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/

Finns conquered the Sunset Strip: Sonata Arctica (April 24), and Swallow the Sun, Moonsorrow & Finntroll (April 25) at the House of Blues

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