Sturm und Drang and Swallow the Sun
http://www.myspace.com/sturmis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5sKO6xN8Ow
Vaasa band, made up of 15-16 year-olds (the keyboard player looks 10), and I can believe it. They've gotten coverage in the local paper, have their video on the music channels, etc.
Watch the video. Really. And then come back here.
It was a circus. The place was flooded with little kiddies... and their parents. The club is divided all weird, under-18s have to upstairs to the balcony, and 18+ can be down on the floor. The kids, whatever, but all the parents wearing their black clothes to fit in was pretty funny. All the parents using their cameras to take pictures of their kids up on the balcony just seemed weird for a metal show.
The single/video is pure Finnish pop shit and I was expecting the worst.
They opened with Dio's Holy Diver. Not a bad start, but, uhhhh... some background. Earlier in the day I bought three different Deep Purple live shows (California Jamming 1974, and BBC In Concert 1970 and 1972) so I was listening all day to David Coverdale, Ian Gillan (not to mention Glenn Hughes) plus I also threw on some Rainbow so there was Dio in there as well.
SCANDINAVIAN SINGERS HAVE NO SOUL. Obviously there are exceptions but you know this to be generally true. So hearing someone doing Holy Diver with that clean-as-a-whistle voice (he tried snarling at a couple points, shouldn't have bothered) didn't work for me. My wife tried to make the point that it's a young band so that should be taken into account, but Stratovarius or Sonata Arctica could have been up on that stage and there would have been the same problem. Watching those clips (or hearing it from the other room) of people doing Whitesnake or Deep Purple or Gary Moore songs on Finnish Idol is always an excruciating experience because of this. I'm hardly Mr. Soul but I have ears and I can hear it. It's interesting that my wife doesn't seem to understand.
This is what happens when your nation is whiter than white.
Most of the set was standard Finnishpopmetalrock. The ballads were excruciating, but again, that's the format, not the band. The guitar player who wasn't singing was a little Yngwie up there, playing behind his head, with his teeth, etc. He's going places I think. What was fun was him running around to "interact" with the other guitar player and the bass player when he had to correct their playing. But that's young band stuff, this could have been their first show for all I know.
The band is from the Swedish-speaking sector of the local community, and there were many giveaways. Their stage banter was basic and very short, in Finnish so stilted even I could understand it. Why they were speaking Finnish in the first place then... it's their goddamn show, right? And their songs are all in English so it's not some sort of identifying with the audience thing... weird fucking dynamics with this 6% minority here. (well, more like 25% in this region)
They closed with Iron Maiden's Fear of the Dark. Definitely more suited to the vocal style, although by this time the singer was a bit worn out and was missing notes. This is where some of the older metalhead crowd was getting up front looking glad to be there.
Interesting was that all the kids upstairs were SCREAMING for the band between songs like it was a Britney Spears concert. It was insane, and more painfully piercing sonically than anything happening on stage. Also, one of the judges from the Finnish Idol was there. Hmmm... (not the same magnitude as, say, Simon Cowell showing up for some band's set at a local dive in the US but it's the Finnish equivalent).
It wasn't the disaster I'd expected. Frankly it was the same as seeing Celesty here in October except Sturm und Drang actually played a couple of songs I liked (the covers) with much better singing throughout.
The kids and the parents cleared out, and were replaced with the older metalhead/gothy crowd. Seriously, lots of people here tonight and it was annoying because I really can't handle cigarette smoke like that. bllah. It's unfortunate that I enjoy those "bomb scare" shows (empty building, you see...) that are no good for the band. But they're good for me.
Swallow the Sun played a long set, but man.... boooooooooooorrriinnnggg. The most entertaining thing was the singer's Anal Cunt shirt. I've never really taken a serious listen to one of their albums (the wife bought the latest but it's in the other room where she listens to her stuff) but it was slow, not very detailed (as opposed to Ablaze in Hatred some months back which was the same basic style but lots of little details in the music with a bass player with a bass as big as I am, actually playing the fucking thing). Maybe it's a sound issue, maybe StS is just boring. What I do know is that singer is boring as fuuuucckkkk. Just standing there, a total black hole of charisma with the monotonous, laid back death growls. I probably would have enjoyed this much more as an instrumental band (and my favorite song was the instrumental they did).
Next show on the calendar seems to be Steel Attack (oh dear...) on April 7.
http://www.ifrc.org/youth/activities/club25/index.asp
Wait a minute.... this can't possibly be...
http://www.myspace.com/sturmis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5sKO6xN8Ow
Vaasa band, made up of 15-16 year-olds (the keyboard player looks 10), and I can believe it. They've gotten coverage in the local paper, have their video on the music channels, etc.
Watch the video. Really. And then come back here.
It was a circus. The place was flooded with little kiddies... and their parents. The club is divided all weird, under-18s have to upstairs to the balcony, and 18+ can be down on the floor. The kids, whatever, but all the parents wearing their black clothes to fit in was pretty funny. All the parents using their cameras to take pictures of their kids up on the balcony just seemed weird for a metal show.
The single/video is pure Finnish pop shit and I was expecting the worst.
They opened with Dio's Holy Diver. Not a bad start, but, uhhhh... some background. Earlier in the day I bought three different Deep Purple live shows (California Jamming 1974, and BBC In Concert 1970 and 1972) so I was listening all day to David Coverdale, Ian Gillan (not to mention Glenn Hughes) plus I also threw on some Rainbow so there was Dio in there as well.
SCANDINAVIAN SINGERS HAVE NO SOUL. Obviously there are exceptions but you know this to be generally true. So hearing someone doing Holy Diver with that clean-as-a-whistle voice (he tried snarling at a couple points, shouldn't have bothered) didn't work for me. My wife tried to make the point that it's a young band so that should be taken into account, but Stratovarius or Sonata Arctica could have been up on that stage and there would have been the same problem. Watching those clips (or hearing it from the other room) of people doing Whitesnake or Deep Purple or Gary Moore songs on Finnish Idol is always an excruciating experience because of this. I'm hardly Mr. Soul but I have ears and I can hear it. It's interesting that my wife doesn't seem to understand.
This is what happens when your nation is whiter than white.
Most of the set was standard Finnishpopmetalrock. The ballads were excruciating, but again, that's the format, not the band. The guitar player who wasn't singing was a little Yngwie up there, playing behind his head, with his teeth, etc. He's going places I think. What was fun was him running around to "interact" with the other guitar player and the bass player when he had to correct their playing.
But that's young band stuff, this could have been their first show for all I know.The band is from the Swedish-speaking sector of the local community, and there were many giveaways. Their stage banter was basic and very short, in Finnish so stilted even I could understand it. Why they were speaking Finnish in the first place then... it's their goddamn show, right? And their songs are all in English so it's not some sort of identifying with the audience thing... weird fucking dynamics with this 6% minority here. (well, more like 25% in this region)
They closed with Iron Maiden's Fear of the Dark. Definitely more suited to the vocal style, although by this time the singer was a bit worn out and was missing notes. This is where some of the older metalhead crowd was getting up front looking glad to be there.
Interesting was that all the kids upstairs were SCREAMING for the band between songs like it was a Britney Spears concert. It was insane, and more painfully piercing sonically than anything happening on stage. Also, one of the judges from the Finnish Idol was there. Hmmm... (not the same magnitude as, say, Simon Cowell showing up for some band's set at a local dive in the US but it's the Finnish equivalent).
It wasn't the disaster I'd expected. Frankly it was the same as seeing Celesty here in October except Sturm und Drang actually played a couple of songs I liked (the covers) with much better singing throughout.
The kids and the parents cleared out, and were replaced with the older metalhead/gothy crowd. Seriously, lots of people here tonight and it was annoying because I really can't handle cigarette smoke like that. bllah. It's unfortunate that I enjoy those "bomb scare" shows (empty building, you see...) that are no good for the band. But they're good for me.
Swallow the Sun played a long set, but man.... boooooooooooorrriinnnggg. The most entertaining thing was the singer's Anal Cunt shirt. I've never really taken a serious listen to one of their albums (the wife bought the latest but it's in the other room where she listens to her stuff) but it was slow, not very detailed (as opposed to Ablaze in Hatred some months back which was the same basic style but lots of little details in the music with a bass player with a bass as big as I am, actually playing the fucking thing). Maybe it's a sound issue, maybe StS is just boring. What I do know is that singer is boring as fuuuucckkkk. Just standing there, a total black hole of charisma with the monotonous, laid back death growls. I probably would have enjoyed this much more as an instrumental band (and my favorite song was the instrumental they did).
Next show on the calendar seems to be Steel Attack (oh dear...) on April 7.
http://www.ifrc.org/youth/activities/club25/index.asp
Wait a minute.... this can't possibly be...
