Månegarm Open Air
Festival Report 2024
Text: Tobias Nilsson Photo: Lunah Lauridsen
Månegarm, in case you didn’t know, is a Swedish folk/viking metal band, hailing from Norrtälje, slightly north of Stockholm.
One day, the members of said band woke up and decided to make their own festival, named after themselves and located in their hometown. This was in 2019, when the first Månegarm Open Air opened its gates to fans near and far.
Well, ok, so I’m a bit blurry on the details of how this festival came to be, but it’s true that, no surprise there, the band is behind it, and that it first happened in 2019.
For reasons, it didn’t come back for the next two years, but the fire hadn’t gone out, and as soon as the world allowed it, Månegarm Open Air was back in action. This makes M:O:A 2024 the fourth festival, and the first time we got to visit it.
Frequent visitors of this page would probably not be surprised to learn that there was one little detail that made this year especially interesting for us to stop by, and that was the addition of Vintersorg to the line-up. Sure, there were more bands we liked that were coming, but that addition was what sealed the deal for us, there’s no two ways about it. Honestly though, I got the clear impression that Erik Grawsiö, frontman of Månegarm (I’m getting the impression he’s the firesoul behind this, but feel free to correct me if I’m wrong), was especially pleased with this booking as well, and why wouldn’t he be? Vintersorg hasn’t played live in seven years, and Grawsiö has just recently lent his voice to a song on Dunkelglöd, the debut album of Dimbild, Mr. V’s latest side project. Both good reasons as to why the band would be attractive to hire.
Anyway, we’re getting off track here.
M:O:A isn’t a huge festival. It’s not Wacken, or Copenhell, or even Sweden Rock Festival. On the other hand, who cares? I guess someone might do, but we don’t. In fact, we’ve usually had a lot more fun at the smaller festivals than the big ones, and with M:O:A proudly announcing themselves sold out at around 1200+ people, it does range in the more intimate section of festivals we’ve visited.
The thing with these festivals though, is that the atmosphere is usually much bigger there, and M:O:A was no exception. Sure, they had posted pics and videos online leading up to the event, showing what the festival was going to look like and all, and the Pythagoras Machine Museum where it was held did look like a cosy and inviting place, but the feeling came nowhere near what met us when we actually showed up Friday for the first of the two days.
Music was still far off from starting, but even so there were a lot of people milling about and enjoying themselves. Food and drink vendors were up and running, and all the different side vendors, like the official merch shop, the TWO tattoo parlours, decorations and jewellery and more were also well visited. It was as good a time as any to pick up a festival shirt and other miscellaneous items. And beer, of course. Lovely Staropramen on tap, and other brands and beverages in cans or in bottles.
There was also a VIP bar which looked nice, but we hadn’t opted into getting the special tickets for that, so someone else will have to give you the lowdown on that experience.
We were ready for some music however, and even though the size of the festival was limited, it did not limit it in making several both large and interesting bookings; that’s not to say the smaller bookings weren’t interesting as well, because they most definitely were.
There was a clear thread in the line-up, in that the festival was mainly concerned with the viking and/or folksy subgenres of metal. There was another innovative choice in that the Friday was an all out acoustic event, and the traditional metal setting was limited to the Saturday.
Månegarm themselves were of course headlining both days - I mean, when it’s your own festival, why wouldn’t you? - and the other of the two bands on the main stage (Månegarm Open Air stage) was the Friesland quartet Baldrs Draumar. There was a second stage though (Wolf stage), and on that another band. This was the purely folk music playing trio Suttung, which had a special connection to Månegarm in that the latter’s previous violin player, Jan Liljeqvist, is now delivering violin and assorted flutes and bagpipes for the former. Suttung were actually immensely funny, delivering their show with equal parts music and humour. Baldrs Draumar and Månegarm were more serious in their delivery, but especially Månegarm delivered one hell of a show even so, and even though I had feared that the whole acoustic set idea could end up being just a gimmick, it turned out to be immensely involving and moving.
Saturday came round, and with it came that sweetly distorted sound we all know and love, called heavy metal. That this was the main day of the festival was easy to conclude, if for nothing else, then by the sheer number of bands which played here contra Friday - a final tally of 10-3 in Saturday’s favour!
Since we were staying quite some way outside of Norrtälje (if you want living quarters within the city itself, you need to be quick since they tend to sell out fast), we just missed Vittra, the opening band of the day, but were in good time for Havamal, who played after them. The setup this day was eight bands on the main stage and two on the second stage to fill in some pauses in the main roster. This gave space to some maybe not so well established names to reach the audience as well, and from what I could gather on the crowd around me, this was highly appreciated. It wasn’t a bad thing either that the second stage was placed at the bottom of a natural incline so that festival goers could sit and enjoy the music and the wonderful weather all at once in a sort of amphitheatre.
For our part, it was the main stage that kicked the most ass though, and from the time Ereb Altor took the stage, followed by Vintersorg, Primordial, and finishing with Månegarm, it was just one hit show after the other!
M:O:A didn’t just offer up great music though. No, they clearly cared about making this a total experience for their visitors, and in that vein, they offered up sideshow attractions for our entertainment throughout the festival - for logistical reasons, mostly on the Friday however. Here we could see Viking fighting shows by the Ulls Vikings and an enticing fire dance by Angela Delamorte, as well as traditional smithing and tattooing.I know I’ve mentioned the latter already, but this was just to impress that at least one of the artist was working with traditional means, not modern day equipment. It’s not unheard of in this day and age, but I’ve never seen it live before, so that was also an interesting treat.
All in all, we felt extremely welcome and at home from the moment we stepped into the cosy festival area until the whole deal was over and done with. M:O:A truly had a great atmosphere, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and the bands looked like they enjoyed themselves as well. If anything could be improved upon, it might be that there was more than one stand to procure food. The people behind the counter worked relentlessly and were still smiling every time I was there, but with only one output, the queue did get rather long at times. Having several bars worked well in that regard, so maybe just one more place to pick up food would be good as well?
The festival is still young though, and I get the impression that the powers behind it work to improve the experience all the time. With the double anniversary coming up in 2025, with the festival celebrating five years and the band 30 years, I daresay we will see something quite spectacular at that point.
One day, the members of said band woke up and decided to make their own festival, named after themselves and located in their hometown. This was in 2019, when the first Månegarm Open Air opened its gates to fans near and far.
Well, ok, so I’m a bit blurry on the details of how this festival came to be, but it’s true that, no surprise there, the band is behind it, and that it first happened in 2019.
For reasons, it didn’t come back for the next two years, but the fire hadn’t gone out, and as soon as the world allowed it, Månegarm Open Air was back in action. This makes M:O:A 2024 the fourth festival, and the first time we got to visit it.
Frequent visitors of this page would probably not be surprised to learn that there was one little detail that made this year especially interesting for us to stop by, and that was the addition of Vintersorg to the line-up. Sure, there were more bands we liked that were coming, but that addition was what sealed the deal for us, there’s no two ways about it. Honestly though, I got the clear impression that Erik Grawsiö, frontman of Månegarm (I’m getting the impression he’s the firesoul behind this, but feel free to correct me if I’m wrong), was especially pleased with this booking as well, and why wouldn’t he be? Vintersorg hasn’t played live in seven years, and Grawsiö has just recently lent his voice to a song on Dunkelglöd, the debut album of Dimbild, Mr. V’s latest side project. Both good reasons as to why the band would be attractive to hire.
Anyway, we’re getting off track here.
M:O:A isn’t a huge festival. It’s not Wacken, or Copenhell, or even Sweden Rock Festival. On the other hand, who cares? I guess someone might do, but we don’t. In fact, we’ve usually had a lot more fun at the smaller festivals than the big ones, and with M:O:A proudly announcing themselves sold out at around 1200+ people, it does range in the more intimate section of festivals we’ve visited.
The thing with these festivals though, is that the atmosphere is usually much bigger there, and M:O:A was no exception. Sure, they had posted pics and videos online leading up to the event, showing what the festival was going to look like and all, and the Pythagoras Machine Museum where it was held did look like a cosy and inviting place, but the feeling came nowhere near what met us when we actually showed up Friday for the first of the two days.
Music was still far off from starting, but even so there were a lot of people milling about and enjoying themselves. Food and drink vendors were up and running, and all the different side vendors, like the official merch shop, the TWO tattoo parlours, decorations and jewellery and more were also well visited. It was as good a time as any to pick up a festival shirt and other miscellaneous items. And beer, of course. Lovely Staropramen on tap, and other brands and beverages in cans or in bottles.
There was also a VIP bar which looked nice, but we hadn’t opted into getting the special tickets for that, so someone else will have to give you the lowdown on that experience.
We were ready for some music however, and even though the size of the festival was limited, it did not limit it in making several both large and interesting bookings; that’s not to say the smaller bookings weren’t interesting as well, because they most definitely were.
There was a clear thread in the line-up, in that the festival was mainly concerned with the viking and/or folksy subgenres of metal. There was another innovative choice in that the Friday was an all out acoustic event, and the traditional metal setting was limited to the Saturday.
Månegarm themselves were of course headlining both days - I mean, when it’s your own festival, why wouldn’t you? - and the other of the two bands on the main stage (Månegarm Open Air stage) was the Friesland quartet Baldrs Draumar. There was a second stage though (Wolf stage), and on that another band. This was the purely folk music playing trio Suttung, which had a special connection to Månegarm in that the latter’s previous violin player, Jan Liljeqvist, is now delivering violin and assorted flutes and bagpipes for the former. Suttung were actually immensely funny, delivering their show with equal parts music and humour. Baldrs Draumar and Månegarm were more serious in their delivery, but especially Månegarm delivered one hell of a show even so, and even though I had feared that the whole acoustic set idea could end up being just a gimmick, it turned out to be immensely involving and moving.
Saturday came round, and with it came that sweetly distorted sound we all know and love, called heavy metal. That this was the main day of the festival was easy to conclude, if for nothing else, then by the sheer number of bands which played here contra Friday - a final tally of 10-3 in Saturday’s favour!
Since we were staying quite some way outside of Norrtälje (if you want living quarters within the city itself, you need to be quick since they tend to sell out fast), we just missed Vittra, the opening band of the day, but were in good time for Havamal, who played after them. The setup this day was eight bands on the main stage and two on the second stage to fill in some pauses in the main roster. This gave space to some maybe not so well established names to reach the audience as well, and from what I could gather on the crowd around me, this was highly appreciated. It wasn’t a bad thing either that the second stage was placed at the bottom of a natural incline so that festival goers could sit and enjoy the music and the wonderful weather all at once in a sort of amphitheatre.
For our part, it was the main stage that kicked the most ass though, and from the time Ereb Altor took the stage, followed by Vintersorg, Primordial, and finishing with Månegarm, it was just one hit show after the other!
M:O:A didn’t just offer up great music though. No, they clearly cared about making this a total experience for their visitors, and in that vein, they offered up sideshow attractions for our entertainment throughout the festival - for logistical reasons, mostly on the Friday however. Here we could see Viking fighting shows by the Ulls Vikings and an enticing fire dance by Angela Delamorte, as well as traditional smithing and tattooing.I know I’ve mentioned the latter already, but this was just to impress that at least one of the artist was working with traditional means, not modern day equipment. It’s not unheard of in this day and age, but I’ve never seen it live before, so that was also an interesting treat.
All in all, we felt extremely welcome and at home from the moment we stepped into the cosy festival area until the whole deal was over and done with. M:O:A truly had a great atmosphere, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and the bands looked like they enjoyed themselves as well. If anything could be improved upon, it might be that there was more than one stand to procure food. The people behind the counter worked relentlessly and were still smiling every time I was there, but with only one output, the queue did get rather long at times. Having several bars worked well in that regard, so maybe just one more place to pick up food would be good as well?
The festival is still young though, and I get the impression that the powers behind it work to improve the experience all the time. With the double anniversary coming up in 2025, with the festival celebrating five years and the band 30 years, I daresay we will see something quite spectacular at that point.
