Written by:	RaduP
Published:	October 23, 2024

I go to a lot of concerts, at least relatively, for someone that doesn’t live in a concert hot spot. Most of the time I don’t write about them, mostly reserving that for festivals or specific gigs that I got media creds for. That would’ve been the case for most of the concerts that I’ve listed here, but for more than one of these I was asked about whether I would write about them, and I did consider it. I’ve been known to write compilations of concert reviews before, but all previous times have had a very specific reason for being compiled together, either because those were the only concerts available during a lockdown, or because they were part of a single trip, and yet this time the compilation would be more chronological than anything thematic, mostly being a collection of significant gigs I attended since the summer’s festival season ended. Thankfully Abattoir was kind enough to let me borrow his “Concert Hunt” format. Without further ado, here’s a bunch of concert reviews from October (and one September one)!

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DAVID GILMOUR - Circo Massimo, Rome, Italy (28.09)




This is the one concert review that had the biggest chance to become its own article because of the weight attached to it and what a massive undertaking it was.

First off, Pink Floyd is one of my favorite bands. Yes, about half of the music listening population has Pink Floyd as their favorite bands, so it’s a very cold take, but they were one of the bands that my parents bonded over, and also one that I bonded with my parents over. There’s more to my love for Pink Floyd than having them on the speakers whenever we’d go on a family trip, but especially for this trip, the familial aspect is very relevant. I felt a bit guilty that when I went to see Roger Waters in Prague I went by myself (well, NastyHero was there, but not my Pink Floyd loving family), and I had been eyeing whether or not David Gilmour would ever tour again, making sure than wherever a concert, anytime, anywhere, would be announced, I would get tickets to it and I would take at least one family member with me. The lack of any Gilmour concerts since 2016 and the terrifying prospect of his advanced age did make this prospect a potentially fantastic one. And then lo and behold!

Out of nowhere, David Gilmour announced a new album, alongside a string of dates at the Royal Albert Hall in London and the information for when tickets for these would go on sale. The prospect finally materialized. I told my family about it, and though some initial resistance for the viability of the plan and its associated cost was raised, the prospect of a family trip to a touristic city to see a musician that had such an importance to all of us won them over. I set an alarm for when the tickets for the Saturday date (the only one we would be able to attend given the frequency of flights from Timisoara to London) and waited. The moment arrived eventually, and I was ready to refresh the ticket page once the hour would change, manically checking the passing seconds of the last minute. I had made one fatal mistake though, one that I realized once I refreshed the page after the deciding moment: I had not logged in to the ticket selling website. Once the whole process of logging in was undertaken as hastily as possible, I was informed that I was now in a queue for the purchasing of tickets, but the delay was just long enough that there were now more people in the queue than seats available, which was evident when my turn came and no seating options, no matter how expensive, were no longer available. I tried to compromise by selecting another date, but I was taken to another queue with thousands ahead of me, and I felt my heart drop in my chest. A prospect no longer fantastical, but now no longer achievable. I called my father, who initially thought I was pulling his shoelaces when I told him that I couldn’t secure tickets, but the feeling of disappointment set in for both of us. The one concert I would’ve given anything for I could not make happen because I had forgotten to log in.

Well, fate smiled upon me a few days later because more dates were announced. A string in Rome, a string in New York, and a string in Los Angeles. Take a guess which one of these I aimed for. The Rome one was announced to take place in Circo Massimo, a historical site turned occasional concert site, very fitting for an artist that also played at Pompeii; but most relevant is that it had a much higher capacity than the Royal Albert Hall, meaning even less chances of not being able to secure a ticket. NastyHero also informed me of his intention to attend, and through his thorough research, we found a way to secure tickets before the actual tickets-being-put-online date. Though there was a lot of anxiety because, for some reason, I couldn’t receive the SMS to validate my account until the last day no matter what phone and service I tried to use, I managed to secure four tickets: one for me, two for my parents, and one for my cousin. Sadly, because I also had to use NastyHero to make sure I secured at least two, one for me and one for my father, the other two had seats in a different portion. But that was a small inconvenience compared to the immensity of the fact that I managed to turn fate around and make that dream possible. It was time to plan.

A very experience filled but financially taxing summer later, I had the plane tickets, accommodation, touristic spot reservations, and airport parking all settled. My parents were especially happy that passports were no longer going to be an issue the way they would’ve been in London, while flight schedules meant that we’d arrive Friday evening and leave Monday evening, with the concert being on that Saturday. At the risk of letting this already long write up turn into more of a trip review than concert review, Rome was a place I had already visited with my ex a couple of years prior, being the biggest trip I had undertaken at the time, and one where I was first confronted with the fact that you can’t always just barge in to a touristic spot and demand an entry ticket then and there. We were still able to secure entry to the Colosseum and the Vatican Museums back then, but this time I had the trip carefully planned in advance, while taking into account that my parents, and to an extent my cousin, are less travel intensive as I am, meaning that for my parents I only planned one big touristic plan a day, while also taking into account that they didn’t have roaming internet. I revisited the two big spots I had seen on my previous trip because I couldn’t let my family miss them. Highlights and derailments include train delays from the airport with no apparent reason or announcement, my mom getting separated from us in the Vatican museum right before we were supposed to go to the concert, my Uber app not finding us a car right when we were supposed to go to the concert, my cousin continuously falling for people being overly friendly in touristic areas then asking for money, a carbonara so good that I ordered a second serving, amazing ice cream at every spot we randomly stopped at, finding out that the waitress at the last restaurant was Romanian and from my city, witnessing a wallet thief being apprehended in the metro, managing to take pics at Fontana di Trevi even though it was so overcrowded, and finally expecting at least one hour of a security queue at the Rome airport only to make it through security in about two minutes.

We did an evening walk through Rome on Friday evening, and we were somewhere around the Forum when we heard some familiar notes, very distant but discernible enough that I recognized it as the chorus of “Comfortably Numb”. Right there, more than one kilometer apart from the actual concert, I heard David play that solo and I got goosebumps. I knew this concert would be very very special.

Ironically I have more to say about the context around the concert rather than the concert itself. I saw the setlist so I knew exactly which songs were going to be played. Pretty much everyone I talked to was disappointed by the exclusion of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”. I was also hoping that I’d hear at least one track from On An Island, my favorite solo David Gilmour album up to that point. Even though I would’ve made some changes to it, it was still a very satisfying setlist, one with an understandable focus on the latter era Pink Floyd, and on Luck And Strange, which we did listen to on the car while driving to the airport the previous day.

When the first guitar notes of “5 A.M.” hit, it confirmed my feelings from the previous night that I would be in for something special. I was afraid that David’s vocals would break a bit during a particularly demanding section in “Luck And Strange”, but he made it through. But I can’t deny that for the first part of the concert I was mostly waiting for that stretch of songs of Pink Floyd songs I was most looking forward to hearing. The “Breathe”/”Time” one was an absolute highlight. “Fat Old Sun” was not a song I was particularly looking forward to, but it was nice to have a pre-Meddle song in there. “Wish You Were Here” was the one older Pink Floyd song that couldn’t be sung by anyone other than David, and the one where I felt closest to tearing up. In between the Floyd songs, a song from the latest record was snuck in, but one that felt most fitting as it's also a cover. David invited his daughter, Romany, on stage for “Between Two Points”, the least David-centric track on the record, where the core of the track is Romany’s voice and her harp playing, and there’s something about the way that main melody resolves in each beat that just feels so effective at being melancholic and that felt even more so live. The first half was concluded by “High Hopes”, and I couldn’t have asked for a better temporary closer.

There was a nearly half-hour break between the two sets, something that was well received when it happened because it allowed us to visit my mother and cousin in their section and talk about what we’ve seen so far, but it also kinda stalled the momentum of the show, partly because I knew what songs would be in the second part and those were ones I was less excited about. The latter-era Floyd songs weren’t among my favorites, save for “Coming Back To Life”, which David dedicated to his wife to create a pretty touching moment. “The Great Gig In The Sky” was also pretty cool and had a lot of talent involved, but lacked the explosiveness that made the original such a thrill. The Rattle That Lock songs were mostly just alright. Among the Luck And Strange songs, even though “The Piper’s Call” and “Dark And Velvet Nights” were cool enough songs, the clear highlight was “Scattered”, not only because of the “Echoes”-like synths but because the guitar solos was about as goosebumps inducing as the “Comfortably Numb” one, and the way it sounded live felt even more impactful than its studio version counterpart. I’d even argue it was more impactful than the “Comfortably Numb” one, because that one felt like it would obviously be great, whereas the “Scattered” one felt like a surprise to be coming from a song released that year.

The band left the stage, in that “adult peek-a-boo” fashion, but nobody bought it that this would be the end of the show. As if everyone came specifically for that moment, the crowds left their seats and made their way to the front, climbing on seats now left empty if necessary. I followed suit. One more song was meant to be played, the one I had already heard the night before, but it was now before my eyes too. Ending on a strong note would be a massive understatement.

Having been to a lot of concerts, I have sort of come to expect that open air shows might not always have the best of sounds. So it came as a very welcome surprise that this one sounded so pristine, and I can’t think of any open air concert I’ve seen that sounded better from a sound quality point of view. I think the night prior might’ve been louder than the rest, because with the volume of the show I’ve seen, I can’t have imagined that you could hear it from the Forum the same way that one has. You could kind of tell that David is nearing being 80 years old, his voice slightly more strained, and his presence more subdued, but still not losing any of his touch when it comes to how warm his guitar playing feels. His backing band was pretty great too, but Romany was the only one that got moments to shine out of them.

I can also confirm that the concert the following day was great and not as loud. Seeing as to how unique this moment is, and having finished all travel plans by the time, I decided to go and listen to the Sunday concert from afar. I didn’t stay for all of it, skipping most of the second act to go and rest a bit at the accommodation close-by, and having to get pretty close in order to properly hear it. Thus, even though I’ve only seen one David Gilmour concert, I’ve heard three.

A friend that also came to Rome and attended the concert, albeit the Sunday one, told me not to spoil the concert, but to only tell him whether it was better or worse than a similar concert trip we’ve done to see Slowdive in London. I’m still quite torn, expecting it to be so obvious that a Gilmour concert in Rome would have a much bigger impact, but in the end I had to go with Slowdive. With all that was so amazing about it, it still felt like there was something keeping it from being the best it could be. Even as being the upper ceiling of what an open air concert could sound like, the best sounding concerts are still the ones where you can tell the venue is specifically made for it. The visual part was doing more than the bare minimum, but it didn’t do much to enhance the show. It would be impossible to create a setlist spanning such a colossal career that would satisfy everyone, but there were far too many songs in the setlist I would’ve gladly swapped out for something else. But these are all slim pickings that don’t do more than just keeping this concert from being the best I’ve been to. Small things compared to it being a dream that managed to become true, the biggest family trip I’ve organized by myself (and one that went pretty well without big issues), and it being a strong contender for the top 10 concerts I’ve been to.

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BUCOVINA - M2, Timisoara, Romania (10.10)




Going from one of the most colossal experiences of my life to a club concert in my city is a bit of a disparity. Timisoara isn’t a really big concert hub, in the sense that there’s no shortage of concerts, but there’s very few big tours that stop here. M2 is not a huge venue, barely fitting all the people during the time Vader came over last year, but the concert going crowd of metalheads in Timisoara is also not that huge. Having a Romanian band like Bucovina playing felt very natural, and knowing the band’s popularity I expected a big enough crowd, and I got it.

But to be honest, if this was just a Bucovina gig, it wouldn’t be a given that I’d attend it. Maybe I would because it’s convenient, but I’ve also seen them enough times and the times I did enjoy them were about a decade ago. What I was excited about though, were the openers. All of them, but one in particular.

Countless Skies was the one band that felt most surreal to see in this roster. Not that I never expected to see them ever playing in Romania, but something about seeing them be the first band on a tour opening for this other band that I’ve known all my life was never going to be on my bingo card. They’re a band I enjoy a lot, and thankfully their performance warranted me being excited for more than just the prospect of seeing them. Even though there were times when the clean vocals felt a bit too much, partly because of how the venue’s mix pushed them more upfront, but the scales were tipped towards the greater good by how amazing the guitar solos sounded.

Firtan was also a band I was pretty excited about, but I found the live performance to be not as impactful. A huge part of it was because of the sound quality being mid, which also made for Klara Bachmair’s violin often being more for show, outside of the solo moment she got. Aether, who stepped in to replace Sojourner, were a band that I had seen before opening for Grima. The friend I was with saw them at a festival this year as well, and he also agreed that their performance this time around was less exciting, but more in the sense that they didn’t go above and beyond rather than anything being specifically bad about it. Bucovina being the headliner was actually pretty convenient for us, because it meant that once we had our fill we could leave. I got to hear “Sunt Munti Si Paduri” and “Duh” among a couple of others, so I was pretty content with how much I heard. I was happy to see a Romanian band headlining a pretty well-rounded roster, and I’m happy every time I see someone from outside mentioning them, but I’m cool with not engaging with them too much.

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VIENNA METAL MEETING - Arena Wien, Vienna, Austria (12.10)




Normally a festival would be reason enough for a concert article by itself, but I refrained for two reasons: I didn’t get media creds, and it was only a one day thing. It didn’t exactly feel like a concert because of its runtime and the presence of multiple stages, but it also didn’t really feel like a festival.

We were delayed more than we expected due to the border crossing (from Romania to Hungary), which normally never took longer than one hour to cross, but this time it took us more than two hours and a half! That, alongside with some delays on the highway due to some car crashes, lead to us having a change of plans and skipping lunch plans and the check-in to go straight to the venue to make sure we catch Afsky. We parked the car at a nearby supermarket and made it to the festival in time, just a bit after Afsky had just started. Even though I saw some of the band’s set at Roadburn, this was an opportunity to see what remained from that to have it all count as one full performance, and the band’s sound and stage presence were convincing enough that we were assured we made the right choice to go above and beyond to make sure we caught them. After also catching a bit of Ewïg Frost, who were surprisingly more black metal oriented than I thought they’d be, it was time to actually do the delayed check-in.

Well, one problem arose. This was a “one-way” festival, meaning that once you got into the festival grounds, you weren’t allowed to go out. After explaining that we need to do our check-in and that our car is parked at a supermarket where you’re only allowed to park for one hour, one of us (me) was reluctantly allowed to exit and then return to festival grounds. I also had to make sure I had cash on me, because the festival was cash-only, despite being “one-way” and having no ATM inside.

Having already seen how crowded the bottleneck entrance for the second stage was during Ewïg Frost, I decided to minimize the number of times I’d switch from one stage to another. Thus, I skipped 1349 and Kampfar from the main stage, having already seen both, preferring to stick to the smaller stage for now. Schizophrenia made the most of the smaller and more intimate small stage by being as intense as they could be, but lacking something to make them stand out. Sinister, while similarly generic, had a more lasting impact because of how impactful the sound was. The blast beats especially really took this show’s intensity and impact up a notch to really deliver on how old school death metal can feel like live.

Immolation, who I’ve seen the previous year, and who I expected to “rip me” even more than Sinister, ended up sounding too toothless with the main stage sound. I ended up appreciating them more for the musicianship, which was in a different league, than for how that musicianship translated to their live sound. The worst clash of the festival came in the form of Ellende/Municipal Waste, and I decided to do as close to a 50/50 as I can do, not feeling like I desperately need to see a full performance from either band. In the end, I wish I committed to seeing Municipal Waste, not exactly because of their own merits, but because Ellende is the band I’d feel more prone to going out of my way to catch again, and because of how awful the experience of being in the small stage crowd during their performance, where we almost got to see a fight break out between people pushing into one another. Both bands were fine enough though.

One of the reasons why I picked Ellende as the first slot and Municipal Waste as the latter was so that we’d secure a spot for Cannibal Corpse. We specifically chose to go to this festival when checking Cannibal Corpse’s touring schedule, picking the Vienna date over the Budapest one due to the presence of other bands like Darkspace but also due to it fitting better as a single trip with the next day’s concert (more on that later). Needless to say, I was looking forward to it a lot.

What ended up being this performance’s Achilles’ heel was the fact that guitarist Erik Rutan had to sit the tour out. The band opened with new cut “Blood Blind”, and Rob Barrett’s solo during it being the only guitar track showed a very obvious missing space in the band’s sound. The band’s mix got better as the concert went on, but that was an initial bad impression that persisted even when tracks like “Inhumane Harvest” or “Hammer Smashed Face” sounded pretty good. A friend that sat closer to the front while we were in the balcony said that the sound was better there due to the positioning of the amps. There was more good than bad though, and I’m really glad to have seen one of the death metal bands I was looking forward to the most to seeing, especially with Corpsegrinder wearing a shirt with his face on it with the caption “Respect The Neck”. I do feel compelled to catch them again when both guitarists are set to perform though.

But with all these bands into account, there was still one I was looking forward to most. I have seen Darkspace at the same festival where I’ve also seen Agalloch, and me preferring the former’s performance to the latter when the latter was my favorite band at the time is saying something. But a Darkspace performance is a fragile thing because of how much it relies on being immersive. What worked so exceptionally back in 2015 now failed horribly. Part of it was that we were planted in our seats while the band did their soundcheck, which already set an impression that would’ve made any immersion more difficult to attain even if things worked out, but the fact that the band started their performance and we still weren’t sure if they were still soundchecking or not removed all chances of this being anywhere close to decent. There was something cacophonous in the sound, and something that persisted even though we waited about 15 minutes hoping some of the issues would get alleviated. Also, the stage’s lighting for the most part looked amazing, but every once in a while some lights would shine really brightly towards the audience, lighting up the whole room, which kinda goes against there being a band that literally has “dark” in its name on stage. My friends, none of whom are into Darkspace declared it the worst set of the festival, and me, who had the highest anticipation for them, reluctantly agreed.

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NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS - Papp László Sportaréna, Budapest, Hungary (13.10)




Well, that’s one of the reasons why we decided to see Cannibal Corpse in Vienna instead of Budapest was that it perfectly lined up with us stopping in Budapest to see Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds on the return trip. One of the reasons why I desperately wanted to see this show, other than obviously because the music was good, is because I have seen the band live in Bucharest some years ago, but I had a ticket for a space that was so far from the stage that I couldn’t properly “see” much of the show, and that disconnect affected how into it I was, even if big chunks of the setlist were better that time. We managed to secure a relatively cheap second-hand ticket for my metalhead friend who was on this trip for Cannibal Corpse and never intentionally listened to Nick Cave and hoped for the best.

Because of how much my lack of enjoyment the previous time around was distance from the stage, this time we got to the venue as early as we could. Our tickets were floor tickets, but for the area that covered like 80% of the area, the one furthest from the stage, so being early meant being close, and we ended up being in the second/third row, which turned out to be a decently good view. My metalhead friend had the good luck to sit next to someone with an outdated idea of hygiene, and who was very into the music and felt the need to raise their hands to show that. Very ironic to have that happen to the only show on this article that isn’t metal.

This was the first date on this tour that had The Murder Capital as opener, and their presence was also a factor in me deciding to attend this, as I’ve seen far too few of these newer post-punk bands I champion in the non-metal article series live. With just two albums under their belt, it was pretty easy to get acquainted with the band’s setlist, which made the experience better. Huge kudos to how amazing the drummer was. The live sound was dominated too much by the vocalist for my taste, especially with how heavy the backing instrumentation could feel at times, I would’ve loved to have more of the focus on that. I also preferred the tracks that relied more on that rather than the more mellow tracks, but they put on a pretty strong performance that managed to convince my friend who isn’t into punk.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds had a setlist that was very focused on the last album, Wild God, an album I enjoyed more than Ghosteen but not as much as Skeleton Tree. And when I say “focused”, I mean that almost all the record was performed live. It’s a bit baffling that all songs were performed live save for a single 2-minute track, and there’s no way to convince me that Nick couldn’t have snuck in “As The Waters Cover The Sea” just for completionism’s sake. The rest of the setlist was structured around having one song from other (but not all) records. All the choices were pretty understandable, even if the thought of having to pick a single song from Let Love In is excruciating. And to close the “missing from the setlist” chapter, the one album that I was surprised not to have any representation in the setlist was Murder Ballads. Once again, slim pickings when the setlist was 22 songs and almost two hours and a half (almost as much as it takes to cross a border between Romania and Hungary).

It’s almost funny how much better the experience of seeing Nick this time around was compared to the last time. The stage presence was a lot more evident being able to see it first hand instead of just on the screens, and what an amazing stage presence! That’s mostly but not limited to Nick (who looked like the mix between a televangelist and a mortician), the Marx looking guitarist/violinist and the Grima Wormtongue looking drummer also deserve some kudos for contributing to the aesthetic. Add to that a gospel choir and some amazing light work and you have yourself a visually intriguing show.

And on the sonic side, there may have been some instances where it felt too loud for its own good, but that nitpick aside, I can’t put into words how amazing that sounded. I was familiar with every song being performed, and now most of them have been ruined for me because of how much more impactful they felt when performed live. Sure, there were some exceptions, “Red Right Hand” felt pushed a bit too much and lost some of its subtlety, and “Weeping Song” didn’t feel as wistful as it could be, but the songs from Wild God especially, with how much of a presence gospel music had on the record, really felt even livelier live. Really, it’s impossible to listen to the “Bring Your Spirit Down” line on the original recording of the title track after hearing how massive it sounded live.

I may have enjoyed the David Gilmour more as an entire experience, but as far as purely how the songs sounded in a live setting, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds might’ve taken the cake.

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SOEN - SKNCS Fabrika, Novi Sad, Serbia (15.10)




Well, here’s one event I got creds for, so for this one you get pics as well. You’re so very welcome!

Lately I’ve grown to like going to events in Novi Sad, not only because of the creds and because SKNCS Fabrika is a pretty cool venue (at least better than anything we have in Timisoara), but also because getting there and back is much easier than doing the same thing in Budapest, mostly due to less crowded border crossings, meaning I don’t derail my entire sleep schedule that much when I do a hit-and-run. That’s why, even though Soen played in three different cities that were within my reach, I chose Novi Sad.

The thing is also that information on the Facebook event and on the printed ticket was pretty scarce. We arrived at the venue pretty early, went to grab a bite and some coffee, and returned to find the venue still empty and closed. A closer inspection of one of the Soen posters revealed that the concert changed location. Goddammit, back to the car!

I arrived in the nick of time, claimed my photographer bracelet, and made my way to the venue to see a band playing. I rushed to the pit only to be told in Serbian that I’m only allowed during the first three songs, meaning that I missed my chance. I hurried and photographed the band from the crowd as best I could, being somewhat convinced that this was Soen because they also had a bald guy singing. I then met a photographer who I also met in the photo pit at Rockstadt and he confirmed that the band playing wasn’t actually Soen, but Oddland, who I had no idea were also playing at this show. I mean, I could’ve easily gotten this info by researching the other dates on the tour (or even the event page on our website) instead of the Facebook event, but I was relieved to not only not have missed the photo pit time for the headliner, but also because I got to see a band I hadn’t planned for but that I knew of. Sadly, I only got to see the tail end of their performance, and I was in the “oh shit, I gotta take pics” headspace for most of it, so I can’t assess how good they were, but my friend said that they sounded underwhelming, and I can’t exactly disagree.



What wasn’t underwhelming was Soen. We listened to their last two albums on the way there and I have to admit they didn’t make me feel overly excited to see the band, but something in the band’s performance made them click with me, though a lot of it was more in the performance rather than the songs themselves. There was a zeal and excitement that was very contagious in the band’s presence, coupled with the fact that the lights were so good that it made me so happy to be able to shoot them, really rounded up the experience. Even though we left before the encore to avoid traffic (and to get more sleep before the next day), what we got from it was very worth it.

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POWERWOLF - MVM Dome, Budapest, Hungary (22.10)




Quite a change of pace to write about an event from last night rather than to have to pull from memory. A double edged sword, as impressions are still fresh and I haven’t settled on how I feel about this one. What set this one apart is that this is the first time I specifically went to a power metal concert. Ok, maybe except that one time I saw Claymorean in Timisoara, but local concerts don’t count because they’re not a huge investment, among other reasons. I have seen power metal bands before, but previously it’s almost exclusively been as part of a bigger metal festival. Just this year I’ve also seen DragonForce, Orden Ogan, and Nanowar Of Steel, while the friend I’ve been traveling with claimed that the Blind Guardian show he saw this year was the best he’s seen this year. So maybe it was time to dip my toes further into experiencing power metal live.

Powerwolf and Wind Rose are bands I enjoy relatively much for the genre, the former being one of the first bands of the genre that I’ve gotten into, and the latter being a band I’ve covered on multiple occasions already. HammerFall is not a band I find too exciting, but I respect them enough to enjoy them. If either one of these were touring, I wouldn’t have made the trip during the week. All three though? Too nice of a package not to consider.

Well, this time we weren’t delayed at the border and we made it to our accommodation at a very reasonable time. We saw videos from previous dates on this tour, so we knew how crowded it was going to be. So this time our late arrival to the venue is purely of our own making because we stretched our lunch in town too much and failed to consider how hellish the traffic is. We arrived in the entry line just ten minutes before Wind Rose were poised to start, but the entry lines were colossal, to the point where we wondered if we’d make it inside before Wind Rose would end their half hour set. Sadly, we missed the majority of it. Thankfully, we made it in the nick of time, right when they were playing their second to last song, meaning that we got to see the one song we were there to see, their cover of “Diggy Diggy Hole” in full. I’m very bummed about having missed the rest of it, because they were a joy to see on stage, both because of their costumed presence, and also because you could tell that they were the youngest of the bunch by how energetic they were.

HammerFall is a band I haven’t listened to in a long while, outside of potentially checking their new albums when checking weekly releases in bulk, so I was not expecting it to sound that close to traditional heavy metal. Chunkier riffs and solos aside, it was quite a lighter experience than I expected. The two songs I was looking forward to hearing (“Last Man Standing” and “Let The Hammer Fall”) were placed right in the middle of their setlist, so once those were done, my interest in the performance dwindled significantly, and it was already dwindling before those two. I was surprised to see that the older band of the bunch wasn’t headlining, and I’m kinda glad that it was HammerFall that got the shorter set between the two. But, to their credit, Joacim Cans is a really engaging frontman.

Powerwolf pretty much dominated the night, partly because I didn’t see enough of Wind Rose to compare, leaving just HammerFall as a proper contestant, and partly due to how clearly made for the stage it was. Even setting the music aside, Attila and Falk were incredibly charismatic as performers, not only as musicians, and their stage presence and fan interactions showed that they had the crowd in the palm of their hands. The visualizers and the live screens made the experience more engaging considering that we didn’t have the best view (but not the worst either), and I didn’t expect to see that much in terms of pyrotechnics, complete with a mock pyre burning during “1589”, fireworks being shot to the central “candelabrum”-like structure that also had its own set of pyros, pianos being lit on fire, and fire being shot from two guns. They clearly don’t have Rammstein’s budget, but they did a lot with what they had and it never felt cheap or forced. All of this made listening to the music flow much easier, and I didn’t mind it too much that a lot of the middle of the concert was made up of songs from the albums after I grew out of listening to the band, so I mostly knew the songs from the beginning and from the encore, but I can’t say that there’s any song I wish I got to see from them and I didn’t. My exhaustion and the relative repetitiveness of the songs did make my interest dwindle in that middle part, but almost negligible compared to how much it plateaued with HammerFall. With this in mind, I’m pretty sure I would’ve liked Wind Rose’s set a lot because their six-song set wouldn’t have allowed for that saturation to set in.

It won’t be the last power metal concert I’ll attend, and I enjoyed my time a lot, but it also reminded me why this isn’t in my favorite metal subgenres.

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Twelve pages later, it turns out I was able to get more words out than I expected, and part of it is because each of these events had something that felt very specific about them. At this point I’ve seen a lot of concerts and a lot of them kinda blend together in memory. And that’s perfectly fine. As fun as it was to compile not-really-festival events into an article to avoid the pressure of having any single event be the focus of an entire article, and I might do it again, I don’t want to make a habit out of it. I don’t want to feel like going to concerts for any reason other than because I want to, and I don’t want to have “how do I turn this into content” on my mind while I’m there.

P.S. Huge shoutout to the one friend that went with me to all of these trips. Cheers!