On Thursday afternoon my friends and I headed out to The Rave, the local venue where almost all concerts are held since it has no less than five different stages available to bands that tour here. So, no new sights exactly, though both this concert and the previous one I was at on the 12th (Yeah, I’ve been slow about reviewing shows) were both held in The Rave Underground (AKA the basement), which was weird since I don’t believe I’ve seen a show in here in at least five years. However enough about those trivial details.
This show was special since it was the, ‘Finnish Metal Tour’ and it happened to feature three bands I’m very passionate about, namely; Swallow the Sun, Moonsorrow and Finntroll. Another band from Finland named, Survivors Zero was supposed to play, but they were not present and no one said a single thing about it. So who knows? Instead we had two small time unsigned bands open up the show, and while they weren’t great they weren’t god fucking awful either, which is the way these things usually go.
? band: No idea who these guys ever were. I thought they were Survivors Zero at first, but soon as I heard the singer’s voice I realized they were definitely not of Finnish origin. Anyway, they played some sort of metalcore/Melodeath stuff which kind of reminded me of the newer Soilwork records at times. It wasn’t bad, but then it wasn’t really great either. The band had energy for sure and the singer tried to get things going, but they were the opener, no one knew who they were and ultimately they probably didn’t make much of if any impression on anyone.
Urn: Urn is a gothic/folk/power metal band from Chicago, Illinois, USA. At times they reminded me of the German band Menhir, but besides that connection it was a bit hard to pinpoint these guys sound. Their music was heavily synth based with a decent rhythm section and they also threw in some acoustic guitars, flute and brief female vocals. Unfortunately it seemed like the band wasn’t really in synch with each other and things just sounded chaotic and cluttered. On the other hand my friend says they sound better on CD, but I really wasn’t moved enough to spend any money of their records.
Near the end of their set the singer/guitarist mentioned that back in the day he played with the Electric Hellfire Club and that they at some point did a tour with Type O Negative. Here’s the shocker. Then he tells us that Type O’s singer/bassist Peter Steele passed away today and… and I don’t even know what to say or feel. Just sadness, I suppose. Therefore their next song and each band following Urn dedicated a song to Peter. R.I.P. buddy.
Swallow the Sun: After hearing the news of Peter’s passing it was ideal to hear the gloomy doom metal of Swallow the Sun. This was my first time seeing these guys although they did tour the states a couple of years ago with Katatonia, which I very reluctantly missed out on. I’ve been listening to these guys off and on since their first release, but after this performance I’ve realized that I really need to catch up and get all of their releases in my hand. Anyway, the band played a good mixture of songs from their most recent, ‘New Moon’ record as well as a few from the stunning previous release, ‘Hope.’ There were a few older ones I didn’t seem to recognize too but what’s important here is that the entire set sounded just absolutely colossal. Admittedly I really haven’t seen many doom metal bands like this because bands like this simply don’t tour here even if I’ve been listening to doom/death metal for over ten years now. So, it was great to finally receive the full doom live treatment.
Anyway, I really liked the bands stage presence. All of the members moved around the stage sluggishly to their ominous music but it was singer Mikko who really seemed to look genuinely despondent. Basically when he wasn’t singing he would just fold his arms behind his back and stare at the ground. Sure the front man in a metal band should be absolutely electrifying but when it comes to this music it would seem creating the most depressive atmosphere is ideal. When he wasn’t growling and screaming in the microphone his normal speaking and singing voice felt absolutely wretched, especially when he mentioned that Type O Negative was a big influence on Swallow the Sun. Great set.
Completely changing the subject I found myself returning to the Swallow the Sun merchandise table a few times throughout the night because before the show even started the girl selling the merch told me that I look a lot like one of the guys from the German band Suidakra. Later on when she actually let me see a picture of him I then realized that I have a long lost twin living in Germany, haha. She even asked to take a picture with me. Weird.
Moonsorrow: I’ve known about Moonsorrow since their first album and I’ve been a fan since their 2003 release, ‘Kivenkantaja,’ which pretty much made me a fan for life. Be it their early albums or even their most recent, Moonsorrow is just stunning. The band opened with, ‘Jumalten Kaupunki’ a true favorite of mine, and then played my most favored Moonsorrow songs, ‘Kylän Päässä’ & ‘Pimeä.’ So needless to say I was flying on this evening. There’s something truly magical about seeing a band you love play live. When you know and recognize every verse, every grunt or scream and when you just absolutely reach that moment of bliss where you must headbang and play the air guitar almost as if you were a member of the band, and, well you get the idea since you’ve all been there before. As far as the bands actually musicianship is concerned they sounded absolutely perfect though a two person Viking choir isn’t quite the same as the full Viking choir they use on the albums, but I wasn’t too disappointed.
Normally most concerts I find myself getting drunk or near drunk, but this was one of those special shows where I wanted to be sober so I could really remember the whole thing and talk about it later on. The band continued their set by playing a few songs from, ‘Suden Uni’ as well as one really long song, which for some reason I didn’t recognize (contradicting my earlier statement, but whatever, haha). All in all Moonsorrow proved to be amazing. It was absolutely worth the wait all these years to see them since they played basically all of my favorite songs, they had great stage presence and they got all of us pumped like never before. Ville told us they’ll come back some day… hopefully someday soon!
Finntroll: Finally tonight’s headliner hit the stage full force with relentless trollish power! Much like Moonsorrow, Finntroll had absolutely everyone in the crowd headbanging, air guitaring, moshing, pumping our fists and singing and screaming along with lead singer Vreth. The band played a number of songs from the new album like, ‘Under Bergets Rot,’ which is one of the most amusing songs I think I’ve ever heard, while they also played old favs like, ‘Svartberg,’ ‘Kitteldags,’ ‘Eliytres’ and of course the mighty ‘Trollhammaren.’ Collectively they must have played just a little over one hour and after disappearing from the stage briefly they came back and tore things up once again with, ‘Jaktens Tid.’ Unfortunately I got a little tired during the last couple of songs since I was running on just four hours of sleep, but nevertheless I had a fantastic evening.
Honestly speaking this was the best concert I’ve seen this year and if this tour comes close to you then seriously do everything within your power to see it. These bands are stunning.
After the show I bought the new Swallow the Sun CD as well as a Finntroll t-shirt. While my friends and I were walking back to the car some guy tried to get us to give him money to listen to him rap. Wow, really, asking a bunch of metal head’s for money so you can rap?! You got to be kidding me. We just walked away gaining pace as he nagged us further, haha.
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