When a new festival dawns, you need something fast and fun to kick off the event in the right direction. For Metaldays in 2015, for us anyway, this band was Canadian thrash metal heroes Anvil. What could be better than this machine of good vibes for such a spot?

“Yeah, we’ve got a party going today!”
- Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow (vocals/guitar)

A flock of people had gathered in front of the main stage under a scorching sun, and the first thing we were greeted by was Kudlow’s smiling face, some guitar improvisation, and a greeting shouted through the guitar pickup.
We also noticed that there was a new guy handling the bass for the band. This was one Chris Robertson, a man I have no prior knowledge of, so except for starting in Anvil last year I can’t anything about his musical career. He did however look a bit scurvy and jaded, which made him the perfect visual match for the band, and musically he seemed to be able to keep up with Kudlow and Robb Reiner as well.

Anvil delivered a pretty classic Anvil concert – Kudlow was smiling all the time and seemed to be in a great mood, whereas Reiner seemed more bothered by the heat, and was looking rather red and sweaty behind his drumkit. Robertson mostly rocked a little back and forth, but he had more in him than that, something he showed during the bass intro to Winged Assassins, where he smilingly jumped and pirouetted all over the stage.

We didn’t lack for social interaction either, and Kudlow was happy to send us into shouting and fist-pumping action.
Not that it was needed all the time – at one point the audience picked up an Anvil chant by themselves, and Kudlow was so happy that he burst into a Slovenia chant in beat with the fans.
The crowd grew steadily during the show, and towards the end there was a fair bit more people watching the show than there had been at the beginning of the concert. Also the action grew, and I could see more and more crowdsurfers sailing by. It was either too early or too hot for a mosh, but there was a nice bit of headbanging going on in the front rows, and people in general seemed very happy with the show.

I found Anvil entertaining as well, even though it was far from the best concert I’ve seen with them. There was a certain amount of humour lacking even though everyone was smiling, and the energy wasn’t quite up to what it has been, even in recent years.
Still, there were good vibes, and this was a pleasant, if not overwhelming, way to start Metaldays.

Setlist (incomplete):

666
Badass Rock ‘N’ Roll
Winged Assassins
Mothra
Swing Thing
Solo (Robb Reiner)
Hope In Hell
Eat Your Words
Metal On Metal