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 - Apocalyptica/Nightwish

I haven't really felt wildly compelled to do this in a while. I also haven't been to a show in a really big venue since I moved to Finland either though. Not sure if it's related.

Either way, a few months ago, very shortly after I moved to Hel, my first host family's grandparents brought over a newspaper clipping for me. It is quite a well known fact (probably because I posted it on my Au Pair profile) that I love Finnish metal and hoped to see as many shows as humanly possible while I was in Europe, and they were eager to help me out. I debated it for some time. It was an expensive show, and I didn't know anyone in town so I wasn't really keen on going. Adversely, I have never seen Apocalyptica play live before and I like them a lot, and I also was interested to see the grande finale after 2 years and 193 other shows. So I opted to go.

Apocalyptica came out relatively quickly after I arrived, to my great pleasure. I've never been good at remembering their song names, unfortunately, but it was of no consequence. I recognised their cover of Fade to Black by Metallica, as well as an instrumental version of Bittersweet, which was quite lovely, and they brought in a guest singer (you may know him as Antti Hyyrynen of Stam1na) to do I'm Not Jesus and I Don't Care from the Worlds Collide album. They also finished with Hall of the Mountain King, which is one of those songs that I had really hoped to hear live, and I was not disappointed.

Visually, Eicca Toppinen and Perttu Kivilaakso were both incredibly brilliant to watch. The long hair and headbanging while playing, Perttu playing with the cello tilted to the side (which I imagine takes some talent because you are holding up your cello at an unusual angle while playing), and some rocking on the ground, waving cellos around, that sort of business; they both were quite amazing to watch. Paavo Lötjönen impressed me far less. Maybe it was his inital lack of hair that made me lose interest in him but his stange presence was to me less metal and more show-off. Plus, without the hair he made the band lose symmetry. Nothing against his playing though. I also thought it was interesting to see them with a drummer. He didn't overpower the other three like I might have thought. I was pleased to see this, though it might've been nice to see them when they were just four cellists.

As for Nightwish, they opened with a soft instrumental with a guest musician who was playing an instrument that I couldn't quite recognise. It seemed like a bagpipe but not exactly. After that they went into 7 Days to the Wolves, Everdream, Wishmaster, Sahara, Amaranth, Nemo, Last of the Wilds, and many more. They brought out a guest violinist, Pekka something, to play The Siren, and he was incredible. After that, they kept him around for one more song, which totally made my entire night worth it - While Your Lips Are Still Red (which you may recall was my song of the day a while ago and is one of my alltime favorites of theirs). It is a song written for a movie and was on a single, so it wasn't something I ever expected to hear live and I was very pleased. Near the end they did the accoustic versions of The Islander and Walking in the Air featuring the guest musician on the strange instrument and flutes from the intro, and finished with a never-before-played version of Meadows of Heaven, which I admit I enjoyed live much more than I did on the album (definitely my least favorite song). It was good, but I could've done without the extensive vocal soloing at the end that sort of brought it down a bit.

Encore really made me happy. Another one of my alltime favorite ever Nightwish songs is off the Once album - Ghost Love Score. It's another one of those songs I thought I'd never hear... especially when Tarja Turunen isn't in the band anymore. The best part was that Anette actually did a decent job of singing it. She was, of course, no Tarja, but she didn't do a bad job. Then they finished with the 194th time doing I Wish I Had An Angel.

Overall impression? It was a really good show. My initial irritation with Anette was removed after a couple songs and the fire/lights/waterfalls (I think they were waterfalls after Meadows of Heaven, which struck me as odd, but kind of cool) were spectacular. Tuomas was playing inside a big boat and there was an anchor on the stage too, a couple high platforms, so the setup was really great in a sort of "The Islander" way. My biggest complaint really and honestly had to be Anette's blonde hair. I don't know what on earth made her think she would look better as a blonde but it's terrible. Really terrible.

Marco and Emppu are always really fun to watch on stage. And I am always really impressed with how much better Marco's singing is than it used to be. He totally outshines Anette every time he sings these days and unlike when he sings in Northern Kings, Tuomas writes songs that really help his vocals, rather than strain them. Unfortunately for me, I don't understand enough Finnish to understand anything he said at the end between Ghost Love Score and I Wish I Had An Angel, and I sort of appreciated Anette because she's Swedish and doesn't really speak any Finnish, so she was always talking in English.

All-in-all, it was a fantastic show, a great finale, and I'm really glad I went. I remain cautiously optimistic for the next album in hopes that Tuomas writes music more appropriate for Anette's style (though I'd be lying if I said I disliked Dark Passion Play - I actually do like it) the way he did for Tarja.

Track list (Nightwish)
01. Intro - Finlandia (w/ U.K. multi-instrumentalist Troy Donockley)
02. 7 Days To The Wolves
03. Ever Dream
04. Wishmaster
05. Romanticide
06. Amaranth
07. The Siren (w/ Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto)
08. While Your Lips Are Still Red (w/ Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto)
09. Poet And The Pendulum
10. Nemo
11. Sahara
12. Dark Chest Of Wonders
13. The Islander
14. Walking In The Air (w/ U.K. multi-instrumentalist Troy Donockley)
15. Last Of The Wilds (w/ U.K. multi-instrumentalist Troy Donockley)
16. Meadows Of Heaven
17. Ghost Love Score
18. I Wish I Had An Angel


Year: Sept 2009
Opening bands: Apocalyptica was opening for Nightwish
Who I went with: me, myself, and I
Location: Helsinki - Hartwall Areena

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