After Friday night’s acts warming everyone up for the festival it was the turn of Saturday’s acts to entertain us all. They all did a good job of it.
First up were ThunarWülf, who, following the trend from the previous session, were down a member and played as a six piece. Not having seen them before, I wasn’t aware of anything missing as they played an excellent opening folk metal set, winning over new fans as well as pleasing their current ones.
The first of the day’s Black Metal bands, Master’s Call, followed them. They played a good solid set of uncompromising Black Metal to an appreciative audience.
Last year’s Warhorns Late Summerfest included Bring to Bear who had played an OK folk metal set. They have changed vocalists since then, bringing in Holly and they have improved their performance a lot. Their set was much more interesting this time, with Holly’s powerful vocals adding a lot more depth.
Slowing things down were Elderseer who also have gone through a recent line up change, this time bringing in Vince on lead guitar. Their set was a solid slab of doom.
After a quick clothing change, Elderseer’s other guitarist/vocalist returned with a drummer and a piper for Ravenhymn’s set. This was more in the folkier end of things. The pipes were changed part the way through the set from German ones to Scottish ones and towards the end they were joined by a flautist.
Next band on were no strangers to me. Wolfbastard played one of their best sets that I have seen them play, they seemed to be well into it and brough the crowd along with them.
I had seen Sellsword a few years ago and left that gig feeling very underwhelmed by them. This time, they were firing on all cylinders and put on a really good show. Some of the audience had come armed and one was carrying a trebuchet, although it wasn’t used offensively.
Finally we come to the headliners. They had also lost their bassist to injury but had the fortune of having the bassist from Sellsword willing to step in and learn the songs with less than a week’s notice. Vocal delivery was changed and whilst this made a difference to their set, it was not to the detriment of the gig. The professionalism of the band shone through and they played well, even coping with the loss of The Revenant’s guitar at the end of the set.