         
|
|||
|
|||
HEIDENFEST TOUR REPORT NOVEMBER 2008Festivale Report - ReportThe calm before the stormThey call me the Black Metal Woody Allen There is a skill in picking your bunk when going on tour. It’s going to be your coffin of choice for over two weeks so wisely choose you must in Yoda speak. We arrive a night earlier in Munich so while the others are quaffing beers at the front and discussing how often the bus is likely to break down I deliberate over which bunk. Lying in each in turn. Are we likely to party in the front or the back, which bunks will be nearer to the action and therefore noise ?. Will the back door be opening all the time therefore sending an icy blast into your bunk if you choose the middle. Near the back lounge ?, what if the party boys are down there blasting the new Rambo movie ?. If you choose the top bunk then you leave yourself open to some long and embarrassing drunken moments trying to negotiate those 5 feet of drunken wisdom. Questions, questions many you ask. I choose the middle bunk in the middle. Turns out to be a wise choice, and to think the others call me neurotic. Leipzig 31.10.08 Bitter meats and lecture notes I did have misgivings when we agreed to the Heidenfest as in my opinion we stick out like a sore thumb. The bitter meat in the folk/polka metal sandwich, or rather shall we say very hard to swallow. Not ones to shy away from a challenge we have to play to some new people and it is important to show younger people there is a dark underbelly to this pagan/folk metal scene that is directly linked to culture, history and a very grim reality. Not simply about drinking beer and wearing Viking bling. Let battle commence. Leipzig confirms some of my fears, the show is good and we play well but a large percentage of the sold out crowd is very young. I am greeted by many confused looks and drinking horns are well and truly lowered by the time we have beaten them into grim submission with “The Coffin Ships”. Consider the first lecture over, I hope you are taking notes. There will be a test afterwards. Munich 01.11.08 Hey Christian…fuck you We arrive in Munich to find the local Christian council has successfully managed to cancel the show. It’ s all souls day Catholic Bavaria being as opposed to the rest of Germany seems to be attempting to drag society back to a dim and not too distant past steeped in religious bigotry and intolerance. Seems like the whole of Europe is labouring under the ill conceived notion that it is open minded, steadily removing taboos since the 1960’s. More of that later but right now we have a problem. The crowd start arriving during the mid afternoon unaware of our skirmishes with the god botherers. We hit upon the plan of starting the show at midnight so technically we are not onstage on Friday at all. I’m not even allowed step on the stage to DJ as apparently people might dance which is forbidden. It’s no wonder so many hardcore Christians look so damn grim, sucking the joy out of life. Farms for maggots is all we are my friends. Synchronise watches to two minutes to midnight. I even make an impromptu speech to everyone before the show, it’s a great pleasure to let the crowd know that the local xtian council are responsible but that they cannot stop the Heidenfest and to go out and vote next time. I feel like Jello Biafra and believe me there are worse things !. Finntroll open and the bill goes in reverse order. Munich is excellent for us, the crowd are a little older and behind us from the very start. Two down. Prattlen 02.11.08 Impatient trolls There is a moment in Equilibriums set when I am catching up with the Finntroll guys where we all stop in mid sentence. “That sounds exactly like something from our first album” drummer Samu says shaking his head. “Note for note” opines guitarist Samili. We open the god window and look out over the stage. The young crowd are quite literally going crazy. I have a bad feeling about the show. For the first time I am greeted by hordes of young Trolls hugging stage left and stage right having staked their place for the band after us with little or no interest in anything we are doing. They send each other texts and fiddle with their cameras impatiently. I realise no one is drinking. Try as I might I can sense our people who are stage centre and lurking at the back are a little embarrassed at being part of such a young and naïve crowd. I talk with Chrigel from Eluveitie later at length about how some of the new generation of “Metallers” don’t really seem to have the spirit of what I would consider to be Metal anyway. Weened on Myspace their reaction to the music seems to be little more then an extension of playing computer games or a cute ringtone to while away a few MTV generation spanned moments. The most exciting moment of the evening for many of them seems to be taking a picture with one of the bands on their phone. So much for having a drink and trying to get laid. It’s Metal sucked of all the rebellion, aggression, violence, energy and visceral reactionism that made Metal what it was. Chrigel feels the same way and can’t understand how the “kids” don’t get the sorrow and melancholy at the heart of Eluveitie. I’ve found a kindred spirit. That is not to say the gig is bad, it’s good but we never light the touchpaper like I know we can. There are 1700 people here but I leave the stage feeling a little older and a little more misunderstood then before. Maybe it’s better that way. Graz 03.11 The black soul choir We prepare for the show tonight listening to Woven Hand which ends up becoming like a ritual before taking to the stage. I can’t think of anything better to try and aspire to before stepping on a stage. Graz is awesome. One of the best of the tour and I can feel the tide turning. This is most definitely our show. Hell some of the crowd even have beards o). It’s also one of the few nights we end up being able to go out drinking with some of the fans and head to a local pub which is refreshing from sitting on the bus listening to Evil Gerrys 80s pop music extravaganza from the night before. Samili and I talk Thin Lizzy and all seems right with the world over an old fashioned bottle of Guinness. Zlin 04.11 Only one Keano We are in a dull suburb of Zlin. It feels like we could be in any suburban shopping centre car park in Europe. We do what any card carrying pagans would do and buy a small football and kick it around the car park. Much to the annoyance of the moronic Finnish bus driver. Mate, people fought wars so I could kick a tiny football against the wall next to the bus. Lighten up. Simi from Eluveitie and myself get ready for the show by watching some nasty tackles by Roy Keane on Youtube. Take that Alf Inge Haaland. Nice. The crowd tonight are again young but far more willing to listen, learn a little and get caught up in what we are doing. I can also see a healthy smattering of Bathory and more underground shirts which always bodes well for us. The little troll girls line up to get Matti from Finntrolls attention afterwards which is amusing. I don’t feel quite so old as in Prattlen but old enough. Maybe I should get a wig ?. The internet disappears. The American Elections are happening and none of us can get any information at all. Sometimes touring is like living in a bubble and trying to burst it can be harder then you think. While the rest of the world is watching Washington we are watching the Slayer Ultimate Revenge bootleg dvd from 85. I wonder has Obama seen it ? Berlin 05.11 Gin and haircuts We hear anti fascist “protestors” have been making some noises, mainly emails about tonights show. Berlin is very near to sold out with 900 people. Money talks. Maybe their time would have been better spent helping the homeless tonight or something ?, Rob Halford for president because politics is a haircut, he is a skinhead after all. It’s that simple. No need to ask. Berlin also rules and definitely feels like our crowd once more. Things are beginning to really click onstage and we have hit that 3 or 4 day groove. We all go to the Metal Eck and somehow I find myself drinking Gin..I thought only my grandmother drank that, surprisingly refreshing with lemon. If Gordons want to sponsor me then please feel free to get in touch. Now all we need is Necros Christos on the jukebox. Hamburg 06.11 Wheres my helmet ?. We go curio shopping with Eluveitie. There is a labyrinth of strange and interesting book shops under the Markthalle yet somehow we cross the bridge and end up in some horrible shopping mall. Patrik from Eluveitie and I are quite rightly disgusted by the bright lights while Ger and Dave are in techno hog heaven buying more bits of crap they will never need nor use. The Markthalle is sold out and you can feel the heat as soon as you come in the front door. On the stage it’s like an inferno. Tonight is incredible, In fact it feels almost religious if I can be so bold as to say so. We’ve been laying the ground work in Hamburg for years and it has always been good to us but this is something else. We end up drunk and listening to themes from 80s TV shows. Who knew Airwolf sounded so good with Gin. If you dear reader do plan on ever getting on a bus with a band I advise having your ID, your phone, jacket and some money. Just a hint… Heerhugow 07.11 Cheese and Ham for Satan Amon Amarth are playing only ten minutes away tonight. Their show on the Unholy Alliance was announced after ours. The promoter is going to have to take it on the chin. Regardless we still have 850 people which is damn good. Our old friends from Thyrfing are on tonights bill and we reminisce about the time we mini-toured with them back in 1999 and 2000. Staying in a caravan in the middle of nowhere in the Dutch countryside performing Satanik rituals and eating ham and cheese. Always nice to catch up with the Devil, nice show too. Dortmund 08.11 Breaking the chains Enslaved, Thyrfing and the confusing German speciality of Eisregen are added to the bill and the crowd just about tops 3000. I think the last few years there has been a couple of almost fatal broadsides to the Metal scene but this show really announced that “pagan” metal is officially the biggest movement within the Metal scene right now. It does feel like some sort of vindication if anything for going against the grain back in 1993 and 1994 when everyone was trying to be more evil then each other. It may feel like a vindication but it’s also a confusing afternoon trying to understand the mindset of at least half the crowd who leave during Enslaveds set before we play clearly not interested in a band we find many parallels with musically and personally. We’ve both paid our dues after all. That you would rather stand outside or at the merch stand for Enslaved and then come back in for Primordial seems very strange. Then again Eisregen seems strange to me so what do I know ?. Paris 09.11 To old adversaries and new comrades France has always been a difficult country for Primordial. Especially back in the old days. You never knew if you were going to get an intense and intimate show for 200 lunatics or a barren and empty show more like a rehearsal. In that sense Paris is an old adversary. The backstage of the Locomotive is an airless, sunless sauna located high in the back of the building. Stay in that room too long and I challenge anyone not to go insane. The air conditioning is a joke so 30 of us sit around huffing and puffing, sweating and staring into space. The sold out crowd is so dense outside even before Manegarm start that going to the merch stand for a breather take almost ten minutes of pushing and pulling and stepping on toes. Paris is incredible. From the moment we take the stage the crowd is absolutely behind us and even the stage feels like a breath of fresh air after being in the backstage all afternoon. Hellfest earlier in the year had been an indication that the worm might be turning for us in France but tonight was a glorious confirmation that France perhaps has finally accepted us. Antwerp 10.11 Better to die for something then live for nothing We have been playing in Belgium for ten years now. After our ill fated show in Wacken in 98 it was the first European country we performed in and I still see some of the same faces. The hair perhaps a little greyer and the paunch a little heavier but you can always depend on them. “I walked the battlefields of Flanders” is a line from “Heathen Tribes”. Our old school paean to all the places we have travelled and kin we have met on along the road but it takes on a great resonance for me tonight as my great grandfather and his brothers fought not so far from here during World War I. Two of them died in action. This moment of living history perhaps best captures the essence of Primordial better then anything else. Here I stand on a stage some 90 years later keeping not only their memory alive but also the actions and deeds of many brave men and women. If you cannot be moved by that then check your pulse. If you let your history die then “they” really have won and succeeded in creating an all fearing, all consuming society that has no roots. Nothing to link us to the past and nothing for us to use as a stepping stone into the future. Big brother really will have won ! They were English if you must know before someone decides their own version of my past. We catch up with some old friends and sit in the lounge drinking wine and listening to 16 Horsepower. The whole back lounge is a like a battlefield because someone bought plastic soldiers and laid out some complicated battleplan. The irony isn’t lost on me. The night rolls on and the drinks flow between us and Manegarm and we decide in honour of the last Rambo movie we should all wear red headbands for the remainder of this drunken and shambolic morning. Even Mike our bus driver has one. No one can seem to remember much dialogue from the film or make any sense at all but I wake up with mine on my pillow and a smile on my face. Before the hangover kicks in. 11.11 Nuernberg The sound of silence Perhaps one of the strangest crowds on the whole tour. It’s not difficult to goad the crowd into chanting along and raising the sign, and we finish a song to loud cheers but 5 seconds afterwards the cheers die to an unearthly silence. It’s strange, even a little unsettling and the same for all the bands. Who knows perhaps they go crazier at the weekend but there is definitely an air of midweek polite restraint in Nuernberg tonight. 12.11 Ludwigsburg Smoke and mirrors The label are in town so I’m hoping my voice isn’t entirely shot. We’ve been here before a few times over the years. I once rolled a 666 here with my first throw in dice and won a bottle of whiskey. I kid ye not, so with the devil on my side and some fortification from some cheap and nasty fake Irish firewater my voice survives the gauntlet. Sold out again and a good show for us. Ireland was the first country in the European Union to introduce the smoking ban…think about that for a second. Ireland (what the fuck…) yes it’s true. Germans are known for their punctuality and obedience when it comes to rules but somehow the concept of the smoking ban seems lost in translation. Smoke outside, it’s not that hard at all. I must be getting cranky and irritable, usually you start to feel like you are going slightly insane about 2 weeks into a tour, talking to yourself, performing strange rituals everyday and complaining about drinking coffee from the wrong colour cup. Ignore me… We wile away some hours in the car park drinking and talking politics which is never a good idea after too many drinks and then an impromptu traditional session on the bus, singing at the top of our voices and playing acoustic guitar. Seemed like a great idea at the time but I have a feeling I might pay for it tomorrow. 13.11 Frankfurt Text for Satan I’m in serious trouble. This happens usually once a tour but my voice is shot to pieces. There doesn’t seem to be anything I can do bar not drinking at all and going to bed after all the shows to save it which we all know is never going to happen. The more I stress about it the worse it is so I retreat to bed until one hour before the show in the hope that staying quiet and warm has some positive effect. Halfway into the first line of “Empire Falls” I know this hasn’t happened and the next 60 minutes is tough. Very tough. For me this is the worst show of the tour. My voice levels out about halfway through and I can make a reasonable fist of the songs but I’m not confident and this spreads to the crowd and the band. After the show my good friend Chris from Adorior tells me he went to get a drink, came back to his spot a few rows back and thought for a moment that there was a line perhaps you couldn’t cross with booze as no one was drinking. Which speaks volumes. Tonight I get an up close and personal glimpse into the world of the “new” Metal generation. Stage front and centre is a young man filming us on his blackberry and uploading it straight to the net, taking pictures and editing them as we play and sending texts to his friends. This is usually the spot for the most dedicated and deranged, instead it’s like a news conference. Why you would go to a metal show and behave like you are viewing it on a webcam is beyond me but it’s not the first time I’ve been confronted, confounded and confused by modern metal teenagers. Taking pics of the band to put on your myspace site seems more important then actually watching them or taking some energy from them which is surely what Metal is about after all ?. The transferral of energy. His eyes glaze over when he gets some blood spat on him an 18 hole boot an inch from his face and my filthy hands grabbing him by the collar but it’s impossible to provoke any kind of reaction. I retire to the bus chastened and little depressed to be perfectly honest. 14.11 Vienna Finnish invasion Like the Mongol invasion we have stopped outside Vienna. The weary and hungover heads gathered in the cold watching the animated bus drivers arguing about why the Finnish bus has broken down could very well pass for modern day barbarians. Nothing seems to have been resolved so we are invaded by a motley and bedraggled bunch of Finnish pirates. We retire to the back lounge to watch George Peppard in the Blue Max and arrive in Vienna several hours late. Something the Mongols never did and for that we should all be thankful. It’s too late to do any sight seeing and I have study to do so while the rest of the Heathens are out wandering around the fringes of Vienna I am left to my own devices and finish writing a paper about National identity shaping European integration. That my friends is rock n’ roll. The venue in Vienna is too big and too modern for my tastes, last time we played in a punk rock squat with no stage to 100 people after being cancelled and rebooked at the last minute. It was 10 times better then this show. When the crowd are spaced out like this it’s very difficult to create a chain reaction, to get people moving and feeling the music. We all need to be stuffed into a sweaty dark dank hole within touching distance of each other. Sadly we aren’t. Vienna isn’t bad but not what it could be in this slightly sterile environment. On the plus side at least my voice has returned. We entertain some old friends after the show and as the wine flows we have another impromptu session with Janne from Manegarm and Meri from Eluveitie on violin and our own Mr. Macuilliam on guitar. Broad smiles all round and a relaxed end to a stressful day. 15.11 Linz Start me up Standing on the gantry above the stage after Eluveitie before our intro begins I can see the crowd milling about. Several of them are doing cartwheels and line dancing with each other. This does not bode well at all. Thankfully about 50 to 100 kids leave as soon as our intro begins and our crowd who have been out at the bar take their place. After the last 2 shows Linz turns out to be an excellent show and we needed that. 16.11 Budapest Black is the night, Metal we fight… Our last show in Budapest has become a night of myth. To say I was worse for wear with whiskey was an understatement, we played for nearly 2 hours and our dancing in the night club afterwards is still spoken of in the backstreets and alleyways of Buda. Milling about in the crowd before the show several people seem almost disappointed that I’m not cradling a bottle of whiskey already. Last days of tour are always a bit crazy, tricks being played and unexpected guests arriving on stage but during the coffin ships we are accompanied by Janne and Meri on violin. Something I doubt anyone will ever see again and most definitely one of the high points of the tour for me. Simon and myself sing “Spansill Hill” with Eluveitie and I somehow end up playing bass for the trolls on “Trollhammeren”. Good memories. The night ends with much hugging, handshaking, drinking and a definite air of sadness. In Frankfurt I had dwelt long and hard on home but tonight I feel like I could easily take another two weeks on the chin. Some other time definitely, the Heathens have unfinished business… A.A Nemtheanga Primordial |
PUBLISHED ISSUESMETAL SOUND #mpu vorbereitung |
||
