Artmania 2015, Sibiu, 31.07.15-01.08.15

Artmania has been synonym with Sibiu's Large Square for almost a decade, until last year a municipal law forbidding payed concerts in public areas forced them to find a last minute solution and host the shows in a shed at the edge of the city. This year, seeing how the last edition was considered the worst in the festival's history and in order to mark the anniversary of 10 years, they decided to make a free entry festival, that would allow them to go back to the Large Square. Was it an excellent decision? Considering that free entry shows usually mean a shitty audience, I'd say maybe not. However, since they were put in a no-win position by the Town Hall's stupid decision (seriously, do you think the citizens of Sibiu will feel an insurmountable loss if they are not able to access half of the Large Square for a few hours once in a while?), I guess this was the best thing they could do and I appreciate them for putting the festival's heritage and image before the financial gains. I really hope that they'll find a solution for next year as well, as they can't possibly make it free entry every year.

Apocalyptica, Shadowmaker

I took some time off Apocalyptica lately because the few songs I heard from their last albums didn’t make the best impression, but this week I became curious to see what they were up to. So I found out that they now have a permanent lead singer, that they’re still pretty much on the same path they started with Worlds Collide and that their new album makes me a sad camper. Shadowmaker could be easily split into three: Apocalyptica, Nickelback with cellos and Nickelback without cellos, and don’t ask me how you can have an Apocalyptica song without cellos, because I haven’t figured that out yet, it’s like having a Van Canto song with guitars.