The Swedish metal giant Sabaton ended their tour “The Tour To End All Tours” in glorious style. With support of the Finnish hard rock band Lordi and Japanese kawaii metal band BABYMETAL the evening was full of sweat, amusing tunes and theatre on stage.
The evening started with Lordi playing a 40-minute set including some of their greatest hits and a few songs from their newest album “Screem Writers Guild”. The opening song was “Dead Again Jayne” and at least the frontline of the crowd was immediately banging along with this new tune. As second came the classic “Would You Love a Monsterman?” which took a bigger portion of the crowd to sing and party along the punchline. It is worth mentioning though that the event may not have been organized as well as it should have been since the waiting lines at the gates were really long and it seems that many people missed at least Lordi because of this - the gates opened at 18 and Lordi started playing at 19. At this point the place wasn’t even half full as it was later in the evening.
Anyway, Lordi did their best with their rather short 40-minute spot, warming up the crowd for Babymetal and of course the main act of the evening, Sabaton. The highlight for me of the Lordi’s set was “Blood Red Sandman” (along with Mr. Lordi’s funny speeches amongst the songs) which main riff sounded super heavy - it might just have been the heaviest thing we heard during the whole evening even though there were more metallic things coming up. The mixing and sounds of Lordi were probably the best of any Lordi gig I have heard so far of the few which I have been to before. Mr. Lordi’s vocals stood out perfectly and the instruments weren’t a mess at all which is quite typical in live gigs. The bass could have been a little louder though but that’s just little nitpicking from me. The set ended to the Lordi’s biggest hit “Hard Rock Hallelujah” which united the whole crowd to sing the catchphrase all along.
After a rather quick intermission came the turn of BABYMETAL. At first thought BABYMETAL would seem like a little odd choice for a band to play in between Lordi and Sabaton. And I have to admit that personally I haven’t been a fan of BABYMETAL before (nor am I really after the gig, at least yet) but the opening song “BABYMETAL DEATH” started their set off with a bang. As second came the hit “Megitsune” which in combination with the epic lightshow and the dance choreography of Su-metal, Moametal and Momometal sold it to me and I thought that if the whole set would be like this, well, then I would totally be a fan after all.
Unfortunately the rest of their 40-minute set wasn’t that interesting anymore, at least to me - the crowd seemed to think otherwise though since a big part of the ever-growing multitude was totally jamming along with the music till the end of their set. Of course there was the other part of the crowd as well which just seemed to wait for the main act Sabaton. The mixing of the gig was a bit off due to vocals which either drowned in the mix or were too loud at some parts and the guitars sounded a bit sharply rugged as well.
In the break between BABYMETAL and Sabaton the hall became really full and I don’t know if this is because the rest of the people have waited in the line outside all the time till this point or some of them have come just to see Sabaton (other rather bulky minus point to the organizer for not telling anywhere what is the intended showtime of each band, or at least I couldn’t find any information of that prior to the gig). In any case, it was clear that Sabaton is the reason why people have come here and why the air in the hall started to become so damp and moist.
The gig started with a flaming blast in terms of “Ghost Division” - accompanied with pyrotechnics in a fitting style for Sabaton. The same tangible energy continued with the following songs “Bismarck”, “The Last Stand” and “Into the Fire”. This start of these 4 songs was the top part of the gig for me, especially the faster pump of a track Into the Fire. After these we were offered a juicy spice in the form of Carolus Rex sung in Swedish - Sabaton in Swedish seems to be a thing a big portion of the fanbase seems to like at least here in Finland. Another thing that the Finns especially like are of course the few songs of Sabaton which tell about the Finnish war history, and today we got to hear the banger “Soldier of 3 Armies” to satisfy the need of those songs. It was a little letdown though that we didn’t hear any other of the Finland-related songs and personally the missing of “Talvisota” is a rather big bummer.
Around the halfway of the Sabaton’s 1 hour and 40 minute set the energy seemed to decrease a little but that’s probably just me - I haven’t been to a music event that lasts for many hours in a long time and that took its toll. While I may have been exhausted, the crowd didn’t seem to be so and all of the gig was one big of a party. One highlight from the encore put a little portion of energy back to me though - the hit “Primo Victoria”, although it was played maybe a bit faster than usual which seemed a bit off to me. In any way, the 3-track encore (with guitar and drum solos within) was enjoyable and the show came to its end with “To Hell and Back”. From the mixing point of view Sabaton was great, other than that the guitars were a bit muddy to some extent. Big bonus points for the epic props and stage presence of the band, as well as the additional showpersons. Sabaton truly knows how to make a proper metal show.
As a summary the combo of these 3 bands worked rather well and the evening was a feast of rock, metal and show on the stage - the latest probably being the most unifying factor of all these bands. Lordi was my personal favorite from the set and could have used a bit more showtime, but it worked out well with a shorter set too. They actually had the best mixing to my liking from all three bands as well which was a bit surprising. BABYMETAL, against the little presumptions, was quite enjoyable as well and I’m definitely giving them a go on Spotify later on.
Sabaton was really good and the crowd as well as the band seemed to have real fun too - but personally, likely due to my exhaustion I didn’t enjoy the latter part of their set that much. Some of the set’s songs could have been replaced with better ones too but that’s only a personal liking. All in all the evening was a blast - at least to those who made it inside the hall in time to see all their desired acts.
Ratings:
Lordi - 4,25 / 5
BABYMETAL - 2,75 / 5
Sabaton 3,5 / 5
Total - 3,5 / 5
-Bat
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