Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik, Jerneja Jerak
Location: Tolmin (confluence of the Tolminka and Soča rivers) / Slovenia
Concert date: 10.08.2012
Attendance: 12,000
Ticket price: €107.00 (three-day ticket) / €142.00 (seven-day ticket)
The fifth and final day of Metal Camp, as the festival’s closing day, actually brought the least interesting lineup of the lot. Can you picture Sabaton as the headliner of Metal Camp’s fifth day, with Sodom and Pain on the bill too? Tough, isn’t it? Any of the three could have pulled off the headliner role, but it went to the one that’s currently the most popular of the trio.
After a day of moody weather the day before, the sky, though still weighed down by low clouds, settled down, and the festival wrapped up in completely dry conditions. Honestly, nothing earth-shattering happened until Sodom hit the stage, since the course of events was dictated by bands with a career of ten-odd years at most, down to just a few years, and precious little in the way of artistic originality.
On the flip side, though, the pre-Sodom overture served up a nice haul of stylistic variety, and the festival “peace” at four in the afternoon was shattered by the roar of German thrash metal revivalists Purify, back in action after a few years’ break and smitten with the legacy of the American Bay Area movement, starting with the old school of Exodus and/or Forbidden; Purify also inherited some of the rock n’ roll rolling dirt from New York’s Overkill. But with a German accent. So, a generic and less interesting opening for the last day. Hedienvolk, Dutch folk metallers, once again drew a serious number of metal rowdies in front of the stage, which confirmed one last time at the festival the general folk metal mania currently ruling the worldwide metal scene. The band, which firmly established itself on the scene with its third album in 2010, titled »Uit oude grond« (»From old soil«), naturally balances the classic building blocks of metal with folk instruments, such as arrangements for mandolin and violin. Another party, a confident set, it couldn’t go any other way. The lineup is seasoned enough, having held its own on the scene for a whole decade. Yet by now the realization has sunk in about the artificial pushing of folk metal bands, which thanks to the genre’s popularity automatically get priority over far more mature acts with a voice of their own; doors swing wide open for them without any trouble, and the question is how much quality and authenticity such bands can still offer today. Let’s say rather produce, since in all their general abundance they look as alike as two peas in a pod.
Steelwing, third on the bill, are likewise a band that could have been replaced on the main stage by just about any act from the festival’s smaller, second stage. Steelwing are old-school NWOBHM revivalists. The Swedes naturally floored the gas pedal. The playing is dynamic, heartfelt, laced with a dose of bombast and well-studied showmanship, largely inherited from Iron Maiden, from whom Steelwing also lifted much of their stage outfit (spandex; left guitarist Robby Rockbag, with a headband on, despite a tougher look, rather cheekily recalled the stage posture of Adrian Smith from the golden eighties, partly just because of the Gibson Explorer guitar) . The new album on Noise Art Records, released this year, the third one, titled »Zone Of Alienation«, proves that Steelwing have started to repeat themselves. The band, which played Ljubljana’s Orto bar in February this year on a headline tour, left a convincing impression regardless, and despite being generic, it contrasted nicely with the festival mood. Although vocalist Riley Erickson convincingly hit every register, even the highest ones, his vocals came across as incredibly thin and shrill in the overall sound picture, let’s say “squeezed”. The cause lies in the basic sound settings, the mix of Steelwing’s sonic picture, because Erickson did his job confidently throughout. The Steelwing setlist ran as follows: Full Speed Ahead!, The Illusion, The Nightwatcher, Breathless, Zone Of Alienation, The Running Man, Tokkotai (Wind Of Fury), Roadkill (… Or Be Killed). A more impressive impression in terms of expressive authenticity came after Steelwing from Finnish death/doom metallers with a hefty dose of “melodic” content, Swallow The Sun. An extremely static band on stage, but one pulled along by a provocative atmosphere stuffed with a bitter sense of sorrow. The melancholy, convincingly crafted, gripped the grounds palpably; the whole sky turned grey for a short while, as if it were mourning too. Despite his immobile stance, vocalist Mikko Kotamäki took most of the attention. During the opener Emerald Forest and the Black Bird (also the title of the band’s current studio album) he drew eyes with a lit cigarette in hand, leaning on top of the mic stand he was otherwise fixed on, and with an impressive red Type O Negative shirt with the motif of the album »Dead Again« (2007). But of course none of it would have worked without a convincing vocal performance! The band fought its way through This Cut is the Deepest and then Hate, Lead the Way!, Psychopath’s Lair, Cathedrall Walls, New Moon and Swallow (Horror pt. I). The sextet, which has actually operated in an unchanged lineup since 2001 (the exception being newcomer Kai Hahto, otherwise Wintersun’s drummer), also offered a hefty dose of psychedelic-esoteric mood, underpinned especially by acoustic passages backed with piano (e.g. the intro to This Cut is the Deepest)
With the arrival of German veterans of Teutonic thrash metal Sodom, the fifth day of the festival actually only truly came alive and spread its wings! The space in front of the stage finally merged into a crowd of several thousand heads that had come to salute the legendary heavyweights! The uncompromising trio of Tom Angelripper (vocals, bass), Bernd “Bernemann” Kost (guitar) and new drummer Markus Freiwald, who replaced Bobby Schottkowski at the end of 2010, opened the show with the title track from the current album »In War And Pieces«. Although it was a predictable set, in line with expectations, catching Sodom live is always a special treat. This is a band with a strongly developed charisma that always comes to life on stage in full dose. Their defiance over the years, and especially their exceptional stage mileage, speak for themselves. Sodom don’t play hide-and-seek. A solid, unyielding and utterly mocking primordial cannonade of lightning-fast rolling thrash metal, the way only the Germans can brew it, sucked the grounds into fiery tongues of rage, the brutal sonic terror unleashed from the stage! Next came Sodomy And Lust, M-16, the obligatory Agent Orange and Bombenhagel, then Remember The Fallen, City Of God, Outbreak Of Evil, Blasphemer, while the grounds bathed in dripping sweat and the lashing of sodomy, sadism and masochism – something for everyone. In short, Sodom’s set was without a doubt the highlight of the last day, and the guys fully repaired the impression left by their previous Metal Camp visit in 2009, when they ran into an avalanche of sound mishaps mid-show. So Sodom still fully “kill”! The band is otherwise in the middle of recording a new album, expected out this year, so we can look forward to an official announcement of a new headline tour soon.
The only industrial act on the main stage of this year’s Metal Camp, Pain, led by famed music veteran and co-creator of the Scandinavian branches of extreme metal Peter Tägtgren, dressed in ragged white clothes that mix a straitjacket with mummification bandages, stormed the stage with his Pain crew after the moody intro piece Lux Aetema (by Clint Mansell), which morphed into the ultra-fast Pain track Crashed. That immediately made it clear that Pain would play the whole show with the help of backing tracks, which for this band means sonic loops of programming, extra undercurrent beats and a curtain of keyboards. The band, which Hypocrisy fans especially turned their backs on this evening, was held high on the hands mostly by an influx of women, who raged in total abandon to the occasionally catchy, flirty rhythmic loops that Pain weave into their musical engraving. Tägtgren delivered an extremely convincing interpretation of the demanding combination of many vocal approaches, from clean melodic singing to screamy core shrieking and death metal growling; Pain are certainly crafty enough to also use special effects through which they route the lead vocal (Shut Your Mouth), a standard ambient trick of industrial metal. As expected, Pain closed the set with the ultra-melodic hit Shut Your Mouth from the album »Nothing Remains the Same« (2002). The band also played I’m Going In, Walking On Glass, the sped-up march that thoroughly got the whole Metal Camp on its feet called On And On, Dirty Woman, Dark Fields Of Pain, Monkey Business, even a The Beatles cover, Eleanor Rigby, the hit Same Old Song, a mad massacre with Bitch, then Stay Away, Fear Of Demons and The Great Pretender. Excellent concert, outstanding interplay. Flawless. Sound brilliant. Tägtgren being glued to the mic does take away some of the overall dynamics and stage charge, but the knack for implanting dark gothic yet ultra-melodic predatoriness that arches over wound-up industrial rhythms creates feelings of hypnosis, and in that Pain are extremely effective. Shame they have to rely on backing tracks. Worth mentioning that the fifth day’s lineup included two bands heading out on a joint autumn European tour, namely Swallow The Sun and Pain (as headliners). Joining Pain as tour headliners are the Portuguese dark masters and greats Moonspell, with the phalanx filled out by support acts Scar of the Sun and Lake of Tears. In short, see you in the fall at one of the shows on this tour! A must!
Before Sabaton, picked as the headliner of the festival’s fifth day, the festival organizer’s staff took the stage and dropped the news about renaming the festival from Metal Camp to the future MetalDays, which set off a wave of anger from the crowd, expressed with a resolute »Buuuuhhhhhh«! Then came a heartfelt thank-you and farewell from the organizer, followed by a pumped-up intro of The Final Countdown, the evergreen from Sweden’s Europe, and the packed space in front of the stage jumped as one and merged into a single voice on the chorus. The energy flux at that moment was downright fantastic.
Sabaton, who released their new album »Carolus Rex« in May this year, have been through a big change! They swapped as many as three members and went from a sextet to a quintet. In this new formation, by the time they reached Metal Camp, they had played some 50 shows around the world and, as singer Joakim Broden summed up in one of his addresses, not a single fan had shown the band the middle finger at any show with the revamped lineup. He also gave Metal Camp a special thanks and recognition for all the support and loyalty of the faithful fans. The headliner slot confirmed that Sabaton hold their own confidently among the hottest metal bands in 2012 and keep their credibility even after the lineup shake-up.
After the intro The March Of War, the band exploded with the iron »The Art Of War« anthem Ghost Division, followed by the »Coat Of Arms« number Uprising. The very start of the show confirmed the fever of that Friday night, which had been brewing toward the end of the festival’s fifth day, when first an enormous life ring got stuck in the space between the stage and the barrier separating the crowd from the stage, and not long after you could spot a whole crowd surfing session using a rubber dinghy, which likewise “ran aground” in the aforementioned area in front of the stage. In the pause between Uprising and the new Gott Mit Uns, Broden addressed the crowd for the first time. At one point an object wrapped in shiny paper flew from the front rows toward the singer. Broden caught it reflexively and the reaction went something like this: What the…? Kinder Milch-Schokolade?!?« The reaction drew salvos of laughter from the crowd… but Broden masterfully wriggled out of it: »This is candy for a children! On a real metal concerts ladies are throwing their panties on stage, not candies!«
Sabaton’s continued march toward wars even featured a whole tent’s worth of “crowd surfing”, and the band kept the atmosphere exceptionally high on its wings as it reeled off epic after epic, among them Cliffs Of Gallipoli (that “unfortunate” song that recalls Gutter Ballet by Savatage), yet at the same time one of the fans’ most beloved Sabaton songs. There was also the excellent new Carolus Rex somewhere in the middle of the set, then The Price Of A Mile, Midway, Into The Fire, The Lion From tHe North, White Death, and Sabaton built the show toward a closing crescendo through the iron-clad repertoire of Attero Dominatus, The ArtOf War, 40:1, Primo Victoria, and in the encore the expected party tune Metal Crue, followed by another demanded classic, Panzer Battalion.
Regardless of the fact that it hardly mattered who among the last three acts was the headliner of the festival’s fifth day, Sabaton confirmed excellent working chemistry in their revamped form, made full use of the spacious stage and served up an unforgettable experience to the red-hot masses beneath the stage. Had they played one of the strongest new marches from the album »Carolus Rex«, called Kiling Ground, instead of the new Gott Mit Uns, the triumph would have been complete, but never mind. Sabaton ride on. Where the band’s huge success comes from at a time when most are turning away from the melodic forms of power metal remains a fascinating realization wrapped in mystery, but with their proven tenacity and defiance Sabaton undoubtedly more than earned their greatness!
The second stage once again saw a total triumph of Slovenian acts, who swept the foreign competition aside. The afternoon set by Metalsteel alone showed that this band could have stood on the main stage in place of any of the first three acts of the last day, and the same goes for the set by Negligence in the evening hours, while the second stage headliners Noctiferia fully crowned the dominance of Slovenian bands on the fifth day.
And so the last Metal Camp festival has come to an end. From now on, we get MetalDays. At the same scale, meaning equally strong bands on the bill and a festival of the same length. Let’s hope the location stays at the confluence of the Tolminka and Soča, which remains Europe’s festival paradise, where eager metal followers flock from every corner of Europe. Above all, let’s hope the organizer and the locals find a solid consensus built on the long-term survival of this, oh so important, event, which contributes a significant share to the cultural and artistic pulse of the Republic of Slovenia and spreads the country’s reputation and visibility internationally, brings profit to the residents of the Tolmin municipality and, with some ingenuity, could bring even more, and by no means a curse they should flee from.
The festival’s continued existence in the Tolmin area, under this name or another in the future, is a test of whether we Slovenes are capable of absorbing the Western world’s perception of and attitude toward metal culture and musical creativity, for which it’s something perfectly ordinary, like breathing air. The Western world has been developing a relationship of symbiosis with metal culture and musical creativity for more than three decades, one from which both sides profit. Are we, as a society, mature and broad-minded enough, or will the essence for us remain Sunday trips to Mass and/or to (newfangled, imposed) shopping temples?
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