Eluveitie review

Okay, first off, if you read the description for my blog, I made a point not to dedicate myself to any one topic. As such, I've tried to vary my posts up. However, the fact of the matter is I detest "forced writing". While this primarily applies to school work, it's starting to creep into my blog posts. (I'm notorious for having writer's block.) As such, I'm thinking that I will, for the most part, return to music. It's something that I'm familiar with, and engage in all the time. Also, as I'm sure you all know, I love to discover really unique bands, so there's a good chance you too will discover some new music. With this being said, however, I'm also a super-geek, so don't be surprised if/when some other random topic creeps up from time to time.

Moving on, if you recall, I said that a friend of mine got free tickets to see a folk metal band, Eluveitie. That concert was Saturday night. It was actually a REALLY good show, and was made even better by the fact that we got in free, and before the rest of the crowd. Which means we got right up front. The first band, System Divide, came on stage with the rock version of America, Fuck Yeah!  (From Team America: World Police) which was fun. After that, they went into their own songs. System Divide is a melodic death metal band that has both male and female vocals. I was a bit apprehensive when I first saw they were opening (Along with another opener.) because for the last couple of years, I have gotten into a lot of power metal, which almost exclusively has really clean vocals. As such, death metal (even melodic) has become a bit hit or miss with me. I have to say though, that the female vocals made it more enjoyable. If only I was more familiar with their work beforehand, I could have really gotten into them.

Next, was Holy Grail. If you follow metal, you probably have heard of these guys in the past year, or so. Holy Grail came to be when members of White Wizzard (Who has one of the best music videos ever.) left. They are a general heavy metal band from California. They put on a decent set. I say "decent" as I have heard so much about them, and then had the chance to see them open for Blind Guardian in December, but had to go to the lobby because I was sick. (And I wasn't about to miss Blind Guardian!) So, I'm glad I finally saw them, but I guess I hyped them up too much.

Next was a band that some here might have heard of, 3 Inches of Blood. This was another band that I was apprehensive about because I was under the impression that they were a black metal band. (I had heard of them, but never bothered to seek out their work.) To my delight, however, they were more heavy/thrash metal. Because I still need to familiarize myself with their work, I can't say much. The crowd certainly loved them, and they converted me pretty quickly. Also their stage presence was fun. They kept climbing on the speakers to do solos, and such, which prompted the crowd to do the same (And then naturally, dive off of them.)

Finally, Eluveitie played. The venue that we were at has two floors. Upstairs, "Heaven", is where all my previous experiences have been. It's by no means big, but it's decent enough. However, Skillrix had a sold out show up there that night, so we were downstairs, in "Hell". If there is one thing I learned, Hell is tiny. The stage couldn't have been more than 10 feet wide, and Eluveitie had to cram eight people onto it. (Nine, if you count a guest they brought up for a song.) Throughout the night, they broke out multiple steel flutes, a bag pipe, hurdy gurdy, a couple violins, several Old World guitar-like instruments, and of course, modern day guitar/bass/drums. Also, of note is getting to hear the Star Wars title theme being played on a hurdy gurdy. Which, I'll post below.

If you can't tell from the video name, this was taken in Ontario, Canada. I always try to find videos of the concerts I go to, but as of this writing, there is only one video from the show I attended, and it's really poor quality. So when/if I find better videos, I'll add them here.