Eluveitie at the Assembly

Posted on: October 25, 2015

Fri 23 October 2015

Swiss folk metal legends Eluveitie performed their Cape Town show at the Assembly last week. The 8 band members looked exactly how you’d imagine an Alpine folk metal band would: all long hair, viking accessories and celtic tattoos, and they put on a fantastic show.

Here are some shots from the evening.

Organisation-wise I loved the nice and early start (9pm) and finish time (10:30pm) and that there was no supporting act, just straight into the main event. From a shooting perspective things were also pretty metal – we were briefed on the fly and were allowed in the (super narrow) pit but weren’t allowed on the stage which meant the only way to exit the pit after our time was up was to climb over the barricade and jump out into the crowd…

Eluveitie were totally great though.

Each band member brought their own energy and stage presence making the band as a whole very visually entertaining (they were also arranged in a very balanced and geometric way, breaking it occasionally by swapping positions and interacting with the crowd) and their Celtic nature and influences meant there was no shortage of weird and wonderful instruments on hand – the usual drums, violins and guitars were complemented by various flutes, whistles and pipes as well as a mandolin and a hurdy gurdy.

They engaged with the crowd a lot, thanking us for bringing and welcoming them to South Africa (by saying ‘dankie‘ to loud cheers), complementing our scenery (“we are also from a land with beautiful mountains”, the introduction to The Call of the mountains, which they performed in Swiss-German with enthusiastic audience participation) and even commenting on our current political affairs, alluding to the #FeesMustFall movement and how freedom is a daily human struggle.

Musically they were fantastic and performed with loads of energy and passion. Their set was a great mix of their well-known metal hits including Omnos, Inis Mona, A Rose for Epona, and Quoth the Raven performed both in English and Otherwise, the latter including Swiss and the ancient and extinct Gaulish language. Halfway through the show they stripped everything down and performed an acoustic set of traditional Irish reels which was both really beautiful and super well-received by the previously headbanging and circle-pitting crowd. They started with just the pipes then slowly added instruments/band members with each song until the band was fully reassembled, then after a brief break they came back with more metal to close the night off on an energetic high.

A truly great and thoroughly enjoyable performance.