It’s no wonder to anyone that British weather at this time of year is absolutely miserable; terribly rainy and cold days are the norm. Pair that with the horrible monster that is a Sunday night (and the ever-looming Monday morning) and you have a recipe for doom and despair. With that in mind, is there any better way to cheer up than a power and folk metal gig? That’s exactly the mission that the Winter Storm Over Europe tour came over to The Dome with.
Gigs started around half an hour after doors, with Austrian power metal purveyors Dragony playing their second ever show in England, despite having a 15+ year career. They are the perfect band for those seeking some straight-to-the-point power metal, complete with harmonised duelling guitar solos and a wealth of songs about chasing and battling mythical creatures. One of the band’s main draws (at least in a live setting) is the vocal duo of Siegfried Samer (“The Dragonslayer”, per Metal Archives) and Maria Nesh, gracefully trading vocal duties between songs. Tunes such as openers “Twilight of the Gods” and “Gods of War” had both singers on vocals, with the following two – “Lords of the Hunt” and “The World Serpent” – highlighting Samer and Nesh respectively.
Despite missing a few members, notably bass man Herbert Glos and keyboardist Manuel Hartleb, the five-piece were brimming with energy during the whole set, putting all of their chemistry on display. Being the opener, a short performance was to be expected. They played around a half-hour, fitting nine songs into their setlist, focusing on the most recent album, Hic Svnt Dracones, but also throwing in some curveballs such as “The Untold Story”, a song made for Albion Online, a free-to-play MMORPG. Credit where credit is due, the venue wasn’t packed when they got up on stage, but they made it feel as if it was, constantly interacting with fans and making us really feel like part of the spectacle.
I also could not talk about them without mentioning Siegfried’s brilliant, yet brief impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger ahead of “If It Bleeds, We Can Kill It”. For fans of symphonic/power metal in the vein of Visions of Atlantis (both Samer and Glos play/have played there too) and Twilight Force, Dragony are definitely worth catching live!
Dragony Setlist:
- Twilight of the Gods
- Gods of War
- Lords of the Hunt
- The World Serpent
- The Einherjar (What Dreams May Come)
- If It Bleeds, We Can Kill It
- Burning Skies
- The Untold Story (Albion Online)
- Beyond the Rainbow Bridge
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If there was any semblance of sadness still within The Dome’s walls before 19:30, it completely disappeared when the masters of “happy metal”, Freedom Call, got up. Apart from frontman Chris Bay seeming a bit irked with the fact that music was still playing while the whole band was clearly ready to start (quickly popping on stage to tell the sound people they were ready before heading back off for a more triumphant entrance), the next 50 or so minutes were pure smiles. Armed with CO2 cannons, used heavily seemingly every other song, the Germans opened with “Hammer of the Gods”, received warmly by a London crowd that hadn’t seen them since late 2022 on the M.E.T.A.L. tour.
Since then, they’ve released their 11th studio album, Silver Romance, which sounds leagues better live than on record, but seemingly hasn’t gone over well with the band themselves, as they played only its title track. With one major exception, the rest of their repertoire consisted mostly of material from Master of Light and earlier. The only tune to stray from that path was “Heavy Metal Happycore”, their latest single (with a feature from the headliners’ own Petri Lindroos, who wasn’t brought out), released less than a week before the concert. For this song, Bay asked the crowd for something special that would make them “part of Freedom Call history”: a circle pit, the first one in the band’s history, according to the frontman. Whether it was actually a first for the quartet I can’t confirm, although I find it highly unlikely, but the crowd understood the assignment through and through, initiating a human vortex as soon as the first notes hit.
For the final block of their set, we had a barrage of classic singalong tracks, such as the one-two punch of “Power & Glory” and “Warriors”, filled with CO2 cannons and fists in the air. While the circle pit stayed reserved for that song and that song only, the crowd was by no means dead; when the incredibly catchy “Metal Is for Everyone” came around, it was hard to discern what was the audience singing and what was the band.
While their brand of “happy metal” doesn’t go over exactly well with all fans of the genre, if you consider they aren’t a super serious band (but are insanely tight and professional) and let yourself go and have fun, they are a great experience! While they may not be the most technical or the fastest band, they thrive in front of the fans, getting a bunch of people to jump around and smile “with no violence”, just as Bay had asked right before opening up the pit. Metal truly is for everyone!
Freedom Call Setlist:
- Hammer of the Gods
- Tears of Babylon
- Silver Romance
- Union of the Strong
- Heavy Metal Happycore
- Power & Glory
- Warriors
- Metal Is for Everyone
- Land of Light
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As the clock neared 9pm, the lights went out and the instrumental “Aurora” played through the PA system; it was finally time for the headliners, whose album art had been teasing us in the backdrop the whole night. Ensiferum pulled no punches as soon as they got on stage, jumping straight into their latest album’s title track – “Winter Storm Vigilantes” – without even saying hello. From the get-go, it was clear that despite the other bands being highly appreciated by those who were there, the fans really thirsted for some extreme folk metal. They also deserve some applause for their setlist choices, which covered pretty much every era of the band, going from the new stuff to tunes from their earlier days, such as the brilliant “Guardians of Fate”, received excitingly by the spectators.
While Freedom Call saw only one major pit, people seemed eager to run in circles from the second Petri Lindroos and friends showed up. He recognised that, saying “Fatherland” was the perfect opportunity for some moshing around. Now, power metal fans do get a lot of slack from the rest of the metal community, but this time around, there actually was a half-decent pit!
Many Finnish bands also catch a few strays due to being as cold as their homeland on stage, but that wasn’t the case for Ensiferum. While the frontman is generally more reserved, that Sunday he seemed quite excited to be face-to-face with the London crowd. Most of the interaction came from bassist (and general stand-up guy) Sami Hinkka, who ran around every single centimetre of the stage. Even keyboardist and occasional vocalist Pekka Montin made sure to enjoy every second he wasn’t isolated in his keyboardist corner.
Impressed with the human blender which took up the middle of the floor, the band moved on to some “calmer songs” that still kept people going either way, the first being “One More Magic Potion”. The seven-minute epic “Long Cold Winter of Sorrow and Strife” also got some love, right before jumping back to old times with “Token of Time”, received quite warmly. Already almost one hour into the set, they trucked in with the same energy they had at the start, blasting through From Afar’s title track. “Scars in My Heart”, originally sung by Eleine’s Madeleine Liljestam, saw the band bring Dragony’s brilliant Maria Nesh back out to perform the song for the first time in British territory.
It was around this time that Hinkka announced there was a special treat exclusively for London fans over at the merch stand: a few units of Ensiferum-branded beard products, to be announced and released officially later this year. The next highlights came during the encore, which started off strong with “Axe of Judgement”. Before the following song, Lindroos spotted a fan (decked out in some spectacular Manowar merch) holding a foam sword, and encouraged him to come over to the pit, as they were about to sing “a song about a long metal object designed to kill”. “In My Sword I Trust” would already have been a stellar ending, but the party kept going with “Two of Spades”, complete with a disco section. To the absolute dismay of one of the fans in the front row, they didn’t come back out to play “Lai Lai Hei”.
Ensiferum Setlist:
- Winter Storm Vigilantes
- Guardians of Fate
- Heathen Horde
- Fatherland
- One More Magic Potion
- Long Cold Winter of Sorrow and Strife
- Token of Time
- From Afar
- Scars in My Heart
- Andromeda
- Axe of Judgement
- In My Sword I Trust
- Two of Spades
Photos by Daniel Agapito
