Paganfest Featuring Korpiklaani and Turisas
May 13, 2014
House of Blues- Los Angeles, CA
The 5th annual Paganfest made its way to the House of Blues in Hollywood on May 13, 2014. The lineup of: Winterhymn, Varg, Chthonic, Turisas, and Korpiklaani all waited eagerly to wreak havoc on the sunset strip and on the many hungry fans that were in attendance.
Chthonic is a metal band from Taiwan; they came on-stage and immediately the fans started to go crazy as Chthonic doesn’t visit the USA on a regular basis so the fans easily got loud and crazy. There wasn’t a single dull moment in their set as they pounded the audience with song after song and the crowd kept up with mosh pits.
Up next was the first headliner of the night,
Turisas, a folk metal band from Finland.
Turisas has a large following in Hollywood, seeing that the band themselves told the audience that they’ve been the best crowd on the tour. On top of that, there were lots of fans in war paint and costumes showing their loyalty to
Turisas. They played many of their hits including the fan favorite and best-known song, the metal anthem,
Battle Metal. The audience responded really well to
Turisas since the whole time, the audience was pitting, shoving each other, and having a good time. One of the highlights of the show is when frontman, Mathias Nygard would talk to us and start telling us about drinking beer and having a good time and how American beer is crap.
Turisas knows how to put on a good show and all the fans await their return.
The final performer of the night was the folk metal band, Korpiklaani, also from Finland. Korpiklaani is well-known among their
fans for putting on a fun and energetic show. When playing live,
Korpiklaani’s music puts you in a trance that, even if you’re not familiar with their music, you’ll find yourself tapping your feet and eventually give in and start dancing. Between having violin and accordion players, their music has a folk sound to it which perfectly matches their style. Their setlist was a good mix of old and new songs in which they included the fan favorite,
Vodka. The audience loved
Korpiklaani since not only did they mosh, but multiple times they hugged each other in a huge group hug and jumped and danced in a circle.
Korpiklaani knows how to deliver a satisfying show to fans whether they’re old or new fans and anyone that enjoyed them will sure wait for them to return.
Review by: Misael Ruiz
Korpiklaani
Turisas
