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ENDTIME FESTIVAL
By Johannes Jonsson


The festival took place at Diezel in Halmstad, Sweden between 30 March and 1 April, 2007. Ca 400 metalheads were gathered to rock for the Lord. The Friday gig started off with the hardcore band The Middle End. Since I’m not into this genre I spent time talking to friends instead of watching their gig. The social part is overall very important on events like this. To hang around with likeminded and meet friends that you don’t see very often is definately half the fun. It feels like meeting a family, a family that always grows. Next band out was Incrave formerly Evergrace then gave us some real Heavy Metal. Put on a good show and they have really improved a lot since I saw them at Nordicfest. Much heavier and better liveshow now. Frosthardr and their progressive brutal metal was next. Really cool with their snow machine that made it snow indoors! Virgin Forest, an all-girl band was a big contrast to all the other bands and didn’t really fit in, since they were way too soft compared to the rest. I mean acoustic guitars and praise songs are cool but it just didn’t fit in among the other bands. Drottnar was next to enter the stage. Very engergetic, extremely fast and brutal but way way too chaotic to my taste. Exhale were very intense and brutal and gave us some real grindcore, (although I wonder why a band like that that is not Christian but political play at a Christian festival). Last band out was Viking Metal band Vardoger. They ended with the fantastic track "Silent Witness." That was the highlight for me this evening.


Saturday gig had an amazing lineup with great bands like Pantokrator, Crimson Moonlight, Antestor, Harmony, Veni Domine playing on the same evening! Pantokrator put on a really good set and they were very both heavy and energetic. Really liked the track King of Babylon. Inevitable End then got the crowd going with their fast and intense thrashy music.


Veni Domine put on a fantastic show and they were definately the highlight for me. The setlist was fantastic and they managed to chose the very best tracks from their latest albums as well as classics from their two first ones. They ended the gig with Wisdom Calls. Torbjörn Weinesjö, the guitarplayer was very inspired and even added some extra solos to the tunes. I have been to many gigs with Veni Domine but this was definately one of their very best gigs ever!


Crimson Moonlight was next showing people how black metal should be played. They are so extremely fast and brutal. Harmony is a great live band but unfortunately this gig wasn’t as good as it could have been, since the singer had some serious vocal problems. They played a couple of new tracks as well as classics from "Dreaming Awake" ending with "Eternity," truly a fantastic track and maybe their best ever.


Then it was time for Vaakevandring to play their last gig ever. They put on a a great show. At the end of the gig the band first read the Lord’s Prayer and then they played "Fader Vår" (Lord’s Prayer in Norwegian) giving God the full glory. The audience was singing along lifting their hands and worshipping God. Definately the perfect ending for this great band!


Another band that also played their last gig was Antestor. First track they played was the classic "A Souvereign Fortress." They put on a great show with both old and new classics. Too sad they they won’t play live anymore.


Besides music there were also some other really cool happenings at the festival. One of them was the meeting at Johanneskyrkan, where the church was filled to the last seat with metalheads that love the Lord. In the meeting members of Extol, Vardoger, Virgin Forest and Pantokrator talked about topics concerning faith and metal. Really good conversation with lots of good points said. It was also very cool when we longhairy folks all dressed in black came out from the church afterwards and see the reaction from people outside. They were looking very strangely at us wondering who we were and what we had been doing in the church.


Kristian Wåhlin, a very famous painter in Sweden that has made the cover artwork for many metalbands including bands like Antestor and Extol also had an exhibition with some of his best paintings in the upper gallery of Diezel. Really cool! At the metal breakfast on Sunday there was also an unplugged gig with Anaemia! Kim Stranne and Tobias Ogenblad ripped through some Anaemia songs on acoustic guitars. Really good performance and Kim sang better than ever! They ended their short set with a cool praise song called Jesus för världen givit sitt liv (Jesus gave his live for the world) that really touched the audience. The festival ended in the best way possible with a service in the metal club Diezel. Morten from Subchurch (a metal church in Oslo, Norway) preached and we celebrated communion together. endtime-festival.com




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