One of my favorite Norwegian festivals is Midgarsblot. This year is the third year for the festival, while my second visit. The festival is held at Borre in Vestfold, surrounded by tumuli, or grave mounds from the viking age. At the festival site there is a replica of a mead hall, where the vikings feasted, so you can’t get a more viking inspired venue for a festival that combines vikings and metal in many different shapes.

This year the festival had expanded with a third stage, the viking stage, in addition to the main outdoor stage and the indoor stage in the mead hall. At the indoor stage and the viking stage they had acoustic bands with a leaning to older repertoir and leaning more towards folk. On the outdoor stage the harder bands played, with a variety of different metal styles.

One of the things that makes Midgardsblot different from other metal festivals is the viking camp and the viking fights and symbols all around the venue. It could have been a bit like a cliché, but it works like a charm at Midgardsblot, also for this writer who is not into vikings and role play. The atmosphere is friendly and vikings and metal heads goes together just fine. I will gladly recommend the festival for all who like metal rock, or vikings or both. Here are the bands I saw at Midgardsblot this year.

Thursday

Blot – the viking offering to the Norse gods with Folket bortenfor Nordavinden

Eldrim at the viking stage

Kari Rueslåtten in the mead hall

Friday

Nan Madol

Superlynx

Virelai

Tengger Cavalry

Winterfylleth

Gaahls Wyrd

Unleashed

Solstafir

Saturday

Synkverket

Oranssi Pazuzu

Viking battle

Aura Noir

Moonsorrow

Heilung

Tyr

All photos are © Per Ole Hagen and must not be used without written permission.