i haven’t felt so young on a metal concert for a pretty long time now, as on today’s dream theater show in winterthur. on the outside, i really felt dressed strangely, as the number of metal t-shirts was pretty small and most people looked pretty normal. inside, the situation looked a bit different, probably the metalheads were a bit earlier :-)
another pretty strange thing was that the wardrobe was located 100 m outside from the entrance. that means, you have to give away your jacket, queue up in the line for the entrance and stay there, freezing, just wearing a t-shirt. but at least it was not raining…
well. besides all these strange things, and also besides the insane pricing of the tickets, the concert was great. even though symphony x had just around 40 minutes to play. at least, the break for cleaning up the stange was pretty short (around 20 minutes), so one had no chance to fall asleep in between… (i remember some breaks which came near to one hour…) the stage was decorated with giant ant puppets, although i couldn’t see them, too many heads in my way… another gimmick was a traffic light hanging above the stage, which showed red, then turned to yellow when the intro music started, and changed to green when the band began to play.
well. dream theater played for almost two hours and, as usual, produced a really good show. they played a lot from their current album, systematic chaos, some other songs and, as an encore, a long medley, going through different epoches of dream theater.

as promised, some panoramas from our trip to monte generoso on last weekend.

today i’ve been attending a festival in dietikon, eight bands playing in 9 1/2 hours. out of these eight bands, two were crap, and five were pretty good (finsterforst, trimonium, kivimetsan druidi, korpiklaani and moonsorrow), which made this festival quite a success. my two absolute favorites today were korpiklaani and moonsorrow, two finnish bands which were the main reason for me to show up at the festival after all.

the finnish humppa metallers korpiklaani entered the stage as the seventh band. as they started playing, the crowd basically went wild, everyone starting to move, to dance. it was simply amazing. the idea to combine humppa with metal is simply great. and they also played happy little boozer, to which a friend of mine once wants to dance drunken on a table (if you’re reading this: you missed a great concert!). unfortunately, korpiklaani had to leave the stage after one hour… i really want to see them again, and then a bit longer…

finally, as the eight band, moonsorrow—one of my favorite bands—appeared on stage. for 80 minutes. and even after the crowd has already been active for around eight hours of concerts (my bones were hurting, my neck aching, my brain complaining, my feet weary), people still managed to adequately honour the great music and stage performance by banging like crazy, by dancing to the great tunes. it was simply fantastic. unfortunately, it was over at some point. too bad.

conclusions:

• one should kick the sucking bands out of the schedule and increase the playing time of the best ones.
• one should replace the mixer by someone who more successfully tries to compensate the bad accoustics of the hall and does not simply makes it worse by fucking up the mixing…
• humppa rocks.
• moonsorrow rocks even more. (regardless what the bavarian guy is saying.)

and now, it’s time to grab some sleep. thank you and good night.

on saturday, we hiked the monte generoso, located next to the city of mendrisio in the ticino. here are some pictures from our trip.

first, some pictures from the cogwheel train ride up to bellavista:

then, some pictures from our walk from bellavista up to the top of the mountain:

and that’s me on the top of the mountain, one step from the abyss:

a picture of the village mendrisio:

finally, some pictures from my train ride to northern germany on sunday:

after returning from bordeaux, the return having been quite adventurous, i traveled trough the alps into the ticino, to the monte generoso. here are some photos from the train ride.

if you’ve ever seen the cover of opeth‘s fifth masterpiece blackwater park, you’ll know what i mean with opethesque (if you haven’t, look here). i took some similar shots this morning throu the train’s window:

unfortunately i missed to catch some more impressions which were even more opethesque… well, maybe next time.

i first met swallow the sun on their concert in the z-7 in april, as a co-headliner of moonsorrow. lately, i’ve again started listening to their album hope, which i bought directly after the concert, and decided to get more, namely first their second album ghosts of loss and, finally, their debut, the morning never came. their music is dark, really dark. full of beauty, of intensity, of gloom, of melancholy. so intriguing, gripping me, making me longing for more. slow moments alternating with blasting, heavy moments. clear voice alternating with death voice, giving another example where death voice fits perfectly, increasing the intenseness of the music. as the line “insane pain” in the giant—one of my favorite songs—which, if presented in clear voice, would not making me shiver that much, would not paint the pictures in my head in such intense, vivid colors. a few lines from that song:

“i’ve been hiding this giant for too long
and it’s grown like a parasite inside me
under this shadow i’ve been walking
now it’s taken over me, and she…
the pure girl, leave me before it’s too late
or i will cut your wings”

another favorite of mine, gloom, beauty and despair, another song from the great ghosts of loss album (containing several twin peaks references), is not using clear vocals after all. the first three minutes, the music being slow, melodic, melancholic, the lyrics, telling the story of someone mourning the loss of his loved one, being barely understandable, as it’s screamed and whispered at the same time, making me feel the desperation, the anger, the mourning. simply beautiful. then, piano hits in, picking up the theme from the beginning, until the guitars and the death growls take over, the music still being slow, melancholic, but heavier, more desperate, making me feeling with the narrator.
i’m really looking forward to see them again.

well, last night was the first concert in my current schedule: serentiy, machine men, communic and threshold were playing in the z-7 in pratteln. i really enjoyed it. first, serenity, an austrian power prog band was playing. i’ve already seen them at the end of march, playing before sacred steel and morgana lefay, and i still don’t like them too much. it’s not about their technical skills or whatever, i just can’t really stand this symphonic power metal in some cases, and this is one of these cases. and their singer should pose a bit less… ;-) after serenity, a finnish melodic metal act called machine men started to rock off. them, i really enjoyed, and later i even bought one of their albums, circus of fools. after them, the norwegian band communic started playing. i’ve never seen them or heard music from them before and was pretty curious as i read some good things about them. they’re making prog metal and are quite influenced by nevermore, a band i really like. consisting of only three musicians, which is very seldom the case for prog related bands, playing guitars+vocals, bass and drums, they still managed to produce a very intense, beautiful stream of music. if the concert would have endet after them, i would have been perfectly happy (except that they should have played longer in that case). but then, it didn’t. well. they seemed to be very happy with us, their audience, too: after their gig, besides giving us sticks and plectrums, and tor atle, their drummer, even took of one of his cymbals and threw it into the crowd. i’ve never seen that before. unfortunately, it landed somewhere else, so no chance of grabbing it… afterwards i bought their album waves of visual decay, and the stage was prepared for the british prog metal act threshold. threshold seemed to enjoy playing for us, and we enjoyed listening to them, moving to the music, marvelling at their solos, their playing skills. it was simply fantastic. but then, everything’s ending, and after an encore with two very nice songs, i had to leave to catch the last train. curiously, i again met a couple on the way back which i already met after arena’s concert at the end of may; back then, they recommended me to try out ayreon, a project by arjen lucassen which produces fantastic prog operas. again, thanks a lot for this hint, i really like these operas. well, maybe i’ll write something on them later.

my first contact with moonsorrow was on the 9th of april this year, when they were playing at the z-7 in pratteln. i didn’t knew them before, but i was told that i might like them. well. i did. after the concert, i decided i had to buy one of their albums, namely viides luku: hävitetty, which is finnish and means chapter five: ravaged, being their fifth album, and i immediately listened to it when i came home after the concert. less than two weeks later i also had the rest of their albums lying on my desk.
simlarly to finntroll’s visor om slutet, v: hävitetty is a very special album. consisting of just two tracks, each having around 30 minutes of music, it builds up an intense atmosphere throwing you back into the old times, when vikings were sailing the northern seas. in contrast to visor om slutet, most of this album is heavy, very heavy, transporting a completely different mood. the first six minutes of the first track can be seen as a separate song, called jäästä syntynyt (born of ice), a very atmospheric, slow, dreamy piece, featuring a short poem:

“auringon kuoleman syntyäkseen
uusi maailma tarvitsee
vain pisaran vettä kylmyyteen
käsillä juoksemaan ihmisten”

which translates to:

“through the death of the sun
a new world is born
a drop of water in cold
to run on the hands of man”

other bands would let this be a whole song.
after this, a twenty-five minutes long heavy sound scape named varjojen virta (stream of shadows) breaks loose on the listener, never being boring, recurring motifs varied, always melodic, sometimes a bit slower, mostly fast, screaming. closing my eyes, i can see vast landscapes and seascapes, raging storms, ships fighting the rough sea, endless forests, fog, darkness, bleak lives, people dying, battles raging. the music makes me want to move, it’s so intense, so beautiful, intoxicating. the lyrics are in finnish, with an english translation being provided in the booklet, allowing to enrich the experience, putting more emotions and emphasis into the music. they transport dreary feelings, are depressing, make me shiver. beautiful, in some sense, sorrowful, in another.
the second song on this album, tuleen ajettu maa, which means a land driven into the fire, begins with shaman chants, quickly progressing to heavy riffs, screams. similarly to varjojen virta, this sound scape is intense, dense, heavy, varying between more silent, folkish parts, many heavy parts, black metal thunderstorms, forming a fascinating masterpiece.
this one feels similarly depressing, bleak, even more aggressive. i can see boats floating, shaking on rough water, the sea trying to swallow the boats, i can see battles, fights, man against man, dying and dead people, the distinction between victor and loser being that one is dead, whereas the other is dying. skimming through the lyrics, i read as the last verse:

“näin kaikki päättyy, näen sen nyt
tämä sivu on viimeinen
näin kaikki päättyy, tyhjään ja unohdukseen
eikä kukaan tänne palaa”

translating to:

“this is how it ends, i can see it now
this page will be the last
this is how it ends, to emptiness, to oblivion
and none will ever return”

this is what the music makes me feel. makes me see, makes me think about, when i listen to it.

here’s a list of concerts i’ve been at this year, for historical reasons. not taking in account some classic concerts.

• 07.02.2007: therion, grave digger and sabaton were playing at the z-7 in pratteln (symphonic orchestral metal, and some more thrashy/whatever metal);
• 21.02.2007: amplifier and cloudride were playing at abart in zürich (progressive art rock);
• 24.02.2007: blackfield and pure reason revolution were playing at the z-7 in pratteln (progressive rock, art rock);
• 04.03.2007: …and you will know us by the trail of dead and forget cassettes were playing at the rote fabrik in zürich (alternative rock);
• 29.03.2007: morgana lefay, sacred steel, serenity and bitterness were playing at rock city in uster (various kinds of metal: death, prog, power, true, …);
• 09.04.2007: moonsorrow, swallow the sun and some band whose name i forgot played at the z-7 in pratteln (pagan metal, doom metal, death metal);
• 10.04.2007: circle ii circle, savage circus, tomorrow’s eve and tempesta were playing at the z-7 in pratteln (metal);
• 13.04.2007: moonspell, napalm death, behemoth, gojira and dew scented were playing at the z-7 in pratteln (death and black metal, metalcore);
• 16.05.2007: spock’s beard was playing at the z-7 in pratteln (progressive rock);
• 27.05.2007: trivium, annihilator and some band which was playing before the official opening time were playing at the rohstofflager in zürich (thrash metal);
• 29.05.2007: arena was playing at the z-7 in pratteln (progressive rock);
• 31.05.2007: anathema and moondawn were playing at the z-7 in pratteln (atmospheric rock with metal influences);
• 01.06.2007: machine head, type o negative, cataract and zatokrev were playing at the volkshaus in zürich (thrash metal, doom metal, metalcore and death metal);
• 27.06.2007: dream theater and megadeth were playing at the volkshaus in zürich (progressive metal, thrash metal).

if i’ll find the motivation (and if anyone cares), i might write a few words about some of these.