Il portale della musica Heavy Metal

Nordman - 1/20/2011 - Apollo Live Club - Helsinki

This was kind of a different gig for two reasons: Nordman is definitely not metal, it’s some sort of folk/ethnic rock, and the venue was this fancy theater/live club. Feeling horribly out of place, I of course was there slightly before the gig was supposed to start. Luckily the club made up for it’s poshness by totally screwing up the schedule and delaying the band by over an hour, just swell... Good thing that the beer at least was cheap, a real bargain at six euros per 0.4l, even a bottle of Mexican Sol was cheaper! Another thing that’s worth mentioning is the lack of any warm-up acts, instead there were old music videos from the 80’s and 90’s playing on a screen, rarely have I been to a gig were the crowd was so anti-warmed up. Still the concert was 15 euros, which seemed a bit much.

Finally Nordman began their set in front of a small crowd of about 40 people. Most of them were sitting in their tables, and only a couple were actually close to the stage, not a really warm welcome. For those not familiar with Nordman, here’s a short recap. They are originally a duo (although they perform with a band) who were active between 1994 and 1998 in Sweden, pioneering the Swedish ethnic rock genre, and reaching Nordic attention with their hit single, “Vandraren” (the Wanderer). They made a comeback in 2004, and have been active ever since. The song’s backgrounds themselves are not especially interesting, but the combination of Håkan Hemlin’s sorrowful voice and Mats Wester’s skillful nyckelharpa (a traditional Swedish instrument) playing, set the band aside from the boring imitators.

All the speeches were in Swedish, but it didn’t seem to bother the crowd. After requesting that people could come closer, the fans actually went to the floor to see the act. The band’s attitude can be distilled to their comment: “We’ve played these songs a few hundred times live, but it doesn’t matter, this is love!”. It’s always great to see a band that enjoys playing, and the crowd repaid them with an impressive choir during “Be mig”. Other high points were the song about witch burning, “I lågornas sken”, and of course the hit “Vandraren”, with which they closed their set.

Although the circumstances with the venue could have been a bit better, the actual gig was really entertaining. The light show, acoustics and sound were all surprisingly good, too. All in all, a nice addition to the bands I’ve seen live.


Photos:
Nordman


Report a cura di Markus Karppinen