Before ArtMania became one of the festivals I covered and attended as an amateur music journalist/photographer, and when I was only attending as a music fan, there had been plenty of times when I considered my finances and concert spending habits and almost considered not attending, but each year had at least one addition to the lineup that settled the deal for me, even if that meant only attending one day. As attendance became a more professional affair, my enjoyment of the lineup not only remained, but grew significantly. The 2022 edition grew to a three night affair with two stages, and it did feel like the festival's budget was spent bringing in names I never thought I'd see in Romania beforehand, like Emperor and Porcupine Tree. 2024's edition felt downgraded comparatively simply because the third day of the festival was downsized to only a small stage of Romanian bands. This year's edition then feels like an even bigger downsizing, fully removing the secondary stage and sticking to the two days structure.
Scaling down to just six bands also means that every band gets a bigger impact on how the lineup ends up feeling. And for the first time since 2013, I felt like the festival lacked that personal heavy hitter, that kind that for me would've always motivated me to make sure I made it to the festival. As much as I'd hate to admit, this year's lineup is one that would've made me skip this edition if not for my personal connection to the festival, and considering how less crowded the festival felt like this year, I wasn't the only one with this line of reasoning. But now that it happened, even if it did feel like the weirdest edition, I'm glad I still made the call to attend.
The final poster
DAY 1: Friday, 25th July
The downsizing of the festival was also reflected in the downsizing of the friend group I'd attend the festival with. With only one other friend (hi!) joining me, we initially made plans to travel Thursday evening, do remote work on Friday so we wouldn't have to rush things nor use any vacation days. We even booked the accommodation like this. Then we figured out we also made plans to see The Sisters Of Mercy in Belgrade that Thursday, which meant we'd have to rush after work to make it to Sibiu and finish the check-in and get our festival passes before the first band at 7PM. And we even had a highway closure that exact day, but we still managed to make it in time.
VESTIGE
This is one of the bands I was most excited to see at this edition and most of that came purely from having reviewed them, and subsequently becoming curios at the prospect of seeing that modern metal version of blackgaze in a live setting. It felt like the gaze-like elements got toned down a bit in favor of a stronger post-metal core, though that did mold very well to a live sound that made them sound huge, which often works better for indoors concerts than outdoors ones but worked in this setting too. It made the festival start on a high note for me.
SYLVAINE
If I was excited for Vestige because I hadn't seen them live already, I was excited for Sylvaine despite seeing her live already. Part of it was that it was nearly a decade ago, back when Neige handled the live drums, and in the meantime she released some of the best records of her career, and even though I think Silent Chamber, Noisy Heart doesn't get enough love and it should find its way to the setlist once in a while, the setlist for this performance made it a much better one this time around. The backing vocals from the other members were surprisingly good, and overall it made up for the dialing back of the gaze part that the previous band had. I was pretty sure beforehand that I'd love it, and it ended up being my favorite set of the festival.
DREAM THEATER
They were the first band to be announced and the one that was clearly the biggest draw of the festival, at least judging by the amount of shirts of them I've seen compared to other bands. Not being that big of a Dream Theater fan, it felt a bit weird seeing how much of the festival was centered around this exact performance, especially since I've seen them at this same festival in 2019. But I also understood why this exact performance was exciting, coming after the band's reunion with drummer Mike Portnoy (who made his way to this festival in other bands previously) and it being an anniversary tour with a pretty extended setlist. I managed to get myself in a fan mindset because of that, enough to enjoy the band for one night, sending vids of the band to a fellow writer that's a fan (hi, doez!) and hyperanalizing the setlist. Despite being longer, it suffered from a lack of Awake, and despite having a lot more Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From A Memory than the 2019 one, that one had "The Dance Of Eternity". Other than that, pretty much every change to the setlist was a plus. Now I have had enough Dream Theater in my life.
DAY 2: Saturday, 26th July
At this point I've explored most of what I wanted to see in Sibiu and around it, and with the heat wave that circulated around the country, I was very happy to stay inside for most of the day, editing the pics from the first day, playing Crusader Kings II, and watching wrestling.
EIHWAR
The band played at Rockstadt Extreme Fest just the previous year, opening the first day of that festival, and for both me and my friend they ranked in the bottom 3 performances of that edition. The prospect of seeing them again was not an alluring one, and a devil on my shoulder kept trying to convince me to ditch my professionalism and skip the band. I persevered. A topic of debate I had with a friend was whether the band are a parody of pagan folk or whether they are genuine, because of how many elements of their presentation just feel too tongue-in-cheek. Seeing their performance a second time around did not make me warm up to it (the music itself was fine in its "RPG main menu" style), but it did convince me that the band is probably genuine, but made up of nice people who went to meet their fans and sign merch after their show.
SIVERT HØYEM
Another band I saw at the 2019 edition was Madrugada, and my biggest upset of that festival was deciding to go to Alcest's meet & greet (and failing to get in anyway) instead of sticking around for the band's performance. I made up for it by traveling 700 miles to see them at another festival (it was worth it). I was a bit boggled by the festival booking a solo set by the band's lead singer instead of a band set, but I figured it would be an interesting alternative. Surprise surprise, right when I was in the photo pit I saw more than one person setting up on stage, and I recognized the others that joined Sivert as the rest of Madrugada anyway, which made the entire thing even more of a head scratcher. In short, it was amazing, close contender for set of the festival. The longer version is that, having never listened to Sivert's solo stuff and having no idea what to expect, the solo material sprinkled with actual Madrugada songs and it being performed by all the band's members in a way that didn't make it feel like more of a solo affair, did make it feel like a Madrugada concert with a lot of different songs. A special highlight was dedicating "Look Away Lucifer" to Ozzy.
EXTREME
Far from the headliner I expected to see at the festival, even if they're technically in line with the old classic metal band archetype that the festival dabbled in, like Testament and Mercyful Fate, but there's still something about them that still makes me go "huh?" when thinking of them being at the festival. I knew there was more to them than the "More Than Words" hit, but even though I listened to their classic albums and their new ones, I still went into their set without many expectations. Their live performance did leave a much bigger impression than listening to their music at home did, though a lot of it was because of how much the band seemed to enjoy being on stage, still exuding a lot of energy and joie de vivre, more so than a lot of bands their age or younger that I've seen. This also ended up being an even more special event due to it having been Gary Cherone's birthday, so the band had that entire bringing a cake to the stage and singing "Happy Birthday" moment. The band's music is still not my cup of tea, but I have even more respect for them now.
The festival came and went in what felt like an instant. The lack of such a clear highlight and the biggest highlights having been acts I had seen live before did make this edition stick less in memory, even though I am writing this mere days after it took place. It was visibly less crowded, less tightly scheduled, less of my friends attended, and the bar next door that was our traditional post-concerts drinking hangout place was temporarily closed, as if to signify how much things have changed. That said, the bleep in my memory is a smaller one, but one that I still enjoyed a lot.
On the downside, the smaller lineup did make unlikeable bands like Eihwar or strange choices like Extreme have more of an impact because of how much more percent of the lineup they'd represent. I can't say for certain, but also judging by the fact that day tickets for the first day were more expensive than the ones for the second day, I'd say the scaled were definitely tipped towards a certain band. And if you're not thrilled about that one band, being thrilled about the festival as a whole is more difficult.
On the upside, it did feel like the festival had a smaller budget this time around (understandable given Romania's current precarious economical situation), and they made the most they could with what they had, and taking into account that a couple of smaller festivals cancelled completely this year, I'm glad ArtMania persevered. And in that regard the biggest upside is that the sound quality was really great. Maybe it was the fact that with six bands there's less opportunities for fucking up, but all of the bands had a good live sound, which made the sets I liked significantly better, and the sets I wasn't too thrilled about more enjoyable.
The convenience of the weekend evenings only festival within driving distance is one of the heaviest weights on the scales that make me attend every year, and that's unlikely to change in the future, so even a more diminished version of it is still fine by me. I am rooting for the festival and I hope it gets to have lineups as big and alluring as the ones they had back in 2023 and 2024 again.
