First band up for us at Metalfest was our own countrymen in Mercenary.
You will remember that I wrote about the mayor changes they had gone through the last time we saw them, and it was in this new form that they entered the main stage on this warm and sunny day.

Actually, the sun seemed to be a bit of a bother or the band, at least according to singer/bassist René Pedersen who mentioned quite a few times that it was in his eyes and he had trouble seeing the audience.
And well, to be completely fair, there really wasn’t much to see either; in the beginning the crowd was decidedly small, and even though it grew a bit throughout the gig, it never went beyond a loosely packed medium size bunch. Nor was there much action going on at this time, at least not the spontaneous kind, but when called upon, the German crowd proved to be ready and willing to scream along and bang their heads. Maybe the fact that Pedersen made some good attempts (I think, but I’m not a native speaker) at speaking German, it seemed to be well received at least. He also got a lot of positive response when he asked if there was anyone who had heard of the band before, and if everyone was having a good time.

And why wouldn’t they? Mercenary was delivering enough of a professional quality show to keep people happy, where Pedersen was really lively and engaging, the two guitarist Jakob Mølbjerg and Martin Buus showed a good attitude and investment in the show; only drummer Morten Løwe looked almost like he was sleeping, but he still played well enough so that’s acceptable.
The sound was also quite good for festival standards, only the taped keyboards drowned out often, which made the music lose some of its special flavour.

At the end of the day though, I must admit that Mercenary did seem to have some trouble breaching the invisible border that lies at the edge of the stage; even though they were playing and performing very well, show never really went all the way out and gripped the crowd I’m afraid.

Setlist (incomplete):

The Endless Fall
Through The Eyes Of The Devil
The Follower
Firesoul