Pagan folk metal has been in my periphery for several years, but I’ve never taken notice, because of why it was in my periphery.  Recently Naz suggested a couple of bands to me (I’ve been VERY bored with what I’ve been listening to), and among them was Tyr.  I took a listen and really enjoyed what I heard.  And Lo! Tyr was scheduled to play in Toronto in the near future.

That near future happened tonight.  On behalf of the city of Toronto I’d like to apologize to the members of Tyr for having to play at Sneaky Dee’s.  For those not in the Greater Toronto Area, Sneaky’s is known for dirty punk and even dirtier food (both which are good, if that’s what you’re craving).  It’s not a good venue- tiny stage, bad sound and a long narrow place for the audience.

Naz and I got there as Bolero were finishing up.  He enjoyed what little we heard, but I was too busy getting drink in me, and surveying the land to notice too much, so I’ll take his word that they were good.

Then came Crimson Shadow. Thankfully Naz had the internets in his pocket to entertain him (and you can see the tweets made during this set at the Council of Mead twitter), and I had the view from the window I was standing at to entertain me.  Also, I took this set as a chance to chat with a friend I hadn’t seen in four years.  So, thank you Crimson Shadow, it’s always nice to reconnect, and my disinterest in your set gave me that chance (their music wasn’t my cup of tea, let’s just leave it at that).

Tyr came on after a hilarious interlude where select members of the crowd cheered the sound check.  The played really solidly but  I’m sorry that I can only recall a couple of songs that were played.  I was slightly worried that their harmonies would not translate well to a live show, because that sort of thing can go very bad, very quickly, but they were really fantastic.  And I had to laugh as their sense of humour came throughwhen they played “Hold the Heathen Hammer High”, and prefaced it by saying “It’s Hammer Time”.  I quite literally laughed out loud.  The set wasn’t as long as I’d have liked, but they did grace us with two encore songs, one of which was a Metallica cover.  Short set aside they chose great songs to play live, a good selection from all their albums,  interacted with the crowd really well (even sharing their bottle of rum with one member of the crowd), and sounded fantastic.  They kept the energy high, which inspired a small pit near the end.  I waited until the end to buy a shirt.  I’ll support a band by buying merch, but they’ve got to earn it, and Tyr totally did.  As a final note, I will say this: I don’t care what bands look like.  As long as they sound good that’s what matters.  Because of this I’ve never sought out pictures of Tyr, I just don’t care enough.  But I was told there would be some eye candy.  And Damn.  They put the “men” back in “Fiiiiiiine specimen”.   Too sum up, great energy, great sound, pretty to look at, shitty venue- but at least they served cider.