short at his comedic worst, thinking that the more exaggerated facial contortions he does, the funnier he is. Ok, so, we have this free-spirited character, maybe that could actually be kind of cool and entertaining, something fresh in the metal world. But, no. Problem number one is that he has to sing too, and to do that, he apparently attempted to channel a third personality, that of Mike Patton and his many voices. Needless to say, he came up woefully short on every style he attempted. Problem two is much more egregious: between songs, his goofy gay guy routine vanished, to be replaced by Mr. Badass, who proves his toughness by showing how many times he can angrily use the word “fuck” in a sentence. But wait, it gets worse. At some point, this clearly white man devolved into a hackneyed black-preacher caricature, even going so far as to call us his “niggaz”. Oh, and then he took the opportunity to decry “fucking non-metal fags”. Just embarrassing. I can only conclude the he’s a bigot who thinks that mocking those unlike him is the highest form of comedy. Somehow, the crowd was actually mildly supportive, which shocked me, although a chant for Iced Earth did go up immediately after they finished their set.

Epicurean:
Easily the most interesting band of the night, Iced Earth excluded. They’re one of those melting pot bands who takes influence from thrash, melodic black metal, etc. They were at their best with the more melodic and atmospheric parts, although their keyboard player contributed surprisingly little to their sound, especially given how many notes he appeared to be playing. Unfortunately, the most notable part of the band was their “singer”, who would do ok during the growling stuff, but was absolutely dreadful on the clean vocals, which he attempted quite a lot of. Honestly, I can’t remember ever hearing a worse performance from a singer, he never even came within a mile of the note he was trying to hit. He would have had no difficulty at all making it into the lowlight reel on American Idol.

A Life Once Lost:
By now, the crowd had packed in pretty tightly preparing for Iced Earth, so these guys had a huge audience watching them. Thus, it was all the more amazing how that entire crowd remained completely dead for their whole set. I was way in the back, so I didn’t notice any outright disrespect, and their was mild applause between songs, but for some reason the frontman decided to take the opposite approach of Arise and Ruin: instead of accepting that they simply aren’t going to win over the audience and then trying to stay positive and make the best of it, this guy gets his poor feelings hurt and derides us for being a bunch of pussies. Uh, yeah, that’s not going to help, genius. Musically, they were decent, but I guess if I want to hear a mix of thrash, -core, tech, and southern rock like that, I’d much rather have Mastodon.

Iced Earth:
Finally, the band that everyone was waiting for. From beginning to end, it was a complete no-bullshit, streamlined performance carefully engineered to kick our collective ass for 90 minutes. Zero stage decorations, no intro, they bashed through their first five or six songs without a break, and Jon uncharacteristically didn’t even say a word the whole night. If the goal was to make it seem like Matt had never even left the band, they completely succeeded. The only reference they made to Barlow’s return was when Matt and Jon warmly hugged after a huge “Welcome Back!” chant came up from the crowd, and Matt’s quiet acknowledgment of the frequent “Barlow” cheers.

It was clearly a “greatest hits” set, covering as many crowd favorites as possible while playing to Matt’s strengths. They hit at least one song from every album except ‘Burnt Offerings’, with ‘Something Wicked…’ and ‘The Dark Saga’ getting the primary focus. It’s the first time that I can recall them doing the closing songs from both of those albums without playing at least one of the lead-in songs of their respective trilogies, but the catalog is now getting large enough where that’s necessary, and even welcomed.

Early on the sound seemed a bit clicky and poppy on the bass end, and I don’t know if that improved or if I just got used to it. Then, the PA cut out twice, but apparently with their in-ear monitors, the band didn’t notice at all and just kept right on playing. That was good, because if they had noticed, I don’t think Jon would have been much pleased, and that would have brought down the vibe quite a bit. Since it cut out during a couple of classics and the band was still somewhat audible, the crowd just picked up the vocals themselves, and didn’t seem to mind much at all. The other guys in the band seemed good enough, but honestly most of my attention was on Jon and Matt. And for them, it was exactly like old times. Matt’s voice might have improved a bit as the night went on, but he was solid the whole way through, even on the Ripper stuff.

For me, it was my 20th Iced Earth concert, and it ranks right up there with the best of them. When their set started, I was at the absolute rear of the crowd, but worked my way up through the ‘Burning Times’ mosh pits. Eventually I made it to within three rows of the rail, where I spent most of my time. It was a complete crush, and sweaty enough that my fingertips got pruned. There was even a girl up there who was completely passed out and had to be dragged away; hopefully she was ok once she got some air! During ‘The Coming Curse’, Jon noticed me in the crowd, smiled, and pointed to me with his guitar, which is always cool. He was probably a bit surprised that I’m still up there going nuts for Iced Earth in my old age. It was only because the previous bands allowed me to conserve all my energy that I was able to survive up there, though I did nearly collapse when I dropped back into an active pit for some final insanity during ‘Iced Earth’.

So the crowd came to see Iced Earth, and I think they went home well satisfied. It was so great to see the universal positive reaction to Barlow’s return, and I can almost imagine that Jon is already taking the footage (there was someone filming) to the European festivals and looking to renegotiate upwards, because it’s going to be huge. Then again, the European festivals probably already knew how great the return of Barlow would be; it’s only Jon who was a bit slow in figuring it out!

01. Dark Saga
02. Vengeance is Mine
03. Burning Times
04. Declaration Day
05. Violate
06. Pure Evil
07. Watching Over Me
08. Ten Thousand Strong
09. Dracula
10. Coming Curse
11. I Walk Alone
12. Setian Massacre
13. Travel In Stygian
14. A Question Of Heaven

Encore:
15. Melancholy
16. My Own Savior
17. Iced Earth

Inside, there were CD vendors to the left and right, but neither was doing as brisk of a business as the tour t-shirt stand. The crowd was the largest I’d seen that early at the Pearl Room; the balcony was open and well-filled along the rail, and the main floor was occupied (in decreasing density) all the way back to the sound booth. I heard the number 700 being thrown around, and I wouldn’t argue with that as an estimate of total crowd size.

Earthen:
This is my second time seeing this band. First was at Heathen Crusade II, where they had an interesting approach to acoustic-driven folky metal, but rather poor execution. By now, their execution was much better, except for their female vocalist, who at least has her heart in the right place even if her voice isn’t. However, their style seems to have changed considerably, having dropped a violinist, and with only one song (the best one) featuring acoustic guitar. So now it was fairly conventional doom-death, which was a disappointment. I would have much rather seen them continue to develop their previous approach. Though it’s interesting to see that they seem to be recreating the path of fellow Chicagoans Avernus, 10+ years later. I should note that their singer wasn’t there (because he had to work!) so vocals were handled by the band leader. I’m a bit confused as to what role he would have played had the singer been there, since he only played guitar on one of the songs.

Eluveitie:
A crew of eight onstage is quite a rarity for an opening international band on a four band tour, but here they all were. Drums, bass, two guitars (one borrowed from Tyr), violin, hurdy-gurdy, pipes/flute guy, and a lead vocalist. Much like their albums, I greatly preferred their older songs, where the songs are folky both in instrumentation and approach. Their newer stuff is simply In Flames-style death metal with the folk melodies sitting on top as a gimmick, completely disconnected from the chugga-chugga below. Still, In Flames chugga-chugga isn’t bad to see live, especially when it’s performed by eight entertaining and unkempt medievalists. I admit to falling in love with the girl playing the hurdy-gurdy. Most of the time while spinning the crank on her instrument, she would sway back and forth in a complete chilled-out hippie way, but then would occasionally break out the full-on helicopter hair in convincing fashion. Too bad the hurdy-gurdy could only be heard rarely over the din, but overall, their sound was quite good for that many people. Finally by their last couple songs, a jolly heathen pit got going, which took longer than I expected, but I guess despite their good fit on this tour, they were still three bands from the top.

Tyr:
On record, this was the most interesting band of the tour for me, because their style is really quite different from the other bands, taking a more unique, almost prog-metal writing style, and connecting it to the pagan theme only by lyrics, and perhaps vocal melodies. Unfortunately, this was their downfall in the live situation, particularly since they completely refused to pander to the crowd looking for a simple, headbanging good time. They do have some songs that would have had the ability to get the crowd going quite well, but they really only played one of those, with the rest being either new, slow, or both. So while they gain some points for sticking to their guns, that wasn’t enough to counterbalance what they lost. Still, they played well, and it was especially nice to see a band that makes extensive use of two vocalists doing real harmonies; that’s a fairly rare sight in the metal world these days.

Turisas:
After the stripped down and unornamented performance by Tyr, it was quite a contrast to jump to the fully war-painted, fur-clad wildmen in Turisas. They followed the prototypical rules for a pagan-metal lineup, also seen in bands like Skyforger or Manegarm: the short, blond, not-quite metal-looking guy plays violin, the tall bearded guy is on guitar, the bright-eyed skinny guy does the vocals, and the jolly teeth-baring fat guy is, of course, on bass. The only oddity was their accordion player, who looked less like a Finnish warrior princess, and more like a corn-fed American college co-ed, all painted up to go see a Seminoles game. Well, except that you don’t see those girls playing accordion very often, and never so enthusiastically. So obviously, they really got the crowd going, even though they also will sometimes will forgo obvious straight-rocking opportunities in favor of bombastic Hollywood-metalism.

Ensiferum:
Compared to Turisas, their war-paint was minimal and they were all shirtless (except the female keyboard player in the back!), although the bass player was still the portly one. With just three guys up front, there was no room for gimmicks, which meant that all they could do was play straight-ahead ass-kicking music. One of their great advantages seemed to be that both of the guitarists in the band are leaders. At first, the all blond guy in the center seemed to be the obvious focus, but then I started noticing the second guitarist more and more, both from his playing and his attitude. Only later did I learn that the second guitarist is the true leader of Ensiferum, whereas the “frontman” is the leader of Norther. The only downside was their drummer, who gave most bored-looking performance I’ve ever seen! I seriously think that he had a small TV down on the floor next to his kit, and he spent half the show looking down at it to watch the Cubs game while he played. Still, the rest was enough to get the crowd to its most excited point all night, and they proved themselves the clear headliners. Best band of the night for me too, and I’ve never even really listened to their stuff before.

Top to bottom, it was one of the better shows I’ve seen in a while, which is really what I expected from this lineup. The great thing about “pagan metal” (or a Heathen Crusade) is that you can put together a tour where all the bands are linked by theme, and thus by audience, even though within that theme the musical variations can actually be quite large. So you have a situation where all the bands are well-liked, and that just gives a healthy spirit to the whole event.

I wore my Einherjer t-shirt, and got several comments throughout the night, but none more memorable than from the war-painted guy who nearly wanted to kill me for possessing such an awesome shirt. Odd thing was, while my shirt said “Einherjer” on the front, he had “Einherjer” on his back. No, not on the back of his shirt. On his actual back, in a big tattoo. Uh, dude, I think you have me beat, you hardly need my shirt to show your dedication!