Finland Fest 2010 "Metal Attack" in Tokyo: report online [in Finnish]

Finland Fest 2010 "Metal Attack" was held in Tokyo on May 29th. Bands on the bill included Before the Dawn, Turisas, Tarot, and Poisonblack. Report [in Finnish] by Siru Valleala & jani Kesänen is online at the Imperiumi site:
http://www.imperiumi.net/index.php?act=interviews&id=1287

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

HIM Screamworks tour in UK

By Toni-Matti Karjalainen

BogFires took the chance of checking HIM performing in one of the band’s strongest markets, celebrating their recent “Screamworks…” album. We attended the gigs in Manchester Academy 1 and Newcastle O2 Academy, both venues with a capacity of some 2.000 guests. Manchester was sold out, and Newcastle didn’t have many free places either.

HIM is apparently experiencing a peek in its public recognition in UK. In addition to a recent cover story in Metal Hammer magazine, Kerrang! and Big Cheese covers were both also decorated by Ville Valo’s face. When I arrived in Manchester, I spotted the first Heartagram T-Shirts and beanies right outside the Piccadilly train station, and by the considerable number of HIM fans wandering in the city center it was not difficult to tell which band was playing there in the evening. In Newcastle we noticed that the first fans were lining up outside the venue already by noon, almost 10 hours before the gig would start. And the pirate T-shirt sellers outside the venue, appearing after the Manchester show, are always some kind of a sign of larger reputation.

In the gigs, the band also received a warm welcome. Hardly ever have we witnessed as loud audience. The band enjoyed the attention and played tightly with a seemingly good mood. The atmosphere rose perhaps a bit higher in Newcastle, possibly due to the slightly nicer venue with a more theatre-like construction and consequently enhanced feeling of closeness. There it was, however, more challenging to master sounds that were somewhat better in Manchester. Concerning the visual output, the gig was rather restricted, as usually in the HIM case, but beautiful and well-thought lights nicely changed the moods according to the needs of different songs. Ville’s talks between the songs also reflected the good spirit, even though most of them remain pretty much unclear at least to the balconies.

The gender division among the audience seemed to be quite even in the UK, and various age groups were also presented. Newcastle might have had a larger attendance of younger fans. In general, the newer songs were slightly better welcomed than the old ones, but the old classics also received quite a celebrative response. As the personal opinion, Buried Alive by Love was the tightest moment in both sets. Setlist as such comprised no surprises, as they were identical in both gigs and with most other evenings of the tour. Perhaps well so, as the set seems to be very consistent and offers a good overview of the HIM catalogue.

The L.A. mood rockers Dommin is supporting HIM in this leg. They offered a nice show with hooky songs, grand sounds and good vocal performance. There are a lots of bands that this group is compared to, and personally I felt a few moments with distant references to ones such as The Cult, The 69 Eyes, even Danzig, and yes… Elvis.

Warm thanks to HIM management for including us in the guest lists.

TMK

HIM setlist (both gigs):

Like St. Valentine

Right Here In My Arms

Rip Out The Wings Of A Butterfly

Heartkiller

Join Me In Death

The Kiss Of Dawn

Katherine Wheel

Poison Girl

Buried Alive By Love

Disarm Me (With Your Loneliness)

Your Sweet 666

Wicked Game

When Love And Death Embrace

Encore:

The Sacrament

Scared To Death

The Funeral Of Hearts

Ghost Brigade & HIM @ Helldone, Dec 29 2009

The Helldone festival, grown around the traditional new year's gigs of HIM, is again being arranged in the Tavastia & Semifinal clubs in Helsinki. This year, the set up includes HIM playing four consequent nights with varying supporters + an acoustic warm up by The 69 Eyes at the Semifinal club.

On the second night of the fest, the honour of the opening band was given to Ghost Brigade that has recently received lots of attention and high appraisal in the Finnish music press. Even though the Helldone audience was not the most optimal for GB tunes, the band played an energetic show. It was nice to see that it is possible to transmit the gorgeous atmosphere of their recent "Isolation Songs" masterpiece into the live context. There appeared some scrabbling and stuffy sounds in the two opening pieces, but as soon as "Into the Black light" got in motion, intensity was ensured. As admitted by the band's guitarist Wille Naukkarinen the day after, the band indeed experienced some start-up difficulties due to the preceding gig break.



HIM was also experiencing some technical problems, as Ville needed to constantly remind the technical staff about sound problems and even to got one of the Kaasu's plates change in the middle of the set. In overall, the set was a routine performance, even a slightly listless one, but the audience loved it.



TMK

http://www.myspace.com/helldone

HIM setlist:

Buried Alive By Love
Heartkiller
Right Here In My Arms
Rip Out The Wings Of A Butterfly
Bleed Well
Join Me In Death
Soul On Fire
Love, The Hardest Way
Killing Loneliness
Wicked Game
And Love Said No
The Funeral Of Hearts
Your Sweet 666
Scared To Death
Poison Girl
The Sacrament
Bury Me Deep Inside Your Heart
Pretending
Encore:
When Love And Death Embrace

Sonata Arctica @ Trädgårn, Dec 14 2009

After the Fall US tour, Sonata Arctica has intensively toured in Europe. The caravan also reached Gothenburg on December 14, and BogFires was present in the Trädgårn hall, a good venue with a capacity of 1,700 people. The house was not full, but probably more than 1,000 people witnessed the band that played flawlessly and with high energy. It is nice to see how much liked the band is also among our western neighbours, although seemingly many Finns also appeared in the audience. Sonata shows are usually events with jovial atmosphere, this time Tony Kakko and others were in an even more cheerful mood that usually, regardless of heavy touring. Tony spent a considerable time between the songs chatting with audience.

The set list consisted of both slow and swift Sonata songs, generating a very impressive dramatic lifeline for the show. The visual aspects of the show were beautiful and powerful at the same time. The lights created various different ambiances onstage and cleverly accentuated the details of the wildlife motif on Sonata's trademark background sheet “As if the World Wasn’t Ending” and “Don’t Say A Word” may have been the atmospheric highlights of the evening, as was the duet of Tony’s and Charlotte Wessels of Delain in the “Last Drop Falls”. Delain itself played before Sonata but did not made a big impression, largely due to the bland song material of the band. The opening band “Winterborn”, a fairly new Finnish group playing slightly progressive power metal, was in turn a positive surprise and very much fun to watch.

I didn’t write down the set list of Sonata, but remember it being the same as in the two preceding shows in Amsterdam and Oslo:

Everything Fades To Gray Intro
Flag In The Ground
Paid In Full
Caleb
The Last Amazing Grays
As If The World Wasn't Ending
Full Moon
Last Drop Falls (with Charlotte Wessels from Delain)
Juliet
Keyboard / Guitar Solos
Replica
8th Commandment
Encore:
We Will Rock You (Queen cover)
In Black And White
Don't Say A Word
Vodka / Everything Fades To Gray Outro

TMK

Nightwish Dark Passion Play tour grande finale in Helsinki 19.9.2009

The Dark Passion Play World Tour of Nightwish kicked-off in October 2007 and comprised 194 shows in 39 different countries. On September 19th, it was time to conclude the long journey at the sold out Hartwall Arena in Helsinki. The special atmosphere of the final show, preceding a two years tour break and anticipation of the new album, was tangible both backstage and among the audience. The show had drawn fans from various countries to Finland. Perhaps the most visible group appeared at the corner of the stage on the lower part of the auditorium, tirelessly cheering and waving their Italian, Spanish and French flags. The crowd further back appeared slightly passive in the first part of the set, but warmed up significantly towards the end of the show. Spectator waves revolving around the Arena, easily ignited by Marco Hietala, and the impressive light sea during the “Islander” and “Walking in the Air” were the atmospheric highlights of the evening.

The band played another great gig with flawless and powerful expertise. In specific, the sovereign appearance of Marco Hietala was striking. In this special night, the Finnish violin virtuoso Pekka Kuusisto guest appeared on the stage during the “While Your Lips Are Still Red” and surely added an extra dimension to the beautiful song. Troy Donockley joined the band playing pipe and bagpipe in several songs, as in some of their earlier shows. Special was also the appearance of “Meadows of Heaven” in the set list, reportedly for the first time ever. Perhaps this piece was intentionally saved for this specific occasion, but surely would that song have been warmly welcomed by the audiences in earlier shows as well. Visually, the show was expectedly grand and included the familiar DPP stage design with the massive anchor and the wooden boat of Tuomas Holopainen. Additional fireworks and pyrotechnics highlighted the special nature of the evening. In overall, this was really a high profile ending for the most successful period in the band’s history.

Apocalyptica featured as the opener and filled their spot with high reliability, intense playing and powerful sounds – no need to constant apologizing, which seemed to be their main theme in their interim comments. Antti “Hyrde” Hyyrynen from Stam1na was this time manning the vocal parts of “I’m Not Jesus” and “I Don’t Care”.

Once again, BogFires want to thank the Nightwish staff, especially Adam, for their hospitality.

Nightwish setlist:

Finlandia (with Troy Donockley) (Intro)
7 Days to the Wolves
Ever Dream
Wishmaster
Romanticide
Amaranth
The Siren (with Pekka Kuusisto on violin)
While Your Lips Are Still Red (with Pekka Kuusisto on violin)
The Poet and The Pendulum
Nemo
Sahara
Dark Chest of Wonders
The Islander (with Troy Donockley)
Walking in the Air (Acoustic with Troy Donockley)
Last of The Wilds (w/ Troy Donockley)
Meadows of Heaven
Encore:
Ghost Love Score
Wish I Had An Angel
The Heart Asks Pleasure First (Outro)

Nightwish North American tour Part IV

New York, NY, May 2nd

Allentown, PA, May 3rd

Bogfires had an opportunity to see two shows of the fourth and last North American tour before Nghtwish will be heading back to the studio to record a new album. Dark Passion Play (DPP) world tour is scheduled to end in September when the band plays the last show of the tour in Helsinki Finland, at the same arena where they dramatically ended their Once world tour in 2005. Nightwish and Volbeat sold out the Nokia theatre in Times Square, New York, NY, on May 2nd. The bands provided the audience of over 2000 people an awesome show, with a special guest, Troy Donockley, who played the uillean pipes during the intro (Finlandia by Sibelius), the Islander and Last of The Wilds. Donocley played also on the DPP album and was originally introduced to the band by their producer. Bogfires had a chance to briefly discuss with Donocley about his collaboraton with Nightwish after the shows in New York and Allentown and he seemed very satisfied. He has become good friends with the band and especially with Tuomas Holopainen, so there is every reason to believe that the collaboration will continue on the next album as well. The setlist all together was similar than what they played on the last European tour a few months back. The venue at Allentown was also packed as hundreds of dedicated Nightwish fans had arrived to see the show at the Crocodile Rock Cafe. They did not have to leave disappointed because once again the band pulled off a great show and spent a long time outside the tour bus after the show with their fans. Special thanks to Nightwish management once again.

LL

Another report on the NYC gig here:
http://www.metalfromfinland.com/news/2009-05-07_09:03/NIGHTWISH:+When+Pigs+Fly,+Swine+Flu

Setlists:

Intro (Finlandia)

7 Days Of The Wolves

Dead To The World

The Siren

Amaranth

Higher Than Hope (NYC)

/Dead Boy’s Poem (Allentown)

Poet And The Pendulum

The Islander

Last Of The Wilds

The Escapist

Dark Chest Of Wonder

Wish I Had An Angel

Children of Bodom in Vancouver, Wednesday April 8th

Bogfires visited Vancouver to check out the No Fear Energy Music tour featuring Lamb of God, As I Lay Dying, Children of Bodom, God Forbid and Muncipal Waste. UBC Thunderbird Arena was nearly sold out and over 5 000 metalheads had arrived to the venue located at the beautiful campus of University of British Columbia. Children of Bodom played a solid show as usual, even though the setlist featured one less song than the previous shows on this tour, due to As I Lay Dying joining the tour in Vancouver. 

Alexi Laiho from Children of Bodom celebrated his 30th birthday that night and one of the highlights of the evening was having Randy Blythe form Lamb of God show up on stage just before Children of Bodom were getting ready to play their last song. Randy congratulated Alexi and had everyone in the audience sing happy birthday to him.  Special thanks to Children of Bodom Hate Crew!

Children of Bodom Vancouver setlist:

Silent night bodom night

Hate me!

Hellhounds on my trail

Living dead beat

Angels don't kill

In your face

Blooddrunk

Downfall

Hanoi Rocks farewell at Tavastia, Thursday April 9th

BogFires checked the gig number four in the sold out series of Hanoi Rock’s eight farewell shows at the Tavastia club in Helsinki. The two hours midnight concert presented a charismatic band in a good form with solid playing and sounds, supported with impressive stage design dominated by the classy spotlight installation at the back wall. The song list was compiled quite evenly from the two Hanoi Rocks eras, the “original” (1979-1985) and the “rebirth” (2001-2009), the main focus being however on the latter.

Why stopping now, when the band’s success is at its peak since the rebirth and constantly increasing, has been the key question in recent interviews. In Iltalehti Plus magazine (28.3.2009), the main man and guitarist Andy McCoy comments that finishing at the top is what the band wants. According to him, they do not want to become a jukebox playing “re-union” gigs. Morever, Andy and Michael Monroe, the singer and accompanying main force behind the band, are reportedly lacking the needed creativity to write new Hanoi Rocks songs. “Now, when it doesn’t have a new spark in it anymore, it’s better to leave Hanoi the best kept rock ‘n’ roll secret of the world. The band must be finished with dignity”, comments Michael.

The magazine also reminds Hanoi Rocks being the first Finnish band in the 1980’s that focused on international markets from the beginning. The band’s 30 years career is also wrapped-up in a brand new (Finnish) book “All Those Wasted Years” (LIKE, written by Ari Väntänen) which presumably provides an amusing reading experience and an important historic review of these pioneers of Finnish rock export.

TMK

http://www.tavastiaklubi.fi/
http://www.hanoirocks.info/
http://www.iltalehti.fi/

New Nightwish video interviews online

The Finnish Karjalainen magazine has uploaded interviews of Nightwish before their current tour + interviews of fans and various video reports (on stage and backstage) from their current European tour, accompanied by journalist Hannu Jarva:
http://www.karjalainen.fi/Karjalainen/viihde/rokitvideot.html

Videos and English synopsis of Anette's interviews can also be found from Blabbermouth.net:
http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=116395

Nightwish @ Brussels & Rotterdam

BogFires had the honour and pleasure to appear as guests in two Nightwish gigs in their recently started European tour with Pain and Indica: Forest National in Brussels (14/3) and A’hoy in Rotterdam (15/3).

The shows were the second and third on this leg after the sold out kick-off for over 4000 people in London (Carling Academy Brixton, 11/3). The size of the audience was reportedly around 5000 in Brussels and over 6000 in Rotterdam and comprised, as generally in the case of Nightwish, a mixture of young and old, women and men, metal heads and other Nightwish fans. Our small sample of interviews and general observations (as well as various YouTube comments) suggested that many of them regarded the concert as a great experience. Brussels crowd seemed to include many Finnish visitors, and a couple of white n’ blue flags were also spotted in the audience.

The audience was surprisingly loud, especially in Brussels where we watched the show mainly from the arena floor. Indica and Pain both already got people active, and Nightwish really exploded the place. The venue with the downward floor and wide profile is excellent for this purpose – despite the large size, the arena incorporates a certain feeling of closeness. A’hoy in Rotterdam is more of a normal kind of a sport arena, but also a pretty good one for concerts like this. AC/DC played there two days before Nightwish and the venue can be checked e.g. from various concert recordings like “Live & Off the Record” By Shakira and the DVD concert in “The Katie Melua Collection” set.

Finnish Indica filled well their opening slot, and the girls were seemingly enjoying their time on the stage. Their happy mood was transmitted to the audience as well, and the band probably got a number of new friends in both countries. The sets ended with Kate Bush cover “Wuthering heights”, an apparently risky choice, but which was carried out beautifully by the band.

Swedish Pain then took the sound and visuals to the next level, using basically the same stage setting as in their recent European headline tour. Despite small technical problems in Brussels, the set was intense, ending with the catchy “Shut your mouth”.

Nightwish performed a determinate, good sounding and fancy looking set on both days. The visual appearance of the show was particularly staggering with beautiful lights, grand and precise pyros, sneaking smoke, and other eye candy. The new sea theme with the majestic anchor and the wooden boat around the keyboards of Tuomas worked as a perfect background for the story line of the set. In particular, the transition from the intro with the secretively blue-lighted cross to the blasting “7 days to the wolves” was something one can only comment with great admiration.

Two days after the Rotterdam show, we spotted a short gig review in the Rotterdams Dagblad newspaper. Quite contrary to our experience, the reviewer gave 3/5 stars for the show and seemed to complain about the empty chairs at the venue and problems with sound quality. It is also quite strange that in such a short story, more space was used for the (seemingly eternal) comparisons between Tarja and Anette, and between (yes, in Holland, of course) Nightwish and Within Temptation than for actual concert reflections.

During the trip, we also checked the local rock magazines. Nightwish appeared in the cover of Belgian/Dutch Rock Tribune with a 4 pages long article. The French edition of RockHard also included a 4 pages long interview of Tuomas.

In addition to amazing concert experience, it was also interesting to follow how smoothly the organization of such a big enterprise functions behind the coulisse before, during, and after the gig. It really comes out that this caravan has toured the globe for a long period of time. Everything was managed with high professionalism, and the atmosphere backstage was remarkably friendly and relaxed.

BogFires really look forward to the next chance to see Nightwish live, which is not a very long away. We would like to express our warm thanks to Tuomas, Ewo, Toni, Adam, Peter, and the rest of Nightwish, Pain and Indica members and crew for their hospitality and such a nice time in Brussels and Rotterdam.

TMK & LL







Nightwish setlist (both days)
1. Intro
2. 7 days to the wolves
3. Dead to the world
4. The siren
5. Amaranth
6. Romanticide
7. Dead boy’s poem / walking n the air
8. The poet and the pendulum
9. Sahara
10. Nemo (Nemo played before Sahara in Rotterdam)
11. The islander
12. Escapist
13. Dark chest of wonders
Encores:
14. Ghost love score
15. Wish I had an angel

Scroll down to the bottom of the page to find gig videos in YouTube.

HIM & Helldone @ Tavastia 29.-31.12.2008

Such a nice experience! My first time in traditional HIM party which was organised now for 9th year in row. HIM played superbly, Ville is charismatic as always, the set list inclusive, and Tavastia a perfect place for this band. And of course the international audience and devoted fans make the atmosphere extraordinary. A nice video in YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8423ItgVmk

Ville's interview in Helldone:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1186621/ville_valo_intervieuw_helldone_2008/

About the other bands... Godsplague and Diablo on Monday really nailed it down, and Stam1na was superb, convincing, hilarious and everything, as always. And lots of musicians hanging around there in the club... Tuesday with Sara, Negative and the 69 Eyes was calmer and lamer but basically ok. On Wednesday, I missed 45 Degree Womean, but luckily experienced the peculiarly entertaining KYPCK.