Concert Reviews - Ensiferum w/Tarujen Saari

What an unexpected night.

Juho and I went in (too early) for the Ensiferum show. After the last time I saw them, back in September, I was expecting sort of a similar thing - to run into lots of people I know, hear some awesome music, and have an awesome time. I can't say that's what happened.

I am sure there are a lot of things I could say about Tarujen Saari. Not many of them would be positive. But, I am a fan of talking, so I'll tell you anyways.

Tarujen Saari

For starters... stage attire? We have an undead bride playing violin that looks like she had an Evanescence music video puke all over her, and not in a good way (I have been known to like Amy Lee's style). Then there is the old-school rocker (with a terrible voice) who was in leather pants and a Tarujen Saari shirt. The singer had a goth/Morticia Adams thing going on in her too-tight fake corsetted dress with her hair shaped like boobs. Then there was a guy who looked like he wanted to be a pirate but just settled for whatever he had in his closet that was too big and full of bling, and an affeminate guy in a kilt. What the bloody hell? No symmetry at all.

Musically, the singer sounded like she might be able to sing but wasn't trying very hard to do it successfully. Musically, the only one of the musicians who had any style was the violinist, and I couldn't hear her half the time.

And then there was the random weird stuff that kept happening. Most of it was vocal, like weird laughter or vocal parts that either made us laugh hysterically, or cry. Here is a picture that pretty much says everything you need to know about Tarujen Saari.

Juho doesn't know whether to laugh or cry...

As for good old Enska... I don't know what it was. Maybe it was just me and the fact that I wasn't really in the mood for going out, or the fact that there wasn't a massive crowd of my friends like last time, or the fact that the crowd did consist of shirtless pasty 18-year-old dipshits... well, whatever it was, I didn't enjoy it that much.

The setlist was actually better than during the From Afar tour, because they didn't play either of the Heathen Throne songs and played more older favorites. I finally got to hear Lai Lai Hei live, for example. There were also some older favorites, like Victory Song, Token of Time, and more. They skipped Smoking Ruins, which I was a bit disappointed by, since it was on their setlist. The orchestral intro version of By the Dividing Stream was pretty wicked, I must say.

Ensiferum

As for live shows... I've yet to see them in their sexy Finnish flag kilts, but their stage set was really cool - Emmi had the shield and swords on the front of her keyboards, like always, and they were wearing their usual kilts (Pete's Ensiferum kilt is pretty awesome). What was unusual, was the addition of a viking-like guy on the left, carrying a sword and ale horn, and a mostly-naked "viking" in a fur diaper on the right. The purpose of these two were to do backing vocals and chants, and in the fur diaper guy's case, vocals on a couple songs (because Pete can't sing, I guess).

Now, viking-guy was fine and I had no problem, but I really had to question Aleksi Parviainen's attire (cuz that's his name - you may recall me making fun of his suck factor back in May of last year because he is the singer for Soulcage). The guy sets off my gaydar seriously, sticking his chest and gut out like he's completely overconfident in the most odd way possible. His hairy diaper and his fur "boots" (that looked more like someone strapped a dead animal around his feet than boots) were ridiculous. He looked like he had been wearing fur pants at some point but someone came up behind him, ripping the legs off, so there was nothing but underwear and hairy pantlegs bunched around his ankles. He did not look viking.

Aleksi (Soulcage) on vocals

And the things they had to do were a bit stupid. I was hoping to see them have some sort of small sword-fight during one of the songs, but I was not so fortunate. They just touched their blades together and walked away from each other. Booooring!

Aleksi did a good enough job on vocals for the song Vandraren (a cover of a Nordman song that appeared on the From Afar album. A sort of 50-50 moment for me was when they invited him back to do another cover, Battle Hymn. What I didn't initially realize was that it was a Manowar cover! I was torn between joy and amusement. Joy, because I love Manowar and think they are the funniest thing ever (though this is far from their best or most amusing song) and amusement because Aleksi couldn't sing it very well. He's got a bit of the Eric Adams going on, sure, but his voice was cracking in the big wails and his stage presence still annoys the hell out of me.

The only other thing I can think to mention is just that I am convinced Sami Hinkka (bass) was drunk out of his mind. He seemed unnaturally energetic and was running around and making faces like a complete madman. It was hilarious to watch but I wondered if it was a bit too much for Pete and Markus.

Sami looking insane

Overall, it's hard to see a bad Ensiferum show, but this was nowhere near as nice as the last one. I think a lot of it was just me, and the show itself was really good. Crappy crowds do a lot to ruin a show for me (even though I was watching from the balcony) and the opening band put me in a rather unforgiving mood - we even bailed out before the encore. I've seen Iron before and didn't care about the other songs. Still, gotta love Enska!

Setlist:

By The Dividing Stream (orchestral intro)
From Afar
Token Of Time
Deathbringer From The Sky
Elusive Reaches
Dragonheads
Into Battle
Smoking Ruins ~ not performed
Windrider
Old Man
Vandraren (Aleksi vocals)
Stone Cold Metal
Lai Lai Hei
Ahti
Battle Hymn (Aleksi vocals)
Blood Is The Price For Glory
Victory Song + outro
EC Tears (Kaisu vocals)
EC Twilight Tavern
EC Iron

Ensiferum ft Aleksi on vocals

Year: Mar 2010
Opening bands: Tarujen Saari
Who I went with: Juho
Location: Nosturi, Helsinki

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