Gloryhammer, Elvenking and Victorius on a Power Metal Raid Through the Dimensional Gates of Kino Šiška! (2022)
Performing: Victorius, Elvenking, Gloryhammer
Venue: Ljubljana / CUK Kino Šiška / Slovenia
Concert date: Wednesday, 22 June 2022
Concerts have finally come back in full force. Bands are racing like mad to make up for everything they missed between March 2020 and, say, March 2022. This time, after two years of concert drought, we too managed to make it back to our beloved musical temple, Kino Šiška. Because this was a power metal evening — a night for worshippers of the fairy tales, myths and legends you find in abundance in, say, Game of Thrones. Who would have thought that Gloryhammer, Britain’s ‘intergalactic’ power metallers, would manage to achieve such popularity in just a few years among the youngest guard of distortion-sharpened sound devotees? The generation attending power metal shows has completely turned over in the space of just a few years. Completely. When a generation changes, a new power metal expansion tends to follow. That’s how it was at the turn of the millennium. And Gloryhammer don’t play much differently from HammerFall twenty years ago, who didn’t play much differently from Helloween nearly twenty years before them. What we’re talking about is the genre’s popularity returning in multi-year cycles. Add to that the kind of institution Sabaton or Powerwolf have grown into, and the picture gets even clearer. Gloryhammer figured out that their musical cliché needs an extra layer of storytelling to pull in the crowds. They found their niche. Once again in the battles between good and evil. And the generational shift, as mentioned, is very much felt. What the generation of today’s aunts and uncles — those who spent their twenties and thirties with Helloween and Blind Guardian — sees as childish, laugh-worthy kitsch in Gloryhammer and newer power metal acts, the new generation of twenty- to thirty-something metalheads treats as a cult worth bleeding for to the last drop.
Originally, the plan was a joint Gloryhammer tour with Warkings. Had that gone ahead, the Ljubljana venue would very likely have sold out. Regardless, the place was buzzing and bubbling well before eight o’clock. Most attendees had come to Ljubljana from other countries — especially from Croatia, Austria and Italy, and you could even spot cars with Slovak plates. This only confirms that Gloryhammer have achieved massive popularity in just a handful of years.
First up, stepping onto the stage just after eight, were Germany’s Victorius. The opening act’s performance actually illustrates the phenomenon laid out in the opening paragraph of this review. A band that as recently as 28 January 2017 had shyly, without a shred of stage dressing, glitter or kitsch, opened a show with a forgettable set at Explosiv in Graz ahead of Grave Digger, and showed signs of gradual transformation at the same venue ahead of Warkings in late autumn 2019, stepped onto the Ljubljana stage as a fully transformed act. In the intervening period, they’d become nuclear karate warriors — a kind of superior space ninjas who could probably hang out with Darwin himself, especially when it comes to rediscovering supposedly extinct dinosaur lineages and other prehistoric creatures, right up to dragons, which apparently swarm the universe. The band clearly feels a lot more confident in their ‘armour’ these days. A highly polished, professionally executed set that surprised not just because the guys delivered the goods and worked as a tight, well-rehearsed unit, but especially because of the incredible crowd response — one that recalled the days when Sabaton were ‘stealing’ sets from HammerFall (perhaps some of you still remember that HammerFall 2009 tour and the Maribor show). Victorius fired up the crowd with great good cheer, and the set confirmed that their fanbase is growing — the audience knew their material well. As mentioned, massively melodic, epically bombastic choruses — musically it’s all been done before, but then again, it’s hard to resist this particular space ninja original. A very successful set. Based on what we saw, it’s fair to expect Victorius’s popularity to keep growing over the years. The nuclear quintet from Dortmund devoted most of their attention to the album »Dinosaur Warfare Pt. 2 – The Great Ninja War«, which came out just two days after Victorius’s Ljubljana show.
Next up: Elvenking. These guys have a vastly greater number of concert and studio miles under their belt. Quite a few? They’ve actually been at it for a quarter of a century. This time around they appeared as a quintet, with guitarist Mattia Carli helping out on the live front, and without a violinist. Remaining from the original lineup is Federico “Aydan” Baston, one of the band’s founders, and of course the band’s resident dark lord and indispensable frontman Damna (Davide “Damnagoras” Moras). Drummer Simone “Symohn” Morettin has also rejoined the fold. The crowd shifted around a bit before Elvenking’s set. There was less intensity, and fewer people who knew the lyrics. That doesn’t mean Elvenking lacked fans, though. Even so, the audience response to their set was more than enviable. Stylistically, Elvenking’s folk elements set them apart pretty clearly from both Victorius and Gloryhammer, who are musically closer to each other. The responses weren’t as intense at first. But the band managed to lift the crowd as the set went on. The most prominent spot in the set went to their latest and still-current album »Reader of the Runes – Divination« from 2019. While the band focused on newer material, a pleasant surprise in the setlist was the older The Divided Heart from the album »Skythe« (2007), played as the grand finale of a more than convincing performance by this experienced, sharp-edged crew from the area around Pordenone. The band made no secret of their delight at the close of their more than successful show. They gave the crowd a long, heartfelt send-off as a thank-you.
But everyone was feverishly waiting for Gloryhammer. A long break followed. Which confirmed that headliner sets lasting an hour and three-quarters are becoming an increasingly rare luxury. The venue had packed out intensely, though. The hall went dark, but there were still a few minutes to be entertained by a life-size cardboard cutout of Tom Jones while his Delilah played in the background. And the crowd was armed with all manner of props that belong more in a playroom than at a concert venue. The standout in the front row was a neatly groomed guy with a ‘Taliban’ beard, physics-professor spectacles and a Burzum shirt. Priceless. A generation is arriving that erases the lines between taboos. Up front there was also that unicorn which, years ago, bravely soared above the Metaldays festival in an early-morning downpour. It acted as the band’s sixth member and heralded the fact that The Unicorn Invasion Of Dundee remains to this day Gloryhammer’s most popular song. First to step to the front of the stage was the villainous Zargothrax — not band founder Chris Bownes (also of Alestorm), but his live stand-in on keyboards, Michael Barber. Then came the arrival of bassist The Hootsman. In all his performative glory. Who was immediately (and predictably) pelted with chants of “Hoots! Hoots! Hoots!…” from the crowd. Then stocky, pint-sized guitarist Ser Proletius, and right at the end the biggest live puzzle — the band’s new singer, Angus McFife V. Specifically, Cypriot Sozos Michael, who to many people’s surprise replaced his predecessor and the band’s long-standing vocalist — Swiss-born Thomas Laszlo Winkler — the previous year. A zealous fan immediately thrust an inflatable hammer into his hand at the very start of the show, and the orgy — the battle between the evil legions of Zargothrax and the defenders of Dundee — erupted in full. Fantastic energy. Throughout. Incredible audience response. From the very first to the very last second of the show.
At Gloryhammer shows, it’s been clear for a while now that nothing can go wrong. That’s the kind of backing a fanatical crowd gives a band. The most recent album, »Legends from Beyond the Galactic Terrorvortex«, released in 2019, landed more than brilliantly with the crowd. The same went for the brand-new single Fly Away, released this year. You don’t encounter this kind of intensity between crowd and band every day at power metal shows. Verse to verse. In a whirlwind of adrenaline and burning emotion! From front to back, every single row. As one. Thunderously. Nor was there any shortage of that venomously green troll, whom McFife once again dispatched with a hammer during the obligatory Gloryhammer. That came early in the show. The song brought a rowdy mosh pit to life. The band has woven a heap of rituals into their live show, and the audience has quickly made them their own. The unity of participation is nothing short of staggering. A pre-recorded 2001 Odyssey motif served as the intro to the parodic The Hollywood Hootsman, where the fur-clad astral demigod of Unst once again shone in full. The band built through the set. As the finale approached, the atmosphere peaked with the long-awaited The Unicorn Invasion Of Dundee, but the band didn’t retreat backstage afterwards — instead, in a slightly extended pause, they stayed on stage and hammered out Wizards! as the grand finale, leaving the sense of an obligatory encore feeling somewhat blurred.
This power metal blowout in the heart of Ljubljana confirmed that interest in power metal is back in full force. But the musically clichéd genre now needs to come dressed in stories of vivid imagination. Those myths, tales and fables need to be skillfully ‘packaged’ for it to ignite. This isn’t just a trend — it’s become the new standard for power metal, one that opens the doors to the biggest concert venues and, optionally, to where everyone wants to be. Big-band status. And Gloryhammer — whose Ljubljana show proved they keep growing in popularity at an unstoppable pace — are headed exactly there.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Victorius setlist:
1. Dinos and Dragons
2. Wrath of the Dragongod
3. Shuriken Showdown
4. Night of the Nuclear Ninja
5. Victorious Dinogods
6. Mighty Magic Mammoth
7. Dinosaur Warfare
8. Super Sonic Samurai
9. Cosmic Space Commando Base
Elvenking setlist:
1. Heathen Divine
2. Sic Semper Tyrannis
3. Draugen’s Maelstrom
4. Pagan Revolution
5. The One We Shall Follow
6. Silverseal
7. The Divided Heart
8. Elvenlegions
Gloryhammer setlist:
1. Into the Terrorvortex of Kor-Virliath
2. The Siege of Dunkeld (In Hoots We Trust)
3. Gloryhammer
4. The Land of Unicorns
5. Fly Away
6. 2001 Odyssey
7. The Hollywood Hootsman
8. Goblin King of the Darkstorm Galaxy
9. Legend of the Astral Hammer
10. Masters of the Galaxy
11. Hootsforce
12. Angus McFife
13. Universe on Fire
14. The Unicorn Invasion of Dundee
15. Wizards!
16. The National Anthem of Unst
