Written by:	Thryce
Published:	April 16, 2007
Event:	Ensiferum: The Tour Towards Victory (Website)
Location:	Le Coliseum, Charleroi, Belgium
Organizer:	Federock Hainaut

Photos by Thryce. All rights reserved, do not use without permission.





Tuesday April 10 is a date forever carved in stone. For that day, the mighty legions of The Tour Towards Victory, commanded by the sword bearers of Ensiferum, invaded Le Coliseum at the city of Charleroi. Charleroi is French for "King Charles", referring to the 17th century King Charles II of Spain. Charleroi was also an important fortress in those days and has had a very turbulent history as important fortified city.
Presumably, it is not that difficult to decipher that all signs were indicative that this night at the pleasant Walloon amphitheatre would be an epic and memorable one.



The first gladiators entering the Colosseum were Aktarum. Aktarum are a young Belgian homegrown Black Folk Metal band, with some clear influences from the big masters of Finntroll, Wintersun, Moonsorrow and Ensiferum. They did their very best in entertaining the audience with their catching and melodic sound, and because of their Walloon roots, the feedback of the audience was very high. The latter made the self-confidence of the band noticeably grow, which meant that the last couple of songs were very well played and that their overall performance was clearly better towards the end of their show. The only thing that at times was annoying me, was the performance of the frontman/vocalist/keyboardist. At the beginning, his keyboard tunes were a bit simple and monotonous, but that luckily changed after a few songs. But vocal-wise he really didn't do a fantastic job? His grunts were unconvincing but most of all totally unintelligible. I truly don't have any clue at all what the lyrics were telling. But as said, towards the end he also grew more confident, and his vocals were more firm and thus contained more power on the last few songs.
Their young enthusiasm was pretty contagious, and I must admit Aktarum were a terrific opener for the night without any doubt! And truly, they were really not far of letting me totally forget about the Teutonic warriors of Suidakra, the third troops at some other battlefields on this tour.





A remarkably short rest was granted, but the next army was already straining at the leash to trample the crowd once more, with furious and fresh Melodic Death Metal as their ultimate weapon.
Naildown are a Finnish band and formed 2003 under the blasting name "Acid Universe". They released their first album in 2005 and the follow up was recently launched under the name "Dreamcrusher". A title unambiguously appealing to one's imagination, you'll have to admit that. But enough of the history lesson. Naildown performed that night with only one goal; to mercilessly crush down the audience. They played a lot of songs from their latest release, but also a few from their early work, and the difference was pretty remarkable. Those songs were more raging and furious, while the new ones are more melodic and catching.
In short, Naildown played a decent set, and according to MeloDeath terms, at times even deadly effective. The response of the crowd had tempered a bit, but all in all Naildown played a pretty good and enjoyable show, no more, no less.
Last thing I want to say is that some people like to compare this band to "those over hyped Finnish kids from some obscure pond", but in my humble opinion, Naildown has very few resemblances to, and is far better than Children Of Bodom. Especially when it comes to vocals. Daniel Freyberg puts much more variety in his vocals, and his voice is also much more bright than Alexi Laiho's. Live they were more flawless, convincing and tighter than Children Of Bodom. If you ask me, bands like Mors Principium Est and early Soilwork come much closer in comparing Naildown's sound and style to other bands.






Now there is no turning back. The final battle's here at last. And there they were indeed, after patiently waiting for the storm, Ensiferum ascended the stage, stripped to the waist and with black painted lines under their eyes, clearly ready for war and action. The crowd was fully awakened by now, we were ready for the party. And a party we got! To be honest, I'm not such a big fan of Ensiferum, so I wasn't expecting such a blistering and amazing live set of these guys, and I was nicely surprised by their show. Everywhere people were headbanging, singing, hopping and dancing around, and even the mosh pit had turned into a joyful hopping and moshing place. Ensiferum were the Kings that night at Charleroi, that much was sure.



The setlist was very varied and they played five new songs (not including the Ad Victoriam intro) of their new album, which clearly found favour with the audience. Every single new song got a lot of positive response, and it seems like Victory Songs will become a highly anticipated album. Especially songs like Ahti, One More Magic Potion and the ten minute long Victory Songs are perfect songs to become real live killers. Of course also classics like LAI LAI HEI, Treacherous Gods, Guardians Of Fate, Iron (from now known as Le Coliseum's favourite polonaise song) and Battle Song, were happily included in the setlist, and also those songs were all little feasts on their own.



The leaving of Jari Mäenpää seems to be well digested among the Belgian fans, and also I have to admit that Petri Lindroos did an amazing job, and he deserves to be granted for his outstanding work for Ensiferum. You can mourn and nag all that you want about the Jari versus Petri eras, but Ensiferum has continued its path and made progression, and so far, they're doing more than great!
That hour and a half of Ensiferum's pure appealing magic was just fantastic, and the show was already over before we all realised it. Julius Caesar once described the Belgae as the most courageous tribe of Gaul. But now, the brave Belgian crowd seemed to be totally taken in by the Finnish warlike men, who could rightly feel victorious after their admirable performance.





My last words of honour are for the organization at Le Coliseum. I've never seen such a tight punctuality of timetables on concerts as that night. You could literally set your watch on the accuracy of the time between the different concerts. And also sound and acoustics were very good. The only thing that was disappointing in a way, was the attendance. I'm sure this concert would have been totally sold out if it had been organized at Flanders. And I'm also sure this will not be the last metal concert I will attend there at Le Coliseum.






Special thanks to Greg from Federock Hainaut for making this concert review possible.