Arion & Battle Beast
5.12. 2021 Logomo, Turku
Fifth time lucky... Thanks to the pandemic that doesn't want to go away, this concert has been re-scheduled five times. The first date was in March 2019, just when this whole thing exploded and the world was closed. But finally, almost two years later the gig took place and the bands played to a sizeable crowd at Logomo.
The day before, Finnish Eurovision sensation Blind Channel had played a sold out all-ages show and according to the staff, most of the audience was screaming young girls and the stage was bombarded with teddy bears. Arion and Battle Beast drew a wider range of people and no teddy bears were thrown. A good thing, as they might have turned into deadly balls of fire because of the pyrotechics. As for the crowd, obviously the age limit of 18 played its’ part but otherwise, there was a nice variety of people in there, from eighteen to… eighty? Well, maybe not but that has a nice ring to it! Battle Beast does have a certain crossover appeal, they are liked by young and old metal heads and those in between.
The front rows were sparse when ARION kicked off their set, but a lot of people dragged themselves closer to the stage as the show went on. The band and especially frontman Lassi Vääränen did their best to start the party, and to a degree they succeeded.
The band played a solid set of melodic metal with progressive touches. I am not entirely familiar with their discography, but as far as I remember they played at least ”A Vulture Dies Alone”, ”You’re My Melody”, ”Unforgivable”, ”I Love To Be Your Enemy”, ”Bloodline”, ”In The Name Of Love” and ”At The Break Of Dawn”. The band has some very good songs and I’ll have to look into their back catalogue a bit closer.
Some of Arion’s songs feature guest vocalists like Elize Ryd and Beast’s Noora Louhimo, and their parts were piped in, which was somehow a bit awkward. I guess this is the way it’s done these days, but for an old geezer like me, it’s just strange. The band has a singer, he could have sung those few lines as well and it wouldn’t have bothered anyone. Or would that have ruined the ”duet experience”? Two sides of the coin...
During the interval between the two bands I tried to sort out an issue we had regarding the photographing. For a while it looked like our photographer Mira wouldn’t be allowed to go into the photo pit at all, but after a text message to the organizer, things were sorted out. Once the pyro-enhanced first songs were over, she got to shoot the band and the results are here and on our Facebook page for you to see.
Technically I guess these December gigs were still a part of the ”No More Hollywood Dreams”-tour, although the band already used the ”Circus Of Doom” backdrop. The ”NMHD” album was heavily represented with roughly half of the setlist from it. I think a good number of these songs have already achieved the status of ”BB Classics” and they’ll become setlist staples anyway.
With the aforementioned pyros blazing, the three first songs started the gig with full force and hardly gave us any time to breathe. The band’s set was cleverly paced though, after the explosive start they eased into ”Endless Summer”, a song that was totally wrong for the weather outside (-19 celsius degrees!) but otherwise warmly welcomed. And from the AOR they went into the big ballad ”I Wish”, with vocalist Noora Louhimo delivering again a heartfelt, touching performance. She really is a powerhouse singer.
Bassist Eero Sipilä MC’ed the gig while Noora was offstage for a while, promising us that ”the soft stuff has been dealt with now” and indeed, the rest of the set was pretty much full-throttle rocking, with one stomping metal hit after another.
The two new singles ”Eye Of The Storm” and ”Master Of Illusion” got their first live airings in Turku. I really liked ”Eye”, but the crowd didn’t seem to really know it and it didn’t get the reception it’ll probably get in a few months. Understandable, as it was released only a few days ago. ”Master” was more popular, but it’s been out for a few weeks already, racking up over million Spotify spins so far.
Although it was Noora who commanded the stage, the other band members displayed their showmanship skills too. Keyboard player Janne Björkroth’s mobile drum/keyboard set was given a new, festive name, ”Elf Sleigh” or something like that, and of course he played ”Jingle Bells” while it was being pulled around the stage. A very ”moving” version. Then there were the BB aerobics, to which the crowd was allowed to participate… a small video of that can be seen at our Instagram feed (rockunited.photos).
Battle Beast are one of the most entertaining bands we’ve seen, and they always deliver the goods. This gig was not an exception, the time just flew by and we enjoyed ourselves. Well worth the wait!
SETLIST:
Unbroken
Familiar Hell
Straight to the Heart
Endless Summer
I Wish
Raise Your Fists
Out of Control
Bastard Son of Odin
The Golden Horde
Eye of the Storm
No More Hollywood Endings
Eden
Master Of Illusion
King For A Day
Beyond The Burning Skies
Review by Kimmo Toivonen
Photos by Mira Suutari-Toivonen
Full photo gallery: RockUnited.Com @ Facebook