To open the night, we had local one man act Carnal Machinery. With his synth punk and EBM styled music, he was the perfect kick-off to a weekend of gritty beats and hard dancing. I guess to some, it might come across a bit weird that he basically wasn’t playing any of his music live, or had any live band or musicians to support him, but he actually managed to convince quite well. Pacing around with some clear internal tension, and showing some emotion ranging from desperation to anger from time to time, he really sucked us into his musical world quite easily. Very enjoyable act to begin with.

Up next was a pretty well-known name in the Finnish music scene. Jessi Frey, better known as the former frontwoman of the popular alternative metal/rock act Velcra, and lately of her solo work. Some time ago she released a more pop focused album, but the latest work she unleashed upon the world had a lot of industrial and synth tinged tracks, so she was all too great of a fit for this night! With some excellent musicians as her live band, she cranked out some of the killer tracks of her latest release ‘Warrior‘, like the industrial banger ‘Bloodsport‘ (recorded with Turmion Kätilöt‘s MC Rakaa Pee on guest vocals), and got the crowd on the palm of her hand pretty fast. But especially when she treated us with a couple of Velcra hits, she really got us (including me) excited. I’ve never been able to see the disbanded band live, having missed out on their one time reunion show, so this was the closest I could get to seeing Velcra live. I’ve come to love tracks like ‘Can’t Stop Fighting‘ and ‘Big Brother‘ when I was diving deeper into the Finnish music scene, and it was quite the riot to get to experience those live! I caught myself singing along pretty soon, and I clearly was not alone in that! So good!

The headliner of this night was ESA (which stands for Electronic Substance Abuse), another one man project. From behind his table with laptop, sampler and mixing panel, he started cranking out dark electronic tracks that were harsh and extreme, but at the same time incredibly engaging and catchy. But the performance was not just him behind a table, he regularly grabbed his microphone to come closer to us while he was shouting some of the lyrics of his songs, or at some point he took out some drumsticks to add extra “live” beats through an electronic drum panel. All things that brought this dark electronic music party to another level. And added to that, the whole show was backed with some interesting and fitting visuals projected on the wall behind him, really enhancing the vibe. A really cool discovery for me that I’ll be checking out more of at home for sure!