Concert Reviews - Amberian Dawn

It has been quite some time since I've been to a show. That's kind of a shame, but I'll be back into it soon enough!

Just a week or two after I arrived in Finland I heard of a band called Amberian Dawn, sort of an operatic gothic metal band from the general Helsinki/Espoo area. I downloaded the CD, gave it a listen, and thought it wasn't bad.

So in trying to find something to do the other night, one of my friends suggested we go to a place called Gloria, where Amberian Dawn and a couple others were playing. I was most pleased with this idea, so we gathered a plethora of friends and headed there.

To get right into it, AdaMantra opened up and they were interesting. They had sort of a Dream Theater/Stratovarius thing going on but the mixing was rather poor, as Marc put it. Generally speaking the music was okay and the singer had a decent wail but in the end I would just give it a mediocre. It was nice and I had no problem listening to it, but it didn't particularly jump out at me. However, as the show continued it seemed to improve and you could tell by watching the crowd that they had a slow start into it but by the end the crowd was really cheering, so they were quite well received.

Soulcage was... umm... well, not really my thing. The music was okay but the singer really bugged me and I was distracted by this the entire show. He looked like some sort of diva, dancing like Annette Olzon from Nightwish, spinning his mic around really fruitily, and really just sort of looked like he was probably a huge douchebag. His vocals were fine but the style was not great. I really just found that the entire thing sounded very mainstream/generic and sort of American, which is the last thing I want from a Finnish band.

Lastly was Amberian Dawn. What to say about that? The music was great. It had a nice feel, it sounded good, there was lots of diversity and power with the two guitars and keyboard... all around pretty solid. Heidi Parviainen is a fantastically beautiful woman with an astounding voice. She has a very opratic sound, very classical, and she is a delight to watch on stage. She looks very beautiful and feminine but without looking like a diva. She looks metal.

So why am I not giving this band a better review? For the same reason I didn't give the CD a better review. All the songs sound the exact same. It's beautiful, it's elegant, it's metal, and it's boring. The stage show was great, the performance was great, the sound was great, but if you've heard one song, you've heard them all.

It was definitely a good time and worth the 10 eu I paid to get in but I wouldn't feel the need to see them again necessarily unless they open up a bit more with their next album and show some more diversity.

Year: May 2009
Opening bands: AdaMantra & Soulcage
Who I went with: Marc Taylor, Jessica Grotensohn, Ines Klammer, Garance Bascle, Antti Pasonen
Location: Helsinki - Gloria