Amongst a number of festival appearances, the Irish lads chose to do a club gig in Arnhem. Even though the venue is not all that big, it was (nearly) sold out. And as the band didn’t bring a support, the venue added one.

Alvader was the first band, a relatively new Dutch folk metal band. The lyrics are in Dutch. Musically it sounded quite like heavy metal with mostly uplifting riffs and melodies. An occasional black metal-like riff popped up. The clean vocals were rather low, with sometimes some gruff vocals thrown in as well. As most members were formerly of another Dutch folk band, they played two of their songs. For the rest they played their entire debut album I think. Generally quite a good performance, but just not my thing.

Then it was time for Primordial. I lost count how often the singer mentioned that they were Primordial from the republic of Ireland. Anyway they opened up with a song from To the Nameless Dead – along with its predecessor by far their best albums – As Rome Burns. And with a couple of songs from their latest, it was basically a best-off set with only the first two albums skipped. Of course there was Gods to the Godless, and the fantastic The Coffin Ships, but also Sons of the Morrigan and Victory Has 1000 Fathers, Defeat Is an Orphan with its awesome opening riff. And even though the songs are long and newer songs sound somewhat less inspired then those from their best albums, it was quite a good gig. Yet they need to bring back To Enter Pagan to the set. Anyway, the 12 songs and 1 hour 45 minutes flew by quickly.