the second one this year i attended, to be more precise. this time, in bremen’s tivoli, the so called paganfest tour 2008 launched, featuring the finnish bands ensiferum, korpiklaani and moonsorrow, the swiss band eluveitie, the faroese band týr and local support ctulu.
well. apparently, it’s impossible to start a concert (or even, start letting people in, before they get soaked wet in the rain outside) in time, i.e. the time which was published before. i’m really sorry for the ones who probably have to spend today in bed, being sick. and then, when they started letting people in, they did it in an incredibly slow way. i mean, what the heck, how hard is it to organize such things?
anyway, the local support started playing probably when the first people were let inside, i.e. we missed half of it, and some others probably most or everything (if they didn’t die before). well, anyway, they didn’t missed anything but awful noise. you could replace the singer by a barking dog without changing the result. sorry, this sounds hard, but that’s the truth… well, the sound quality sucked a lot in the beginning anyway, so it’s probably not just the fault of the band… after a short break (the openers played for like 30 mins), týr entered the stage. i was expecting a lot, but was heavily disappointed. it seemed that they also experienced heavy technical problems, so i might try them again once… but then, i’ll try some studio recordings.
anyway. they stopped after like 20 minutes (less than the opener!?) and we took the chance to eat something. after that, swiss pagan metallers eluveitie entered the stage. filling the stage with eight musicians, they are probably the largest (in this sense) band i ever say. eluveitie features a variety of instruments, including lots of different fluetes, vielles, hurdy gurdies, bagpipes, uilleann pipes and bodhráns. i also was expecting a lot from them, and this time, i was blown away. they are really good. mixing heavy black metal with beautiful folk melodies and themes, they deliver a complex, hard to digest but extremely beautiful (even though the sound quality still wasn’t too great) stream of music. (now i’m listening to their newest album slania, whose release party in the knochenhaus i missed… it’s definitely worth buying, if you’re wondering.) a very, very sad thing was that eluveitie had to stop after 30 minutes. :-(
then, after another break, moonsorrow started playing. as you may know, moonsorrow is one of my favorite bands, so i was expecting a lot. well, they were good as usual, but this time i didn’t like the songs they selected too much. one of the songs sounded quite unknown to me, maybe it’s from the ep which will be released soon? well, sounded a bit too black metallish for my taste. at least, they could play for 45 minutes… still, way too short, but better than just 30 mins… (hey, really, which idiot got the idea to restrict great bands such as eluveitie and moonsorrow to 30 resp. 45 minutes?!)
after moonsorrow, it was time for korpiklaani, a bunch of guys making “old guy music with heavy metal guitars”. well, after eluveitie and moonsorrow, it became obvious how simple their melodies and songs are, well, of course relatively. anyway, if they would have played earlier i would have liked them more. apparently, they covered a king crimson song, at least so said a friend of mine who knows the king crimson discography by worlds better than me. as moonsorrow, korpiklaani also just played for 45 minutes.
finally, after yet another break, which we spend sitting in the food compartment of the tivoli, ensiferum began conquering the hall. well. they’re really good, but again, in my opionion, moonsorrow and eluveitie are better. at least, their guitarist was feeling better this time, so they played probably for one hour. probably, because we decided we were too tired and had enough after, say, 55 minutes, and after someone working at the tivoli decided to chase us off the stairs where we were sitting (because of some fire regulations, probably)…
anyway. the festival was definitely worth going there. but, the next time, it would be way better if they would reduce the number of bands (to, say, moonsorrow and eluveitie :-) ) and let them play a lot longer!

today i was on the last concert for this year – at least, the last one planned ahead more than a few days. this was probably also my last visit to the z-7 for this year.
this time, three bands were playing, the main act being ensiferum (which is latin and means as much as sword bearing), a finnish (what else) viking/folk metal band. well, as it is quite common for viking/folk metal bands nowadays, a huge crowd of kids was there. i saw the first ones at zurich main station, it was quite obvious that the drunken (or starting to get drunk) teenagers as the same track dressed in black were heading for the same destination. i haven’t felt so old for a long time…
the concert started with the swedish power metallers insania. as i already wrote once, i don’t like that kind of music too much, but it was ok. in particular, the singer made funny grimaces (though i’m not sure if it was intentional that they were funny). after that, a taiwanese symphonic black metal band called chthonic entered the stage, featuring an erhu (“chinese violin”). i liked that one pretty much, and i could stand the screaming way more than napalm death‘s or cradle of filth‘s screaming, which i pretty much hate, even though it was pretty similar (in my opinion).
finally, ensiferum entered the stage. well, one member (markus) sat down on a chair, and some guy announced that he isn’t feeling well, that they just fetched him from hospital and that they’ll bring him back right after the concert. that’s devotion! the result was that their gig lasted only a bit more than one hour, until markus let announce (one of the tech guys was regularly filling in water for him and handling him the cup, and passed on messages from him to the other band members) that he wasn’t feeling good and so the last song was announced. (the last song’s beginning was accompanied by chthonic‘s erhu player.) after that, they gave an encore, without markus though, and maybe even a second, but i decided to catch the train instead.
well. on the way back i was pretty much annoyed by the fact that apparently most of the night bus passengers have no clue how the thing works. they don’t manage to change bank notes into coins (there’s a machine for that), they don’t manage to buy the right tickets (there are instructions all over the place), they don’t manage to use the right bus entry (you have to enter in the front, and not try to enter at the other doors, and waiting for 30 seconds until figuring out that you can’t get in there), they don’t manage to prepare the regular ticket and the night surcharge to show it to the driver (instead, they start to search their pockets for another 30 seconds). i understand that some people don’t speak or read german and thus have trouble following the instruction, but i think this didn’t applied to most of them. well, but that explains why the night bus is always late, and the amount of time it is late increases at every stop (at least, as long as people are entering). but at least i could watch all this while sitting inside the bus, so i could listen to good music (kari, of course, as also during the train ride; a big contrast to the concert :) )…

here’s a list of concerts i plan to attend during the last four months of this year. if i put a link to a bands’ homepage, this means i’m going to that concert to see this band (and as a side effect, also the non-linked ones).

• 13.09.2007: threshold, communic, machine men and serenity are playing in the z-7 in pratteln (progressive metal);
• 22.09.2007: fjoergyn, wolfchant, nastrandir und nuclear winter are playing in the dynamo in zurich (symphonic black/pagan/viking/death metal);
• 27.10.2007: moonsorrow, korpiklaani, excelsis and battlelore are playing at the viking/pagan festival in the stadthalle dietikon (folk/pagan metal);
• 31.10.2007: dream theater and symphony x are playing in the eulachhallen in winterthur (progressive metal);
• 09.11.2007: apocalyptica (with special guest not announced yet) is playing in the volkshaus in zürich (violin metal);
• 12.11.2007: porcupine tree and anathema are playing in the volkshaus in zürich (prog, atmospheric rock with metal influences);
• 16.11.2007: orchester accento musicale zürich is playing in the st. peter in zürich (classic);
• 17.11.2007: boob is playing in the helsinki klub in zürich (alternative/punk rock);
• 18.11.2007: amorphis, swallow the sun and insomnium are playing in the z-7 in pratteln (prog metal, doom metal);
• 27.11.2007: fish is playing in the z-7 in pratteln (progressive rock);
• 29.11.2007: halloween, gamma ray and axxis are playing in the stadthalle dietikon (power metal); (skipping that one because of lack of time)
• 05.12.2007: die ärzte are playing in the hallenstadion in oerlikon/zürich (fun punk);
• 14.12.2007: ensiferum, turisas and insania are playing in the z-7 in pratteln (viking metal).

unfortunately, i will miss finntroll playing in the z-7 on 05.12.2007…