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Sauna Open Air 2011 - Day 3 - 6/11/2011 - Eteläpuisto - Tampere

Blake (Park Stage):
I caught the last few songs, and I really didn’t miss anything. Blake is boring, generic and tired, there’s nothing more to say.
1/5

Queensryche (Main Stage):
Next up was Queensryche, a band whose name I’d heard loads of times, but never bothered to check out their music. First thing I noticed was the vocalist who wore a short leather jacket and a leather fedora, not very impressive. Also unimpressive was his voice, a huge disappointment since a fan had compared him to Halford only the previous day. Yeah right, no way in hell can these two be mentioned in the same sentence. They played bleak radio-friendly rock and completely lacked stage charisma or even a stage presence. With zero performance to back this up I really didn’t get this band. Summarized in one word: pretentious.
1½/5

Mokoma (Park Stage):
Upside down Norwegian flags hung from the drumkit, what the hell?! Mokoma is a strange one, considering that they play pretty thrashy stuff, and they have still managed to gather a mainstream support. Marko’s voice wasn’t quite working, at least in the beginning of the set, but they managed a typical Mokoma set. The clean vocals were this time stronger than the growls, which made “Kuu saa vallan auringolta” (The Moon Gets its Power From the Sun) the most powerful song of the set. Both the ballads and the more brutal songs did their part and the crowd enjoyed themselves. It was also really nice to hear some blastbeats, made one feel instantly at home. Thrash on!
3½/5

Accept (Main Stage):
I skipped Accept’s performance in this year’s Finnish Metal Expo, so now I got to see them live for the first time. Yet one band on this festival that I haven’t listened to previously, so I went in unprepared. They did have a certain groove to the performance, but the music just isn’t for me. “Metal Heart” got people singing, and combined with the video screen installed today, they created a sort of a stadion rock feeling. Asking around to the die hard fans, the result was that everyone praised the band set up and not one was missing Udo, clearly the new vocalist can hold his own.
I watched the rest of the gig from the nearby hillside where one really could appreciate the amount of people and the way the forest of fists reacted to the songs. The gig was okay, but got repetitive towards the end. Another unimaginative ending, with “Balls to the Wall” closing up the set.
3/5

Judas Priest (Main Stage):
The stage was covered by a huge canvas with the final tour’s Epitataph logo on it. Surprisingly the intro tape used was Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs”. Practically everyone who had a ticket today was present to see the main act of the festival, and judging by the tickets sold, it was more than ten thousand people. The amount of people and the metal horns raised was quite impressive from my vantage point up on the hill.
Halford has a full beard, what the hell? My first thoughts were swept away by the inferno of pyros used, clearly this was why only Viikate had had pyros, the Priest boys had stolen them all! Metal Gods got the crowd going. The stage was cool looking, with a chain theme going around the amps and the screens. It’s amazing how Halford’s voice still has both the strength and the color after all these years.
These guys don’t actually do that much on stage, most of the stage act comes from the plethora of different leather and metal jackets used by Halford (he had his own changing room behind the amp stack) and by the light and fire show, but they really don’t have to do much. Just standing around and looking awesome, while playing the guitar or lumbering around, while singing like a behemoth of ancient times somehow has more than enough charisma.
The show had a lot of high points. “Diamonds and Rust” had Tipton playing two different guitars. “Prophecy” had Halford wearing a silver cape and a huge cane with their logo on the end, the logo shooting flames at the end of their song. Any other band doing something like that would be laughed off the stage for something so ridiculous. These guys just make it looking insanely awesome, same thing with the green lasers shooting of at times.
It has to be said that some of the dynamics were of course lost, since KK had left the band at the eve of the tour, but the new kid sure knew how to handle a guitar, and I for one really didn’t find this lineup change to be a too awful thing. They played “Breaking the Law” with a huge tempo boost, and the crowd responded by making a hell of a lot of noise. The main set ended with an insane “Painkiller”, the vocals going to a “surreally” high pitch not even matched by the original recording.
The encore was preceded by a huge “Electric Eye” backdrop, so the first song wasn’t hard to guess. Keeping true to traditions, they had even brought the motor bike for “Hell Bent for Leather”, with Halford driving unto the stage with a Finnish flag, awesome in any category. The encore ended with “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’” and a huge barrage of flames, lasers and fire. The overwhelmed crowd started to leave after a two-hour-fifteen-minutes-long sublime set, when the Priest suddenly unleashed one more surprise, “Living After Midnight”.
The set was very comprehensive, but still some favorites, like “A Touch of Evil” were missing. What truly sets Judas Priest aside from the boring and even awful acts of this weekend are their fantastic riffs and heavenly vocals. After Friday I was convinced I had seen the best Sauna had to offer, but Priest truly did take the prize home.
6/5

Setlist Judas Priest:
01) War Pigs (Intro tape)
02) Battle Hymn
03) Rapid Fire
04) Metal Gods
05) Heading Out to the Highway
06) Judas Rising
07) Starbreaker
08) Victim of Changes
09) Never Satisfied
10) Diamonds & Rust
11) Dawn of Creation
12) Prophecy
13) Night Crawler
14) Turbo Lover
15) Beyond the Realms of Death
16) The Sentinel
17) Blood Red Skies
18) The Green Manalishi (with the Two-Pronged Crown)
19) Breaking the Law
20) Painkiller
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21) The Hellion
22) Electric Eye
23) Hell Bent for Leather
24) You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’
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25) Living After Midnight


Photos:
Judas Priest


Sparzanza


Accept


Mokoma


Queensryche


Blake


Tarot


Battle Beast


Anthriel


Report a cura di Markus Karppinen