Performing: Rumproof, Visions Of Atlantis, Alestorm
Venue: Barba Negra / Budapest / Hungary
Date: Sunday, 3 July 2022
A day of pirate metal in Budapest. Wonder what Running Wild would have to say about that? The sun was still high in the sky! Beating down without mercy and scorching skin, while the ‘rum tasting’ festivities had already kicked off — with local, piratically hard-drinking outfit Rumproof. The folk metallers from Pécs, Hungary, took the stage at exactly ten past six. That’s a mere ten minutes after the doors of Barba Negra opened. For the more than 1,000 attendees who were flooding toward the front, it was a real scramble to make it to the barrier on time. Despite the band’s limited international profile (even though they’ve been around since 2014), Rumproof delivered an excellent warm-up. The band has the EP “Black Flag in The Sky” (2014) and their debut full-length “Rogues of the Seven Seas”, released in 2016, under their belt. They opened their scorching, rum-soaked set with that album’s title track. Back home the band is fairly well known. They also brought an enthusiastic take on pirate customs and traditions, packaging it all in their well-worn musical vocabulary. A proper party, with some songs delivered in Hungarian to boot. And the lads pulled it off. Fiery, passionate, short, and effective.
Rumproof announced from the stage that they hadn’t played live in over two years. Apparently they hadn’t even specifically rehearsed for this show. It seems the organizer’s call caught them totally off guard — literally at the last minute. So they had just a few hours to get ready. And it didn’t show at all. The set was a complete success.
Next up was the international — that is, Franco-Italian-Austrian — band Visions of Atlantis, who have recently discovered a great love for pirate themes. The band has been going for the better part of two decades and has survived a long string of line-up changes and reinventions. Around 2013 they started finding some stability, especially after the charming, vivacious, and energetic Frenchwoman Clémentine Delauney joined, taking over the lead female vocals. The band has recently found its inspiration in pirate tales and kitted out their stage presentation accordingly, dressed the set to match, and the centrepiece of it all is of course their latest studio album, “Pirates”. Out this year. Their eighth overall. Clémentine and co-vocalist Michele Guaitoli made for an incredibly cinematic entrance onto the stage. Professional. In every sense. Visions Of Atlantis are no joke anymore. Not anymore. Amid the flood of symphonic power metal bands out there, they genuinely had to experiment and probe niches to somehow break free from the fate of living forever in the shadow of bands like Epica and Nightwish. Hats off to the band for all that stubborn persistence. Through sheer defiance, they’ve managed to build a solid fan base, and that’s what lifted them. Simple as. In the last few years, Visions Of Atlantis have gotten hot. From an average, near-forgettable live act, they’ve grown into a genuine musical force. The band now comfortably shares stages with full symphonic orchestras, among other things. But the Budapest show was ‘classic’. A five-piece! The way we like it best. Shrapnel to the head. No filler. A lot more direct. Hard-hitting and biting. Melodic and loaded with pomp. Anthemic. Clémentine and her ‘vocal sparring partner’ Guaitoli were on point together again. Of course all eyes were on the vocalist, who effortlessly commanded the heated crowd — a crowd that had, by that point, clearly done their homework on the fresh tracks from “Pirates”. Yes. The core of the set revolved around the new album. Very dynamic and immersive. Assured and confident. Visions Of Atlantis proved with this performance that the defiance and persistence have finally paid off. Of course, reaching Falco’s level is out of the question — but then again, the man didn’t have much to do with metal. Given the upward trajectory of recent years, Visions Of Atlantis could easily become one of the most commercially successful bands from Austria. In the metal field, of course. On that front, we Slovenians are a far cry from the Austrians, even if our own promotion leaves something to be desired. Which isn’t right. But that’s how it is. Anyway, enough of that. An excellent performance, without a single visible or audible flub. Visions Of Atlantis are riding boldly onward and upward! The Hungarian crowd — who, as we all know, don’t exactly speak English (read: ‘ohhh, that irresistible exotic quality’) — confirmed that Visions of Atlantis are right at home in Hungary too, singing along intensely throughout.
As the set wrapped up, the band lamented that three years without their Hungarian fans had been genuinely hard to bear! The whole Covid-19 situation had torpedoed the band’s headlining tour not once but three times, including visits to the Hungarian capital. Before leaving the stage, Visions of Atlantis told the crowd that this very concert marked their comeback, and promised they’d be back in Hungary before the end of the year.
Finally! Time for Alestorm! Without delay or wasted time, they robbed the crowd of their breath the moment they hit the stage. The frenzied screaming that’s a fixture at pretty much every Hungarian concert just wouldn’t let up — until vocalist Chris said the first few words. At that moment, over 1,000 attendees went quiet and listened to his every word as if he were their captain. The fact that those words were something along the lines of “Are you ready to party” only fired the crowd into a near-frenzied delirium that erupted into multiple mosh pits right from the first song, Keelhauled.
With Alestorm you can tell this isn’t your typical folk metal band — or even a band that particularly markets itself as metal. Which was clear from the make-up of the crowd itself. For the most part, at least judging by the outfits, it looked like a Vili Resnik concert crowd. Let’s hope Vili reads Rockline. He’ll be stoked. He’s already reaching for the rum! The other half, naturally, dressed as pirates. Worth pointing out: this was the biggest headlining concert Alestorm had ever played. In their entire existence. Throughout all of this, one naive question kept buzzing around my head: “Why Hungary? Why, when releasing their new album Seventh Rum of a Seventh Rum, did they write a song in Hungarian? What does the country have besides Lake Balaton, let alone pirates?”
The answers evaporated when, during the second song on the setlist, guitarist Máté Bodor stepped up to MC briefly — in fluent Hungarian. It finally became clear: the lead guitarist had come home. Literally — apparently he grew up less than a kilometre from the venue. Alcohol flowed, of course — not just in streams but in a full-on torrent. Comparable to the Sava at hundred-year flood levels after a week of extreme rainfall. The band once again got swept up in the crowd’s singing and screaming during Mexico, where the guitarist and vocalist delivered no small amount of fan service for the fairer sex when they started French-kissing each other on stage with barely twenty centimetres between them (and this about 30cm away from the author of this article, who found himself serving as official photographer in the immediate vicinity of those ‘intertwining tongues’ — *crying*). The whole concert was peppered with Chris’s comic commentary, keeping the vibe epically elevated for everyone in attendance. Even though the entire concert was one big party, that party didn’t let up even during the mandatory encore, when Alestorm hammered out Drink. For a second there was the thought that the crowd might actually tear the stage down. It was the most eagerly anticipated song of the night. The second-to-last song then delivered yet another moment of that unique bond between the band and the Hungarian crowd. That song was Nyár van (originally released in 1985), widely regarded as the most iconic Hungarian-language track of the ’80s. Vocalist Chris announced it at the start of the song: “I Don’t speak Hungarian, but I’ll try” — then, after the first verse, Leander Köteles joined him onstage to lend a hand. Köteles gained wider recognition (outside the metal sphere he mostly operates in) in 2019 when he competed in DAL (Hungary’s equivalent of EMA — the national Eurovision selection).
And to close things out, naturally, Fucked With an Anchor! Middle fingers were in the air for the entire song. At several points the vocalist handed the singing over to the crowd, who naturally drowned him out.
As mentioned, this was the biggest and also the longest concert Alestorm had ever played since they came into existence in 2004, and it made for a one-of-a-kind evening. Bands like Alestorm and others (the so-called “unserious bands” — Electric Callboy, We Butter Our Bread With Butter, TurboBier, and many more) who use humour to bring metal and its subgenres to a wider audience are often despised by fans of so-called ‘daddy metal’ (if there are no skintight trousers, it ain’t worth a damn :)), but Alestorm would absolutely and with ease win over even the most hardened old-school metalhead — if they’d only show up to one of their concerts. The concept of piracy and its glorification, especially when it comes to drinking rum and in this case Ala, is a long-established tradition in the metal world, but the conventional wisdom has always been that breaking through was tough for bands like these. That trend changed dramatically during COVID, and this year, as concert venues finally open up again, it’s proving that these are exactly the bands smashing attendance records. We’ll definitely cross paths with Alestorm again, but until then, the motto stands:
“We live each day like there’s nothing to lose
But a man has needs and the need is booze
They say all the best things in life are free
So give all your beer and your rum to me!“
Author: Denis Paradiž
Photos: Denis Paradiž
Rumproof setlist:
1. Intro
2. Rogues of the seven seas
3. Blood of the kraken
4. Kótyagos Álmok
5. Haunted Tavern
6. Szittyós John
7. Kalózszív
8. Black Out
Visions of Atlantis setlist:
1. Pirates Will Return
2. A Life of Our Own
3. Heroes of the Dawn
4. Clocks
5. The Silent Mutiny
6. Master the Hurricane
7. Melancholy Angel
8. Legion of the Seas
Alestorm setlist:
1. Keelhauled
2. Treasure Chest Party Quest
3. Mexico
4. The Sunk’n Norwegian
5. Magellan’s Expedition
6. Shipwrecked
7. Seventh Rum of a Seventh Rum
8. Alestorm
9. Tortuga
10. Hangover (orig. Taio Cruz)
11. Zombies Ate My Pirate Ship
12. Nancy the Tavern Wench
13. Rumpelkombo
14. P.A.R.T.Y.
15. Magyarország (live debut)
16. Captain Morgan’s Revenge
17. Shit Boat (No Fans)
—encore—
18. Drink
19. Pirate Metal Drinking Crew
20. Nyár van (orig. Neoton Família, live debut, plus Leander Köteles)
21. Fucked With an Anchor
