Midgardsblot Festival 2024 — Days 1 and 2

Midgardsblot is more than a regular metal festival. Situated in a small village Borre, next to Midgard Vikingcenter and Viking burial mounds, it is not one of these larger festivals with many stages. It is a small-sized “Viking”-themed festival with a mix of heavy music — with headliners such as Emperor, Testament or Amon Amarth — and more intimate Folk performances. The festival features the “Folkvangr” area, aka Viking village, and offers activities familiar to those who attend medieval gatherings – sword fighting and a market. This year, a Ragnar Lodbrok’s ship from the Viking Netflix series was onsite, brought by the current owner, Swedish company Grimfrost — naturally, available to explore.

If it were a German festival, probably the entire program would be fit in packed two days and that would be it. Midgardsblot however is meant to be an immersive, prolonged experience, rather than a place to listen to some music and go home afterwards. Full four days, with about eight music slots during each; in the mornings before the music part the Midgard Vikingcenter museum hosts so-called Mimir talks — proper scientific lectures on Nordic history and mythology (one can read the impressions of one of the lecturers).

In general, the festival is quite well organized: there is no shortage of food and next to the Utgard camp it can be cooked up until 3am. Some strange small mishaps happen – for instance, Christopher Juul was announced to co-lead Heilung Hall but he was not present, and the history of Norwegian Black metal lecture was not prepared well by the author. Merch was virtually nonexistent and they run of L-sized festival shirts before I was able to arrive at the merch stand on first day already. Prices were Norwegian: an elk burger would set you back 17 euros.

My plan has never been to hide behind the camera the entire time, but to get the experience in full.

Opening Blot

The festival traditionally starts with the opening blot (a pagan ceremony). The festival’s ceremony is not a traditional/sacred one but is heavily inspired by historical examples. Some people take it as a more spiritual moment, for others it is more like a show on the festival to kick things off with a vibe. A circle of people is formed around an altar space with blood-covered totems, fire, and some birch branches. There is goat blood provided by some farmers/participants. People who wish to take part form a queue and approach the totems, they wave on them with blood-soaked branches and then paint their faces with the blood. (Children can join, too.) There is a constant drumbeat. This sets the mood for the next few days. For those who would guess that it is in any way aggressive — the festival remains one of the most friendliest and inclusive places that could be encountered these days. In some way, it is also very “metal” as mainstream festivals won’t dare to repeat this.

Uada

Definitely NOT a photographer’s favorite — these American black metallers (with only a Wiki page in German, for some reason) play covering their faces with capes. But they are really good. Their record style, made to the Black metal tradition, in my opinion, does not do justice to their music while their live set was much better.

Grand Magus

A classic heavy three-piece from Sweden continued the lineup. While it wasn’t my cup of tea, some people praised the set a lot.

Kalandra

“Uncategorized, again” — sighs frontwoman Katrine in her Instagram stories, seeing that ArcTanGent festival failed to assign a specific genre to the band. Elaborated art-rock with heavy Nordic folk vibes yet completely independent and intellectual lyrics has been gaining momentum over the years, thanks to the relentless efforts of the band and their expertise in social media promotion. The band is rather new and is not yet rivaling the biggest acts on the stage, but it is getting there fast — as an example, they played the main stage this time to great success, and their tour schedule is heavy.

The band is about to release their second album very soon, on September 13, 2024. They accompany their work with epic-scale music videos, so I just leave one here.

Amon Amarth

First-day headliners were just a match made in heaven (or Hel) for the festival: Viking metallers Amon Amarth. They are now touring extensively and our site already features some reports on their shows elsewhere. A proper fire show with a trademark “rowing pit” exercise and a Drakkar onstage ensued.

Gildehallen shows

Gildehallen is a large hall made to the Viking tradition; you may have seen similar houses in many Viking villages. During the festival, it serves as a smaller, even intimate stage that adds a lot of vibe to the performance. Unfortunately, this also means that the capacity (of just 250 people) does not match the festival visitors number and people have to stay in line for forty minutes (missing the previous gig, basically) to get in. On the other side, the Gildehallen and its adjacent Valhalla scene are dedicated mostly to chamber Nordic Folk, which is different from heavy metal sets on the large Helheim stage. But many people might have wanted to see both kinds of acts — unfortunately, not possible with these lines.

The first day’s shows included Johnny Hexx (a Germanic pagan folk from US), Norwegian artist Kjell Braaten, and the so-called Heilung Hall, aka DJ set led by Heilung’s Maria Franz. In a recent interview taken at the festival, Maria confesses that she tried to use an AI software that produces some kind of live mix, but “it did not get folk” as it is so different from mainstream pop that AI was trained on. At the end of the day, the AI DJ software crashed anyway and she had to make it work from her Spotify list. A couple of songs in, she started to drag people onstage, creating an improvised ‘Hamrer Hippyer’ vibe (a chaotic dance bacchanalia that usually ends a Heliung ritual). It went down wild.

Inculter

Second day started for me with a local blackened trash band Inculter. Despite being small, their material has plenty of quality.

Vader

Polish death metallers Vader were one of the highlights of the heavy program that day.

Hindarfjäll (and Peter Franzen)

Hindarfjäll is the band that “explores Norse beliefs, traditions, and myths through lyrical and musical expressions”. They sing epic Viking-related songs and claim connections to Nordic beliefs. Their show started with the locally sourced warriors standing on stage, and then, retiring to the sides (no fights, no nothing). Show-wise, they lack stage movement, focusing on standing and singing – something that would remind you of classical performances, but not rock concerts. Their music is rather intricate and mature, well-made, so do not get me wrong, they are a great band. But if they look more at the stage presence and add some choreography to their set, that would be perceived even better. And they are quite serious. It’s not as dark as Eldrim, but there is no break from the epic music – if you get tired amidst the set, it’s largely your problem. There is of course enormous amount of vibe and that is why most people come to the Midgardsblot.

Connection to Viking-related TV shows is obvious on the festival, as Nordic Folk musicians often participate in the projects. This time, the festival hosted Peter Franzen, a Finnish actor who played King Harald in Vikings on Netflix. Following his interview in Gildehallen, he joined Hindarfjäll on stage for a song.

Testament

The heavy metal program of the second day was headlined by the American thrashers Testament.

Folket Bortafor Nordavinden in Gildehallen

That gig was absolute madness. The combination of elaborated drumbeat and bass vocals by Benny Braaten sounds good (the band has small sets in broad daylight in the next days), but being placed in the enclosed space of Gildehallen, these got amplified to the point when the crowd went ecstatic. People screamed, headbanged in unison and this felt like freedom. This concert was remembered long after.

Just to be clear: Folket is at the core of what Midgardsblot is, and their frontman Benny is considered a “face” of the festival, fronting opening blot and closing ceremony.

…and bonfire

Bonfire is a sacred tradition of Midgardsblot. To reach it, one has to leave festival grounds, cross dark mounds, and arrive at camp Utgard which is situated on a shore. There is a bonfire every night that serves as an afterparty – with people singing, drumming, vibing, and hanging out. The mood was different every night – and I prefer the smaller amount of people, as on the last day it was a bit too crowded and reminded a standard club hangout.