Originally posted on Valkyrian Music.

The two-year hiatus COVID-19 forced into Laurus Nobilis Music  Famalicão – now Laurus Nobilis Music Fest – is over and they’re back… well, not stronger than before, but just as strong. Sure, MANOWAR is probably the biggest name they’ve had in all their six bills and their fans gathered the biggest audience so far, but it’s just one band – it shouldn’t define a whole festival.

We were first told that there would be no photographers in the pit for MANOWAR (well, we could for thirty seconds – ha ha ha – so none of us would bother…). Then we were told that we could shoot the usual first three songs after all (which surprised us more than the thirty seconds joke, in all honesty). But when we were all already lined up in front of the stage, the head security came rushing us out of there, saying MANOWAR didn’t want anyone in the pit. In a later statement though, the festival promoters apologized, saying that it had nothing to do with the band but problems with the fire machine – which ended up not working at all – and they were afraid it would spit flames right on us… Whatever the truth was, I didn’t bother and try shooting from the crowd – just a few pics of the monitors with my phone. I’m not exactly the biggest MANOWAR fan myself, although of course I remember some songs from my high school years, but watching that legion of fans go ecstatic was a blissful sensation. “Manowar”, “Kings Of Metal”, “Warriors Of The World United”, “Carry On”, “Black Wind, Fire And Steel”… almost everyone sang along every single word, I dare saying even louder than the “one-million-dollar PA” the band had on stage. The encore included a “small” speech from Joey DeMaio, where he explained how hard was to produce a good show and that’s why they sometimes cancelled them, how he and the whole band didn’t care about haters, that they should live a long and miserable life knowing that MANOWAR had the best fans in the world. Then he called on stage the three men behind Laurus (there’s more, obviously, but those were the ones he had direct contact with), responsible for bringing MANOWAR to that small town of Famalicão. I confess I was touched. Attending this festival since its first edition and witnessing it growing to the point where a renowned artist such as DeMaio acknowledges the promoters’ efforts was way better than listening to “Heart Of Steel” (the one song I know the full lyrics to and which they didn’t play).

www.facebook.com/manowar

Some familiar faces :