To get us properly warmed up for Aesthetic Perfection, some familiar faces showed up with Mechanical Vein, having only just discovered them at last year’s Hellsinki Industrial Festival. Somehow the drum n bass music blended with industrial, touches of hip hop and metal, sounded even better than what I heard before of them live, and I really enjoyed their bass heavy electronica. Sadly, by the time the crowd was really getting going, they started getting technical difficulties and had troubles to get the show going again. The dip in the set was somewhat filled up by an attempt to entertain the people in the room, which was moderately successful. Luckily there was one of Elektrik Product‘s resident DJ’s who started to play a track over which Biomechanimal‘s Matt Simpson started shouting, it worked so well that I’m not even sure anymore if he was improvising or not.

When the issue was finally resolved, they continued kicking some serious ass, as if nothing had happened. I have to say that their stage presence and the way they seemed to jell together, was really much better than when I saw them before. When technical issues popped up again near the end of their playtime, they decided to not waste more time on trying to fix it and gave us a little taste of a Mechanical Vein track they did with Zardonic, and it sounded damn good! Despite the problems, it was a really enjoyable set by some talented individuals with heaps of potential with the rather unique sound and approach. I’ll be really interested to see where they’ll take this next!

This is the very last headlining tour of Aesthetic Perfection, and if there isn’t anything that is attractive enough coming up, quite possibly the last we see of this legendary industrial project on a stage for quite some time. Luckily, there was enough interest in Finland to see Daniel Graves, so Elektrik Products was able to get them to drop by Helsinki. And by the time the band came on stage, On The Rocks was nicely stuffed with fans who wanted to get a last glance of them.

The live band, with drummer Joe Letz and guitarist/keyboardist Constance Antoinette, and of course Daniel Graves is quite the little energy bomb on stage. The couple of times I’ve seen Letz behind the drumkit, he always struck me as an absolute maniac and one of the most entertaining drummers I’ve seen, which was very much the same with his crazy antics, a big pink dick shaped drinking bottle and outfitted in some weird cross-dressing. The lovely Constance is also a really great addition to the live show, with an absolutely great energy from start to finish, banging her head, connecting with the crowd, and busting out some nice dance moves.

And then there’s Daniel, who doesn’t shy away from trying to create some controversy, without his signature wide-rimmed hat and classy outfit, but instead with a custom basketball jersey and leather bucket hat. He was of course his charming self as always and brought us an absolutely great selection of songs with some of his recent work from the pandemic period with ‘S E X‘, ‘American Psycho‘, and ‘Save Myself‘, but also popular tracks like ‘Gods & Gold‘, ‘Rhythm + Control‘, ‘The Ones‘, ‘Spit It Out’, and ‘Love Like Lies‘. It really felt like a bit of a “Best Of” Aesthetic Perfection showcase, which is perfect for a very last headlining tour. And the whole crowd loved it from start to finish, dancing relentlessly and singing along at the top of their lungs. I feel this night is one of those that will be remembered by a lot of people for a long time still.