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Metalheim 2011 - Day 1 - 10/28/2011 - Nosturi - Helsinki

Second edition of the festival organized by Metalheim, again in Nosturi, but this time coming on a different weekend. An unfortunate choice since apparently many people have chosen the many Halloween parties instead of good music. Shame on them!
It’s a bit sad when Ghoul Patrol, promoting their selftitled debut album fresh of release, have to play, less than half hour after the doors opened, in front of such a small crowd. It’s nice to see however that the guys on stage still try to give it their all, and to involve this (too quiet!) audience into their show. Their set is quite interesting, and their death´n´roll sounds not too bad at times. Actually, it made me want to give a listen to their record.
After GP, it was time for MyGrain to set foot on stage. I don’t dig much their music, although I had the chance to see the band a few times already. Their presence on stage seems to be what gets their fans going, but the show in my opinion lacks of that “something” to really capture the attention. Maybe it wasn’t really the best day, but still a linear performance that didn’t have many highs and lows. Besides, playing in front of one or two hundred people who mainly just stand there still, doesn’t really add to the atmosphere.
At least this aspect was about to change when it was Audrey Horne’s turn. The guys from Bergen, with their hard rock/post grunge attitude have on their side the charisma of their singer Toschie, and for the ladies the presence of Enslaved’s usually shirtless guitar player (although not today) Ice Dale. They finally manage to warm-up properly the crowd, slowly gathering near the stage, with their usual megaphone part, together with the restlessness of their vocalist which is always teasing the audience and at the ends jumps off stage into the pit, yelling at the fans.
“Charon”, “Threshold” and “Blaze of Ashes” are my personal highlights of the show, while Ice Dale displays his abilities at the guitar and the guys on stage seems to have quite a good time overall. Once again I can say I’m satisfied of being able to see these Norwegians perform live, but the show I was most looking forward to, as the last time I met them was back in 2008, it’s Týr´s.
Unfortunately, the show of the Faroese guys, of which I had a hard time recognizing the guitar player if not from the tattoes, proved to be a personal disappointment this time. Since the opening with “Flames Of The Free”, where at the beginning I could barely hear the vocals, it seemed something was off. The whole set, which was also very short (approximately 45 mins), had recurrent problems with the guitars, and worse with the bass sound. Not to mention that the setlist itself wasn’t one to pay the right tribute to the greatest songs of this otherwise great band. Everything revolved mostly around the last two albums, and on English-language songs. The gig started to be slightly interesting when “Hold The Heaten Hammer High” and “By The Sword In My Hand” came, but sadly, they were the last two!
As a follower of the band since the first release back in 2002, I have been very disappointed from the decision to skip completely old classics such as “Hail To The Hammer”, “Regin Smiður” or “Ramund Hin Unge”, probably the band thought they would have been too heavy to listen for the audience in this festival. At least the singer had the time to make some jokes in the breaks between the songs, and the faces of the bass player while playing made it more entertaining.
Following this major turn off, Moonsorrow came to save the day with a very good show instead. The dim and darkened atmosphere suits perfectly to these blood-covered guys who rarely fail to entertain their fans, especially when playing at home.
It’s at least the 4th time that they play in the Finnish capital this year, but even if this affects the amount of people attending the show, they make it interesting nonetheless by adding some great material to their very long set, which starts with “Sankarihauta”. Ville & co. are seems to be in good shape as usual, and have it quite easy among the cheering of their fans. It’s nice that after a while the band played again the whole “Tulimyrsky”, which set the stage for the best yet to come. I was personally captured like it didn’t happen from long time when the band played “Raunioilla” and “Kylän Päässä”. Great moments from a band that surely knows how to get to its audience. And when “Kuolleiden Maa” arrived, it seemed to be the end of the show. The 5-piece came back instead for a double encore made of “Sankaritarina” and “Matkan Lopussa”, and after more than a 90-mins set, people were visibly satisfied from yet another good gig from Moonsorrow, definitely the best of the day. Appointment back here the next day for another great pagan band, Primordial!


Photos:
Moonsorrow


Tyr


Audrey Horne


MyGrain


Ghoul Patrol


Report a cura di Marco Manzi