Bagnatica, August 7-9 2015.
Fosch Fest 2015 is the most ambitious edition of this event, which is growing bigger year after year, and has become one of the most important metal festivals in Italy.
The location is the Festival Area of Bagnatica, a small town near Bergamo: the square where the event takes place can easily hold 5000 spectators and everything needed to ensure an optimal service with wide tents to serve as restaurant and an inviting“beergarden”. Also the area merchandise is respectable.
The Festival, in the prologue of the first day, gives space to a platoon of Italian bands.
The novelty is that from this edition, despite being an event almost completely dedicated to folk metal, Fosch Fest opens to most other genres, while retaining a strong folk trademark.
The sun beats down and the beer flows in rivers!
The Piedmontese band Odr has the honour and the burden of opening the event.
The second day of Fosch Fest 2015 is the day of Carcass, headliners of this Saturday centered on folk, which however also includes extreme sounds, from the melodic death metal of Carcass to the thrash and death of black-opener of the day, Methedras and Veratrum.
Finsterforst, Heidevolk, Arkona and partly Kampfar held high the banner of European folk, giving variety and personality to a genre which is generally considered too stereotypical, but which is, on the contrary, rather full of different shades and different themes.
Veratrum have the task of opening the second day which continues in the sign of brutality with Methedras, who jump on stage and explode in their old-school trash sound mixed to doses of death metal. Methedras are powerful on stage, showing brutal guttural sounds, a little hardcore and a Swedish style growl.
German Finsterforst are the first non-Italian band to perform, finally giving vent to the irresistible urge to pogo of the audience. The band opens with fast, folk battle songs mixed to more evolved and complex scores, dense with tempo changes and variety, in which the intense atmosphere of the choirs strikes.
With a slight delay in the program, Dutch Heidevolk take the stage of Fosch Fest in front of an exploding crowd. The band sound combines metallic riffs with tuneful folk melodies and poetic, almost nostalgic, tones.
Gusts of wind, a leaden sky, bursts of rain and the backdrop dominated by a vermillion red create the perfect atmosphere for the entrance of Kampfar.
Black rules, guitar and bass are also black with dazzling red inserts, an elegant intensity is palpable in this black metal which is powerfully dynamic, passionate and genuine, old-school instinctive and combative.
The riffs are wiry and the changing bursts are typically black metal.
The best performance of the festival so far. Kampfar, one of the best live black metal bands!
Arkona conquer the stage for their energetic live performance.
The band returns to the Russian folk-metal with an epic and evocative concept of the genre. Some scores in blastbeat, other less fast, but all focuses to create solemn atmospheres thanks to the not little contribution of flutes and bagpipes.
Finally Carcass! Headlining the second day of Fosch Fest, the Liverpool band gives us a tight , straight to the point show without frills. Walker and Steer are in high spirits. The setlist is a sort of best of the band’s discography and the sounds remains acceptable after all. With “Heartwork” Carcass close the second day of Fosh Fest in a rolling and very intense way.
The third and final day of concerts at Fosch Fest ends in beauty with Norwegian Satyricon headlining.
Not only black metal though, but also plenty of room to Månegarm’s viking-pagan metal, Furor Gallico’s more traditional folk and the colourful and irreverent Finntroll, the most awaited of the day.
After a grueling soundcheck of Satyricon and Fosch, finally Fosch dance with a pagan, savage and melodic black metal which revives local legends.
The delays are prolonged with Furor Gallico’s sound check, whose stage presence is powerful and of great effect.
Hungarian Dalriada go on stage dressed as Magyar shepherds, except the blonde vocalist Laura Binder, mounting a really exciting folk metal set, that involved the whole crowd in dancing, clapping, moshing and even a wall-of-death.
Månegarm are the first real variation on the theme of the day, proposing viking – black sounds. The use of violence is controlled, some fast and grim sound appears, but the mid-tempo is the trademark of the Swedes, who delight with clean vocals.
With twenty-five minutes delay, Finnish Finntroll finally sprout from the forest of the Finnish tundra with their typical small troll ears and black and white pitted faces to give us a show. The sounds are quickly adjusted and maintained perfect throughout the performance. Finntroll are an excellent folk-metal, danceable, epic and violent band.
To close the festival, the most desired moment of the evening: Satyricon on stage presenting an excellent setlist chosen for the occasion, focused on the rhythm and the groove of relatively recent works.
A gust of wind strikes the night and the apocalypse begins. Frost, the war machine who embodies the essence of the band, delights with imperious sequences of double pedal and crude and old-school blastbeat bursts. Another demonstration of technical perfection by Satyricon, worthy closure of such an intense and exhausting Fosh Fest, but also remarkable in terms of music quality.
See you next year!
Report and photos by Eir
