Yes, finally one of my all-time faves In The Woods made it to the Ruhr Area again after 9 years absence. So I was looking forward very much to this evening and, let me anticipate so far, didn't get disappointed.

But first of all Swiss Cân Bardd offered their music to the crowd and they were celebrated frenetically by some guys in the audience. Shame on me, I didn't know them before and I must say that their music is really good. I mean, if I hadn't looked up on metal-archives, I would have said that they come from Scotland or Ireland because of their Celtic touch so the air smelled like if someone had spilled some bottles of Scotch in the Matrix. I really liked this calm, folkloristic touch in their black metal that made it very smooth to listen to them.

Setlist: Une Couronne De Branches / Shadow Of The Wyvern / My Ancestors Celestial Horizon/ Devoured By The Oak Pt. I / Devoured By The Oak Pt.. II

After that great start into the evening German Imperium Dekadenz were next to play. I had seen them one year before and as usual they really kick ass. Their music was the heaviest that evening, playing some more traditional black metal stuff but it really worked well. Playing a lot of new tracks from their latest album Into Sorrow Evermore they also had a nice surprise on board. With "Schwarze Wälder" they went way back to their first album that is almost 20 years old. Great show without any flaws (at least I think so), although I have heard some rumors about some mistakes, haha!!

Setlist: Bis Ich Bin / Aura Silvae / Awakened Beyond Dreams / Aurora / Memories…A Raging River / Schwarze Wälder / Striga

…In The Woods just have released a very strong new album called Otra (which is a hot candidate for the album the year in my humble opinion). So the guys around Anders Kobro (who is the only remaining original member of the band) had to show a lot of that new stuff and for that the audience was pretty grateful. Especially the new songs are full of energy and amazing melodies and were received much better than songs from the previous albums. Of course the old classics from the masterpiece "HEart Of The Ages" were welcome that evening as well as the Otra tracks. And with vocalist Bernt Fjellstadt they have a great singer on board now who brings over the mood of the songs in a very natural and authentic way.

Setlist: Heart Of The Ages (Intro) / The Cowards Way / The Crimson Crown / A Misrepresentation Of I / Empty Streets / Things You Shouldn't Know / A Wonderful Crisis / …In The Woods

Scottish Saor were awaited very eagerly by the fans. Their latest release Amidst The Ruins is a masterpiece of folk black metal and so it's no big surprise that they played a lot of new songs. The show was really fantastic, what I liked very much is that they had support from Ella Zlotos performing the flute and Uilleann pipes live. The band seemed to enjoy the show very much, playing very well together and the sound was really great (like as the other bands had a good sound, too). Although the songs all last quite long, the time really flew and the show was over way too soon.

Setlist: Amidst the Ruins / Echoes / Glen of Sorrow / The Sylvan Embrace / Rebirth / Aura

To sum up, once again Redback Promotion made a fantastic line-up for a successful European tour and there is only to hope that we can see a continuation of all this soon. Besides, after the show, the bands had to leave at 2 AM to head to Paris – this is really rock n' roll and a fantastic tour life – uargh!!