Prior to the Musexpo 2010 in West Hollywood, BogFires had a chance to see a bundle of Finnish metal export hopes at the House of Blues. Both of the caravans, one with Sonata Arctica onboard, and another one comprising Finntroll, Moonsorrow and Swallow the Sun, had already done a number of US cities on their tour bills before hitting the Hollywood hills.
Thanks to the Volcano in Island, my post-ash trip to the U.S. became realized few days later than planned, which meant that I did not even except to catch the Sonata show in time. But surprisingly, against all the odds, the master of the air handed out an extra reward and my flight touched down at the LAX airport over one hour ahead of schedule. Perfect! A quick cab to Santa Monica Blvd, check-in to the Ramada hotel, and hop hop to HoB. Sonata was playing “Juliet” when I entered the venue, so half of the songs were still left in the set list. Unfortunately, I missed the opening acts Powerglove and Mutiny Within. The later is one tha I would have especially liked to see, as their recently published debut album is kind of a nice piece of technical metal, visibly acknowledged also by the Prog metal authority Mike Portnoy.
Sonata did a great show that was more reduced in terms of gear and visuals than for instance the three previous shows I have witnessed in Helsinki, Gothenburg and Tokyo. This was because of the lighter backline and smaller size of the venue in which audience gets quite close to the band. Although Tony Kakko and the rest of the band are able to create an intimate and positive atmosphere in any place, at the House of Blues the show was even more down-to-earth, even in terms of the sounds. And the crowd, perhaps a few hundred heads, enjoyed it as well. After the show, we had a good time with these jovial guys from the dark north at the legendary Rainbow and their tour bus. Warm thanks to the band!
By sheer accident, also the following night at the House of Blues was booked for another bunch of Finns, a larger one this time, as the Finntroll-headlining “The Finnish Metal Tour 2010” stopped by in the angel city. The evening had a bit of an unfortunate start on my part, as I only saw two last songs of the opening Swallow the Sun. The show had started half an hour earlier that announced on the web page, and I did not know that the original opening act Survivors Zero was excluded from the entire tour (due to Visa problems).
Anyhow, the two STS songs were cheered by the audience. A praising comment that I got from a local guy who was hearing the band verified this. And band itself also felt having played a very good show, as was reported after the gig. Already now it also seemed clear that HoB offers quite good sounds. Moonsorrow that followed was a new live experience for me, and a very positive one. The band put out a very energetic set which was welcomed surprisingly well by the audience. The band’s previous visit to the venue on the Korpiklaani tour a year ago had done the trick. Regardless of the Finnish lyrics (and sense of humour…) Californian kids liked what they saw. And much liked was Finntroll too. Mosh pit was immediately set in motion and did not stop until the final tune was played by the intense band. Neither in the Finntroll case, the Swedish lyrics do not seem to lessen the interest of the band’s devoted Yankee fans who may have been slightly smaller in quantity in comparison to Sonata but much louder and furious. An interesting evening. And it was again prolonged in Rainbow as the bands and a number of their friends populated the bar. Such a large representation of Finns in is probably something that is not often seen in Rainbow.
TMK
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