In The Sword Bearers We Trust
Published
You'd have needed the Delphic oracle to predict that Pythia were opening this bill. They weren't mentioned even on the venue website on the day. Most ticket holders therefore thought they had plenty of time to make it across town for 2 bands, so at the start of Pythia's set the venue was sparsely populated.
However, this may have been for the best because Sophie Dorman had not warmed up her voice beforehand. She started off struggling on the high notes, quite damaging for a band that has grown so heavy that the vocals are the main source of melody now. Yet after a few songs and many swigs of water, she hit her stride just in time for the venue to start filling up. Was there a rabbit's foot hidden in the band's leather armour?
Metsatöll were expected in the sense that their name was on the line-up, but it's debatable how many of the audience were expecting what they got. They sing in their native Estonian, which gives them less visibility and meant that apart from two songs where the band explained what the subjects were (beer and their homeland), most of the audience hadn't a clue what they were singing about.
Even more surprising was that the guy in Metsatöll who soloed like mad, played behind his back and threw the horns at everyone was the folk guy, not the ones playing traditionally 'metal' instruments. He was very talented, though, playing zither, recorder, bagpipes and bowed lyre. The guitarist played more rhythm, but there was some quite nifty lead bass at one point. Although Metsatöll didn't quite manage to incite a circle pit, they did sound lively enough to make one want to move.
Not that anyone would have been daft enough to have moved at that point. Ensiferum proved they were worth saving oneself for. The headliners seemingly could not put a foot wrong. No, not even Sami Hinkka's, up on a speaker stack at a daring angle for a man in a kilt (I was the wrong side to see whether he was wearing it like a Scotsman).
Their new songs got the same rapturous reception as their back catalogue, especially new fan favourite 'Warrior Without a War'. Persistent requests for 'Lai Lai Hei' were denied, but with 6 songs from the 2000s, of which 'Twilight Tavern' was the most riotously received, old-school Ensiferum fans could not be considered short-changed.
Everything flowed together so well, and was delivered with such gusto, that the virtuous circle of energy between fans and band that makes a great gig was soon established (and so was the vicious circle pit). From opener 'Axe of Judgement' all the way to 'Iron' at the end of the encores, Ensiferum's barrage of headbanging riffs was met by a forest of metal fists.
Even Netta Skog, who kept very much to her corner at the start of the set, felt emboldened enough to roam the stage and get the audience going by the end. Her main solo sounded almost poppy in the midst of all that heaviness, but the crowd didn't seem to mind.
Not even the massive logjam at the end of the night, caused by the cold snap that led to a cloakroom queue all the way up the stairs, could damp down the post-gig high. It takes some time to acclimatise back to reality anyway after an evening of headbanging, moshing and screaming one's head off. After one unexpected support and another that did the unexpected, Ensiferum exceeded expectations.
