Mar 29, 2014

Tbilisi Blitzkrieg — W.O.A. Metal Battle Caucasus

Tbilisi Blitzkrieg — W.O.A. Metal Battle Caucasus, Tbilisi, Georgia
© Onnik James Krikorian 2014

Last week saw bands from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia compete in the semi-finals of a Metal Battle Caucasus to determine which three bands would perform at the final next month. The winner will get to perform at the Wacken Open Air Festival to be held later this year in Germany.

Wacken Open Air (W:O:A) is a summer open air heavy metal music festival. It takes place annually in the small village of Wacken in Schleswig-Holstein, northern Germany. With 80,000 festival visitors, and including personnel a total of roughly 86,000 attendees in 2011, it attracts all kinds of metal music fans, such as fans of black metal, death metal, power metal, thrash metal, gothic metal, folk metal, and even metalcore, nu metal and hard rock from around the world.

Naturally, because of unresolved conflict in the region, such a competition — a rare occasion where bands from all three countries can perform on the same stage — could only be held in Tbilisi, Georgia. Organiser Eric Hutchence told me a little about the event (in Russian):

onewmphoto · Tbilisi Blitzkrieg Organiser Eric Hutchence

Anyway, some more pics from the two-day event below. Special thanks to Eric Hutchence and Arsen Hakobyan who alerted me to the event literally 10 minutes it was due to start. The competition has a Facebook page here and my BBC Azeri audio slideshow is here.

More photos are available on my Facebook Page.

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