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Metalfest Austria Open Air

Mining, May 12-15, 2010

Saturday May 15

The annual Metalfest Austria (previously called SummerNights) is devoted mainly to black, death and pagan metal and therefore one of Metalphoto’s favorites. Held in a vast meadow, close to a castle and nature preserve, the location on the German-Austrian border in the town of Mining is excellent; not surprisingly this festival attracts a growing number of between five- and ten thousand metal heads from all over Europe. Usually May in Austria knows excellent weather, but this year a cold front hit western Europe and we suffered from cold on this closing Saturday. Nevertheless the atmosphere remained excellent on this venue, which I think is the coolest and most layed back from all but the smallest of European metal festivals. The Dutch death metal band Legion of the Damned are, year after year, the sweethearts of the Austrian audience and this time they came up with a nice pyro show. The old hands of Florida Death Metal, Deicide, played no nonse, without light show or smoke and favored the audience by doing their older work. Marduk really surpassed themselves, with a very energetic performance, excellent sound and a superb show with great lighting and a balanced use of the smoke machine. Folk and Pagan metal is very hot in the German speaking countries and therefore the Swiss Eluveitie, did a double mixed show with the Fins of Finntroll, that was received with enthusiasm by the audience, as well as the Dutch Heidevolk and the corpse painted Varg, in red and black stripes. We skipped the gothic bands Leaves Eyes and Epica on the main stages, due to the early hour they played. On a third podium, in a large dark tent, many upcoming bands were playing and attracted quite may listeners. Good music could be heard on that stage too. We watched some good grind core there and show you pictures of some of them in this page. Almost all major bands held a signing session which was appreciated by their fans. Deicide’s session was cancelled due to unclarified reasons, which was a big disappointment to those, who had been waiting for them for over half an hour. The organization was great; all facilities were excellent this year, little words have to be spent on that, besides perhaps that the shops were a bit out of the way and that more straw on the floor would have been welcome. And, on our 8 hours drive back home, we were wondering if and how the more than 1000 cars had come out of the muddy terrain …. But we agreed that we'll be back here next festival!

Photo's taken by Chérie, Nienke & Russell, Metalphoto. Photo processing & text by Chérie.