Heathenfest brought SEVEN bands to Vancouver for a fun night of pirate and fantasy-metal which packed the Redroom with Scurvy dogs who threatened to destroy the monitor speakers on the edge of the stage.. I was there covering it for Abort Magazine, but have some extra photos to show off here.

Take a look at the review, and 77 more shots only on ABORT!

First up, were two local bands, both who I have never shot before. Scythia, and Trollband

Violin’s automatically make metal awesome, no matter what. Scythia had a bit of a problem with vocals for the first song, but rather than wait and have the air in the club dead, they went ahead with an instrumental while the engineers fixed the vocal problem at the boards

I wanted a little bit more light on his face, but the first bands usually have the worst lighting, so I had to make due with what I had

Up next was Trollband, all done up in war paint

I recently sent my main concert lens into sigma to be fixed, but didn’t get it back in time, so I was forced to use my 50mm F1.8 all night.. Most of my shots ended up being closeups, but It was still good.

Vreid was either up third or fourth, I cant really remember.. The Norwegian metaler’s seemed to think that they (Norway) was going to beat Canada in curling at the Olympics next year.. The crowd really didn’t care either way ;)

Kivimetsan Druidi

Metal bands that wear costumes are a dime a dozen in Europe, but one in a million in Canada, so I always love shooting the bands who play up their music with stage costumes

Caught some interesting light, and liked what happend

I was forced to shoot over the crowd a lot.. The stage is so low at the Red Room, it’s really annoying.

But.. Its great for when you want to get the feeling that the crowd is enjoying the show..

Me and the reviewer for Abort Magazine didn’t know what to expect for ALESTORM, but I figured the name must have meant they were going to be playing some pirate metal, and I ended up being right..

They have several songs on youtube, but I think this is the only one that is an actual video.

First band I have ever seen use a keytar.

Two pirates even showed up in the front row of the crowd for Alestorm, the most popular band of the night. (with half the club clearing out after their set was over)

I was only trying to get the singers hand up, but when I snapped this, I was lucky enough to catch them all

If you want to hear more of their music, check out their myspace, and also Vancouver’s own Dreadnoughts

Austrian death metal band BELPHEGOR was up next, and lots of people left. They were a little different than the other bands, much harder in fact,
so that must have has something to do with it.

I’ve shot them before, so I knew they were going to have really bad light, but I liked some of the shots I ended up with

Their set was much better than the last time I saw them, but I’m still not a big fan..

Finally, Eluveitie packed the stage with all their members and weird instruments

I love this shot

Again, Awesome Violin, but I didn’t end up staying past 4 songs, since It was already past midnight, and the trains stop running right at 1am

The lead singer reminded me a lot of Joel from Ninjaspy, for a few reasons. Second person I’ve seen pull out and play a tin whistle on stage

And that’s it for today. Its been a long time since I have posted anything, but I promise to get more up! Thanks for looking

Cheers