Author: Rok Klemše
Location: Tolmin, Slovenia
Concert date: 15.07.2011
Attendance: 10,000
Saturday brought the last day of the festival, and we’d made it there a bit worn out, sure, but in one piece and healthy. The final day promised some big names, and with the very first acts, the last day of Metalcamp 2011 got off to more than a promising start.
In the thick of the worst Saturday afternoon heat, the veterans of epic heavy/power metal Virgin Steele took the stage. Along with (early) Manowar, they’re easily some of the best you’ll find in this genre. The difference is that Virgin Steele don’t embarrass themselves with their new studio releases, which is exactly what the macho men of Manowar have been pulling off so well in recent years. With last year’s album The Black Light Bacchanalia, Virgin Steele proved they still have a strong, inexhaustible studio form, and they greeted us with the eight-minute crusher By The Hammer of Zeus (and the Wrecking Ball of Thor). Sadly, the guys showed up crippled and weakened once again: Josh Block (normally the bassist) had switched to guitar, and there was no sign of original guitarist Edward Pursino. Luckily, Virgin Steele at least had the rich support of orchestral keyboards this time, played live, with the black and white keys pounded by a girl I sadly don’t know. Despite the instrumental emptiness, which you only felt now and then, all the attention went to the fantastic vocalist David DeFeis anyway, the band’s central figure since the very start of its career. DeFeis once again justified his name as one of the best (and sadly overlooked) heavy/power metal vocalists around right now. He shredded eardrums with inhumanly high falsetto screams and simply wowed us with gorgeous, crystal-clear vocals in the verses. I honestly don’t get how Virgin Steele, compared to Manowar, stayed so overlooked and more or less obscure, and I shake my head even more at the thankless early-afternoon slot and the measly half hour they got, in which Virgin Steele managed to play just four songs. It wouldn’t have hurt one bit to hear another hour or so of classic, epic heavy metal done the best way… the way only Virgin Steele can do it.
VIRGIN STEELE:
1. By The Hammer of Zeus and The Wrecking Ball of Thor
2. Immortal I Stand (The Birth of Adam)
3. Defiance
4. Don’t Say Goodbye (Tonight)
Since the next slot on the main stage went to one of the worst representatives of the new wave of heavy metal, Steelwing, I spared my ears the torture of clichéd, generic heavy metal and castrated vocals. Instead I treated them to a dose of death/black metal from the fingers of the home-grown goddess of death and winter, Morana, who were playing on the smaller stage at the same time. The lineup has gone through a few personnel changes since I last saw them, and it showed on stage. The new lineup obviously hasn’t quite settled into breathing freely yet, as there were a few sideways glances over things not being in sync. Still, Morana successfully presented their vision of melodic death/black metal, marked by a dark, evil atmosphere and aggressive parts complemented by melodic keyboard passages. Maybe the band still needs to work on richer, fuller arrangements, and the overly static stage presence still bugs me, so they’ll have to work on that if they want to conquer the big stage at Metalcamp next year the way it deserves. I don’t doubt they will, since the band shows more progress from gig to gig. The band’s big professionalism also deserves praise, especially visible in the solid stage setup with proper banners and the like.
Unfortunately, before the best bands of the day we also had to suffer through the idiocy of the most primitive band at this year’s Metalcamp. Who else but the most tr00 and kvlt outfit of all, Austrian death/black metallers Belphegor. Generic death/black metal with the most clichéd lyrics about satanic sodomizing of everything on two or four legs was topped only by the imbecilities of gentleman frontman Helmuth. Oh, if only Satan would get his hands on that Helmuth.
The most exciting death metal name of this year’s festival was without a doubt Deicide, who justified their status as one of the pioneers of the genre. My eyes bulged a bit when only Glen Benton, Jack Owen and Steve Asheim walked on stage, with solo guitarist Ralph Santolla nowhere to be seen. Well, soon after Metalcamp the band put out an official statement that Benton had tossed Santolla out of the band (and probably sodomized him with some crucifix or the like while at it, hehe) over his constant drinking and the resulting sloppiness on stage. In short, Deicide played as a trio, but as such they did an excellent job. Deicide spun an unrelenting whirlwind of brutal, blasphemous old-school death metal, focusing mainly on promoting their current anti-Christian (Deicide style, of course) ode, To Hell With God. Among the newer songs they served up some real gems to the great delight of the crowd, especially the crushing Deicide and the fantastic Serpents of the Light. Of course you could hear the missing guitar. Jack Owen couldn’t cover everything alone, so parts of certain songs were left with quite a bit of emptiness. But Benton, with deeply distorted digging into his bass and a brutal growl, led an unrelenting tornado right up to the front of Metalcamp more than admirably. Mosh pits followed one after another while Asheim shook the Soča Valley once more with inhumanly precise blast beats. With such confident, uncompromising shows, Deicide are winning back their good name, and Benton delivered the coolest banter between songs, the kind only a “mean mother fucker” like him can pull off.
When the sun set behind the Soča peaks, it was time for a cold Finnish wind and melancholy to sweep the stage in the form of Amorphis, who came back to Slovenian soil about half a year after their show at Cvetličarna. In the meantime the guys released a new album, The Beginning of Times, and greeted us with the song My Enemy from it. The lion’s share of this Amorphis set was made up of songs from the Tomi Joutsen “era”. The Finns went back into the past with only a song or two, but they still took us quite successfully into the land of a thousand lakes. It was expected that Amorphis would play mostly songs from The Beginning of Times, Skyforger and Eclipse, so it was all the more pleasant to rest the ears with the classic The Castaway from the cult album Tales From the Thousand Lakes. That’s exactly why, after the excellent performance of the pair from Elegy, Against Widows, and the obligatory My Kantele, I was hiccuping for something a bit dustier. I mean mainly The Karelian Isthmus and the aforementioned TFtTL. Despite Amorphis’ newer direction (which in itself is of course nothing wrong) into ever more sugar-coated, saccharine and “radio friendly” waters, the Finns more than successfully flung open the door with heavy melancholic atmosphere to the world of the Finnish national epic Kalevala, which they sing about in most of their lyrics, and for an hour and a half carried us off into a world of magic, fantasy and sorcery. Despite all that sweetness and the ever-growing dominance of clean vocals and gentle, caressing melodies, the intensity of the show didn’t fade for a moment, and the credit goes largely to frontman Tomi Joutsen’s excellent performance. He managed to create a genuine connection with the crowd, and he also convinced with a strong, clean, singable melodic voice, which he confidently (but sadly too rarely) combined with brutal growls. The other members are Finnishly cold, more or less static statues, yet Amorphis still managed to enchant the crowd with the timeless, mystical atmosphere of Finnish mythology.
AMORPHIS:
1. My Enemy
2. Sky Is Mine
3. The Smoke
4. You I Need
5. Against Widows
6. My Kantele
7. Silver Bride
8. The Castaway
9. House Of Sleep
We got the peak of this year’s festival with the show by German heavy metal legends Accept, who reunited last year after several years and confirmed their phenomenal form with the heavy metal album of the year, Blood of the Nations. Accept hit Metalcamp like a storm of war and cut heads down without mercy with the opening mid-tempo crusher Teutonic Terror. Udo? Who’s that again? I didn’t miss the little, stocky guy one bit, even though he was the icon and mascot of this band for many years. Of course his legacy shouldn’t be ignored or denied, but Mark Tornillo has clearly brought a strong breath of fresh air into Accept. The guys on stage look like teenage heavy metal fanatics who’ve just released their first record. Regenerated Accept look like an unstoppable heavy metal machine that doesn’t know the meaning of taking prisoners. The unfailing guitar duo of Wolf Hoffmann and Herman Frank fired and chopped away at the helpless crowd from the first riff of Teutonic Terror on. Surgically precise, sharply measured guitar lines flew in from everywhere, and with crazy solos the pair only cemented their reputation as probably the best German guitar duo. The reliable rhythm section of Peter Baltes and Stefan Schwarzmann thundered and boomed like the cannon salvos that mercilessly pounded Krn, Rombon and the other surrounding mountains a hundred years ago. Accept proved they were deadly serious about playing one of the best shows of Metalcamp, lining up classics one after another. Metal Heart, Princess of the Dawn, Breaker and Fast as a Shark thoroughly wore out our necks. The incredible Tornillo looked like he’d injected a huge dose of steroids straight into his throat. From the first beat to the last he screamed like a madman, and sang the verses with an aggressively gritty but still melodic and superb voice that didn’t crack for a second. The guys really couldn’t have wished for a better savior for the band. Tornillo led an explosive, energetic show like an old tomcat, and it peaked when the guys pulled off that famous “Judas Priest” shoulder-to-shoulder stance, all four lined up side by side, proving what real German heavy metal terror means! For the finale we of course threw eggs at the wall, as expected, and Accept proved one last time that they have balls of steel and a metal heart beating in their chests!
ACCEPT:
Intro (Shades of Death intro)
1. Teutonic Terror
2. Bucket Full of Hate
3. Metal Heart
4. Losers and Winners
5. Up to the Limit
6. Princess of the Dawn
7. Breaker
8. Aiming High
9. Fast as a Shark
10. Pandemic
11. Balls to the Wall
Kreator closed out the festival on the main stage once more, but this year’s Metalcamp ended with Accept for me. This year’s edition confirmed that Metalcamp remains one of the best European metal festivals, and with its gorgeous natural setting it’s probably the most unique festival scenery in Europe. There’s still some room for improvement, mainly a somewhat better selection of acts, in my view. The headliners more than justified their status this time, and the organizers went to great lengths, especially by bringing back the mighty Slayer, plus Accept, Mastodon and the rest. What was perhaps missing was metal for connoisseurs, and there’s definitely plenty of room for improvement there, since the smaller stage is the right place for the metal appreciated by true fans rather than just the masses. But we survived Metalcamp 2011, and as Glen Benton said a few hours before the festival ended: it was truly one “big fucking barbecue party!”
Photos: Nina Grad
Setlist
MAIN STAGE: Avatar Virgin Steele Steelwing Belphegor Deicide Amorphis Accept Kreator 2nd STAGE: Devastating Enemy Morana Dark Reflexions Warlike Deathstrike Evolve Asator Guns of Moropolis Tasters Varg Moonsorrow
Photo Gallery
