Day 2

The final day was upon and you could clearly tell by the slight change of atmosphere, as people were drinking way less and starting to pack up their things to get up early the next day, and the same went for me. On this day I decided that I would finish shopping for merchandise as well as eat at as many food booths as I could. 
 
I went up the festival area extra early this time around to get a proper breakfast that included an American style burger, fries and a beer for watching the Death tribute band, Gruesome. It was quite nice with some old school death metal, and they even finished up their set with a cover of “Zombie Ritual” by Death. 
 
Primordial were supposed to play the day before during the evening, but their original flight was either delayed or cancelled, so GMF had to swap Valkyrja’s and Primordial’s time slot. Their show was excellent as always, maybe even better as their performance carried out much more anger it seemed, possibly influenced by the troubles with the airline. The vocalist seemed to carry even more energy than usual, which was great. Definitely one of my favorite live bands. 
 
The Offering were first out on the Gas Stage. These guys, along with Northgate, weren’t originally going to be there, but were ordered at the absolute last minute. Their live show was spectacular. They were so unbelievably good live and all their members were incredibly talented, the vocalist especially so. He can most likely sing anything and it will sound great. His way of going from high to low tones, as well as clean to harsh vocals blew me away. The set finisher was a cover of Judas Priest’s “Painkiller”, making it their own by showing off their special style that reminds me of a mix between Unleash the Archers and various forms of extreme metal. By far the band that surprised me the most. I had never heard of them before, but now I’m a huge fan. 
 
Jungle Rot were the next band that played on the Goat Stage and they were brutal as all hell. I only caught the last few songs of their set, but they all hit like a hammer to the face. Some great death metal from the United States that I had never heard of before. 
 
Legion of the Damned from the Netherlands played on the secondary Fire Stage literally a few seconds after Jungle Rot’s set was over. It was quite entertaining to flock from one stage to the next with the rest of the audience by just turning around. It was an almost equally heavy and brutal set, just with more thrash thrown in. Very solid performance. 
 
I went off to get another type of wild deer and boar kebab for dinner and a deep fried dessert langos with strawberry jam and whipped cream, in which I sat and listened to Evergrey from afar as eating music. This was definitely the most melodic band that I saw throughout the whole festival, which was a nice little change. 
 
After the meal I had to go sit in the shade on the scorching hot asphalt. The sunshine got stronger and brighter during the evening, which didn’t fit in with the atmospheric Jo Quail act. She is a solo cellist that composes both film soundtracks and dark atmospheric cello music for her solo project. It looked really cool as she was all alone on stage played on her custom designed cello. She was incredibly sweet, as well as nervous of performing at a metal festival with such a solid line-up, but the audience loved her. 
 
Eluveitie was up next on the Goat Stage. I had only seen them once before and they turned up over twenty minutes late and they didn’t win over the audience back then, but this was a total turnaround. They played the set excellently and it was definitely the most fun show during the whole festival, since the band beamed with joy on-stage which in turn influenced the crowd. The voice on Fabienne (the harp player) was the most impressive and sent chills down my spine. 
 
After the fun folk metal show I met some Norwegians that came from near where I’m from and ended up chatting with them throughout both the Entombed A.D. set and Dark Tranquility set. 
From what I overheard, Entombed A.D. had a solid, classic Swedish death metal show, and Dark Tranquility had a great variation of songs from their entire catalogue. A couple other people sat down with us, so time went by really fast. 
 
We parted ways right before Deathstars started their gig and planned to meet up at GMF next year. I found a Norse-style necklace that I really wanted, but that was the only stall that didn’t take debit or credit card, so I had to go out and find a cash machine. My quest for the cash machine took about two hours. At first I was told about a cash machine by a bank just twenty minutes away from the area, but when I arrived there the machine had been removed and the bank was closed for the Summer. I found a café nearby, and they referred me to the train station that was downtown in the city centre. The trip to the station took twenty more minutes as I struggled to figure out how to get there. I spent probably fifteen minutes trying to find the machine and avoiding alcoholics in the station itself. The machine was right in front of me, but that whole section of the station was closed for the Summer. I was then referred to a cash machine downtown in the neighbouring part of the town, which took another thirty minutes to get to. Fortunately that one was functional, but I managed to get lost in that part of town since I lost signal for my phone. 
 
I finally found my way back to the festival just in the middle of the Dimmu Borgir set. I had seen them two times before earlier this year and all of their shows felt different from each other. The show felt more natural as an outdoor act during the late sunrise. They also sounded better this time than the others from what I can remember. It was a wonderful show and a perfect festival finisher for me.

 

Avatar played after Dimmu Borgir, but I was way too exhausted after my adventure in Gävle and I had to get up extra early as to not getting home awfully late.