15 and 16 september 2012 the Medieval event MPS (Mittelalterlich Phantasie Spectaculum) was near the German/Dutch border once again in Borken. And in my opinion everybody who is a little interested in Medieval times should visit this. And because of the very nice weather, everybody else should too.

Entering Borken you just have to follow the signs to MPS, you just can’t miss it. With a little help of the perfect weatherconditions the huge parkinglot is nice and dry. And when you’ve parked you car you have to walk a bit to reach the bridge over the river where you can enter the terrain.

The only thing you need today are two feed, which have had a good rest.

You don’t need to be happy, you’ll become that when you’ve entered the terrain. Humoristic shows of medieval bands, jugglers take care of that.

You don’t need any drinks of food, that’s taken care of. You can find food and drinks everywhere on the terrain. There are hundreds of stands with beautiful jewellery, cloths, weapons and of course mead. This all in style with medieval times, and the food is too, nice meals in style.

You don’t have to think either, maybe it’s best if you come with a clear head. It get’s filled during the day. You only have to watch the beautiful dressed people in all the camps, but also a lot of the visitors is nicely dressed in style. Look at the presentations of medieval medical practise, and learn…Look at the beautiful group Die Waldwesen this can’t be described in words, you just have to see, hear and experience it. Strange music, beautiful attractive creatures luring you into their world. Just soak it all in.
You don’t need mp3’s. There’s music in many places. According to MPS this is one of the smaller events, but there are still two stages with bands the whole day and a third stage for upcoming bands.

So, everything is taking care of, we only have to dive in and enjoy. So I’ll give a small impression of my day, but the nice thing at MPS is you can create your own programme, you can do almost all in random order. Almost all bands play during the whole day a few sets at one of the stages, you can try to see them all, or visit all sets of a band you like very much and everything in between. Of course you can also skip bands and look at very different things at the same time.

We started of with a little tour around a part of the area, before we visited the show of Soar Patrol. They were very nice to see once again. They played a lot of nice songs for us once again and it’s always a pleasure to see this guys playing instrumental tracks with three percussionists, a guitarist and a bagpiper.

They’re supporting the Duncarron project . A project in Scotland building a medieval fortification completely in style. A great project for a visit (al least on facebook) and maybe a donation.

After this we spend a little time again on visiting a part of the area mainly a lot of encampments in the far end of the area. And when we came back, it was time for Rapalje, who are on the same stage as Soar Patrol. Rapalje was like always very good. They played a lot of songs from the ‘Into Folk” CD. This set could have used some more spiced songs, but the band can make everything a success on stage. This set was McRogan present for the Irish dancing in some songs, always nice to see, it’s a perfect match with Rapalje.

The we visited a lot of stands again and get a glimpse of some food stands, to make our minds up about what we’re going to eat later on. We bought some jewellery and a bottle of mead, which is very difficult here. You have to choose from over 30 different kinds of mead, a lot of them in beautiful bottles. During this we enjoyed the music of Saltatio Mortis, but we had to skip this set, otherwise we couldn’t have visited all the stands. Saltatio ended and Die Irrlichter started to play, we got ourselves a nice falafel this time and sat down to watch Die Irrlichter. Their music is nice and easy compared to the energy which streams over the stage when Saltatio is on it. We rested our feet a little, which you can do everywhere on the area. Die Irrlichter played nice, it was lacking a little bit of spice, but they performance was nice. The act stayed alive the whole time and they kept interacting with the small amount of active people in front of them. They also managed to keep the attention of a lot op folk on the banks, so well done.

After this it’s was time for Saltatio Mortis, a what a performance they gave. Energetic, humorous, energetic, medieval, energetic and above this it was highly energetic too. At a medieval event like this they’re playing their medieval show of course and not their rock show. And you’ll maybe expect the high voltage of the rockshow can’t be beaten at a medieval show. WRONG! The medieval show is maybe a little bit down in volume, but the energy is enormous. With up to four bagpipes in some songs they play all kinds of medieval songs we know from the albums like Manufactum and Manufactum II, like Cantiga Alhambra, In Taverna, Varulven and others. Mission Impossible at this gig: stand still. You simply can’t stand still with this. The beat is hitting you like a rock, the bagpipes are hitting your spine: Medieval at it’s best, why did we ever leave these times behind us?

Everything ends, and so does Saltatio Mortis, but not the MPS in Borken, it goes on, we move to the third stage to see a little bit of Undschuldig. I didn’t know this band until now, they’ve have got some experience on board recently with an ex Saltatio Mortis member and they sounded very nice. We decided to to move on to The Moon and the Nightspirit, because I definitely wanted to see them. And they played very well, they’re obviously are very talented. Their show only lacks a bit of energy. It’s full of cosmic and earth energy, and sometimes there’s a little spice in the songs, but most of the time it’s nice and easy. I’m impressed by their skills in the beginning but after 45 minutes I give up. When we walk back, it turns out Undschuldig is playing again, instead of leaving we decide to look at them for a while, we should have done this earlier.

Then we decide it’s time to go home, but the festival goes on for a few more hours and there’s also a second day coming up.
And for the people who missed it (and anyone who didn’t): All things end, but not MPS, it goes on and on in a lot of different places and they’re back next year!