Eluveitie at the Fonda Theater

Eluveitie Brings Celtic Metal to the Ford TheaterEluveitie-1-23

 

By Allie Jorgen for LA Metal Media

Photos by Roc Boyum

There were three great bands this night with Martina Edoff opening the show followed by The Agonist and headliner Eluevitie.

 

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Martina Edoff opened the show with an awesome straight ahead hard rock band. This was her first time playing in the U.S.A. and you could tell that she was having a blast. Her vocals are very powerful and the band is all hard rock. This was more of a metal crowd but Martina had no problem getting the crowd into her music.

 

 

 

 

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Next was The Agonist a Canadian metal band fronted by Vicky Psarakis. Psarakis has been in the since 2014 and is the successor to Alissa White-Gluz as the bands singer front person. While there may have been some speculation among the crowd about Psarakis; all doubts were removed as soon as she kicked in as she was well received by all the bands fans. She handled the growl and smooth vocals that the band is know for with ease as the band brought the audience their brand of extreme metal.

 

 

For those of you who are not familiar with Eluveitie, they are a powerful 8 piece Swiss folk metal band that was formed by the multi talented, Chrigel Glanzmann who is the bands multi talented lead singer and plays mandola, whistles, pipes, gaita, acoustic guitar, bodhran, and harp just to name a few of his talents.

Everyone in this band is extremely talented and they present a fresh new slant to the metal genre, at least for most of us here in the U.S.A. The band has been very successful since their beginnings in 2002 and in March 2014 they won the Swiss Music Awards’ Best Live Act National award!

This evenings set was longer than originally planned as they became the headliner when Dutch metal band Epica had to drop out of the tour due to an unexpected family matter that came up for their lead singer, Simone Simons; we wish her family well.

Chrigel’s vocals are all growl while he runs back and forth across the stage and playing one if not several different

Eluveitie-1-8 instruments during any given song. He at one point invited the crowd to make the largest giant circle pit possible which was already in progress. The pits this night had a lot of the usual body checking as well as a combination of people dancing in a circular motion and then releasing their partner to the other side of the room; a lot of fun indeed. This audience was very familiar with the band and their materiel as they sang to every song, throwing fists into the air with tons of circle pit dance/thrashing. The atmosphere this night was almost like being in a European pub as most everyone gave cheers to one another with pints in hand as they sang and drank throughout the bands set.

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Anna Murphy the bands hurdy gurdy player also sings with a beautiful voice and is a great juxtaposition to the vocals of Chrigel. The band may be called folk metal but they also play hard, heavy and thrash with the best of them.

The played 24 songs with an acoustic set in the middle of their show as they held their audience captive the entire night.

 

 

 

Eluveitie-1-31Be sure to check these guys out when ever possible and even if you’re not familiar with their music, you will love the show and their energy whether you looking to just watch a great metal band or make a night of thrashing in a pit; you will have fun!