Have you ever wondered what would happen when you have 2 Finnish Folk Metal bands, a flock of Norwegian Folk Metal flamingos, and a Taiwanese Folk Metal artist all on tour in North America together? Well, the large crowd at Wooly’s learned you’ll get a night filled with traditional instrumentation, lots of accordions, a world record attempt at a conga line, disco and a wholly unique experience. If you were on the fence for this show, well sadly, you missed out on a night of fun. But fret not, I am here to retell the night’s events and showcase the images I captured for you to place yourself there that night.

We started the night off with a trip to the island nation of Taiwan with former America’s Got Talent competitor Nini. The act started off with the instrumental song Longma, showing off their mastery of each instrument and introducing the crowd to the sound of the electric DaoYu, a lute-like traditional instrument. Metal guitars and drums backed each track to provide a unique blend of sounds that filled the venue. After the song Mazu, we got a nice interlude featuring Dueling Banjos, but with Nini on the DaoYu and Taylor on the guitar, that gave the rendition of the traditional American song an Asian flair, yet still familiar sound before launching into the song Bee. But it wasn’t all traditional songs, NiNi ended their set with a cover of Britney Spears’ …Baby One More Time. The metalheads in the crowd were belting out the chorus, cheering and moshing along to the pop classic. With that performance, the stage was set for what was in store for us for the rest of the night.

Flamingos are typically not known for hailing from the Scandinavian country of Norway, but 8 rare Norwegian flamingos took a quick detour to Des Moines, for the first time ever, to bring us a set to remember. If you’ve never seen or heard of Trollfest before, be aware that crowd participation is a must at a show with them. And trust me, you’ll want to participate in the festivities if you are able to do so. Dancing like a flamingo, a conga line and switcheroo of sitting & jumping are just a few examples that the Norwegians brought with them in their stopover in Des Moines. Chaos was what Trollfest wanted and chaos is what the crowd was able to give them. Now you might be wondering how one does a conga line at a metal show. Well, it starts with having Böesse Basshöl, the bassist, jumped into the crowd and launching into Piña Colada and pulling in as much of the crowd as they possibly can. Did it set a world record? Probably not, but surely it had to be a record for Des Moines and Wooly’s nonetheless. The flock seemed to be enjoying themselves on stage (shout out to Fjernkontrollet on the accordion who was pumped I got a shot of him, you rock!). After much fun and laughter had filled the venue, the flamingos had to roost by the merch booth, but not before taking some photos with some eager young fans that came to see them.

It was now time for the first of the Finns to take the stage and the crowd was eager with anticipation for Ensiferum to take the stage. After a quick intro that allowed each of the members to take their places, the folk metalers dove headfirst into Fatherland off their latest album Winter Storm. Sami Hinkka immediately got the crowd’s energy up and kept it up for the entirety of the show. Between the extremely tight production & the instrumental mastery of each member, you could easily see why Ensiferum have been mainstays within the Metal scene since 1995. They played Wooly’s like it was an arena filled with thousands of fans and had a smile on their faces for every moment of it. Founding member Markus Toivonen, led the crowd to help sing along to the Finnish language song Lai Lai Hei. Finnish is not an easy language for Anglo-speaking people, but the entire crowd at Wooly’s was belting out lai lai hei each time the words came up in the chorus. It was so impressive, even Petri Lindroos had to remark how loud the crowd was during the song. Mosh pits and metal horns filled the room for songs like The Howl, From Afar and Rum, Women, Victory. Fans screamed with excitement for more songs from their idols on the stage. Ensiferum deemed us worthy for more and gave us 2 songs to end the night. And the finale, Two of Spades, was probably my favorite. I was not expecting to hear disco that night, but I certainly did not expect a “disco mosh pit” either. I’ll be honest, every mosh pit I see from here on out will be judged based on the disco mosh pit Ensiferum experience that I was able to witness. I can safely say that if Ensiferum decides to come back to Iowa, I will be seeing them live again. And you, dear reader, should not pass up the opportunity either; they are well worth the price of admission to see live.

Now the moment I’ve been worrying about, how do I encapsulate such a unique and stunning performance from Korpiklaani’s set into a paragraph? The Folk Metal group from Lahti brought such a distinctive performance that it is hard to put into words. While I cannot understand any of the lyrics, being completely in Finnish, the mood felt so jovial and celebratory it was infectious. The crowd felt it too, dancing and bobbing along to the beat. Jonne Järvelä’s eccentric look and vocals matched the eclectic sounds that filled the room. But the stars of the show for me were Sami Perttula on accordion and Olli Vänskä on violin. I have never seen an accordion in person, but because of Trollfest & Korpiklaani, I have seen more accordion action than I ever thought I could imagine. And the violin brought such a fantastic texture over the blast beats & polka beats from Samuli Mikkonen. I am struggling to put this part of the review into words, but that’s a good thing. You truly need to experience them live to know what it’s like and I can easily recommend them, even to non-metalheads. And if I may speak to Korpiklaani, I don’t know if you have toured with the HU before, but you absolutely must make that tour happen. It would be a beautiful pairing and your sounds would mesh so well. And I will be back to see you guys live if you decide Iowa was worthy to come back to.

But enough of me blabbing about the show. There are plenty of dates still left on the tour to see this Folk Metal lineup in person and I implore any out-of-state reader to check them out, even if you do not like Metal or heavy music in general, you will have a great time. If my words don’t convince you, well, check out the following images to add some visuals to my words!

NiNi

Trollfest

Korpiklaani

Ensiferum

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