LIGHT A PAGAN FIRE TOUR
LONDON CAMDEN ROCK - 10/01/09
Arcane Promotions traditionally offer the gods the first proper metal gig of the year and this was a very interesting one. It would have been welcome lighting any fire, pagan or not as today we had seen fog, ice and even snow in olde London Towne and it was colder than a witches tit. It was great that many had popped along to this in such extreme conditions and had not gone to see other excruciatingly awful German band Edguy who were also in town tonight. Camden Rock, the venue previously known as Bar Monsta had just undergone a bit of a facelift and new management recently too and gave a somewhat frosty welcome in the form of a body search to those entering, no smuggling cans of beer in from the offie here any longer that’s for sure.
Opening ‘local’ band Fen only get a passing mention this time round but feel free to read Luci’s Negura Bunget review and mine for new album ‘The Malediction Fields’ on these very pages. They were excellent and the new songs from the album sparkled here especially ‘A Witness To The Passing Aeons’ which sent a shiver down an already frozen spine.
The visiting German bands were all of unknown origin to me apart from a listen to the tracks on their MySpace page. As they announced song names and sang in their native language you will not be getting anything resembling a track by track review here. First up were a band who appreciated that their name Helfahrt was one that us Brits were going to somewhat titter about and it is difficult not to litter this appreciation with bad jokes especially as they announced they were from the Bavarian Mountains (were it is surely very windy). Also to say they were full of beans would be a bit rude but they were, fast, powerful and dynamic and with songs that were feudal Pagan romps that got us all stamping feet in appreciation rather than doing so to simply warm up. They were in a groove and very confident, no doubt having established that they had well and truly won this audience over by third number ‘Irrlicht.’ I was reminded of Kampfar in approach here and this was a lot faster and not really reliant on the folk influences I had expected from the bands tonight (apart from a slight bit of mouth harp). “Everything ends, just silence remains,” singer Sebastian Ludwig (a fine German name) announced. They still had a final blast with ‘Stermgewalt’ before they blew off the stage concluding a triumphant set.
www.myspace.com/helfahrt
Odroerir were as far as folk metal was concerned, the real deal. They had what I can only describe as a big fuck off horn, weird shaped violin, mandolin and flute on stage which no less than seven of them (bass player stuck in the far corner) crammed on to. Melodious croons from male and female singers leapt out of the speakers and the music flowed with violinist switching to a tambourine in one fluid motion. This immediately took us off to a different era, perhaps the Middle Ages and one can imagine this sort of thing going down fantastically at a traditional German fair. It was actually going down very well here too and it commanded drinking in the process, getting us all in the party mood. I noted the nice touch of a couple of mic stands being made out of knotted wood as we were treated to a new number ‘Heimdall.’ A guy came on and hit a drum skin on the front of the stage as there was nowhere on it to accommodate him and the band very nicely offered the crowd round a bottle of their home made honey mead which was absolutely lush. I guess the best sign of a good show is one that leaves you happy and as they finished I realised I had a dumb shit eating grin and my face ached from smiling so much, perfect.
www.myspace.com/odroerir
It would seem my run of luck with not really enjoying the main band, which had plagued the end of last year, was following me into this new one. Gernotshagen (which when you think of it is also an amusing moniker) built things up from a commanding intro tape with ethereal keyboards and guitar coming into play and then, well all I can say is that this was nothing to write home about, which is slightly tricky as that is exactly my task at hand. Keys struck as overbearing and vocal rasps proficient yet generic. The drummer was good and seemed to be having a great time and I did my best to get into the groups craft yet found myself coming to the decision that they should have definitely swapped places on the bill with Helfahrt. There were some nice acoustic parts and galloping riffs in places as well as some clean vocal patches which I thought were a lot better suited than the rasps which reminded a bit of Gollum irritating his ring. They played songs for their forefathers and did nothing particularly wrong but I was simply left unmoved and could not get into their set at all. The fire that had blazed nicely had simmered down and all that was left was to now face the cold outside.
www.myspace.com/gernotshagenmusik
www.myspace.com/lightapaganfire
www.myspace.com/arcanepromotions
Pete Woods
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