Legacy Fest - Dessau 2009 (Day 3)

Dessau, Germany
21st - 23rd May 2009
Legacy Fest Day 3: Thorondir, Endstille, Belphegor, Equilibrium, Eisregen, Ensiferum and Kreator

The last day of the Legacy Fest came and we all hoped for better weather and, finally, got some bright and hot sunshine. The mood was great, everybody was happy and the beer just disappeared in our glasses. The last day also seemed to be really promising with bands like ENDSTILLE, BELPHEGOR and KREATOR. So, we searched for the sun block, got ourselves prepared and started in a great day filled with great music.



The Epic Pagan Metal band THORONDIR was founded in 2007 by Kevin Wienerl (vocals), Dominik Hautmann (rhythm guitar), Alexander Göhl (drums), Michael Ney (lead guitar), Fabian Wienerl (keys / synthesizer) and Christopher Zeus (bass). Their music is based on German and Pagan mythology. It was also influenced by bands like ENSIFERUM, FALKENBACH and EQUILIBRIUM. Recently, they released their first album ‘Düsterwald’. At the first Legacy Fest, they are one of the Newcomer bands. http://www.thorondir.de/



Music & Performance
I got to the small stage just in time; at least I thought I did. But just like it was the day before, the timetable changed and the bands started way earlier. So, I only got to hear their last 2 songs which was quite a pity since I really liked what I heard. They kind of reminded me of AMON AMARTH. Everybody was dressed in leather and fur. They looked like cave men. Really nice! At the end of the show, Kevin (vocals) started to handle with fire and showed his nice skills in fire-breathing. Really impressive! The sound was pretty good and so was the music. The vocals were strong and heavy and just matched perfectly to the tight guitar riffs. Unfortunately, I only got to hear the last part of the concert. I hope to see them again.

Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 9
Sound: 7
Light: 7
Total: 8 / 10




Endstille

ENDSTILLE comes from Kiel in the north of Germany. The band was formed in 2000 and so far they have released seven LPs. There have often been discussions about the band's artwork, which is mainly inspired by World War II. The band is signed to Regain Records. http://www.endstille.com/ / www.myspace.com/endstilleband

Music & Performance
The singer’s ability of acting let the listener find himself in a very unique atmosphere. At some time, the concert seemed to be more like a theatre play than a concert. Iblis (vocals) really knew how to set the focus on himself. And although they seemed to be rather grim, they had a good pinch of humour.



I usually consider ENDSTILLE to be a band that's better in front of a small group of people because the mood is just better but this time, they showed that they can also get a big crowd going. His voice was strong and quite scary at some parts. I was surprised to see how much corpse paint they were wearing since it was really hot. And after the first song I got an answer to my wondering: Iblis took a bottle of water and spilled it over his head. And so, the nice corpse paint was basically gone. Pretty funny to see that also the people on stage were sweating like hell. Their music was great. They played all kinds of songs from their last albums and the audience seemed to know all of them. At almost every song, you could hear a choir of people who sang along with the band. The mood was just great and the festival ground seemed to be one big -and of course- evil party.

Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 8
Sound: 7
Lights: - (daylight)
Total: 7.8/ 10




Belphegor

BELPHEGOR emerges as one of the most extreme line-ups to ever come out of the death black metal scene. The band members themselves describe their hell ride as "Supreme Death / Black Metal Art”. The band was founded in Austria in 1993. Up 'til now, they've become one of the best-known bands in the European Black / Death Metal scene. Last year, they released their current album “Bondage Goat Zombie”. http://www.belphegor.at/

Music & Performance
BELPHEGOR was probably one of the bands the people waited for the most. They entered the stage and immediately, the people became loud. Helmuth (vocals) seemed to be pretty drunk. I don't know if this was the right attitude since it was really hot this day. But well, he survived it and did a nice show. What I found quite strange were his announcements. He did those in English. Maybe he forgot he was in Germany.



On CD, their sound is pretty groovy and heavy on the basses but live their sound was more edgy. This is not a critic on their sound but just a statement. They seemed to be a little harsher. The sound was pretty good which wasn't always the case during the festival. Their song material didn't have the focus on their new CD. So, they showed a nice mixture. During the show, the stroboscope seemed to be their best friend on stage which was pretty useless since the sun was shining like crazy. But maybe they just needed it to be happy. During their last songs, the band put up some sado-maso-like masks and played with fake blood. Quite nice to see!

Setlist
01. Bleeding Salvation
02. Seyn Todt in Schwartz
03. Belphegor - Hell's Ambassador
04. Stigma Diabolicum
05. Swarm of Rats
06. Sepulture of Hypocrisy
07. Justine: Soaked In Blood
08. Lucifer Incestus
09. Bondage Goat Zombie

Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 8
Sound: 6
Light: - (daylight)
Total: 7.7 / 10




Equilibrium

Equilibrium is a folk metal band from Germany. The band contains various elements of folk and symphonic black metal, combining instruments such as electric guitars, strings and flutes, as well as riffs which reflect traditional Germanic melodies. Their lyrics are about Germanic tales and Germanic mythology in general. All the titles and lyrics are in German. http://www.equilibrium-metal.de/

Music & Performance
Since their ‘Demo 2003’ when I learned EQUILIBRIUM to know until now they underwent a gigantic leap in popularity. They are definitely one of the most success gaining German metal bands of the last years. But with fame often comes pride what is said for them from many sides and that also had some impact on their shows, they say.



But I wanted to form my own opinion and so I waited for them to step onto stage. But they didn’t step, they rushed, at least when it comes to singer Helge, who is a real spotlight hog and did really spread some good mood that day. That’s already a good basis for a good performance, and since the latest output ‘Sagas’ in my ears even overcame its predecessor there shouldn’t go anything wrong, as long as they are able to perform it’s material on stage. And they were - but I had to recognize that they didn’t find a live keyboarder yet, so the synths were delivered as samples. Helge did a great job by heating up the audience and even I had a really good time, even if I had to hover 30 crowd surfers towards the stage in the boiling heat of that day, which was also mentioned by the band as they played the song ‘Unbesiegt’ with its monkey-island-like intro. During ‘Nordheim’, Helge called for a wall-of-death, and even that was fun to watch. Great show!

Setlist
01. Wurzelbert
02. Unter Der Eiche
03. Blut Im Auge
04. Wingthors Hammer
05. Met
06. Unbesiegt
07. Nordheim

Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 8
Sound: 6
Light: - (daylight)
Total: 7.7 / 10




Eisregen

EISREGEN is a German death metal / black metal band which formed in 1995. The members are from Tambach-Dietharz, a village in Thuringia. In English, EISREGEN translates to "Ice Rain". By using morbid German lyrics unlike those of other bands of this genre, they got the attention of German authorities, causing the indexing of three of their albums. http://www.fleischhaus.de/

Music & Performance
The next band that day was the self proclaimed “Death from Thuringia” better known as EISREGEN. These musicians have always been a thorn in the flesh of the German “Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons” with their explicit lyrical look into the souls of murderers, psychopaths and generally sick people, resulting in prohibition of three of their albums. Maybe this could me the fascination that lots of festival visitors came to see this band, wouldn’t there be the great music they are playing, also on their latest release ‘Knochenkult’, so I also came to see them for the 5th time - and I have to admit: this gig was one of the better ones.



I didn’t expect that, because I’ve seen some very mediocre appearances of them in the past and the fact there was no bass guitar on stage, didn’t lift my expectations - but I didn’t miss it at all and as far as I can tell there were no samples thrown in. They played a rather long set of 11 songs with focus on the recent output with two among them we were told to here “complete new interpretations” of some old some songs, which had nothing to do with their predecessors. The audience smiled and enjoyed some well-known classics. “Bloodthroat” M. Roth didn’t surprise with his practiced announcements he was using for years (“some people say we are a misogynistic band - and they are right”), recited with his usual macabre undertone, but with a slip of the tongue followed by his normal voice saying “Now I’ve made a extreme mistake”, what proved they are also just normal people - but those who know how to put some very decent music to the stage. So, the audience thanked them with a polonaise during their second last song ‘Elektro-Hexe’.

Setlist 
01. Eisenkreuzkrieger
02. Treibjagd
03. Zeit zu spielen
04. "Totfleischkolonie"
05. 19 Nägel für Sophie
06. 1000 tote Nutten
07. Das liebe Beil
08. "Blutgierig"
09. Knochenkult
10. Elektro-Hexe
11. Thüringen

Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 8
Sound: 6
Light: - (daylight)
Total: 7.7 / 10




Ensiferum

ENSIFERUM was formed by Guitarist Markus Toivonen in 1995. Markus discovered the word "Ensiferum" in a Latin dictionary when looking for a band name, the word and meaning was perfect for the band he aimed to create. The band recorded their first Demo in 1997, which sold almost 300 copies in the first year. Unfortunately keyboard player Meiju Enho is no longer with the band as of September 2007. Their last album, ‘Victory Songs’, was released in 2007. http://www.ensiferum.com/

Music & Performance
The sun fortunately had some mercy and decided to go down, as ENSIFERUM were about to perform. With their mixture of melodic, folk influenced extreme metal, generally regarded as Viking metal, they’ve established themselves as one of the representatives of this genre till the present day. So it was no wonder that a quite large crowd had gathered to see them enter the legacy stage - so they did, wrapped in… skirts?



These skirts actually were, of course, the flags of their home country Finland, leaving the upper body of the guys uncovered and me wondering why this was true for the female keyboarder and especially what they were wearing beneath. Anyway, they opened with ‘Into Battle’ which instantly fired up the mood of the audience - which kept that high till the last song was over. They cheered for their heroes, had fun and provided additional chanting choirs, especially in the last song ‘Iron’. The band on the other side gave good reasons for doing that: They were posing and simply having fun while playing some feel-good-tunes such as ‘Treacherous Gods’, ‘Lai Lai Hei’ or ‘Token of Time’ on highest quality standards. Who may elude from this? Not me.

Rating
Music: 9
Performance: 9
Sound: 7
Light: - (daylight)
Total: 8.7 / 10




Kreator

The final act on this festival was the thrash metal band KREATOR, which has found its roots in Germany in the beginning of the Eighties. With a few ups and downs in the beginning this band is a steady factor in the metal scene nowadays. KREATOR is known for its never diminishing energy. When you're checking their touring schedule it's stunning to see how busy they are. With a concert planned almost every day they leave themselves no time for a short break. The band members are Mille Petrozza (guitar & vocals), Jürgen Reil (drums), Christian Giesler (bass) and Sami Yli-Sirniö (guitar). http://www.kreator-terrorzone.de/

Music & Performance
The very last band of the festival and one I was looking forward to see were the German thrash metal veterans KREATOR. Looking back to a history of 25 years by now, they definitely deserved the headliner position that day and since I enjoyed my last live encounter in Wacken 2005, I waited eagerly for them to step onto the stage. That took quite a time, because they made huge efforts filling the stage with separators and banners reducing its depth and moving the drum kit more to the foreground.



After some fog crawled to the stage, they uncompromisingly opened with their recent single ‘Hordes Of Chaos’, a great mixture of old-school and the more recently played groove and melody orientated thrash metal the band KREATOR stands for, which immediately caught the audience and set the musical standard for the following 75 minutes. Surprisingly followed by ‘Phobia’, one of the band’s most known songs; the setlist should not have left any fan unsatisfied. The band played with much routine and skill, so I was able to enjoy such great moments as the shredding part at the beginning of ‘Enemy of God’ as a highlight of this appearance. Unfortunately the great musical experience was dimmed by the rather cheesy announcements as “I’ve heard you people in Dessau believe in a god or don’t you?” aiming at the above mentioned song and awaiting any clear response to this inconclusively uttered question - but one made me smile: Mille (Petrozza, voc., guit.) requested the audience to “kill each other” with a added “I’m meaning this totally serious”, hinting at the Live-DVD ‘Live Kreation’ which is on the German index list of prohibited media especially because of this line. All in this entire gig was a worthy end of three great festival days.