a cappella metal. Not kidding.

Whenever I tell people about my taste of musik I usually say something like " .. it's very important that guitars and drums are audible .. ". I generally like all sorts of rock music and Metal but I also recently discovered that I'm into folk a lot :)

Last week a friend of mine and myself went to a gig of Blind Guardian, a german Metal-band. The guys are quite successful and hence brought two supporting bands along: 'Steelwing' and 'Van Canto'. I am always a bit pessimistic about supporting gigs since there had been two occassions where I really liked the main band, but could not stand the supporting band(s).

So without having big expectations in the supporting bands, I have been positively surprised to find 'Steelwing' and 'Van Canto' being two kick ass metal bands, each in their own right. Steelwing does straight Powermetal with a singer that reminds me slightly of Eric Adams from Manowar. The songs were great and my friend said he was sure that they would soon fill concert halls on their own.

The next band that entered the stage was 'Van Canto' and before I really knew what was happening they started to perform and I found that I really liked what I heard. However I felt that something was strange .. it was good music but there was something special about the feel of it. I was watching the stage confusedly when I finally noticed that the only musical instrument I could make out were actually the drums. No guitar. No bass. No keyboard.

'How can that be?' I though to myself. Only after they finished their first song they explained to us that they were an a cappella Metal band. "We have one drummer and five singers." the lead singer said. In fact they have two lead singers: One male and one female. And then they have 3 human guitars (as I dubbed them), one being the lead guitar (not kidding .. he is doing all the solos).

They covered some classics like 'Fear of the dark' and 'Wishmaster' but also performed some of their own songs and the crowd exploded. Awesome.

IMHO: Van Canto rocks. Through writing this article I'd like to spread the word. They are doing an awesome job and we all know how picky some metal fans can be when it comes to 'true' Metal (whatever that is).  In case you are into metal and/or a cappella music, you might want to check out some of their youtube vids to see if you like them. I certainly do.

Finally I have selected three of their many vids from youtube. Don't be distracted by the pictures however .. just listen :)