On the 22nd of February I really had to pull myself together to leave to the venue of the Circus in Helsinki. This because it was a very, very windy, rainy and stormy Saturday evening in Finland. Reason to get some courage was the “Verisäkeet Alive”-show of Finnish band Moonsorrow, and one of the possible last times for me to visit the Circus venue since it’s scheduled to close its doors in June of this year. RIP to another concert venue in Helsinki center area.

Loits (****1/2)

Opening band of the evening was Estonian black metal band Loits, also known as the self-proclaimed Militant Flak N Roll band. Before the concert started, I heard some controversy about the band as apparently the band is labeled as a little to the fascist side. Therefor, some of the audience enjoying Moonsorrow, purposely didn’t want to come see the opener of this concert evening. In my opinion they were “wrong”, as despite the rumored background of the band, the guys made really fantastic music!

Unfortunately partly due to before mentioned reasons, the audience wasn’t very big yet when the band started to play their first song Soomepoiss. But definitely some of the visitors we’re very enthusiastic as the first beer shower of the day came together with the first notes the band played. Some die-hard fans in the front were having lots of fun from the very beginning, but for me it was clear that most of the audience came for headlining band Moonsorrow.

For me the band was a surprise as I didn’t know the band beforehand. The band started playing in 1996 and is going strong since then. Singing in Estonian makes it a little hard to understand what the lyrics are about. Also because they sing about topics such as World War II, patriotism, and the pride of the forefathers is always a delicate topic to sing about, as it can be understood in many different ways. But nevertheless the good sound and nice atmosphere was a very nice environment to be surrounded by.

From the third song Aeg ärgata and fourth song Haavad uulitsal onwards, the audience seemed to slowly arrive at the venue. Still the audience in the front was going like crazy for the duration of the whole show.

Moonsorrow (****1/2)

Headlining band Moonsorrow was secretly what everyone has been waiting for the whole evening. This Finnish band started out as a black metal band but evolved into more pagan and folky later onward. The band was established in 1995 by the two Sorvali cousins, Ville and Henri. Due to my lack of Finnish language skills, it’s a pity to not understand the lyrics or the meaning of the lyrics. Clearly, most of all the other audience did, and enjoyed very much this heroic, pagan stories.

The complete venue was pretty much completely full, and in full entertainment. Fists were going up the air from the very front, to the complete back (bar) side of the venue. Atmosphere was a very nice 10/10!

After the second song, all lights went out. Still the band kept playing. ‘Strange’ I thought, as I was sure this was a technical mistake. Until the chorus came up, and light was flashing when I heard the word ‘Pimeä‘ which means dark, and is also the title of the third song the band played. Now things made sense to me and I saw the one light spot coming from behind singer Ville Sorvali so there would fall a big shadow of him on the left side wall.

After the band played the whole album Verisäkeet, the audience was longing for more. Loud applause and screams for quite some time filled the concert hall until the band came back. After another 3 bis-songs (which obviously lasted a long time as only a minimal amount of their songs are less than 5 min long) the show was over.

Overall this was a very nice evening with lots and lots of nice music, good atmosphere, good company, and a perfect escape from the ugly weather that was going on in Finland that day. Fulfilled and satisfied I could go home and enjoy being proud of living in the home country of this fantastic band the concert was about, Moonsorrow.

For more pics, go here.