\A lot of buzz had been going around about the band Schandmaul in the press area and in some other circles and so our interest was peaked and we were looking to know more.

Schandmaul was to us a brand new band that incorporated lots of elements of some of our favorite groups such as Subway to Sally (female violinist as well as incorporation of bag pipes, flutes, and other traditional instruments) and incorporating electric guitar and modern rock sensibility to the song structure.

Until we made it over to Germany this type of band was pretty much unknown to us but now that we have come several years in a row, we begin to see an entire sub-genre that seems to be growing in number of bands every year. As much as being like bands of the nature of In Extremo, Subway to Sally, Finistera, Saltatios Mortiis and the like, they are also very different in their vibe.

They have some folk qualities to them ( I think it was the vocalist with the acoustic guitar....he really got that thing going, strumming like mad) but basically gave a rather happy and cheery type impression. Everyone in the band seemed very happy and smiling at one another and the crowd and the music was very uplifting.

Their line up in total consisted of a live drummer, a woman playing various pipes and flute instruments, a dude on bass, another on guitar - both lending back up vocals when called for, a woman on violin who also played a few other traditional instruments, and then the lead singer on acoustic guitar, who was very charismatic and a good front man, especially for a band of this nature.

I wasn't familiar with any of their songs prior to seeing them live so I was pretty in the dark as to what they were singing about or how many albums of material they actually were covering.

The audience seemed to be very entertained and involved in their performance and were getting into that happy festival mood and pouring down the local brewed beers.

It took us quite some time to finally track down a release of theirs on CD and although quite good, does not really capture the energy and enthusiasm these guys have on stage.

In a festival of this sort, these guys are a perfect band to discover and I would love to see them again.  I would also like to find one of the newer CD's to see if they can better capture their dynamic energy in a recording.