Gig Review: Eluveitie in India
Eluveitie (pronounced El-vay-Tee) is a Helvetic Gaulish phrase that literally translates to “I am the Helvetian”. Formed in 2002, Eluveitie has set an impossibly high reference mark in the international scene with their sheer mastery of authentic, hand-crafted folk metal. While Eluveitie always belonged to the fast growing European folk metal scene, they always brought some fresh wind into it: Eluveitie’s sound is authentic, traditional Celtic folk music combined in a unique way with modern styled melodic death metal. With their new Album “Everything Remains (as it never was)” they have managed to deepen every aspect of their already inimitable style and maybe more than ever can only be described by their own description “The New Wave of Folk Metal”.
On February 7th, 2010, this wave hit India for the first time! Eluveitie performed as part of “Alcheringa Xtreme”, IIT Guwahati’s annual cultural festival. After IITs Mumbai and Chennai, Guwahati was the latest IIT to join in the fray this year and bring in an international act.
The concert, already being anticipated with great expectancy by the metal following junta of the north-east was called by some the biggest thing to happen in Guwahati. Whether or not that was true, Eluveitie were certainly one of the more popular international acts to visit Guwahati in recent times, and indeed, the only international act of stature that has happened in more than a decade.
Beautiful, serene, brutal – that’s how the concert can be best described. Eluveitie kicked off the night with a song from their new and till then unreleased album, “Thousandfold”, and that was enough. The crowd, easily in excess of 12,000 headbanging souls went wild. With energy, with ecstasy, with the witnessing of something completely new to the Indian metal scene – Swiss folk metal. During the course of the concert, Eluveitie stayed true to their reputations, giving the crowds a full sample of their treasury of styles and genres. From mystical and magical Folk metal to steamrolling Thrash metal, the band delivered subtle beauty one moment and blowed us away with sheer force the next.
Much like the event “Juggernaut” itself, Eluveitie’s music was reminiscent of an unstoppable force; a veritable barrage of melodies and sounds interlinked and layered upon the Gaulish lore of old. Chrigel Glanzmann’s lyrics, ranging from “brootal” to smooth and resonant, interspersed with
mellow tones from Meri Tadic and Anna Murphy, blended seamlessly into mellifluous yet forceful metal tunes pouring forth from their traditional Celtic instruments – Merlin was Sutter on drums, Simeon Koch on lead guitar, Ivo Henzi on rhythm, Kay Brem on bass, Pade Kistler was with the bagpipes and flutes, Meri again on the violin with Anna on the “Hurdy Gurdy”. While Glanzmann himself punctuated his vocal performances with whistles and mandolas, leaving the crowd clueless as to what to expect next! Also accompanying the band was David Caracandas, their manager and sound engineer. The highlight of the night was their flagship single “Inis Mona”. Some eyebrows were raised when the band decided to perform an “unplugged” section for a while without electronic instruments, but the actual performance- natural, traditional, melodious, yet strangely powerful – silenced any doubts one could have. Eluveitie ended the night with a song which they often use as a closer – “the road to Tegernako”.
So delirious was the junta with happiness that the crowd had to be controlled at some points. The band members themselves were pleasantly surprised at the reception they were receiving and on more than one occasion thanked everyone for the warm welcome and awesome response. Apart from that, they also found Guwahati’s scenic beauty and the hospitality of its people hard to leave behind. In fact, they seemingly had only one complaint – they were provided a security cordon comprising only guys!
*The article has been written by Palash Ranjan,3rd Year, BTech Electronics and Communication Engineering, IIT Guwahati.
