Dual headlining folk show with Ensiferum and Korpiklaani, and support from TrollFest. I initially thought this was Paganfest America 2015 but it looks like there's no indication of it being so so we might luck out and get another good folk show some time soon.

It looks like more dates are going to be added after this run with just Korpiklaani and TrollFest.





Most likely going to this. Paganfest America 2013 is by far one of the best shows I have ever gone to (Folk shows usually are) and Ensiferum was headlining with TrollFest being one of the supporters. I'm not huge on Korpiklaani (their early was good but they started getting worse up till their last album) but I definitely don't dislike them and I'm sure I'd like them more in a live environment.

Ensiferum rule live and Trollfest are a fun band to watch live. The last two times I saw Korpiklaani I wasn't impressed and I love all their CD's. I'll def be going to the Philly show!

The last time I saw Ensiferum was 2009. I love them live as well, but it looks like I'll be missing this one due to MDF. Here's hoping for a good Paganfest lineup too!

Finally someone else with a Pittsburgh date. Haven't had the chance to see Korpiklaani live yet either, which is on my bucket list.

According to their Offical Myspace page there will be no Paganfest America for 2015. This is a complete bummer because I was looking forward to another great and diverse lineup like last year. Don't know why its not going down? Money? Visa problems? Who knows...

Aww what, that's lame. I guess it makes sense since I would have figured at least one of the bands would have been on it (Ensiferum and TrollFest in 2013 and I think Korpiklaani in 2014). It's a shame though especially since Paganfest America 2014 only went to Calgary and skipped Edmonton last year.

Sucks ass about no Paganfest America. That was getting to be an established tradition! Even poked into Mexico last time. It surely can't be for lack of interest.

This basically is Paganfest, there's very little difference to this tour other than the name.

Yeah, it seems like this tour was made in lieu of Paganfest America.

For you Paganfest fans, this just in from Arkona...

I've never heard of Arkona before. So no dates yet? They will at the very least be worth a check out if they're going to tour through my town.

For the upcoming tour Emmi will be replaced by Netta Skog from Turisas, who will be playing accordion instead of keyboards. Update is on Ensiferum's Facebook page. And for those concerned, she's not leaving the band.

Interested to see how that pans out. Emmi was a good performer last time. I guess what I care about most is if this digital accordion has the right tones.

Damnit this is the same day as Steven Wilsons concert in Philly! I'll definately be going to this though, I've always wanted to see Korpiklaani live, and Ensiferum kicks ass. I vaguely remember the Theatre of the living arts from Scrapplefest when I was a kid, so this should be nostalgic too. I just hope they're serving mead......

The TLA is a great venue! Small enough to enjoy the show but large enough to not feel claustrophobic. Plus, I like that the end of the bar area is right next to the stage so you can drink and be right by the stage and avoid all the teeny boppers moshing!!!!

Thats fucking awesome, I love a good brew (They'll probably have some good philly microbrews) and I love being close to stage, but I don't feel like moshing the whole time.

They usually have philly brews. I'm more a Whiskey and club soda guy, but I'll pre-drink at Dirty Franks for there 2 dollar "beast" cans special.

It would be cool if the bar had mead for the concert, it would be really fitting to the whole viking metal thing.

Went to this, quick run down....

Local Trad. Heavy Metal band Skelator opened. Amazing, and super short, set. Best I've seen them!

Trollfest was amazingly fun. They didn't have their sax player, but they have a guy that does extra percussion, he was a riot. During their cover of Brittney Spears' "Toxic" he was dancing around the stage, it was great. Their singer does a lot of percussion too, so having 2 percussion guys and their drummer made it an amazing set for any kind of drummer. Mainly played newer songs.

Korpiklaani was rock solid. They've really stepped up their live show since the last time I saw them! Pretty long set, didn't recognize a lot of the songs, but everything came across amazingly well. I thought their previous accordian player was good, but lacked the charisma, the newer guy they have (think hes been a member for years now ) has SO MUCH character on stage, smiling, rocking out, he was great! They were really fun and great to see again!

Left before Ensiferum

I'm a bit skeptical with TrollfesT. I've seen 'em twice and loved them both times, but looking at setlists, it seems like they're going mostly new this time. Most of my favorites are being skipped over which I'm not to ecstatic about.

Any idea how long Korpiklaani's set was? I'm curious if it's actually a coheadline tour or if they're just playing a relatively long set but not headliner-long.

You're crazy for skipping Ensiferum.

I'll be going to this show tomorrow (but I'm not thinking about it yet because Kamelot/Dragonforce is today). It'll be a good one, but we'll have to see if it tops today.

Also, I fixed the poster in the OP.

I too wish that Trollfest could have played some more classics, but even with a mainly new set it was fun as hell. I've seen them ever time they've come here and this was easily the best out of the 3!

It's a hard call for how long Korpi was, I'd say it had to be at least an hour because they seemed to keep going and going and going and going. Definitely felt like a headlining set.

I've seen Ensiferum numerous times and have kinda grown out of them. Their live show is always amazing, but I just didn't feel the need to see them for the zillionth time , my friends that stuck around though said they were killer.

This was an awesome show. I work tomorrow and it's 12:33 so I'll do my write up tomorrow. For now, here's the setlists for you bastards. There wasn't anything from this tour for Korpiklaani out there so I had to make this one on my own.

TrollfesT: http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/trollfest ... 86f9c.html
Korpiklaani: http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/korpiklaa ... 86f96.html
Ensiferum: http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/ensiferum ... 86f90.html

Ok, here we go.

TrollfesT was up first. First thing I noticed was the saxophone player wasn't there, and there were 2 extra small percussion setups; one for the vocalist and one for a new guy. The vocalist doing percussion was stupid if you ask me. 3 percussionists are not needed, and it rendered him immobile because he had to stand in the same spot the entire time. The other guy was fine. In fact, anyone who goes to this show knows how valuable of a contribution that new guy was. You couldn't tell during the first song, but after it ends and he takes off his shirt to expose his flabby belly, you won't stop laughing whenever he leaves his post. He will run around on stage doing hilarious dance moves with his tambourine. Definitely the TrollfesT highlight. The music itself was pretty good. They skipped some of their better songs that they used to play live (Die Verdammte Hungersnot, Karve, Illsint) in favor of a lot of new ones (which aren't as good as the 2 albums prior to it). Still, it was a good set. I got myself a pick after that show which I totally forgot about until now and it's still in my jeans pocket at home.

Korpiklaani was up next. Having never seen what these guys look like, wow are they old. They still put a good show on though. The vocalist would not stop dancing in the form of shaking his hips and tapping his feet. Definitely gave me a Jack Black vibe with the dancing, the hair, and the guyliner-looking eyes (and the outfit I guess somewhat). The violinist and to some extent the accordionist were the most mobile of the instrument players. Good set but woooow was it long. This really is a coheadlining tour. I think they played 20 songs? It's in the setlist I posted but I'm too lazy to check. Also, the flabby TrollfesT guy came out and danced during Vodka. I actually spotted him peeking out before Vodka from behind stage.

Finally, Ensiferum was up. I've seen then headline before so it was hardly new. The drummer has less hair on the top of his head, the guitarist has less hair on the side (he shaved it), the frontman has more hair on his face (vandyke goatee), the bassist was the same, and the woman was a different person entirely (the keyboardist didn't come on tour so an accordionist took her place, who is apparently from Turisas according to the guy standing beside me at the show). Her energy was infectious. She always had a massive smile on her face and would shake back and forth. It made me question just how big Turisas shows must be if she was so excited during this one. The frontman, whateverthehellhisnameis, was a bit lacklusture. While playing songs, he looked bored. The entirety of his mobility during the set was like 3 preorchestrated moves (which aren't very metal if they're not spontaneous random crazy movements). No engagement with the crowd. And also, when he speaks, he croaks like a frog. I don't like that. Anyways. Bassist was as crazy and energetic as I remembered from 2013.

Overall, a great show. I would have preferred to hear more of my favorites from both TrollfesT and Ensiferum, but new songs isn't terrible either. Venue worked very well for the amount of people that were there (the venue will overcrowd for huge shows since they oversell tickets, but that wasn't the case last night). It's also always nice how at folk shows, when someone is pressed up against you, it's not always a dick that's poking you. It's only sometimes a dick. Yeah. Also, I gotta say, it was a bit weird going to same venue twice in a row for metal shows (Kamelot/DragonForce was the day before). I'm guessing half the crowd were repeats (I only recognized a few, but I was also stagefront so I wasn't looking at the people).

Edit: One other comment I had to make. Props to the bands/managers/techs/promoter/venue/whoever for having this so well organized. The show started only 30 minutes after doors, and the only 2 intermission times were 15 minutes long each. There was a total of 3h45m of set time and only 30m of intermission time, and no more than 30m of pre-show time, less if you didn't arrive at doors. If you look at a typical 5 man show (1h15m, 45m, 30m, 30m, 30m) which has a totaly of 3h30m set time, you're looking at 4 intermissions of 20-30 minutes each, let's say roughly 100 minutes. With only 3 bands, these guys both played longer and had less than a third of the intermission time. I really enjoyed that.

Petri Lindroos is the name of Ensiferum's vocalist, I think. Since he plays guitar as well I can understand why he doesn't move around a lot, but I wonder if he's losing steam or interest. From the pictures and studio diaries I've seen he looks pretty worn out. He's put on some weight too. Last time I saw Ensiferum was 2009 and he was in good shape then. It's just speculation, but I do wonder if he's losing interest. Anyway, glad you had a good time, seems like it's a fun tour.

It's not just the movement, though. There's so many other things, like making eye contact with fans and possibly making faces, making certain poses or headbanging, stuff like that. Instead, when he wasn't doing vocals, he would just stand there with tired-looking eyes and casually blow hair out of his face. Considering that it's a folk band with lots of folky mid-song interludes and that he doesn't do cleans at all, there are plenty of times during songs where he's not at the mic. He doesn't take advantage, though.

I know when I saw them in 2013, he wasn't in good shape. He looked skinny by first appearances, but when he later took of his shirt, he was really flabby. He doesn't seem to weight a lot so my guess is he has incredibly low muscle mass and what fat he does have shows off very apparently.

Are you not going to this show?

That's a shame. He seemed spirited and lively the couple times I saw them, if I can remember correctly.

No, wish I could. I'll be at MDF. Although I never cared for Korpiklaani and I've never listened to TrollfesT so it's just as well.

I suggest you check out 'Illsint' and 'Die Verdammte Hungersnot' by TrollfesT. Based on how often we encounter each other in this subforum, I'd say we have somewhat similar tastes, and I early enjoy those 2 songs so you might as well. TrollfesT definitely has some fantastic songs. Just avoid their earlier albums (which are a lot less serious and a lot more unpolished). Their latest album is decent but not as good as their 2nd and 3rd latest when they were a lot faster.

For Korpiklaani... Eh, I'm not a massive fan either. You'd probably enjoy their 3rd and 4th albums the most when they kinda had a Finntroll thing going. They slowed down a lot since those albums and I feel they never really got decently back into until their 2nd latest album, but even then, it's still a lot slower and heavier than their early stuff without the fast, melodic, fun aspect they had. Maybe listen to 'Happy Little Boozer' from them.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll listen to those TrollfestT songs when I get a chance. And I'll give Korpiklaani another shot. I haven't heard anything by them for a number of years but perhaps I'll warm up to them this time. And hey, with any luck Ensiferum will do a second tour like Nightwish and Kamelot, I'd love to see them again.

Never know. One thing I particularly liked (and disliked) that Ensiferum did was play a lot of different songs. Here's the two times I saw them:

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/ensiferum ... 8d8f1.html
http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/ensiferum ... 86f90.html

As you can see, the setlists are quite different. It sucks not being able to rehear some of the favorites but it's also nice to get more familiar with some other songs and to hear newer stuff life.

Apparently some local band called Frost Giant is playing at the Philly concert, never heard of them but its pretty nice getting 4 shows for the price of one.

Here is my review of the Philly show 5/28/15:

Got in late Frost Giant were already playing. They got a little bit better than last time I saw them but nothing special. Trollfest played next and really put on a tight show, great theatrics! I had ran into a few of those guys earlier at bar on South Street and they were very humble! I bought them a round and they gave me some stickers and picks, very cool guys! Out of the three times I saw Korpiklaani I think this was the best time. They had a lot more energy and just played a lot tighter. Again they brought this 500 pound slob up on stay to do a song in the middle of their set. This guy is from some pirate metal band or something. Completely out of place and really ruined the vibe. after about 5 songs I really started getting bored. They didn't play much old stuff except Journey Man and Wooden Pints, and the newer stuff they played was getting boring. Ensiferum killed it every second they were on stage!!!! Hands down one of the best live bands out there today! They played a nice diverse set. New anthems such as One man Army and 2 of Spades made the crowd go ape shit! They even played 2 off Unsong Heroes which was to me a great album. They played Little Dreamer off their first album and even did Vivtory Songs. Disapointed they didn't do Twilight Tavern or Heathen Throne, but oh well! All in all a great show.

I would have loved to hear Battle Song, Tale of Revenge, Twilight Tavern, or Retribution Shall Be Mine, but none were played. They still had a lot of good ones though.

Frost Giant was pretty good, the singer was a little out of key but theh only played like 4 songs. I had never heard much Trollfest before but they were a blast live, they really had alot of energy in their performance and plenty of crowd interaction. Korpiklaani were awesome, they were one of the first folk metal bands I got into so it meant alot to see them, they played some of my favorites like Metsamies and Vodka, I don't know what the deal was with the fat guy though, he came out and insulted the Flyers (I'm not a sports fan personally but thats a big no no in Philly) and he sang one song in death metal vocals. Ensiferum were definitely the highlight act. They sound way more badass live in person (I was at the front) than on studio albums, definetely one of the best live bands I've seen. Towards the end they all switched instruments and did a cover of Breakin the Law by Judas Priest with some of the Trollfest members, I don't know if they did that at the other venues. (Their last song was supposed to be filmed for a music video but that was canced)

It looked like most venues were getting 'Breaking the Law' and I was expecting it but they definitely didn't play it in Edmonton.