Live Shows

[Godflesh]

My eye doeesn't throb that much anymore, but it's 4 AM and I'm drunk, so maybe that's the reason why. Grave Pleasures and Lasten Hautausmaa were great. When you get the chills, it's well worth the money. Now we're off to the airport.

[anomynous]

Finally get to see Gojira tonight. Would have preferred to see them during the Lenfant Sauvage cycle, but I'll take what I can get.

[Aldhissla]

Igorrr was great. Nothing big coming up till January now; will go and see Septicflesh for the first time then.

[Emplate]

I went to SteelChaos last weekend. I was disappointed to hear of Bölzer's cancellation on Friday, but I have to say that this was probably one of the best fests I've attended. Loads of great gigs which took the mind out of the whole cancellation thing, with Nifelheim and Master's Hammer taking the cake. Nifelheim is always simply superb live, but I have to admit I was a bit suspicious about Master's Hammer, as I've never seen them live. However, my worries were for nothing, they really delivered. Deströyer 666 is also always nice to see live. Finishing the show with Exciter's Heavy Metal Maniac was a nice touch.

A couple of Finnish acts really caught me by surprise with their sets, namely Urn, Havukruunu and Antimateria. Especially Urn was shamelessly rocking. Antimateria might have been the biggest surprise of the bunch, as their stuff hasn't really done nothing for me previously. The collaboration gig of Ride for Revenge and Bizarre Uproar was very hypnotic to follow, an excellent, yet weird and even off-putting performance. I'm pretty sure there never has been that many bodily fluids on the stage of Nosturi.

Crimson Moon and Heretic were kinda bland. Especially Heretic had this boring polished and clean kind of an American rock thing going on. I actually thought they were from the US before I just now checked it, heh. They would've needed a lot more dirt and attitude to their performance. The songs weren't particularly bad, the delivery just wasn't there.

Anyway, great times were had! Here's hoping there will be another edition of this fest next year, and the lineup will in that case be as good or even close.

[Godflesh]

I was at a friend's 40th birthday party at this old Finnish farm house and they had Barbora Xu performing for him. It was amazing! She was singing and playing guzheng and gujin, accompanied by kantele. Lyrics from Finnish old lyrical poetry collection, Kanteletar, arranged by her. She has a very vibrant and strong voice which did not suffer at all from the performance space.
http://www.barboraxu.com/

They also had an improvised piece with guzheng and kantele, and at the end an impromptu piece of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here. The man of they day, a huge Pink Floyd fan, has played a little keyboard and he tried guzheng and tried to play some melodies from that song, but the notes do not apparently correspond to normal scales, the strings are like black keys on the keyboard or something like that so it proved a little difficult. She knew the song a little, so they tried to sing it together and she tried to arrange it for guzheng on the go. It worked surprisingly well for a one-time sing-off.

Olin Ennen Otramaana, with guzheng (there accompanied by kantele):

[Godflesh]

Enkö Minäki Toivoisi, with gujin, guzheng and kantele:

[Godflesh]

Nuku, Nuku, Nurmilintu, (a Finnish lullaby) with guzheng (+ kantele then):

[winterburner]

Saw Misþyrming on Friday. Also pretty cool to have shared the stage myself a couple hours prior.

Forget what I've said about not being into them, I've been really getting into them lately.

[Emplate]

Saw Misþyrming on Friday. Also pretty cool to have shared the stage myself a couple hours prior.

Forget what I've said about not being into them, I've been really getting into them lately.

So you were at Howls of Winter? Goddamnit, would've really liked to go, but my thesis currently forbids me from any kind of fun.

[winterburner]

Saw Misþyrming on Friday. Also pretty cool to have shared the stage myself a couple hours prior.

Forget what I've said about not being into them, I've been really getting into them lately.

So you were at Howls of Winter? Goddamnit, would've really liked to go, but my thesis currently forbids me from any kind of fun.

Well yeah, was there on Friday mainly because we played that night. Seemed like a cool event but I only came back to see Misþyrming after we'd played. Would have liked to stay for Saturday, too but well. Can't have all.