June 23-25
After a Covid-enforced two year hiatus, I was back at Kilkim! It was an hour drive in a minibus from Vilnius, where our group was befriended by a YouTuber called Lawrence (link to his channel here), who has been cycling around Europe videoblogging about music, history and paganism as a way to help with his mental health. Kilkim Žaibu is not just a metal festival, it celebrates Baltic culture and there are many local folk and pagan bands that play there, and it is held around Midsummer, which is a significant time for Lithuanians – a people who were among the last to remain pagan in Europe, officially converting to Christianity in 1387, but the old ways prevailed for centuries afterwards and never truly died out, undergoing a revival in the 19th century and surviving decades of Soviet oppression. Ever since I first went in 2018, this event has not only been a chance to see some amazing and unique bands, but also to spiritually recharge. The venue had changed from the previous two times I had visited, and some say it’s not as good, indeed finding a spot to pitch a tent which wasn’t waterlogged or on top of an ants’ nest was a challenge, as was the searing heat. Yet to all intents and purposes it was still the Kilkim I know and love, with its traditional folk bands from the region, Lithuanian wrestling and Viking football (where the ‘football’ is actually a large log – you can see an example in the first four minutes of Lawrence Huxham’s video) and battle reenactments.
Opening the festival on the first day were Lithuanian folk bands Ugniavijas and Svirtis, and later on I saw Vltimas, a black death metal band whose bands hail from Portugal, the US and Canada, and the headline act was Sepultura, who need no explanation:
Top row: Lithuanian folk band Ugniavijas, and Svirits.
Bottom row: Black death metal band Vltimas and day one headliner Sepultura.
Day two featured among others, Norwegian post-metal/blackgaze artist Sylvaine, Israeli-Lithuanian epic folk metal band Romuvaos, and Ukrainian WWI-themed black metal band 1914, which I thankfully got up from my nap in time to see – a truly electric performance from a great band:
Left to right: Sylvaine, Romuvos, 1914.
The final day included seeing Latvian traditional folk band Vilki, Estonian folk-punk’n’roll band Mört, Italian power folk metal Wind Rose (who were especially good), Swedish occult rock outfit Year of the Goat, and to finally top off an amazing festival, the final day’s headliners were Dutch pagan folk metal band Heidevolk, who as always were brilliant:
Top row: Vilki, Mört, Year of the Goat.
Bottom row: Wind Rose, Heidevolk.
Finally there was a burning of the fire sculpture to mark the end of the festival. Other than wanting to wash off the post-festival grime, I did not want it to end, this is a festival which will forever have a place in my heart, along with the amazing culture which it celebrates.
Lighting the fire sculpture to mark the end of Kilkim Žaibu XXII.
Twilight on the final day.