Luxor Arnhem
25 februari 2012

Pff, it’s hard to be a reviewer sometimes, you always want to write a decent and objective review, but sometimes this doesn’t sound ‘nice’. So I love it, but it’s not always a funjob.
Where to begin with Heidevolk’s Straalschijfontketenfeest?
I think I start of with the negative aspects, this way I have these things of my chest.

At first the ‘Straalschijfontketenfeest’ (Nice Dutch name for a release-party) itself. Two years ago we were treated by Heidevolk in the same venue Luxor on a nice folk-metalparty with Grimm and XIV Dark Centuries. The band mentioned there the remarkable way their release-parties had grown. This year only one support-act, and this was done by Mondvolland, a band which had just announced their were exchanging folk-metal for blackmetal. So this was a huge step backwards.
The structure of GeselXL of which these party was a part. Events in the whole town of Arnhem, and a passe-partout ticket to go to all these event. This means buying a ticket isn’t a guarantee you can get in. When you have to travel a long distance, of when you can’t manage to get there early this is kind of risky. There are also a lot of people at the concert who just come and see Hedevolk once, causing the real fans to stay outside. And in my opinion a release-party is something for the real fans.
What were the warrors at the stage at the beginning of the performance for? They only stood there for a while to leave the stage within the first song. Last time there were an impressive number of warriors, giving it a real meaning.
The sound was bad. During Mondvolland and in the beginning of the set of Heidevolk is literally hurt your ears sometimes. The whistles living in my head for a long time, weren’t due to the volume, but were caused by the bad adjustment of sound.
Not everyone on stage has to be fully in style in my opinion, but the whole band in black T-shirts….. I think the clothing can be more in style.
The ‘powerpoint’presentation on the background needed obviously a lot more attention. Images were not always synchronized with the music and I don’t like to see scanned CD covers with the bar-code still on it. The idea is good, but needs further elaboration. This isn’t worthy for a top-band which Heidevolk has become.

Well, with this been said, it’s finally time to go on to other things, because there were also some nice things going on. We won’t give our opinion on the act of Mondvolland, because it isn’t folk-metal any more and I have no connection to this music.
Heidevolk opens with an old song, but comes immediately to the point in their second song. Throughout the whole performance their playing a mix of old and new songs, a nice way of doing it. Only a few people in the audience know the new songs already and to give them a chance to sing along the old song are very welcome. I’m convinced it won’t take long before they do this with the new songs as well, because songs like ‘Wapenbroeders’ are perfect for this.
The people who are present are in for a party and they react very positive on the band. It has to be said, Heidevolk is working hard. Not only Mark is very busy to whip the audience. But also Rowan and Raemon do everything to entertain the crowd. Joris was a little less prominent on stage this time, it looked he suffered from the bad sound too. Behind a drum-kit you’re not often very visible but we wouldn’t want to miss Joost on that spot. As a little bonus the band took their violin player along, a nice supplement to the total sound. And then there was Kevin. Though a great masterbrain is lost with Kevin the band wins strength on the stage. He’s obvious a live-guitarist, a nice job!Of course Sebas came by and played a few songs along, and he remarkably was more present op stage then he ever was. The audience thanked him with a nice loud applause and also Folk-metal.nl want to thank him for years of nice folk-metalpleasure, we enjoyed his contribution.
After about 30 minutes the band suddenly left the stage, something which immediately was followed by the leaving of a lot of people. I was never afraid they wouldn’t come back, but I wondered what was going on, it look very strange.
From this moment on the sound was a little better, mayby this was the explanation of leaving the stage?
When they came back, they just went through with what they were doing earlier, an mix of old and new songs. I think I’ve heard all new song.
It’s very difficult to rate this concert. When labour and atmosphere are rated it was very good. When I look at sound and the settings for this performance the rating is very low.
Heidevolk is nowadays one of the top folk-metalbands and with this status goes a kind of professionalism, this was obviously there in the attitude of the band on stage. But not in the rest. I get the feeling the band did not have a lot of time to arrange this releaseparty. I hope is much better at their CD presentation in De Baroeg next weekend.
I’ll give no point this time, I’m unable to average these facts.