Artmania, 27-28.07.2018, Large Square, Sibiu

Even though I’ve been to almost half of its editions, Artmania continues to amaze me. After hitting a rough spot because of the Town Hall’s decision to ban paid concerts in the Large Square (which threatened to put the festival to death, since Artmania is synonim with Sibiu and there was no good alternative in the city to the square) and still resiliently trying to make a good event despite of the obstacles, they were allowed to go back to the regular paid concerts in the Large Square since last year and started to get their mojo back. It would’ve been a huge shame to lose the longest-living festival in Romania, and in my opinion, the best festival in Romania to bureaucracy. Especially since I cannot get enough of it and I’m so impressed by how it’s possible to leave enough space for everyone in a sold out show (instead of cramming as many people together like all the other organisers do), to never have lines for the tokens and drinks, to have clean toilets with running water for washing, separated trash cans for each type of material and generally a feeling of respect and relaxation that infects everyone. Yes, Artmania is the only event where I haven’t seen a single empty cup on the ground, it’s like everyone starts transforming once they get there. And then there’s the random artist going through the crowd while other bands are playing, sometimes talking to the people and taking pictures, but mostly being left undisturbed to enjoy the show. 

Day 1 started with Rome, the odd non-progressive band out, that I personally appreciated very much. In fact, except for Zeal&Ardor (which were in a league of their own), Rome was my favourite band of the show. The guys were just as mellow as their music and they didn’t engage the audience very much, but it was a nice dreamy moment. Their simple, yet emotionally loaded music was a good contrast for the complicated, but cold bands that followed and a good reminder that sometimes having feeling in your music and inspiring something is more important than having ten time signature changes per song. I’m a huge fan of progressive music, but I do feel that many bands of the genre forget to express and just prefer to play and impress through technicality. Rome was completely the opposite, a somewhat monotonous music, but filled with beauty and angst that touched me. 

Arcane Roots started off as what I thought was off-tune. The people around me seemed to enjoy them, so I’m still a bit confused if that was how things were supposed to be or if no one cared it sounded badly. As they played more, I started understanding them better, they started sounding more coherently and by the end I decided they weren’t half bad. A bit too loud, pretentious and distorted for my taste, but ultimately a decent show. 

Haken to me are Dream Theater without LaBrie, which is to say excellent and talented musicians, very captivating at times, then excessively sweet vocally and then cold and tiering instrumentally. It was everything I love and everything I hate about Dream Theater, with the notable exception of a warm melodic voice like LaBrie’s to tie the instrumentals together and compensate the chaos. Jennings did a great job of entertaining the crowd and he’s a good frontman, but unfortunately his voice dragged the performance down for me (still, it’s a matter of taste, and he was nothing but a complete professional, as were the rest of the guys). The instrumental parts however… a dream. Once I got into the mood (yes, progressive music is difficult to listen to in large shows, it requires a great deal of attention and I will always find it more suitable for listening at home, while doing nothing else), I enjoyed their display very much. 

Mogwai was not my cup of tea at all. I put great emphasis on vocals and an almost entirely instrumental music, especially coming after the beautiful craziness of Arcane Roots and Haken, was really not what I was prepared to listen to. Judging by the rivers of people leaving the premises, I would say I wasn’t the only one. I felt bad for them, I’m sure they gave their best, but being a niche in a niche, not having people “get” you is a risk you have to be willing to take. 

Day 2 – first stop, Distorted Harmony, the happiest band of the show. Between all sorts of unusual performances, some more eccentric, others more melancholic, Distorted Harmony were a breath of fresh air with their enthusiasm and positivity. As a better version of the prog part of Myrath (that is without the ethnic influences), I was very happy with their music. Add to that the bonus of a very friendly lead singer that joked with us all the time and started telling the story of his guitarist’s new Instagram account to stall the audience while the crew was working to fix some problems with the sound, and it was a very good act. It definitely helped that they were really lovable and they reacted with a lot of humour and grace to the fact that their computer crashed in the middle of the last song and they had to stop and start again. 

Zeal&Ardor was just insane, in every possible sense of the word. It was a performance like none other, from a band like none other, and the audience was just thrilled, even if those not familiar with the band were a bit confused at first. Manuel Gagneux is captivating, his vocals are simply impressive, and the way he lives the music to the point where he is shaking and refuses even to talk to the public in order to remain engrossed in the atmosphere is equally impressive. And still, somehow, he doesn’t steal the show. The rest of the band is almost as talented and involved as he is and it was a very unusual moment in the sense that I was happy to be there witnessing something so awesome (and it sounded impeccable, the harmonies were perfect, the crazy instrumentals were perfect, the unique mix between Negro spirituals and black metal was also perfect). At the same time, though, there was so much sadness and anger in the lyrics and the band was putting so much of their soul into it and there was the realisation that this was real life they were singing about, real history of one of the worst atrocities mankind committed, that I almost felt ashamed to enjoy myself and smile. It was such a compelling and powerful moment, I still have a lump in my stomach remembering it. 

After that, everything was going to fall a bit short, but still Leprous did a good job of reanimating the crowd in a more traditional way. Again I had a problem with the vocals versus the instrumentals. It seems to be a common illness of the genre to have sweet sometimes shrill vocals, superposed over a harsh dissonant and complicated instrumental. I don’t mind harsh and dissonant, but I do absolutely mind this type of James Blunt-like vocals. The lead singer was a bit too in love with himself as well, always having the lights shine on him and leaving the rest of the band in the dark, I thought that was in poor taste (especially considering I found him the weakest part of the show). But overall it was an interesting and enganging act, that made me remember the time I saw them opening for Therion six years ago, all shy and unsure, and made me appreciate how confident and talented they’ve grown (more so confident, they were already talented, they just needed some practice). 

Steven Wilson was originally my second point of interest for the festival (after Zeal&Ardor, of course), but turned out to be a huge disappointment. I still like his music, but I will probably stick to listening to it at home, because his attitude absolutely put me off. It was the most pretentious, arrogant, pompous artist I’ve seen since Mega-Dave Mustaine, and that says a lot. Everything came off as over-calculated to scream “look at me, I’m so special” as loudly as possible, musically and especially in terms of attitude and gimmicks, and then to top it off, he gave us a preachy speech about how we surely hate pop music, but he’s so unique that he’s going to do the most rebellious thing possible and play a pop song. Myeah, no. There were some elitists in the square, but most of them were gathered on stage and he was the biggest of them all. I will admit that the surround sound, with stereos placed at the back as well as on the stage, was a great touch and it did wonders for the immersion purposes, but that was immediately erased by having the female voice of Pariah come from the speakers. The visionary Steven Wilson plays from a tape during a live show instead of just ditching the freaking song if he’s so poor he can’t bring a female singer on tour. Like I said, huge disappointment. 

Still, despite of the little hiccups of some of the bands too full of themselves (Steven Wilson was simply the worst offender, but there was plenty of arrogance coming from other artists as well), it was another great Artmania. Even the atmosphere of the event is enough to make it worthwhile, if the bands are maybe not that impressive, but this time the bands were really cool as well. The line-up was very interesting, the first uniform line up of a general metal festival (so I’m not counting shows like “Doom over Bucharest, for example) and it was focused on progressive metal/ rock and more experimental sounds. To me that was great, because I’m a huge fan of the genre, even though not a particular fan of the bands present here. To some fans that was upsetting and the official Facebook page was flooded with “this is not metal” and “bring back the gothic sound” comments, but in the end it paid off because like I said, it was a sold out edition. It made me really happy to see that, both because I’m very invested in this festival and the organisers really deserve to have their efforts appreciated and because it’s great to see somewhat of a musical niche gather so many fans.