Back to the front

July 30th, 2007

Hello, hello

We’re slowly getting our act together after the short summer break. But hey, who cares about breaks anyway, it’s nice to get back up on the stage. I’ve added my playlist to this site, and I will try to update it weekly… well see how it goes. You can get there via my info page (Band -> Kari) or by clicking here.

I’ve seen a few gigs this summer, and I thought I’d write something about some of them. So here it goes…

Ruisrock 2007

The main reason, and pretty much the only reason for me to go here was Billy Talent. Their gig at Tavastia was pretty much praised to be one of the best gigs in Finland in ages, so I decided to ignore the fact that rain was forecasted and bought a ticket for Friday.

The first band we went to see was Disco Ensemble and boy have they developed. In no means were they bad the last time I saw them, but now they were like a well-oiled machine. Hundreds of gigs are really starting to show in their act and performance. After Disco Ensemble we listened a few songs from John Legend and Juliette & The Licks, and then went on to wait for Billy Talent to hit the stage. I had big anticipations about the gig, and I honestly must say, that Billy Talent delivered. They were well worth every penny. People went crazy and the ground was trembling from all the jumping. Especially the guitarist Ian D’Sa really convinced me for good, his playing is a pure delight to the ear. A really good gig and by far the best act of Ruisrock this year in my book.

After Billy Talent we went to see Children of Bodom but they played so loud that you couldn’t enjoy it at all so we went to have a bite since we were all hungry anyway. The next band to see was Amorphis and they really surprised me. The new singer is a really great vocalist and a great screamer too. A good end to a great day. Flaming Lips sounded good, though their music isn’t at its best as background music when cycling among thousands of people.

Metallica @ Olympic Stadium, 15th of July

When the tickets to this event came to sale, I went to line up for them half an hour before the actual selling started. I thought that it would be early enough, but how wrong was I. There was already a long line, and to top it off the clerks couldn’t get connection to the ticket server. I bought my ticket at approximately 9.15 (the selling began at 9.00), and there were only tickets to the back corner of the stadium left… Man was I bummed.

The warm-up acts for Metallica were Diablo and HIM. Diablo was an ok choice, though I didn’t get to see them since we were running a bit late due to a car crash on the way to Helsinki jamming up the freeway, but HIM, a warm-up act for Metallica, WTF? I’m not saying that HIM is a bad band, not at all, I do like their music, but to me they were completely in the wrong place. And I guess I wasn’t the only one. Actually the band (except for the drummer, Kaasu) looked like they too thought so. They didn’t seem to enjoy the gig at all. I guess what they had gone through on the previous gigs of this tour had an effect on their own feelings; they were booed at at Wembley and Oslo and in Helsinki some stupid kids pointed the middle finger at them. Not that good a behavior. If you don’t like the band, then don’t listen, or at least let them do their work, some other people probably will like their music. But yeah, they were not in the right place, not at all. But then again, if you have the chance to be the warm-up act for Metallica, who would say no to that??

Both Diablo and HIM had not that good sounds (the lousy part of being a warm-up act), so I feared Metallica would have the same mushy sounds than on the Madly in Anger tour, but luckily I was wrong about this. Metallica’s sounds were much louder, without being too loud. The last time Metallica was here was in 2004, and to be honest they didn’t play that well. So given the fact that my place was pretty much the furthest from the stage, and just a moderate gig 3 years earlier, I didn’t have high expectations about the gig. But Metallica proved me wrong. They really were on fire, they clearly had rehearsed. The sounds were way better than the last time. The wind swept the sounds from time to time, but still it was a great show.

11 of the 18 songs they played were different than on the 2004 gig, but they certainly do have the back catalog to choose from. James’ singing was better than on the last time, though his voice failed a few times with the high notes. The whole band was, as I said, clearly in better shape than the last time.

Jermaine, The Odorants & Pintandwefall @ Klubi

Me and Johannes went to Klubi on the 19th of July to see this year’s “Ääni ja vimma” winner Pintandwefall, The Odorants and Jermaine. I have missed Jermaine’s gigs here in Turku a few times already, because we’ve always had our own gig at the same time, but finally I got to see them, and just in time before their break (they are starting to make their second album). We saw only a few songs from Pintandwefall, so I can’t say much about them. They had nice sounds, and the songs sounded good too. The Odorants’ singer had catched a cold so he struggled a bit with his voice, but they did play an energetic gig despite that. Their sounds were not as good as Pintandwefall’s, way too much bass in my mind. The guitars were pretty much completely overrun by the bass.

After them came Jermaine, and they were good too, it’s shame that so few people had showed up at Klubi. Jermaine played mostly songs off their first album (pretty obvious, since they have released only one album) but a few new songs off the coming album too. To me the band sounded better live than on record, though the record is good too. Energetic performance, good songs, good playing and singing, nice sounds, what more can you hope for?

“Thank you, good night!”

-Kari