Paganfest: Why I get up in the morning

Life is grand. Sometimes I just can’t be unhappy, and last night was one of those evenings. Fortunately, I’m still basking in the afterglow of it.

Last night was Paganfest, easily the best metal festival I’ve ever attended (which, to be honest, isn’t saying very much, as the U.S. isn’t exactly big on festivals). It was a good time. As the venue website declares:

HEIDENFEST

* Nur fürs Paganfest: Met- Ausschank (Trinkhörner sind erlaubt)

[translation]

PAGANFEST

* Only for Paganfest: Mead bar (drinking horns allowed)

That’s got to be the greatest exception ever. Drinking horns were indeed allowed, and how. I was only of the only people there without one, and also without full pelt garb.

Step one: get into a sold-out show

I arrived late to the show, with my Finnish comrade, due to a minor mishap. Having heard from everyone multiple times that there was no way in hell we were getting in without tickets, as the festival had been sold out for weeks, we decided to give it a go anyway. First we tried the back entrance, and acted ignorant when asked for tickets. “Well, we thought the line out front was for people with them, so we figured we’d come back here to buy them. No? Go back out front? OK, no problem, man.” The whole time we were scoping out places to hop the fence, but security was quite heavy, especially around the easily hoppable sections of fencing.

Tuomas isn’t very confident with his German—although his English puts my German to shame—so I decided to do the talking with the security guard at the main gate. She said, “No. No way in hell, without a ticket. This has been sold out for weeks. Yes, I know you guys really want to see these bands, but my job is to make sure that no one without a ticket gets in. Sorry.”

Fortunately, I’m majoring in making friends. I talked with her for a little bit, and spun some bullshit like, “I know it’s completely out of the question for us to get in, but is there anyway we can at least just buy a T-shirt for the festival? We love these bands so much and we just want to be able to have something from the show, even if we don’t get to see them.” That definitely struck a chord of empathy with the guard, and I let it resonate for a bit before trying anything else. She said that maybe if we came back in an hour, there would be merch outside that we could pick up, possibly even at a discount. She recommended another club, with a beer garden, where we could go to kill time.

I of course said this was a wonderful idea, and thanked her profusely. Then Tuomas and I fell back a little bit and discussed our options. I translated my conversation with the guard (into English, not Finnish!) and also explained that I thought there was hope. We were already a little buzzed from the beers we’d had at my place before heading out, so we figured what the hell, let’s hang out and see what happens. Several minutes later, the same security guard comes up to me and says in a low voice, “Leave now. Come back in 10 minutes. Perhaps my colleague can help you.”

We booked it. I set an alarm on my phone for 8 minutes so that we’d be back in just the right amount of time, and Tuomas and I started talking about the bands playing. We were laughing that I hadn’t understood who was playing, because I’d always pronounced the bandname Týr as teer instead of the proper toorr. While joking around and taking stupid pictures of each other, the security guard came up to me again and said, “There, that’s my coworker. Talk to him. He’s on the phone now but when he’s off he’ll help you.”

We hovered so close to the guy we were practically hugging him. As soon as he snapped his cell phone shut, he looked us up and down, then gestured for us to follow him—quietly. We get in through the Guest List Only door, and he introduces us to a colleague of his, who wants money. She says, “That’ll be 28.” Not bad at all! I hand her 40. The guy says, “No, that won’t do. It has to be exact.” Well, shit. I didn’t know what to do about that, and I figured I was just about to get ripped off 12 bucks. Funny thing is, I didn’t really have a problem with this. But a suggestion is made that the woman break my bills, giving me a 20, a 10, and then another 10 in coins. Then I paid the 28 exactly. I still fail to see the point of this, but who the hell cares, because it got me in. Tuomas gets the same deal, we tip the nice man 5 bucks, and we’re on our way to forging through the crowd, trying to get near the stage.

Finding a place in the crowd

The people at this show were all-out diehard fans of folk metal, and it showed.

I think my favorite was this dude, whom I headbanged with throughout most of the show, until I was elected to crowdsurf and thrown over the front rail. (That was during Ensiferum, so I’d gotten a lot of pictures by that point, and it was OK by me. Plus, I loved those guys.)

While still standing near the back upon arriving, Tuomas treated me to a few beers as a thank-you for my rapport-building prowess. Again, as we’d arrived late, we’d already missed Equilibrium and Eluvietie (about whom I’ve heard great things), but we were able to catch Týr setting up, and their set in full force.

The bands

Týr

I love these guys. Their Ragnarok album blows me away every time I put it on, and it’s one of those epics discs that you have to listen to in its entirety, the whole way through, every time. The crowd dug them, hard.

Absolutely epic. I’ve also thrown up a video of the last part of Hail To The Hammer, in which the sound quality is even lower than above, but the crowd’s enthusiasm is even greater.

Moonsorrow

I’ve been dying to see these guys live. I haven’t listened to any Moonsorrow for years, and so as soon as they started playing, opening with Raunioilla (which Tuomas kindly informed me means “Upon The Ruins,” a freaking killer songtitle), I was taken back about 4 years, to the time I used to spin that CD every morning, walking to classes.

As is to be expected from these guys, they were only able to play about 3 or 4 songs during their 45-minute set, but that worked beautifully. Each song has such flowing dynamic contrast that they really worked the crowd, shifting from headbanging to clapping to singing and then back again.

Here’s a brief clip from Raunioilla, by far my favorite song of theirs. I say “brief” when it’s actually the first 3 minutes of a 13-minute song, so beware.

[audio:raunioilla-intro.mp3]

For the record, I freaking love bands who give a mic to everyone in the band. (Yes, even the drummer is wearing a headset.)

Korpiklaani

I was so not ready for these guys. I’ve called them “fratboy folk” before, because pretty much every one of their songs is about drinking, rather than fighting, but I’d failed to realize what this was going to mean to a crowd in Munich. Singing about beer is without a doubt the best way to win the hearts of a crowd in this city, and Korpiklaani wielded the crowd like the gods they are.

To get a good idea of their sound, check out this quip from their Wiki page.

The music of Korpiklaani ranges from the violin-and-guitar paean to the Finnish god of fermentation Pellonpekko, to the “typical” trollish metal “Wooden Pints”, to “Crows Bring The Spring”.

Yeah, that’s about right. Dancing galore. Wannabe vikings, arm-in-arm, spinning round and round and shouting at the top of their lungs things like, “Beer, beer! Beer, beer!”

And, of course, they’re not afraid to get down and folky. I wasn’t expecting it, but the bastards went ahead and did a live rendition of Shaman Drum, of which I only caught the end on camera.

It was far more haunting live than it seems here. As I was making the video, I wanted to make sure to cut off the explosion of cheers from the crowd as the song ended, which I thought it would make for better resonance on video, but I was completely wrong. The crowd reaction would only add to the experience. Ah, well.

Ensiferum

I finally, finally got to see Ensiferum live. It’s a damn shame Jari Mäenpää wasn’t with them, but the dude from Norther did a pretty damn good job on vocals. The opened, of course, with Iron, and the crowd went nuts. Unfortunately for Ensiferum, Korpiklaani had absolutely drained the audience with all the dancing, so the first few Ensiferum songs were met with relatively tame enthusiasm. Still, Ensiferum cleaned up.

My sole complaint regarding the new vocalist was that during the solo for Iron, he didn’t play the original. He referenced it in his sweeps, but he brought in too much of his own technique. I’m still torn as to whether this was a shameless appropriation of a classic song by a newcomer who can’t fill Jari’s shoes, or a reverant reticence to mar a beautiful, untouchable thing with his own playing. In my opinion, it’s more appropriate to lay insufficient offerings at the altar of a metal god than to build a new altar, which it seemed to me like he was doing.

This was partly made up for, though, by one of my favorite moments from the whole night, when Ensiferum fulfilled their duty as headliners and played part of a classic metal song. Being from the North, it would have been completely inappropriate to toss yet another tribute onto Dimebag Darrell’s burial mound. I’m glad they didn’t. They went the extra mile and played the main riff from the father of all battle metal songs, The Trooper.

While the band did play a stellar setlist, they left off Treacherous Gods, which thrilled me—because they did it as an encore. I made a video of the whole song, but it’s pretty poor quality, so I won’t embed it. I’ll see how it turns out upon YouTubeification, and might throw up a link to it later after it’s finished processing.

Probably the highlight of their set was the crowd singing along to the bridge of “Lai Lai Hei,” but sadly I don’t have video of it. Take my word for it, though: it was awesome.

The land of hope and glory

I know this was a disastrously protracted post, but I couldn’t help but gush about this show. I encourage you to listen to all the bands’ material at length, as everyone who played (well, I can’t vouch for Equilibrium) offers absolutely stellar folk metal.

Stay folk.

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