Lavonardo

Spent two halves of an evening in the Finnish Metal Expo back in February.

On Friday: Missed most of Soen; saw ICS Vortex, Oddland, Swallow the Sun and finally Paradise Lost.

On Saturday: Just Turisas.

ICS Vortex was definitely not what I expected based on the lineup. Far more serene than a long history of Dimmu Borgir-membership would suggest.

Oddland was very progressive, and impossible to get a good idea of in thirty minutes. The songs were seriously on the right edge of the complexity scale, and the vocalist took a long while to get used to.

The two-headed doom metal attack was why I was in Kaapelitehdas, and both bands were new to me.

Swallow the Sun concentrated on material from their newest album, and were pretty much what I assumed: loud, professional and quite static on stage.

Paradise Lost played the best gig of the evening. Their set list covered their career, with one new song from the then-forthcoming album:

The Rise of Denial
Erased
Pity the Sadness
Forever Failure
The Enemy
Enchantment
Honesty in Death
Requiem
One Second
As I Die
Faith Divides Us - Death Unites Us
Say Just Words

Turisas played their worst gig I’ve seen thus far. Shorter than expected and just not that awesome as usual. Hangover from the major victories in the awards ceremony cannot be the cause, since the prizes were dealt out pretty much immediately before. The set list was short indeed, and missing the usual Boney M cover:

The March of the Varangian Guard
Take the Day!
To Holmgard and Beyond
The Dnieper Rapids
One More
The Great Escape
A Portage to the Unknown
Battle Metal
End of an Empire

Didn’t buy very many records, and only one shirt (as far as I recall).

In the series of long overdue cultural adventures from the summer season, the time is ripe for a streetcred-shattering confession: I quite liked some bits of the Bon Jovi concert in June.

The setlist (as stolen from last.fm below) is neatly cloven in two. The old songs were quite decent (some way beyond their inherent nostalgia-value), whereas most of the new entries were either bordering on plain boring or at best devoid of the hooks that Desmond Child & co. wove into the band’s greatest hits.

The evening on the stadium in Helsinki was rainy, but to the credit of the frontman he managed to pull out most of the audience out of the seats during the first two songs, and never let go. Was parked on the pitch, so sitting down was never an option.

Missed warmups completely – the entry ceremony was once again complicated by the less than competent organizers.

The band started twenty minutes early. Which was much appreciated, since standing around in misbehaving crowds would have reached painful levels otherwise.

The stage was even more impressive than that of Rush earlier. The back wall was a huge screen on which scenes from the performance and setpieces were alternated throughout.

Jon Bon Jovi slipped during the gig on the wet stage, but pulled through the performance without a hitch. The sprained knee turned out not to bother too much initially, but necessitated crutches later on.

One more dinosaur seen, plenty to go still.

The set list was as follows:

Raise Your Hands
You Give Love a Bad Name
Born to Be My Baby
We Weren't Born to Follow
In These Arms
Lost Highway
It's My Life
Runaway
We Got It Goin' On
Captain Crash & the Beauty Queen From Mars
Bad Medicine / Roadhouse Blues / Shout
Love's the Only Rule
When We Were Beautiful
Bed of Roses
I'll Be There For You
Who Says You Can't Go Home
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
No Apologies
Have a Nice Day
Keep the Faith
//
Thorn in My Side
Wanted Dead or Alive
Wild Is The Wind
Livin' on a Prayer