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 second one this year i attended, to be more precise. this time, in bremen’s tivoli, the so called paganfest tour 2008 launched, featuring the finnish bands ensiferum, korpiklaani and moonsorrow, the swiss band eluveitie, the faroese band týr and local support ctulu.
well. apparently, it’s impossible to start a concert (or even, start letting people in, before they get soaked wet in the rain outside) in time, i.e. the time which was published before. i’m really sorry for the ones who probably have to spend today in bed, being sick. and then, when they started letting people in, they did it in an incredibly slow way. i mean, what the heck, how hard is it to organize such things?
anyway, the local support started playing probably when the first people were let inside, i.e. we missed half of it, and some others probably most or everything (if they didn’t die before). well, anyway, they didn’t missed anything but awful noise. you could replace the singer by a barking dog without changing the result. sorry, this sounds hard, but that’s the truth… well, the sound quality sucked a lot in the beginning anyway, so it’s probably not just the fault of the band… after a short break (the openers played for like 30 mins), týr entered the stage. i was expecting a lot, but was heavily disappointed. it seemed that they also experienced heavy technical problems, so i might try them again once… but then, i’ll try some studio recordings.
anyway. they stopped after like 20 minutes (less than the opener!?) and we took the chance to eat something. after that, swiss pagan metallers eluveitie entered the stage. filling the stage with eight musicians, they are probably the largest (in this sense) band i ever say. eluveitie features a variety of instruments, including lots of different fluetes, vielles, hurdy gurdies, bagpipes, uilleann pipes and bodhráns. i also was expecting a lot from them, and this time, i was blown away. they are really good. mixing heavy black metal with beautiful folk melodies and themes, they deliver a complex, hard to digest but extremely beautiful (even though the sound quality still wasn’t too great) stream of music. (now i’m listening to their newest album slania, whose release party in the knochenhaus i missed… it’s definitely worth buying, if you’re wondering.) a very, very sad thing was that eluveitie had to stop after 30 minutes. :-(
then, after another break, moonsorrow started playing. as you may know, moonsorrow is one of my favorite bands, so i was expecting a lot. well, they were good as usual, but this time i didn’t like the songs they selected too much. one of the songs sounded quite unknown to me, maybe it’s from the ep which will be released soon? well, sounded a bit too black metallish for my taste. at least, they could play for 45 minutes… still, way too short, but better than just 30 mins… (hey, really, which idiot got the idea to restrict great bands such as eluveitie and moonsorrow to 30 resp. 45 minutes?!)
after moonsorrow, it was time for korpiklaani, a bunch of guys making “old guy music with heavy metal guitars”. well, after eluveitie and moonsorrow, it became obvious how simple their melodies and songs are, well, of course relatively. anyway, if they would have played earlier i would have liked them more. apparently, they covered a king crimson song, at least so said a friend of mine who knows the king crimson discography by worlds better than me. as moonsorrow, korpiklaani also just played for 45 minutes.
finally, after yet another break, which we spend sitting in the food compartment of the tivoli, ensiferum began conquering the hall. well. they’re really good, but again, in my opionion, moonsorrow and eluveitie are better. at least, their guitarist was feeling better this time, so they played probably for one hour. probably, because we decided we were too tired and had enough after, say, 55 minutes, and after someone working at the tivoli decided to chase us off the stairs where we were sitting (because of some fire regulations, probably)…
anyway. the festival was definitely worth going there. but, the next time, it would be way better if they would reduce the number of bands (to, say, moonsorrow and eluveitie :-) ) and let them play a lot longer!

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!

i think it’s time to take a look at the list of concerts i attended this year and to list the best ones. at these two links, you can find a pretty complete list of the concerts i attended. i decided to divide the top list into two categories: prog and metal.

prog

for the third place, i cannot decide between three concerts, all which took place in pratteln in the z-7, namely, first, the spock’s beard gig on the 16.05.2007, second, the anathema & moondawn gig on the 31.05.2007, and, third, the fish gig on the 27.11.2007. all three gigs have been very good. most memorable was probably spock’s beard keyboardist, playing with both hands and feet, while his poor technician had to hold the keyboard construction together so it wouldn’t fall apart.

the second place goes to the blackfield & pure reason revolution concert, which took place on the 24.02.2007 in pratteln (z-7). i think this was the first concert where i really liked the opener, so much that i bought one of their albums. actually, i had to order it by mail, as the ones they had with them were sold out at the end of their concert (hence, i wasn’t the only one who liked it alot). the main act itself, blackfield, a collaboration between the porcupine tree frontman steven wilson and the israeli rock star aviv geffen, was also really good.

the first place goes to the porcupine tree & anathema concert, which took place on the 12.11.2007 in zürich (volkshaus). despite several people in the audience didn’t like anathema too much (“too boring”), i was pleased to see them again. for me, their music expresses simply too many emotions to be boring, eating up energy until bursting into the listener’s ear. the main act, porcupine tree, one of my favorite bands, was as good as i expected them to be. even though they played a lot from the current album, fear of a blank planet, which i don’t like as much as some of the older ones, they also played many classics. unfortunately, they didn’t played arriving somewhere but not here, which i would really loved to listen to. but, besides that, i still think this is the best prog concert i attended this year.

metal

again, as before, i cannot decide on someone for the third place, but i have two canidates in mind. the first one is the dream theater & symphony x concert, which took place on the 31.10.2007 in winterthur (eulachhallen). the second canidate is the apocalyptica & sturm und drang concert, which took place on the 09.11.2007 in zürich (volkshaus). all these bands are really good, and the shows they delivered were so, too, featuring many small details, as neat decoration. but both of these concerts also have their sides. namely, symphony x played way too short (but then, i’ll see them again next february as headliner), the location was strange (the wardrobe was outside), and dream theater could have played longer, too (i heard the rumor that the local organizer fucked this up by not registering the concert with the authorities, which in turn resulted in the police ordering the concert to be ended earlier). at the apocalyptica concert, i didn’t like the opener sturm und drang too much; they played really good and professional, but it simply wasn’t the kind of music which i really like.

the second place is filled by the amorphis, swallow the sun & insomnium concert, which took place at the 18.11.2007 in pratteln (z-7). (videos from the concert can be found here.) this concert featured three very good finnish bands, one of them, namely swallow the sun, being one of my favorite ones. their shows were good, the selection of songs was, too (i would have loved to hear some more swallow the sun songs, but then, i would probably have only been really pleased if they would have simply played all songs from their three albums, which is slightly unrealistic to expect from a co-headliner). i was headbanging a lot, met some friends, had a lot of fun.

the first place goes to the moonsorrow & swallow the sun concert, which took place at the 09.04.2007 (easter monday) in pratteln (z-7). actually, there was a third band playing as an opener, whose name i forgot. this concert was one of the most incluencal concert for me this year, not only as it introduced me to two bands, namely moonsorrow and swallow the sun, which i now count as two of my most favorite bands. besides that, the atmosphere was simply perfect, and so was the audience. i still remember headbanging with eric (a guy i met on this concert and on another one a bit later, who’s also an opeth fan), even though headbanging right next to the mosh pit can be pretty painful…

today i was on the last concert for this year – at least, the last one planned ahead more than a few days. this was probably also my last visit to the z-7 for this year.
this time, three bands were playing, the main act being ensiferum (which is latin and means as much as sword bearing), a finnish (what else) viking/folk metal band. well, as it is quite common for viking/folk metal bands nowadays, a huge crowd of kids was there. i saw the first ones at zurich main station, it was quite obvious that the drunken (or starting to get drunk) teenagers as the same track dressed in black were heading for the same destination. i haven’t felt so old for a long time…
the concert started with the swedish power metallers insania. as i already wrote once, i don’t like that kind of music too much, but it was ok. in particular, the singer made funny grimaces (though i’m not sure if it was intentional that they were funny). after that, a taiwanese symphonic black metal band called chthonic entered the stage, featuring an erhu (“chinese violin”). i liked that one pretty much, and i could stand the screaming way more than napalm death‘s or cradle of filth‘s screaming, which i pretty much hate, even though it was pretty similar (in my opinion).
finally, ensiferum entered the stage. well, one member (markus) sat down on a chair, and some guy announced that he isn’t feeling well, that they just fetched him from hospital and that they’ll bring him back right after the concert. that’s devotion! the result was that their gig lasted only a bit more than one hour, until markus let announce (one of the tech guys was regularly filling in water for him and handling him the cup, and passed on messages from him to the other band members) that he wasn’t feeling good and so the last song was announced. (the last song’s beginning was accompanied by chthonic‘s erhu player.) after that, they gave an encore, without markus though, and maybe even a second, but i decided to catch the train instead.
well. on the way back i was pretty much annoyed by the fact that apparently most of the night bus passengers have no clue how the thing works. they don’t manage to change bank notes into coins (there’s a machine for that), they don’t manage to buy the right tickets (there are instructions all over the place), they don’t manage to use the right bus entry (you have to enter in the front, and not try to enter at the other doors, and waiting for 30 seconds until figuring out that you can’t get in there), they don’t manage to prepare the regular ticket and the night surcharge to show it to the driver (instead, they start to search their pockets for another 30 seconds). i understand that some people don’t speak or read german and thus have trouble following the instruction, but i think this didn’t applied to most of them. well, but that explains why the night bus is always late, and the amount of time it is late increases at every stop (at least, as long as people are entering). but at least i could watch all this while sitting inside the bus, so i could listen to good music (kari, of course, as also during the train ride; a big contrast to the concert :) )…

today i was on an ärzte concert. actually, the concert took place around five minutes by foot from my apartment, which was pretty nice for the way back :)
die ärzte is a fun punk band from berlin (from berlin!), which is almost as old as me, and still alive after five year long break-up around 1990. well. i’ve already seen them twice, in 2001 in osnabrück and in 2004 in oldenburg, and i also own most of their albums. though i stopped listening to them in the last few years, i still wanted to see them again as i found out that they would play in zürich today, so i went.
the concert started with a support band, which unfortunately was played with way too low volume. i think they were quite good, but it sounded like background music in a pub while too many people are talking, and not like a band at a concert. that was really strange. but it turned out that die ärzte played with the “right loudness.” what was nice was the smoking ban, even though many simply ignored it. i really feel a lot better after concerts (and also on the next morning) if the air is not soaked with smoke…
during the support act, bela and farin appeared on the stage several times. for one song, they played all in panties with their trousers down (except the drummer and the bassist), which was somehow funny. the support played maybe for 30 minutes, and after that followed a around 30 to 45 minutes break. at 20:30, die ärzte entered the stage and rocked the house for the next 2:15 hours. even though i’ve never heard some of the songs before (probably from their newest album(s?) which i’ve never heard), i knew most songs and even remembered the lyrics. they played many classics, like der graf, schunder song, westerland (with wannsee replaced by zürisee), 2000 mädchen, rebell, …
the audience was really enthusiastic, and i had to back up a lot (from maybe 20-30 meters from the stage to something around 100 meters) to escape most of the mosh pit. probably i’m getting old, at least i prefer to stand a bit and enjoy the music without being thrown and pushed around all the time.
to sum it up, it was nice to see bela, rod and farin again. even if it’s just for the sake of reminiscence.

today, i attended fish‘s concert in the z-7. fish was one of the founding members of marillion, a british prog band which happens to be two years older than me, but left them in 1988, after marillion released the clutching at straws album in 1987. in the beginning of fish‘s gig, an intro video was shown, displaying all the 20 years from 1987 to 2007 with a famous scene from that year, with a subtitle relating it to fish in some humouros way. except 2000, when a picture of george w. showed up with the subtitle “what the fuck?!”, and 2004, when another picture of george w. showed up with “again? you assholes!” ;-)
well. the concert was really great; fish was in a great mood and told funny stories between the songs. i basically only knew the albums 13th star and clutching at straws before, but they played a couple of songs from these two, or at least i thought i recognized a few…
i originally planned to buy 13th star at the merchandize booth, but they only had a special edition there which had a way too high price for me… well. besides that, i was pretty tired and exhausted, had problems keeping standing, but survived till the end, had to run for the train, which almost killed me (running uphill while it’s freezing and when you’re exhausted and pretty dehydrated is not a good idea), but i caught the train and even managed to walk the way from the main station to my place in zürich (without running though). and now it’s time to grab some sleep.
good night.

mellipossu posted some videos from last sunday’s concert by insomnium, swallow the sun and amorphis:

• insomnium:
  1. bereavment;
  2. change of heart;
  3. devoid of caring;
• swallow the sun:
  1. these hours of despair;
  2. out of this gloomy light;
• amorphis:
  1. silent waters;
  2. against widows;
  3. perkele (the god of fire);
  4. a servant.

thanks a lot for the videos!

(well, a third one this weekend.) today, the finnish acts amorphis, swallow the sun and insomnium were playing in the z-7. the last weeks, i was anxiously waiting for this concert, as swallow the sun is one of my most favorite bands at the moment, as amorphis is also pretty good and i’ve been told that so is insomnium.
well. after arriving and seeing nobody i knew, insomnium started to play. they’re doing melodic death metal, and i really liked them. during their gig, i spotted a couple i’ve already met on arena‘s and threshold’s concerts. it’s always nice not to be alone on a concert :)
then, after a short break, swallow the sun‘s gig started. the one i really looked forward to. starting with the first three minutes of gloom, beauty and despair as an intro, they started with a great tour through their whole discography. the complete playlist:

1. intro (first three minutes of gloom, beauty and despair);
2. hope;
3. descending winters;
4. don’t fall asleep (horror, pt. 2);
5. out of this gloomy light (live recording);
6. the ship;
7. these hours of despair (live recording);
8. deadly nightshade;
9. swallow (horror, pt. 1).

unfortunately, there was no encore. (i hope i’ll see swallow the sun as the headliner once…) to the sounds of the twin peaks score, the stage was rebuild for amorphis (last concert, they used twin peaks music as the intro). well. then amorphis played, the headliner for this evening, and also delivered a great show.
finally, everything was over, we walked back to the train station, arrived in zürich, and from there i had to walk home alone. well, same as yesterday, so i’m pretty much used to it :) now i’m looking forward to see how my neck’ll be feeling like, after so much headbanging… but it was definitely worth it!

yesterday i was visiting the helsinki klub in zürich with some friends, where a concert of the alternative/punk rockers boob from berne was taking place. there were a lot of people dancing to the music, and all of us had a great time. they also gave a longer encore, featuring two hip-hop/rap songs, which was, even though i usually don’t like that kind of music too much, pretty fun!
apparently boob has already played in the helsinki two weeks ago; two of my friends have already seen them there, while i had to stay at home suffering a terrible headache…