09-08-2015 Vagos Open Air

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The last day of Vagos Open Air was less windy but it was a sunny and a hot one, and full of good surprises too. Diversity is the word for this day and below you will find out why.

The Portuguese band Midnight Priest had the honour to open the appetite for what was coming during the rest of the day.
Midnight Priest is a heavy metal band from Coimbra, formed in 2008, and with the second album “Midnight Steel”(2014) in current promotion, they could make the crowd headbang for a while performing songs like “Thunderbay”, “Into The Nightmare”, “Hellbreaker” or “Rainha da Magia Negra” (translation: Black Magic Queen). A good warm-up for the few ones that were already standing on the front rows.

Now the time for the revelation band and one of the biggest surprises of the festival has come, it’s an Australian band, which with two wonderful albums “Portal OF I” (2012 and “Citadel” (2014) on their musical CV, has the gift of enchanting crowds with their extreme progressive metal with black/death twists wherever they stop… Ok, you didn’t guessed yet, but I can advise you to keep an eye on them and pay attention, do not forget about Ne Obliviscaris (Latin words meaning something like “Forget Not”).

The vocalist/violinist Tim Charles and his mates simply came, saw and conquered the crowd’s heart right on their huge debut in Portugal, with a complete and unique set, note that Vagos Open Air was the only date to be contemplated with a one hour set while at other fests they had like 35-45 minutes. Starting with “Devour Me: Colossus (Part I): Blackholes”, everyone was in trance with this incredible performance, in such a way that the signing session lasted over an hour, the merch sales increased and the band was all happy and grateful.

To end up in full victory, “And Plague Flowers The Kaleidoscope” was played with Tim jumping into a surrendered crowd and did the crowdsurfing, making the delight of many fans holding him, mission accomplished for all.

Then the next band to attack the main stage and converting it into a ship and taking everyone into a trip where the rum and beer couldn’t be gone so easily through a party, were the pirates from Scotland, Alestorm; I couldn’t check out properly how it was going because I was attending at the signing session of Ne Obliviscaris, but for sure could notice the audience’s reaction: party mode on since the front rows until the back, everyone was jumping, singing, moshing and crowdsurfing.
With 4 albums into the treasure’s arks since 2008, Alestorm didn’t need too much effort to get everyone’s attention, the recipe is in their stories like “The Sunk’n Norwegian”, “Magnetic North”, “Keelhauled” or even “Captain Morgan’s Revenge”. Those were moments of amusement with the pirates, for sure. Let’s wait for their comeback and hop on into the ship and steal the drinks!

Hailing from Israel and already enjoying a popular reputation and no introduction needed, Orphaned Land played a fantastic show and also conquering the audience, making them jumping, singing along and clapping to every song.
The vocalist Kobi Farhi provided funny moments when explaining that he wasn’t Jesus Christ though he did look like him, “All Is One” was the motto to surrender the people and many fans that stood on the front rows. The whole band was also happy to be there and it was a nice team effort so remarkable and evident that made this performance one of the best from the festival. Hits like “Sapari”, “Norra El Norra (Entering The Ark)” combined with the recent ones such as “The Simple Man” – dedicated to the crowd and “Let The Truce Be Known” worked in perfection. During the last songs I went to check out Alestorm’s signing session and it was going well, though didn’t last for a long time like the previous band but all the members did some funny actions, for example, the keyboard player, Elliot Vernon, doing bellydance movements.

Another acclaimed return to Vagos was the one from the legendary US thrash band, Overkill.

Acting as the co-headliners of the day, Overkill still have the power and strength to ruin the house with their energetic thrash after 35 years in the active, the machine is well oiled. Carrying the last opus “White Devil Armory” (2014) in the baggage, from which it was possible to play “The Armorist” as an opening theme, the vocalist Bobby Blitz and his henchmen thought the recipe of playing old classics to entertain their audience could work and success…wilderness again with crowdsurfers and moshers making the party.

“In Union We Stand”, “Horrorscope”, “Overkill” were some of the classics revisited and intercalated with jokes by Bobby asking if the band was in Portugal or Spain when the main reason was to hear the crowd’s voice out and loud, another success recipe. “Fuck You” marked the end of the show.

Then it was about time for the so long awaited headliners to break everything, the Swedish collective including a guy from Yorkshire (UK) named Bloodbath, with “Old Nick” ( Nick Holmes, also known as Paradise Lost vocalist) at the command literally set the fire between the audience. Like in some other cases, no introduction needed, starting the mass with “Let The Stillborn Come To Me”, followed by “Mental Abortion” and “So You Die”, Nick Holmes proved to everyone that he is still able to growl and perform in the good old death metal way. I had no doubts of that when I did the review for their majestic work “Grand Morbid Funeral” last year.

The band played with firm conviction of having raised a faithful audience, of course, more work for the security whose had been doing a brilliant job since the first day, crowdsurfers did not give any chance of rest.
“Unite In Pain”, “Like Fire” and “Mock The Cross” were the last songs of the set, however the crowd asked for the band’s comeback on stage and for the encore, two songs were reserved “Eaten” and “Cry My Name”, that delighted the crowd, ending a festival in full apotheosis.

But wait, the final surprise was reserved to the ones that were strong enough to check out the very last performance of the day, also celebrating the 20th anniversary and being absent from the stages for 8 years, the Portuguese battle metal band with heavy twists and the second special guests of this edition, Ironsword attacked Vagos main stage with all its power.
“None But The Brave” is the name of Ironsword’s last and fourth album, released this year and it is full of great themes like “Kings Of The Night”, “None But The Brave”, “Ring Of Fire”, “Vengeance Will Be Mine”, that were also played at this great show.
Formed in 1995, Ironsword are one of the institutions of the Lusitanian Metal Underground and are still alive and kicking, for the joy of the nostalgic followers of the scene.

And with this show, we reached the end of the festival, those were intense, energetic and diverse days to be remembered. I would like to thank to Prime Artists, Security staff and organization staff, Sleep ‘Em All, Raquel Pais for the lens , André Henriques (Ah!Photo and Festivalphoto.net) for the memory card and all the ones that I met and have supported me and made this adventure possible, thanks a lot and hopefully see you at Vagos 2016!!!

Links:
Vagos Open Air Website