In the words of Perttu Kivilaakso “It is great to bring some heavy metal to these cultural places” and I agree with him. It must be great to be able to combine two things you love and be successful doing so.

But let’s start from the beginning. Thursday evening I, like many others, are on my way to Tampere-Talo. By the time I arrive, it’s already crowed. I find my seat, and then I wait for the show to begin. Right on time, at 20:00, the lights dim, ‘The Ecstasy of Gold‘ starts playing, the lights go on and off in the rhythm of the music and continuing to paint the silhouette of Apocalyptica onto the white curtains. Then the curtain drops and the show really starts.

I can’t say anything negative about this show, everything is very much on point. As most classical music halls, Tampere-Talo was build with great acoustic in mind, so it’s not a big surprise that the sound quality was great. But I also have to raise my head to the light tech, who did a fantastic job as well. The lights were visually pleasing, fitting the music and still also photogenic. And that all while still keeping it simplistic.

Now, the setlist obviously was completely filled with Metallica songs. We’re starting off with ‘Ride the Lightning‘ and ‘Enter Sandman‘. On every song they add a little bit of their own personality to it while still also maintaining the original feeling of the song. They honour late Metallica member Cliff Burton with their rendition of ‘The Call of Ktulu‘.
My personal favourite was ‘Nothing Else Matters‘ to which I think they made some subtle chances. For the encore ‘Seek & Destroy‘ they try to get the crowd to sing the lyrics, which works out not quite that well, as I guess a lot of the people there, just like me, don’t know the lyrics that well by heart. The big finish is delivered in the form of ‘One‘, the only song of the evening that also has vocals, a recording of James Hetfield reciting the lyrics.

One thing though that I especially enjoyed was seeing how much fun these guys even after this many years have on stage. They were so full of energy, kept spinning their hair and running around with their cellos (which I imagine being rather exhausting). They also have a lot of fun joking around. Around halfway through the show Perttu says “I know you have this little rivalry with Turku where we played yesterday. So do you wanna show us that you are the better crowd?” Well, of course we do. A little later, he continues: “We have toured a lot in our home country and know it well, so we at least know that Tampere has the best sausages.” But they certainly saved the best joke for last. Do you know how a band usually at the end of their gig tell you to help them out by buying their merch? Well, so did Apocalyptica, just in a bit different way than most bands I’ve seen: “I strongly suggest you guys go past the merch stand on your way out and by some new shirts, because it really stinks in here.”

At the end, they thanked us for giving them a great time, which I appropriate, but also wanna say thank you back to them for giving us a pretty perfect evening.