Machinae Supremacy has always been a bit of a special band to a lot of people. The Swedish power metal band has an extremely dedicated group of fans, seemingly especially within the world of the geeks. This probably following their successful incorporation of game music and tunes into their power metal songs. When they were doing a few shows in Finland in support of their latest album “Into The Night World”, with last stop at Nosturi in Helsinki, it felt like an opportunity we couldn’t miss out on. As support they brought the young guys of Blind Channel and their “violent pop revolution” (and a ton of screaming girls in love with them) and the hyperactive, fun-loving metalcore outfit One Morning Left.
First up was the Finnish metalcore band One Morning Left (***1/2). In their homecountry they’re quite popular and with right and reason. As soon as the guys ran on stage and played their first notes, they blew us over with some of the coolest and harshest metalcore I’ve heard since long. At first it was so loud, that seemed a bit too much to me, it could have used some more finesse maybe? But it overall grew on me and I started to really really enjoy the show they were bringing. They have an impressive beast of a vocalist with bald-headed and all-over tattooed Mika Lahti who is all over the stage and has a crazy amount of energy and aggression. And drummer Niko Hyttinen and guitarist/vocalist Leevi Luoto are simply hilarious with their poses, moves and facial expressions.
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At a certain point they also brought 3 pretty girls on stage to dance on their music in the background or during the next song take out water guns to attack the crowd with it. Definitely a band you should check out if you’re into metalcore with a bit of a twist! One disappointment though: where were the live flutes, dudes?
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Setlist
Bd_l3ftowers!
Hey Yo, Let’s Play Tycoon
!liaF cipE
Kings and Queens
Heavy Metal Finland
Reetu Inda House
You’re Dead! Let’s Disco!
Star of Africa
It was the second time now that I got to see Blind Channel (****), now and it’s clear that they’ve developed further into a well-oiled live machine. They told us in the interview we had to have jokingly welcomed the fact that some people say that they’re a “boy band” by now performing with every single one of them dressed completely in white. It’s definitely something that’ll stick to your mind if the music doesn’t. But I’m pretty sure that it stuck to the people present at this show…
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Their modern/suburban pop infused metal got quite a chunk of the crowd moving and nodding their heads in approval. The violent pop revolution brought us a highly energetic show with all of them jumping and running around like crazy, raps and electronic tunes to party up the place and at a certain point they had a flag with the Blind Channel logo on it to wave around with on stage. And of course besides the crazy popular Bullet and Deja FU, the Macklemore cover and Ed Sheeran cover couldn’t be left out of the setlist. A really great show by a band that’ll become pretty huge in the nearby future I suspect.
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Setlist
Enemy for Me
My Revolution
Bullet (With Your Name on It)
Deja FU
Can’t Hold Us (Macklemore cover)
Don’t (Ed Sheeran cover)
Unforgiving
Alone Against All
Darker Than Black
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And then the moment came for which the geeks of this country had gotten out of their homes to unite and go bonkers to the music of their beloved Machinae Supremacy (***). The crowd was already all hyped up before the band even got on stage and when they did arrive, the energy and vibe just went through the roof. These Swedish guys bring a mix of power and modern heavy metal, all infused by so called “chiptunes” or 8-bit music. And it’s because of that addition of old school gaming music and sounds that they have a huge “geeky” following. The amount of shirts about games or something like that present at the gig were almost equal to the amount of Machinae Supremacy band shirts…
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The guys themselves were clearly in their element on stage and brought their catchy music interlaced with quite powerful vocals from “Gaz” (albeit sometimes a bit shaky in the beginning) and blistering guitar solos brought by the guitar duo “Gibli” and Tomi with loads of energy. A nice touch that even more confirmed the “geeky” status of the band and their fans, were the “Konoha” gloves (of the anime/manga Naruto, FYI) that I spotted “Gaz” wearing. And for Helsinki they had a little treat: they managed to bring along the guest vocalist Ingeborg Ekeland, who came to sing her lines on some of the songs while ferociously banging her impressive head of curly hair.
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As good as every single person in the crowd was able to sing along to almost every single line of every single song, which to me showed the true dedication of their crowd. And despite the music not completely being my thing, I really felt empowered by their honest, humble and appreciative attitude towards their fans throughout the show. And that’s just what they are: a band by geeks, for geeks, empowering and feeding off each other. Simply a great positivism surrounds the whole outfit.
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Setlist
My Dragons Will Decimate
Into the Night World
Player One
Force Feedback
Laser Speed Force
Republic of Gamers
Truth of Tomorrow
Indiscriminate Murder Is Counter-Productive
Renegades
Nova Prospekt
Twe27ySeven
Rise of a Digital Nation
Encore
Rocket Dragon
Dark City
Through the Looking Glass
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