'allo!
Wow. You know how there are some shows where you know people will be jealous of you in years to come because you were there?
Yeah, this was one of them.
Klubi's website advertised doors opening at 9pm. We got there shortly after, and it is obvious that the doors opened long before.
The place had a few dozen people, sitting around watching Blood on Satan's Claw on the projection screen in the club. No milling about, not much conversation happening, just a lot of people watching an old movie about witchcraft.
Fuckin hell, this definitely was going to be something to remember!
Since we'd missed a lot of the movie, Sanna and I moved directly to the merch table... Peter Vicar was selling the stuff himself. But I didn't know that at the time. I knew he was in the band, but in the band photos on the albums nobody is holding an instrument, so I knew what they looked like but not which name went to which guy or which instrument to which name to which guy.
So I was able to retain some dignity and just buy stuff from him instead of gushing like an imbecile. Grabbed the last XL shirt from this last tour, a replacement copy of Harbinger of Doom, and two overpriced zines (Psychedelic #9/#10 which has some pretty good interviews and I've always wanted a copy, and some other POS that I guess justified its price with the two sampler CDs that came with it that I'll never listen to, haven't even looked to see what's on them).
Looking at the vinyl Crush the Insects and a couple of 7"s, I was wishing so much that I had a turntable. Or maybe I should have bought them to have an excuse to get one.
So, the place ended up pretty packed. Several hundred people there, I'd imagine. The club is in a convenient location, hidden in this cul de sac with no way of knowing where it was from outside (we were shown by one of Sanna's old school friends who walked us from the train station to our hotel). All the metalheads gathering would have tipped us off though.
Our hotel was literally right across the street from the club, too. Convenient.
Anyway, summary reviews:
Spiritus Mortis, pretty good.
Minotauri... hmm. I'd need to listen to them on CD because I can't tell if my lack of interest and "Will this ever end?" was because of them or me. Guy had a nice commanding voice but the material was losing me.
Reverend Bizarre... they went on at 12:45am, and played for around an hour and forty-five minutes according to my wife. Just MASSIVE. Worth the 11 hours on buses, that's for sure. Just excessive exercises in THE RIFF. The drummer is AMAZING and the band was tight. Can't say enough good things about them. They "ended" with a version of Doom Over the World with everyone from Minotauri and Spiritus Mortis onstage shirtless (which wasn't such a good idea... some of these people are built like me), and Witchfinder didn't sing a single chorus... and he didn't have to. The crowd took care of it. Not so bad, but I wish I could have heard him sing it once at least.
They left the stage but of course were called back for an encore. Sanna was dying by this point, haha. She likes their "fast stuff" (which meant Doom... and Cromwell this night, and THAT'S IT). The encore consisted of two meandering dooooooomy numbers, and then they finally left the stage with the bass amp abuzz and noisy.
I can't recite song titles for shit... because you see, I have a problem. I can't follow slow music while reading the booklet because I just get impatient waiting for the next line coming up. So I just listen. But then with this style I never learn the names of the songs. Fuuuccckk. haha. Plus the fact that I really only became AMAZED by the band after Crush the Insects so I'm not a lifelong "I can identify every fucking thing" fan anyway. I even had a flash of "Do I deserve to be here?" thought when they started their and I couldn't identify the song. Then I thought "Well yeah, I rode a million kilometers on a bus to get here and then produced a paid ticket at the door".
Anyway, yeah. Fuckin' awesome.
Wow. You know how there are some shows where you know people will be jealous of you in years to come because you were there?
Yeah, this was one of them.
Klubi's website advertised doors opening at 9pm. We got there shortly after, and it is obvious that the doors opened long before.
The place had a few dozen people, sitting around watching Blood on Satan's Claw on the projection screen in the club. No milling about, not much conversation happening, just a lot of people watching an old movie about witchcraft.
Fuckin hell, this definitely was going to be something to remember!
Since we'd missed a lot of the movie, Sanna and I moved directly to the merch table... Peter Vicar was selling the stuff himself. But I didn't know that at the time. I knew he was in the band, but in the band photos on the albums nobody is holding an instrument, so I knew what they looked like but not which name went to which guy or which instrument to which name to which guy.
So I was able to retain some dignity and just buy stuff from him instead of gushing like an imbecile. Grabbed the last XL shirt from this last tour, a replacement copy of Harbinger of Doom, and two overpriced zines (Psychedelic #9/#10 which has some pretty good interviews and I've always wanted a copy, and some other POS that I guess justified its price with the two sampler CDs that came with it that I'll never listen to, haven't even looked to see what's on them).
Looking at the vinyl Crush the Insects and a couple of 7"s, I was wishing so much that I had a turntable. Or maybe I should have bought them to have an excuse to get one.
So, the place ended up pretty packed. Several hundred people there, I'd imagine. The club is in a convenient location, hidden in this cul de sac with no way of knowing where it was from outside (we were shown by one of Sanna's old school friends who walked us from the train station to our hotel). All the metalheads gathering would have tipped us off though.
Our hotel was literally right across the street from the club, too. Convenient.
Anyway, summary reviews:
Spiritus Mortis, pretty good.
Minotauri... hmm. I'd need to listen to them on CD because I can't tell if my lack of interest and "Will this ever end?" was because of them or me. Guy had a nice commanding voice but the material was losing me.
Reverend Bizarre... they went on at 12:45am, and played for around an hour and forty-five minutes according to my wife. Just MASSIVE. Worth the 11 hours on buses, that's for sure. Just excessive exercises in THE RIFF. The drummer is AMAZING and the band was tight. Can't say enough good things about them. They "ended" with a version of Doom Over the World with everyone from Minotauri and Spiritus Mortis onstage shirtless (which wasn't such a good idea... some of these people are built like me), and Witchfinder didn't sing a single chorus... and he didn't have to. The crowd took care of it. Not so bad, but I wish I could have heard him sing it once at least.
They left the stage but of course were called back for an encore. Sanna was dying by this point, haha. She likes their "fast stuff" (which meant Doom... and Cromwell this night, and THAT'S IT). The encore consisted of two meandering dooooooomy numbers, and then they finally left the stage with the bass amp abuzz and noisy.
I can't recite song titles for shit... because you see, I have a problem. I can't follow slow music while reading the booklet because I just get impatient waiting for the next line coming up. So I just listen. But then with this style I never learn the names of the songs. Fuuuccckk. haha. Plus the fact that I really only became AMAZED by the band after Crush the Insects so I'm not a lifelong "I can identify every fucking thing" fan anyway. I even had a flash of "Do I deserve to be here?" thought when they started their and I couldn't identify the song. Then I thought "Well yeah, I rode a million kilometers on a bus to get here and then produced a paid ticket at the door".
Anyway, yeah. Fuckin' awesome.
