Medieval Heavy Metal: Furunkulus

Medieval festivals can now be found all over Germany.

As far as we know, Germans had not been into the re-enactment, ren fair, Dickens Christmas fair style of popular entertainment until recently.

Maybe the reunited country has become more relaxed, maybe the ascend of modern industry and service sectors and the downturn in traditional economic activities have had an influence on the emergence of medieval festivals.

Maybe it is also as simple as the Germans remembering that many of them already live in towns whose old buildings and ramparts can be turned into a medieval backdrop by nothing more than turing off the neon lights, making cars park somewhere else for a day, and adding lots of open flame lighting.

Rick Steves, the travel writer, calls the 40 mile stretch of the Rhine River between the cities of Mainz and Koblenz "the only interesting stretch of the river", rightly so. We explored a medieval festival in one of the towns in this narrow, canyon-like region.

There were merchants of everything handmade, from mead to more jewelry you can buy with a lifetime of middle class paychecks. There were dozens of demonstration stations, where local craftsmen went medieval, stone masons and blacksmiths being the ones that drew the biggest crowds.

We ended our tour at the main music stage and were treated to great medieval folk music.
We had, unsurprisingly, never before heard of the headliner of the evening,  a band called Furunkulus.  Two jugglers came on after the last string folk music act, did an impressive juggling performance with seven or so clubs for a while, then switched to fire torches. Two polished steel barrels were rolled in from the sides, and the jugglers started to drum, using the fire torches as drumsticks.
Furunkulus joined in one by one, and before we knew it, we and all the audience were stomping our feet to the beat of a fiery, medievalized rendition of Iko Iko.

This rousing intro was followed by a furious set of what I call "medieveal heavy metal", not because I could identify it as such but because this is what is sounded and felt like.

This, in turn, was then followed by much more traditional irish and celtic music, proof of the skills of the musicians, with obvious joyful playfulness in the transition from pounding, crashing beats to delicate harmonies.

The audience went wild, and I stopped counting after the fifth encore.

The groups of young males, wearing "Wacken 2011" T-Shirts as a sign of their metal affiliation, had as much fun with Furunkulus as the young maidens in medieval retro garb.