The Finnish folk metal band Ensiferum released a new record last month, which is a great reason to start yet another tour. This time they would headline the Patronaat, Haarlem and brought along the support acts Insomnium and Omnium Gatherum.

After I walked in, the first band almost ended. From what I saw, Omnium Gatherum was a band that that wasn't very outstanding, but was a solid band that was okay for the opening spot.

When I saw Insomnium live for the first time in 2013, it was quite a pity that one guitar wasn't plugged in for the first half of the set, nevertheless the band showed a lot of potential. This time they were a special guest on this tour and of course it was a way smaller venue than 013. The band played very good once again and showed that they are live as good as they are on record. It is still a pity to see that this band is quite static, this isn't a bad thing but I would like to see a litle more energy personally. This time the band showed again that they are very talented and that the band plays very good together. The deep grunts were very spot on and all the other band members were totally spot on as well. The hour really flew by and the crowd got warmed up pretty good.

After a quick break headliner Ensiferum entered the stage. Within the first few songs the most of the people within the range of the moshpit were moshing around, having fun and a lot of people took their shirts off. Blend this all together and it had all the elements of fests such as Paganfest XL and Heidefest. As mentioned before, the band just released a new record and while most bands do promotional tours, Ensiferum wanted to make everybody happy and took all their records and played some songs from almost all records. While lead vocalist Petri was busy with evil growls and heavy guitarlines, it was backing vocalist/accordeonist Emmi that brought the pagan in this band. WIth her happy faces, fun tunes and enhousiasm she stole the show and made people even feel better. Halfway the set Petri asked for some disco dancing during 'Two Of Spades', which has a little disco breakdown in the middle. This resulted in a hilarious part, which was followed up by a perfect circle pit! The band left the stage and came back to show how much fun this band is. Emmi became lead vocalist, Petri drummer and everybody else had a different job than the rest of the set, to perform the cover 'Breaking The Law', originally by Judas Priest. It wasn't the best quality performance, but still it was superb to see, a lot of fun and both the band and the crowd enjoyed it. After this the set still didn't end, because they had to show a little magic trick first. We should forget about Copperfield and all the other great magicians, because this was the best magic trick ever. After running over the stage, Sami suddenly had his bass hanging around his neck. After this superb trick it was time for the last song which was 'Iron'. 

It was a great evening and Ensiferum definitely showed that they are headliner worthy, but also that they had a lot of fun being on the stage.