Sonisphere Finland 2010: Festival report

Sonisphere report in TMK blog:
http://tonimattikarjalainen.blogspot.com/2010/08/sonisphere-finland-2010-festival-report.html

SAUNA OPEN AIR 2010 Festival Report

The 7th Sauna Open Air metal festival gathered this year some 23 000 metal fans to the South Park of Tampere. This time the event run from Thursday to Saturday, and BogFires was naturally present in this warm-hearted metal family meeting. While having signed KISS to headline the first night, and probably paying a considerable part of the budget for Simmons’ troops, the following two days comprised a selection of Finnish bands reinforced by some foreign middle sized names. This structure also resulted in an uneven distribution of people among the days. KISS drew some 12 000 eye pairs, whereas Friday and Saturday were both able to appeal only half that amount. This was also thanks to the volatile weather: Thursday was sunny and quite warm, but Friday and Saturday mostly rainy, windy, and very cold. Anyhow, Sauna seems to always succeed in creating a good atmosphere regardless of external factors.

The biggest disappointment, at least for me personally, was created already a couple of days before the kick-off, as the mighty RATT was forced to cancel their Sauna show due to vocalist Stephen Pearcy’s hernia surgery (Bye bye rock n’ roll glamour… ;). Well, hopefully the ratt pack will soon be back on the track, so I don’t have to wait another 26 years to see them live.

Thursday was ignited by the 69 Eyes. With quite a pale flame though, partly because most people were still queuing outside the gates and the line almost reached the Laukontori. The smaller Park Stage was opened by Insomnium that, despite a momentarily too loud bass sound that tended to carpet the guitars, offered by far the highest musical experience of the evening. Not only was the tonal rush nice, but the band is also fun to watch. Active touring and recent acknowledgements have seemingly lifted the band’s self confidence to heights. The main stage next featured Steel Panther that may be amusing to watch and listen to (although Michael Starr’s talks are really testing the limits of good taste) but cannot escape the fact of being frivolous and disposable. Norwegian Audrey Horne with their melodic and powerful setting was an unfamiliar case for me but made quite a good expression by their energetic performance. Pity that only a handful of people had found their way to the front of the stage, while most visitors seemed to focus either on maintaining their fluid balance safe and sound or awaiting the puppet masters to climb the stage. And KISS, starting some 10 minutes ahead of the schedule, was surely big and beautiful. And as unsurprising as anticipated. The show was of course highly visual with all the typical Kiss numbers and gimmicks happening on an elegant stage dominated by the giant background screen and a number of smaller ones. Of course, the light effects and fireworks did not reach their full potential in the bright Finnish night. But a good experience in overall, certainly!

The quiet Saturday afternoon included the presentations of Parasite City, Whitechapel and Anvil on the Park Stage. Of those three, Whitechapel made the biggest impact with their dark and heavy set. Anvil is… ok… but not very interesting. The British Glamour of the Kill had been moved to the Main Stage, due to RATT’s cancellation, which perhaps was a bit too big for this band. Well, nothing wrong in the gig itself, but the band was quite unknown for most of the people in the audience and their music characterized as metal for young girls by the band itself did not really cause any great emotions on the field. Death Angel, in turn, performed the tightest and heaviest set of the whole festival. Truly impressive! With a couple of new members and the charisma of Mark Osegueda, tha band seems to be in a top shape. The set list included both newer tunes and some gems from the DA early days. The day was closed by Danzig, but for me the gig was a disappointment. Glenn did not seem to be in a very good mood, and the performance appeared quite standard. Of course the day long pouring rain was also taking its toll. However, Mother surely caused the loudest crowd sing-along of the day.

Sunday was dominated by the Finnish acts, with the exception of Grave Digger and Hail!. The well-played basic hard rock of the former well deserved its place in the line-up but still remained a bit of an oddity among the Finns. Hail! in turn received a cheerful reaction as the final act on the Park Stage. No wonder: a group of talented long-term metallers playing the songs of Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath and rest and guest starring people like Marco Hietala and Mark Osegueda, cannot really go much wrong. Preceding them on the Park Stage, Doom Unit, Peer Günt, and Poisonblack yet entertained their fans but did not offer any great surprises. The same was the case with Stam1na, Amorphis and Sonata Arctica on the Main Stage. However, already the routine performances of these bands are always of the high standard. And yes, it was a really cold evening. The opener of the day, Sub-Urban Tribe played the first of their (only?) two festival shows of the summer and got quite the highest points of the day from me, somewhat surprisingly. Ville Tuomi and rest of the band were in a very good mood and played well a good selection of catchy songs from their catalogue. It was fun to see the band onstage after a few years pause. And the sun even appeared for a second during their set.

The three days also offered a number of after parties in various venues of Tampere. One of them was the three days NKM Metal Fest that took place in the Ylioppilastalo (Student House) featuring a good set of smaller metal bands of various styles. The event had a challenge of competing against other events, especially the official Sauna after parties at the Jack the Rooster that seemed to appeal most of the night people. Anyhow, quite a good number of people had also found their way to the NKM Metalfest, although the quite a nice venue would have had capacity to house much more. The performance of Leverage, Sotajumala, and Profane Omen, in specific, were able to arouse a very good mood on the floor, despite the inevitably lurking festival fatigue. But this is a highly recommendable event if it will be organized again in the future.

Toni-Matti Karjalainen

Links:

Sauna Open Air: http://www.sauna-open-air.fi/

Metal Shots (photo report): http://www.metalshots.com/2010/2010-06-10_SaunaOpenAir_Tampere/index.php

NKM Metal Fest: http://www.nkm.fi/

Insomnium conquered the Finnish Metal Expo

Finnish Metal Expo, the already traditional two days event was again organized in the Caple Factory of Helsinki on February 19-20, 2010. The event is not only a great music festival with an interesting band bill and a trade fair with various exhibitors but also a great meeting place for bands, industry people, and fans. This year some 5000 visitors gathered inside the roomy space, surrounded by the weather of almost 20 minus degrees multiplied by brisk wind. Hopefully not too many frozen body parts were left on the icy snow-blocked streets of Helsinki.

FME is also an event that shares the annual Finnish Metal Awards, voted by fans among the unlisted assortment of domestic metal bands and artists. This year was a jackpot for Insomnium, the melodic death metallers of Joensuu. Insomnium took the first place on the two most important categories: best band and best album. Moreover, the impressive cover art of their recent “Across the Dark” album, designed by Wille Naukkarinen (also playing himself in Ghost Brigade), was rated second in the album cover art category. All this success came as a big surprise to the band, as told by their singer & bass player Niilo Sevänen with whom I managed to chat soon after the prize release. But hey, it is all well deserved! A funny coincidence in the event was that the prizes were handed out right after the Insomnium gig, their stage sheet still in its place to highlight the prize giving.

Summary of the winners:

Best band: Insomnium ... Best album: Across the Dark, Insomnium ... Best singer: Tomi Joutsen, Amorphis ... Best player: Alexi Laiho, Children of Bodom ... Album cover art: Skyforger, Amorphis (Travis Smith) ... Best newcomer: FM2000 ... Best demo band: Ghoul Patrol

Of the talks I had with various people during the event, one of the most interesting one was with Marko Annala of the successful Finnish thrash group Mokoma. There are great anticipations for the upcoming Mokoma album “Sydänjuuret” (released on March 24). Expectations are high also for the visual side of the new release, as usually in the Mokoma case. The album will be released in the format of a jewel case CD, book CD, vinyl, and a downloadable mp3 with a pdf-booklet, all full of visual works of the “Mokoma artist” Ville Pirinen. Trying more appealing ways to package the album may also been as a countermove for the worrying development of music consumption and fan culture addressed by Marko.

But of course, the core of FME is the live performances. On Friday, the start of the expo was from my behalf spent in expectation for the later acts of the evening. I had a brief glimpse of Korpiklaani, Kiana, [Amatory] and Doom Unit, but the first band arousing my interest was the V For Violence with their quite an interesting song selection and stage presence. Anyhow, the evening was lifted onto a totally different level when Hypocrisy engulfed the stage with their energetic performance. The Swedes were followed by the western neighbours Satyricon that really blew the place apart. Along with the charisma that the band has onstage, especially Satyr himself, their really tight playing, great songs, and super sounds (which is not self-evident in that specific hall) it is easy to rate their gig as the most convincing one in FME 2010. Friday was then closed by Amorphis who played a rather standard show, however including some rarities in the set list. Their starting time at 1 am did not make much sense, especially as the start was delayed by over 20 minutes due to technical reasons.

The second day was purely Finnish. I arrived to the venue to see Insomnium and their powerful set. In addition to the auditory delight, the gig was candy for the eyes with the nicely timed lights dressing up the songs with specific moods. The set should have been longer, but it certainly created expectations for Insomnium headlining shows that hopefully are more to come in the future. Survivors Zero followed with their more old school thrash shredded through with high-quality craftsmanship. For Swallow the Sun, the big and gloomy hall is not a perfect place to catch their magical mood, but the band succeeded well in creating a great atmosphere among the audience. Keyboardist Aleksi Munter mentioned later in the evening that the band itself had really good time on stage, something which you don’t explicitly notice from their cool and restricted appearance, but feel inherently in your guts. Following STS, Apocalyptica appeared, as usually, professional and flawless. The band had a guest singer on “I’m not Jesus”, “Life Burns” and “I Don’t Care”, who remained unrecognized for me (someone knows more?) but was probably the best guest that I have seen doing these songs with the band live. They also offered a beautiful glimpse from their upcoming seventh album. Finally, Sonata Arctica, despite the late slot, managed to pack the hall full, and performed a lively set with the standard good humour of SA. For me, the highlight of the set was the beautiful triplet of the recent album: “As if the World Wasn’t Ending”, “the last Amazing Grace” and “Juliet”.

These were good two days in general. Finnish metal is still going strong, and increasingly versatile.

Toni-Matti Karjalainen

http://www.fme.fi/

http://www.insomnium.net/

Another FME report (in Finnish):

http://www.festarit.org/raportit/209

Ghost Brigade atop on the Soundi list

The Finnish major musg mag Soundi listed the best albums of 2009, voted by their 13 critics. In the heavy category, the list was as follows:

1. Ghost Brigade: Isolation Songs
2. Swallow the Sun: New Moon
3. Insomnium: Across the Dark
4. Amorphis: Skyforger
5. Mastodon: Crack the Sky
6. Baroness: Blue Record
7. Immortal: All Shall Fall
8. Sólstafir: Köld
9. Kreator: Hordes of Chaos
10. Napalm Death: Time Waits For No Slave

It's very easy to agree on the top 5...

TMK

www.soundi.fi