yesterday i made a trip to hamburg, to visit two friends and to attend a concert by eläkeläiset (meaning: the retirees), a humppa band from suomi. their concept is simple: they sit at a table, drinking beer and vodka, playing with their instruments, covering lots of pop, rock and metal songs, playing them in a faster humppa style, with different lyrics which are mainly in finnish. sounds strange, but they collected a pretty huge fan community in particular in germany (whyever). we really had lots of fun there, even though we weren’t drunk like most of the other people there (including the band).
the first concert this year i attended was the progressive power metal band symphony x concert in hamburg, on last wednesday. symphony x were supported by dreamscape and circus maximus, two prog metal bands. the opener dreamscape was ok, but i really didn’t like circus maximus – mainly because of their singer, though. always when i couldn’t hear him i liked the music. sorry, but i can’t do anything against this, but a wrong singer can ruin the whole thing for me…
well, finally, symphony x entered the stage. i’ve already seen them last year, as an opener for dream theater, but then, they just played 40 minutes there and the audience was more waiting for dream theater than being enthusiastic about symphony x. but well, this was the opposite this time. one of the two friends with have been with me in hamburg said that this was basically the best concert he’s ever witnessed, and i think he’s quite right about that :) there were few concerts i’ve attended which i think were better… and one could also see that the guys on the stage really liked the concert. and they played through the looking glass, which i really appreciated. thank you guys! :)
unfortunately, this time, the concert hall wasn’t really filled, there were maybe 500 people, and the hall would have fittet 1000. i really feel sorry for symphony x, because they deserve much more!
