Gig Reports
It is quite unsettling when you haven’t seen an artist in decades and instead of the lithe young troubadour of days gone by that you recall, you get a plumpish man in silver trousers, black shirt, white loafers and hat with feather in it.
I guess it kind of reminds you that you yourself may look a little different due to the merciless ravages of passing time. It comes to us all.
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Demolition 23. are back and they are here to show what a true rock ‘n’ roll show is. This unit only released one album in 1994 with a lot of critial acclaim, achieving legendary status that still stays almost 30 years later. Michael Monroe, Sami Yaffa, Nasty Suicide from the original Hanoi Rocks and Karl Rockfist from Monroe’s band in place for Jimmy Clark, played to a massive sold out crowd in the heart of Helsinki, Tavastia club, which has a lot, a lot of history with these Hanoi Rocks legends and of course the band Demolition 23. itself.
Well how was it? Can these living legends still deliver? Yes and then some. They delivered a spectacle, a true rock ‘n’ roll show and maybe the best show I’ve seen all year.
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Finns take Christmas seriously, and therefore celebrate it accordingly. Of course there are the big events like Raskasta Joulua, but there are also some smaller shows like André Linmans gig at the Trefaldighetskyrkan in Vaasa.
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Amorphis has been around for over 30 years by now, so the band probably doesn’t need any further introduction. Their latest album Halo was released in early 2022, and as Finland was mostly skipped for touring that year, we got treated to two tours this year. With quite a few shows sold out, I feel very privileged that I could attend their gig at Pakkahuone in Tampere.
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Poets of the Fall celebrated their 20th anniversary with a tour that we just couldn’t miss, so we made it to the last gig of the tour that took place at Tampere’s Pakkahuone. What a great way to start off December.
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Apocalyptica have recently wrapped up their ‘Matka Mieleen – Kaamoksen Sellot’ church tour, where they play some of their instrumental songs in re-arranged versions.
This tour stops only had 7 stops, with 3 of the gigs being sold out, so unfortunately there will be a lot of people who didn’t make it to any of these gigs, but luckily Apocalytica also just released a Live Record of their show at Helsinki’s St. John’s last year.
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While roaming around the internet and social media, from time to time, you come across a music project that pulls you in with its uniqueness and artistic vision. That happened to me again last when a project called Witch Club Satan came on my radar, a Norwegian black metal trio that is taking the underground genre to new places and even received mentorship and a stamp of approval from no other than black metal legend Necrobutcher from Mayhem. Luckily I came across them just in time to catch them bringing their theatrical performance to the Finnish theater festival Baltic Circle and got to experience this once in a lifetime piece of performance art…
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The anniversary celebration of the iconic album ‘River Runs Red’ brought Life Of Agony together with their soulmates of Prong and the French rockers of Tarah Who? to the viernulvier venue in Ghent, formally known as ‘De Vooruit’. It has been a long time since there were some metal performances in this beautiful concert venue, it looks like that they rediscovered what an ideal place this is for witnessing hyper intense concerts. I saw the same package last year in the Black Lab in Lille (FR) and that was quite intense as well, so wondering how this evening will go.
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A package consisting of some really exciting bands in the realms of black metal, folk metal and pagan themed metal, is something I tend to try not to miss out on. So when All Things Live and Hellsinki Metal Festival were bringing back Batushka on their “Black Pilgrimage tour 2023” with Arkona, Aeternam and Varang Nord, the night at Helsinki’s Vanha Ylioppilastalo was quickly marked in my calendar!
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The always intriguing Finnish band Hexvessel recently released their new album ‘Polar Veil’, which brought the usually quite folky band on a path towards the black metal origins of main man and vocalist Mat “Kvohst” McNerney. The album still brings that magical kind of folky atmosphere, but this time around the soundscapes feel larger than live with the addition of well-placed ice-cold black metal riffs. To celebrate the release, they did a couple of release shows in Finland, and we just had to make the trip to Kuudes Linja in Helsinki to experience their new work live!
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