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2026 Fire In The Mountains – Sunday

2026 Fire in the Mountains – Sunday

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday can be found here.

Sleeping was once again difficult after Saturday, as strong winds continued until sometime in the morning hours. I went to charge my camera battery for the final day, only to find that the Media Tent had blown away! Fortunately, my charger was still there, and I hadn’t left anything else very valuable there (like my laptop).

I headed to Lower Two Medicine Lake for my morning dunk. The place was deserted except for the members of Sigh and their families. I said おはようございます before wandering over to the somber “Embers that Remain” session dealing with suicide loss. My tears of sadness turned into tears of laughter in the next session.

Hilarious Robert Hall led “Riffs as Ritual”, which featured Mike Scheidt of YOB, Joe Strong-Truscelli of Wayfarer, and Gina Gleason of Baroness. The first thing Hall had them do was an “air-guitar” competition in which Hall provided the riffs through his microphone. During Mike’s air-guitar performance, a gust of wind caused a bunch of feedback. Hall expertly noted that “Only Mike Scheidt could generate feedback in an air-guitar battle.” If you are familiar with YOB, you’ll understand how funny that is.

“Making the Noise Visible”, with John Baizley of Baroness, was going to be my last workshop of the festival, but somehow I forgot to attend. So, instead, “Warriors and Outsiders” rounded out my non-music agenda at Fire in the Mountains.

This panel consisted of Dave Bland of Full of Hell, Nate Newton of Old Man Gloom and Converge, Curtis Running Rabbit of Signatory, and Joey Running Crane of Ponoka with Steve Von Till moderating.

The first band on the final day was Phobophilic from Fargo, North Dakota.

The touching and heartfelt speech just before mentioning that the next song was called “Nauseating Despair” showed some true metal spirit.

Before Galvanist hit the stage, some of the stage security jumped into the front row of the audience. I was thinking, WTF?

An unprecedented event then unfolded with about a dozen security personnel starting the circle pit! Pretty funny.

Tanner Erhart of Galvanist

Sumerlands did a short set, not sure why.

Dreadnaught went on a west-coast tour with Sigh after their Fire in the Mountains appearance on the same day.

SubRosa reunited for this festival. I was hoping to get a t-shirt, but they sold out quickly. The SubRosa performance was powerful. I would love to hear new material from them or from The Keening. SubRosa will be playing at least one more show, in January 2027 at The Stanley Hotel in Colorado.

During the last song of their set, “The Usher”, a marriage proposal happened in the audience.

“All of my life I've been waiting for you
With open arms, I'll come running towards you” – SubRosa “The Usher”

I’ve seen SUMAC a few times, Converge once, and Mamiffer with Aaron Turner as well. Old Man Gloom was a first, though, as they don’t tour much and have never played near my abode.
After loads of regular crowd surfing, a bale of hay tried to surf its way up to the stage. Another first. I saw Gutalax have crowd surfing porta-potties at the 2019 Brutal Assault Festival, but that was more planned. The hay bale was quite spontaneous.

With the festival coming to a close, I needed to get a shot of the last sunset and the double-stage layout. The small stage is in the foreground. The main stage has the crowd as they prepare for Borknagar.

I was really looking forward to Borknagar, as I’ve been a fan for a long time but never seen them live. Unfortunately, I was tired, my back was killing me, and I was even more interested in seeing Sigh and the final act, so I ended up sitting and resting for most of the Borknagar set. Despite this, “Up North” is what stuck in my head as I tried to sleep later.

Sigh is another band that I’ve been into forever but had not previously experienced live. They brought the families out on stage, which was cute and at times hilarious.

The scene went along perfectly with songs like 殺意~夏視のあと.

Last but not least, the band with the most-difficult-to-Google name “I”. Hence, they went with “Between Two Worlds” instead to perform their only album live for just the second time ever and first time in 20 years.

I bought that album when it came out and listened to it quite a bit for a few years. I never expected to see it performed live, so this set was a blast. I’ve now seen Abbath live with Immortal, Abbath, Bombers Bergen, and I. Maybe Old Funeral will reunite and play next year?

And with that, the festival was over, and real life began again. We did some hiking in Glacier National Park after Fire in the Mountains, but the smoke put a damper on those adventures.

For more photos from Glacier National Park, click here. More coming soon.