The party Vikings and shield-maidens collectively known as Vanir was the only band we got to see at the talent stage this year.
Cramped in between two big containers, the field was laid out for festivities and… and…
Well, festivities there were, and that was really all that was needed!

Oh and when I say cramped, I mean cramped! Honestly, the stage was so narrow the many band members nearly stood on each other’s toes! This meant that some members had to stay in the background for the duration of the show, yet even with this they managed to put out one heck of a dynamic performance!
Yes, I’ve noticed this review is getting littered with exclamation marks, but it is not because I have suddenly regressed back the stage of a teenage texter; it is simply because this review, band, concert deserves one hell of a lot of exclamation marks. It should be shouted from the bloody roof-tops it should!

And so it was.
Or, well, not from the roof-tops per se, but there was a whole lot of shouting going on. From the stage was obvious, but I was clearly not the only one enjoying the show from the audiences point of view either.
From wall to wall, which wasn’t very far I admit, all I could see was a wild ocean of heads and devil-horns bobbing up and down; during Thyrfing I saw the mosh rise and cast itself to and fro, and in the next song, Togtet, things escalated even further. It wasn’t long before the first crowd-surfer came sailing by, and he was soon joined by several more of his kind; luckily for them, the security man present at the gig was very tolerant and service-minded, so instead of trying to get people to stop he just made sure everyone was feeling alright before sending them back out into the wild crowd. Heck, I even saw him raise a pair of devil-horns and headbang at one point, such was the power of Vanir’s attraction this day.
In my earlier reviews of this band, you might have noticed me mentioning a couple of guys always clad in red kilts and pink tops, maybe the bands official fan-club, I don’t know. Well anyway, normally they always take the stage during one song or another, but as this was the first time I’ve seen Vanir play at a venue with a crash-barrier, this was obviously made impossible for the guys; but for shame if you give up, and said and done, of came the shirts (even though a nasty rain had begun to fall) and up at least they flew onto the stage! That’s what I call dedication…

The band-members themselves, at least Mike Pedersen and Andreas Bigom, tried to move about up on the stage, but there really wasn’t enough space for them to have much luck with it.
So what should one do then? Well, have the most amazing band-audience connection for one thing; I have seen Vanir, oh, five times I believe including this one, and although they have been more or less great every single time, I have never before seen them shine like this. As you probably understood by reading the above text, this gave direct results in the crowd.
But the band wanted to up the ante even more, and in a splendid way if I may say so myself. As a special stunt, Pedersen with the help of a security man (not the same one as before) handed out mead in plastic cups to all who could reach it. This was fittingly done to the tunes of Suttungs Mjød…
It was clear for all to see that the band enjoyed this spectacle of a show at least as much as the crowd did, and cheered us on almost as much as we cheered at them. There were also several instances of the band reaching their microphones out towards our beautiful voices, an act which did not lessen our will to shout along at the top of our lungs.

There was a rumour floating around camp about a special price for the most cheered band on the talent stage, and if it held any truth I would certainly think that such a reward would befall these ladies and gentlemen, Odin only knows they deserve it after this show. I tell you, this was nothing less than the best Vanir show I have witnessed to date!

Setlist:

Niddings Dom
Holmgang
Elverkongens Brud
Thyrfing
Togtet
Suttungs Mjød
Særimners Kød
Drikkevisen