Concert Reviews - Lacuna Coil

I've been waiting for this show for a very long time. I originally planned to go to Ontario to see it someday with my friend Chris, but since then I moved to Finland and he didn't want to come all the way here for one show (shocking).

Cristina Scabbia

Marc, however, was awesome enough to come with me. We were having a lazy night so we skipped the opening bands, got lost trying to find Nosturi and walked somewhere between 2-3 km out of our way (total) and ended up on the docks with no accessible easy way, so we had to go back. We still arrived with a good 15-20 minutes before LC went onstage, fortunately.

The show was really excellent. One of the first things we noticed was that the bassist was missing. In the end they mentioned that he had messed up his shoulder, which was a bit odd, considering that Andrea Ferro also had some stuff going on with his shoulder from an incident in Oslo, apparently. He had his arm in a LC scarf for a sling and seemed quite oblivious to it and didn't let it hold him back.

Andrea Ferro

However, as a result of the bassist being gone, they had to have a track play and therefore, the musicians weren't really able to let loose and have as much fun as I think they could have. So the show was a lot more focused on the vocals, which was okei because both Cristina and Andrea did quite well. I liked the fact that they didn't try to sound exactly like the do on the albums and had a bit of fun with it. They had a lot of stage charisma too, talking to the crowd, introducing the songs, that sort of thing.

I have to say one thing about Cristina Scabbia on stage. There are different ways a girl can act as a singer and sometimes it just doesn't work for a metal band. If you compare Nightwish's singers - Tarja Turunen was always rather still, raising her arms and looking sort of epic. Anette, contrastingly, dances around and looks sort of popstarish. Cristina is the happy medium between these two. She doesn't look like a popstar at all but she still moves around and has fun and rocks out a bit on stage. She was fun to watch and didn't annoy me in the slightest by the way she was acting.

The set was excellent too. I heard pretty much everything I was dying to hear, from as far back as they have good songs (Unleashed Memories). They had quite a long setlist, considering they only played for about an hour and a half. They had a change in the middle where Cristina came out in a lovely dress to sing my favorite of their slow songs - Wide Awake (you may remember as a song of the day from around when I moved here, and my general life anthem for a while). Then she changed again and they brought it back to life for the rest of the show, with four more songs and then three encores.

Cristina Scabbia - Wide Awake

Another fun moment was the "karaoke contest", where they stated that every night they play Depeche Mode's Enjoy the Silence and see which city sings the loudest. I think Marc won "loudest city" all on his own, heh.

Set List:
I'll Survive
Underdog
Closer
I'm Not Afraid
Fragments
Tight Rope
Senzafine
I Won't Tell You
Heaven's A Lie
Fragile
Wide Awake
To the Edge
The Maze
Swamped
Enjoy the Silence
EC - Not Enough
EC - Spellbound
EC - Our Truth


Overall, really excellent show. It would've been a bit better if they had maybe been able to loosen up a bit and have some more fun (if the bassist had been there) but otherwise everything was really solid. There was a lot of focus on the vocals and the singers were outstanding. Definitely a show I'd recommend checking out!

Lacuna Coil - whole band

Year: Feb 2010
Opening bands: Dommin, Blackstar Halo
Who I went with: Marc
Location: Nosturi, Helsinki

Concert Reviews - Tarja Turunen (joulukonsertti)

Tarja Turunen's Christmas concert... what an experience.

I had no idea what to expect from this show. To be completely honest, I didn't actually know it was a joulukonsertti when I bought my ticket; I thought it was her solo band. I was a bit disappointed when I found out I spent quite a lot of money on that sort of thing, considering I am notorious for HATING Christmas music. But hei, I never do anything festive and I've never seen Tarja perform before (not even with Nightwish, to break my heart), so I figured it would be something interesting, and I was not let down.

Tarja was performing her Christmas show with a percussionist, a guitarist, and an organist (is that a word?). The music was ridiculously well done, and I was really pleased by the Finnish Christmas songs. Maybe it's because I didn't know any of them, but the music was brilliant, the songs didn't annoy me like every Christmas song in North America does, and Tarja was unreal.

Her voice is crisp and perfectly pitched and just, mind boggling. She sounds so completely unreal, and it was cool to see her without all the other stuff. I mean, I love Nightwish and they are one of my favorite bands ever, and as I said, I'm crushed that I never saw them with Tarja, but this show was focusing on just Tarja, not on a band as a whole, so it was great to see what she could do.

Her musicians were also really cool. The guitarist looked like he could be quite the rocker but was holding back for the sort of... sanctity of the event. He looked like he was having an absolute blast though and was so into the music, having fun, smiling, and being a bit silly even. The percussionist was in complete control of all of his instruments - from the drums to the chimes, and just looked so practiced and confident. And the organ guy was so Phantom of the Opera that it hurt. And I mean that in the most awesome sort of way. Epic loud phantom-music, totally excellent.

Tarja looked absolutely beautiful, in her lovely black/red dresses and still managed to look a bit metal even though she was doing a fancy show (I'm glad I had the good sense to dress nicely). What was really cool though was that she took a couple breaks and let her band play. I expected some sort of festive music, and I honestly don't know what you consider "festive" in Finland but this was like, dark, ambient music and it was weird as hell and totally brilliant. I was really shocked and absolutely thrilled about it.

Even cooler, she did a Finnish version of Silent Night as an encore, which was nice because, as I said, I hate North American Christmas music but with the Finnish lyrics it was so much better. And her last song was Walking in the Air, and they had "snow" come out to fall around her while she sang, it was beautiful and SO cool to hear with her random assortment of instruments, not a band. Magnificent.

So, while I found the show a bit short, and a lot expensive, it was totally worth the experience and I would probably even consider going again. It was great to hear her at her classical-style best and I would recommend seeing her to anyone. She really is amazing, regardless or not of what you think of her character.



Year: Dec 2009
Opening bands: n/a
Who I went with: me, myself, and I
Location: Sibeliustalo, Lahti, FI

Concert Reviews - Riverside w/Ageness

Another weekend in Helsinki, another show to check out. This weekend we changed up from the usual melodic death or power metal I've been seeing to taste something I haven't tried in a while... progressive metal!

I have seen one prog show before, and if you read my reviews, you will know that I had been very unimpressed by Dream Theater's live show. Granted, I think that was just a bad night and would be willing to give them another chance because I think they're a great band. However, I went into Riverside with some skepticism because of this former experience with these long songs performed live.

We arrived a while after Ageness started. The band seemed to have some potential, but everyone seemed to be quite old and we got the vibe that the singer (who looked like Geddy Lee and Dio had a child together) was the master behind the band and the whole thing was his special baby. Shame it wasn't better. It wasn't bad but it got old after a while. It was pretty much the quintessential opening band. Good, but not great, and a nice choice to open for a band of the same genre but you know it's nowhere near as good as what you're about to hear.

So, Riverside. I heard about these guys because Michael's brother was really into them (which is surprising because, Opeth aside, he's not really the prog metal type). I have one of their CDs and I consider it to be a good CD but after a while nothing seems to jump out. It's good to have for a listen but nothing to go crazy over anyways. They are also the only Polish band I can name.

I have to say, with very low expectations of this show (and even a tiny bit of regret because the ticket was a bit pricey), I was really pleased that I had chosen to check it out. For starters, the music was really really good. Even when they played long songs (12+ minutes) it never got boring because it always changed up and it NEVER once sounded like the musicians were just showing off. The guitarist was sort of bouncing on the spot all the time and the keyboardist looked like he was enjoying himself. I really liked the vocalist though. Remniscient of Mikael Åkerfeldt from Opeth, he was awesome to watch live. He had a great sense of humor, joking onstage about singing and the length of their songs, and other such things. He had a great voice too... really smooth transitions between regular and high pitch, and he was just overall really fun to watch.

We were discussing the different bands we could hear in Riverside's music. I could definitely hear Dream Theater elements, as well as some new Iron Maiden style stuff, a bit of Deep Purple, and even a hint of Smashing Pumpkins at one point. The music was diverse, and interesting. It was powerful and melodic and mystical, like good prog metal should be. You got to hear all the members of the band doing their thing and enjoying it and having fun (including the keyboardist and a theramin, haha)!

I really have to conclude that I didn't have much or anything to complain about during this show. It took a while for the band to get the crowd into it but after a few songs, they really started to feel it and got more into it, rocking out and singing along (it really helped that the singer was encouraging and funny, making it easy to sing along even if you didn't know the words). The song selection was good (even though I didn't know hardly any of it) and much more diverse than the Rapid Eye Movement album alone... I even decided I'd look up more of their music because they had one song that they played acoustically that I really loved.

I would completely recommend this band, if you're a fan of progressive metal at all. It was really solid, really well done, and really impressive. Definitely a band to check out if you ever get a chance!

Riverside

Year: Nov 2009
Opening bands: Ageness
Who I went with: Marc
Location: Nosturi, Helsinki, FI