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Three days of metallic delight in the heart of Finland. Should be a mosh-tastic time! Our frozen poser of funky rocking went on the site to investigate and report. Thursday 7.6. The festivities were kicked off by one of the heartiest folk metal-collectives in Finland, Korpiklaani, who mixed up their metal and humppa in skilled ways that were impossible to resist. A merry jig was required material when listening to their ultimate form of dance music. The players clearly enjoyed themselves on stage as the summer sun scorched the field with plentiful light. The guitars blended in well with the accordion and electric violin, and no one from the better side of puritans was left cold. The couple of slices that they played off the new Tervaskanto-album were very convincing in their grandiose celebratory feeling. Add to this the fact that the band has a mighty hit like Happy Little Boozer to throw in as the final song, and I can only urge anyone to go and see Korpiklaani live. Pain Confessor was in tight and fine form on the heels of their new record, Purgatory Of The Second Sun. My countrymen kept it tight, brutal and heavy, although lightened it up appropriately in the between-song-banter. The new material was great live and favourites from their debut album like Fiery Thorns and Lake Of Regret sealed the moshing deal. The cream of the seriously rising crop of Finnish metal is well represented
by Stam1na. Technical, brutal yet hook-filled material combined
with an insanely energetic and mobile live show make for a deserved success.
The band’s “Lehmipojat Lemiltä”-backdrop sheet (Cowboys
From Lemi) with pictures above the text of the four band members twisting horghable
faces was a marvellous tribute to arguably the greatest band ever to come out of
Texas. Guitarist/vocalist Hyrde Hyyrynen is seriously starting to grow on a
Lemmy/Hetfield-type handlebar’tache. What is the meaning of this? I missed Megadeth at this very same festival two years ago
because I was serving my national duty in the armed forces. I finally got a
chance to repair this bummer, and it was definitely a good time for it. Dave
Mustaine had said in an interview earlier in the day that today’s show
would put their performance two years back in shame and I would have to seriously
believe that. Dave’s voice has worn off the sharpest edges of rage, but the sarcastic
assholishness of his singing is still powerfully intact as the man spews forth
his propaganda on war and politics. Add to all this that ‘Deth
is touring in support of their strongest album in a decade, maybe even 15 years,
and you had a hell of a show. Songs were evenly picked from all points of the
band’s history. OK, I think Risk and The World Needs A Hero
were omitted, but I didn’t really mind.
Kotipelto – in broader terms Strato -front man Timo Kotipelto along with a band of some of the most killer virtuosos our country can offer, including bassmaster Lauri Porra and keyboard-Bodomite Janne Wirman – gave a 101-type lesson in quality basic metal with rich melodies and a fist-pumping feeling all around. Timo’s voice was in top form and the light rain that began to drip at the end of their set didn’t slow the band or the enthusiastic audience one bit. The new album, Serenity, was the biggest building block of the setlist, with the fast rocker Once Upon A Time really getting my blood flowing strong. Must shamelessly again mention Mr. Porra, who is an absolute beast on bass! Like I mentioned, at this point there was light rain, which very soon turned
into a torrential downpour. What caused this moment of moisture during the otherwise
very hot and sunny weekend? I make a bold guess that the next artist, Dimmu
Borgir, had something supernatural to do with it. The rain was quite
possibly the result for Jesus crying. Whether it was because of the band’s
ideology or music, no one can tell. I mainly checked on Poisonblack to catch some nifty photos for the festival collection. The band did as little for me on stage as they do on record. The model case of mediocrity, both in style of music and performance. The next act gave me at least a hope of more entertainment-value in their set. Type O Negative hit the stage with minor problems on Peter
Steele’s end of the game as his bass was malfunctioning and he had to
change it. After slight hiccups the band began to gel nicely and Profit
Of Doom from the new record was blasted with fierce grandeur. Many people
ragged on Steele’s shoddy playing style and happy-go-lucky phrasing while
singing, but that’s how I’ve always seen him perform - on DVDs as
well. The band showed great spirit in pulling a couple of hardcore fans equipped
with giant Type O-flags on the stage to wave their stuff during
the entire show.
Saturday was also delayed because of hunger-related issues, and unfortunately
this caused me to miss Leverage’s gig. As I arrived,
the gig of the most recent winner of the Finnish edition of the Idol-format,
Ari Koivunen & band, had just started. Those of you frequenting Blabbermouth
have probably seen some videos of the guy performing in the TV-show. Yes, he
did indeed win by singing mostly melodic metal, like Iron Maiden
and Sonata Arctica, with an occasional Billy Joel thrown in.
Sonata Arctica conquered the main stage on the rise of their new, very peculiar Unia-album. I personally like the quirky album more than any of their other works after Silence. Of course we heard and moshed heartily to Black Sheep and Full Moon, but new tunes like For The Sake Of Revenge and It Won’t Fade worked well too, despite their shady nature. Tony Kakko’s pronunciation still makes me horgh at regular intervals, but his notes were dead on. Elias Viljanen, who is filling in on guitar for the temporarily absent Jani Liimatainen, sweep picked like crazy and handled the string duties very well. On the second stage, the mood was brought very down, intentionally so, as Swallow
The Sun took the moment to spread their very infectious brand of doom
metal to the masses. I’ll be honest, I’m not a big fan of doom,
but STS spices it up with just enough speed to keep the whole
thing from turning terribly boring and repetitive. Feel free to call it Heaven & Hell for promotional purposes
if you wish. To me, the entity formed by Ronnie James Dio, Tony Iommi, Geezer
Butler and Vinny Appice is just as much Black Sabbath as the
original quartet with Osbourne and Ward. Names didn’t affect the fact
that once Iommi hit the first power chord on his SG, I was floored – rammed
next to the security wall in front of the photo pit from sheer power of volume
and aura. The man clearly enjoyed the show, as he was all smiles for most of
the crushingly heavy set. I don’t care for statistics on how many years
Dio has on his meter, he rocked! His voice was in magnificent form and his presence
was matched by his energetic prowling and horn-pointing around the big stage.
Overall, as the three-day jaunt ended on a definite high note, the Sauna Open Air Metal Festival ´07 was a very enjoyable experience. The Eteläpuisto (shortly translated to South Park, harhar) is a very good place to hold a festival of this size, which takes about a maximum of 10.000 visitors per day. Located right in the centre of Tampere, it is very easy to get to and many hotels are located within a walking distance. The grounds housed a fair amount of merchandise booths and an adequate selection of different types of food stands. I would have liked a few more baja toilets to prevent the lines that were formed at peak hours, and an area with thousands of metalheads could have definitely used more then one spot that had faucets for drinkable water, but otherwise the organisation worked beautifully. The level of performers has risen each year since the festival’s first year in 2004 and it is definitely beginning to match the Tuska Open Air Metal Festival by these standards. Held annually around the 8th of June in Tampere, depending on the specific dates, I recommend the festival to all comers inside and outside of Finland, especially those of the metal persuasion. |
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