Sonata Arctica & Ensiferum

w/ Vanishing Point

Billboards, Melbourne – 5th January 2010

***More photos can be viewed here***

With the sideshows touring Australia after the successful Screamfest in Sydney over new years, the Finnish travelling party of Ensiferum and Sonata Arctica made their way to Billboards in Melbourne, along with an impressive sized crowd featuring many battle painted faces and toy swords!

Opening the night, Melbourne act Vanishing Point had a good early crowd in, actively enjoying tracks from the bands sizable catalogue. While I only caught the second half of the bands set, the enthusiasm on display from both crowd and band showed why VP have become one of the leading Australian bands on the world stage. Probably the highlight of the bands half hour set was the appearance of Sonata Arctica front man Tony Kakko who I presume, as I’m not familiar with the song, joined VP vocalist Silvio Massaro to sing the track Two Minds, One Soul – a track that Sonata  themselves have covered and released. The low mix of Kakko’s vocals during the song was unfortunate, however certainly wetted the appetites of many a fan in the venue for what was to come.

A quick Coopers beer run and I was back in the pit area, where the land was silent… before the storm!

Up next on stage was Ensiferum, a band I’ve waited a long time to catch live since a friend passed onto me a copy of their debut self titled album. Decked out in kilts and war paint, the six folky members kicked off what was probably the best set I’ve seen, and unsurprisingly, one of the sweatiest moshpits I’ve been involved in as well!

With the crowd going mental from the very first note of From Afar – the title track from the band’s 2009 album, the band showed exactly how they’ve gained the reputation of a killer live performance. Clearly benefitting from a greater number of shows in Europe and North America, the band energetically prowled around the spacious stage, swinging their axes and inciting crowd movements throughout the hour and a bit set. Front man Petri Lindroos was powerful in his delivery of the harsher vocals, while bassist Sami Hinkka and guitarist Markus Toivonen created a genuine folk driven atmosphere with their clean backing vocals.

With the majority of the Billboards crowd singing and chanting along from the get go, the band delved into their back catalogue and brought out classics such as Token of Time, Into Battle, Treacherous Gods and the epically epic Lai Lai Hei.

Post- Jari Mäenpää material from Ensiferum hasn’t quite been as endearing to my ears as the first couple of albums from the band were. I’ve felt that the classic melodies have been lacking in epicness, and it took me a little while to accept the slight change in harsh vocal styles that Lindroos brought. That said, new songs played on the night such as Victory Song, Twilight Tavern and Stone Cold Metal came off brilliantly – with the latter even inciting certain fans to create a mini ‘jig infused’ circle pit! I don’t think anyone could have asked for more than the closing track Iron, in which the crowd as one sung the melody to the chorus to prove that Folk metal is much loved in Australia! Now let’s just hope the Ensiferum guys head back to Europe and tell their folky friends how much these Aussies love their sub-genre!

No doubt it is hard to follow a band to which the crowd has reacted so positively for, however if there were a band that I though could do it on this night, then they – Sonata Arctica – were about to enter the stage area.

I’ve had a love hate relationship with Sonata Arctica since a friend introduced me to them a few years back. One half of my brain insists that (some of) their material is genius and rightfully world leading power metal, while the other half lambastes me for forcing such cheesy music into my aural cavity. This pattern of thought proved to be prophetic in some respects, with a ‘mixed’ bag from the Finns.

Playing a selection of new and old, the reason for the bands popularity in Melbourne was clear, with fan favourites 8^th Commandment, Don’t Say a Word and Fullmoon gathering a booming response and mass crowd participation. Unfortunately however, the large influx of new material during the middle to latter stages of the band set put a sizable dampener on proceedings, with a number of songs gaining active support from only the most ardent supporters of the band, with Paid in Full from the bands 2007 album Unia being the exception to the rule.

With the successful transition by the promoters from festival to sideshow mode, it will be interesting to see if the two Finnish bands on display here tonight will ever step foot into Australia again. Judging on crowd reactions, I’d say it’s pretty safe to say one of them will be back rather soon.

Ensiferum Setlist – (roughly ordered)
From Afar
Token of Time
LAI LAI HEI!
Twilight Tavern
Ahti
Into Battle
Stone Cold Metal
Treacherous Gods
One More Magic Potion
Victory Song
Iron

Sonata Arctica Setlist
Flag in the Ground
Paid in Full
Fullmoon
8th Commandment
As if the World Wasn’t Ending
Black Sheep
Juliet
The Last Amazing Grays
In Black and White
Don’t Say a Word
Vodka Song

Photos by Scott Boelsen.