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Sauna Open Air 2011 - Day 1 - 6/9/2011 - Eteläpuisto - Tampere

Summer, time for bbq, drinking, and all sorts of outdoor activities. Which can be mostly combined into one word: festival. The season begins here in Finland as usual in Tampere, with Sauna Open Air. This year’s edition (the official numbers confirm around 26.000 people attending this 3-day of music) host guests of high caliber, starting with Ozzy, Judas Priest and their Epitaph tour, Saxon, Accept, Doro, Dio Disciples to name a few. And for once the weather was incredibly hot and sunny, compared to the hostility of the previous, cold, and rainy edition. The first day starts later as there is only four bands, but when the opening act is Moonsorrow, most of the crowd is already inside as they make their appearance on stage.

Moonsorrow (Park Stage):
These pagan metallers from the iciest parts of Finland’s past had the honor of being the first band of the festival. Since Sauna takes place so early on in the summer, it was also probably the first festival gig for most of the people there. There are two stages in Sauna, the Park Stage and the Main Stage, the smaller being still a proper stage and having a nice beer area right in front of it. The alcohol area also had a cool Battery (the energy drink) structure in front of it. On the upper floor of this building one could sit on a leather couch and drink Battery slushies with Jägermeister while still seeing the gig. Guess where I spent all the gigs on the Park Stage.
Moonsorrow played their usual mighty and barren music, but the iciness of it just didn’t quite feel tangible, it being the hottest day of summer so far, with over 30°C in the shade or something. Although I was at first a bit skeptical about this choice for a first band, they managed to get the crowd going. They played “Jotunheim”, which isn’t quite as long as their most monumental songs, and also the old classic “Kylän päässä”, which in particular got the festival feeling going, a good and solid gig.
Unlike my usual style, I thought I’d give the gigs some numerical values, since it seems pretty easy to do so, and in my opinion it gives a little bit of added perspective on the 14 gigs reviewed here.
3/5

Helloween (Main Stage):
First on the main stage, the German power metallers come up with no less than expected, a show based on the stage charisma of Andi Deris, who continously incite the audience in the first rows, and the funny faces made by both the singer and Mr. Michael Weikath, which keep somehow the entertainment part of the gig going for the fans of the “pumpkins” coming from Hamburg.
“Are you Metal?” is a good opener all in all, as it warm up the crowd properly. But actually the start is quite surprising (for me who didn’t spoil myself with the setlist beforehand), since it seems quite early to play “Eagle Fly Free” and “March Of Time”. Two great classics for a set which is quite short after all. However the band sure knows how to please its fans, and the end couldn’t come without the old masterpieces “Future World” and “I Want Out”, from the earliest days. The final encore with “Dr. Stein” concludes a show which wasn’t bad at all, but didn’t even give me goosebumps for the excitement, so to speak.
Overall Helloween gave to the Sauna people what they wanted, no more, no less.
(Marco Manzi)

Omnium Gatherum (Park Stage):
This was my third time seeing these guys in the last six months, so I knew pretty much what to expect. Just 30 minutes earlier I had been conducting my first ever interview with the singer and guitarist of this band, so the gig felt a little bit extra special to me.
There was a lot of people watching the show, but sadly the crowd was pretty unenthusiastic, which is for some reason common on OG’s gigs. They played “New World Shadows” and a lot of the newer material, which is always good. With “Soul Journeys” and “Nail”, the band really got going and exhibited the kind of stage energy more bands ought to have. They also went for the more relaxing moods with “Chameleon Skin” and “Deep Cold”.
It could be the heavy metal crowd not digging this kind of music, but it was still kinda sad that the audience was so dead, especially since the band gave it their all.
4/5

Ozzy Osbourne (Main Stage): To quote Ozzy, “Let the madness begin!” This was mostly true, since the old man was fired up. This was the third time I saw Ozzy within a year, so the awe factor was kinda minimal. This doesn’t however change the fact that Ozzy is incredibly good when he has a good day, and luckily this day was one of those. The familiar mannerisms where there of course, the almost moshing and the random skipping around the stage, and of course the water buckets into the crowd. Also his voice was feeling well and the crowd loved it.
“Suicide Solution” had the foam cannon which is a standard for a Ozzy gig nowadays. He managed to shoot himself in the head with the cannon and spent a few songs dripping foam, good thing they don’t give the guy a real gun. (Foam can however be very deadly for cameras, which unfortunately a few photographers learned during the gig...) “Mr. Crowley” came early on in the set, that song is at least for me always the high point of the gig. The long and completely insanely boring part came when the guitar solo and drum solo took up like fifteen minutes of the set. I get it that Ozzy has to rest, but oh god it is boring to watch that crap! Luckily there were still some really good songs to come, but he could have skipped “Mama I’m Coming home”. The Prince of Fucking Darkness indeed...
The gig was definitely a good one, but didn’t quite capture the great feeling of Ruisrock 2010. Also the setlist was quite unimaginative and could have contained some more surprises.
4½/5

Setlist Ozzy Osbourne:
I Don’t Know
Suicide Solution
Mr. Crowley
Goodbye to Romance
Bark at the Moon
Road to Nowhere
Shot in the Dark
Rat Salad
(guitar+drum solos)
Iron Man
Fairies Wear Boots
I Don’t Want to Change the World
Crazy Train
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Mama, I’m Coming Home
Paranoid


Photos:
Ozzy Osbourne


Omnium Gatherum


Helloween


Moonsorrow


Report a cura di Markus Karppinen