First of all, even before the music started I was so happy. This is because a lot of the crowd dressed up like crazy! People had pirate hats and coats, some had full costumes as Jack Sparrow, some even brought foam swords, one person had an awesome metal knight's helmet and someone even brought a blow-up parrot! It was already an entertaining show!
I think what I enjoyed most was how we all went nuts when Alestorm played their set. There was a constant mosh pit going (I could see foam swords flailing in the air in the middle which was a hilarious sight), a lot of us were headbanging (I have a stiff neck now but it was worth it), there was lots of crowd-surfing, we knew all the words and sang along to all the songs while punching the air at the right beats. Basically everyone was having a ton of fun and the atmosphere can't get better than that.
I was also hoping that the band members would be all dressed up as pirates but instead they were shirtless, which was also nice but anyways the crowd made up for their lack of wardrobe.
Musically the sound was decent and not too loud which is always nice but I heard a few mistakes and the guitar solos weren't very good but I was having such an awesome time that I didn't really care.
At the end the singer dived into the crowd and they carried him all the way to the back of the venue which was my cue to leave on a high note instead of giving the headlining band, Tyr, a chance. (Their music is too slow for my taste)
Plus, I learned a new term: wall of death. And since people were so excited and followed everything the singer said, I got to see a huge wall of death and not just a bigger mosh pit.
A wall of death is where everyone in the audience splits and stands on the sides so there's a huge space in the middle of the floor. Then when the singer cues everyone they go running at full speed towards the other side and smash into the people coming the other way, resulting in a massive mosh pit afterwards. Wow was that a sight to see especially since so many in the audience participated! It was crazy to see two walls of people smash into each other at full speed!
It would probably be even crazier at an outdoor festival.
I wish Alestorm looked like this on stage and not just in studio photo shoots!
Suid'Akra was even better than I thought they would be and I was already looking forward to seeing them! Musically I think they performed the best. The band was tight, the solos were interesting and the clean singing harmonies were bang-on. They played some new stuff from Crogacht (which I bought there) and it sounds like they've improved their songwriting which is awesome. I was hoping they would have some body and face paint on like in one of their videos but again most of them were shirtless and again I didn't mind, especially since the singer had a nicely chiseled torso.
To add the cherry on top to the enjoyable night, there were a bunch of guys in the metro still excited after the concert and one of them yelled, "On casse tout! (Let's destroy everything!)" and they started violently flailing their arms and legs but they were in a metro station surrounded by nothing but brick and concrete so they broke nothing! It was such a hilarious sight I burst out laughing and I still do everytime I think about it!
