When the Eclipse gig in Turku was announced last autumn, I knew that it was a ”must”. It’s not like there are too many melodic hard rock gigs here… and when it was announced that One Desire would be the support act, I bought the tickets just to make sure we won’t miss this.

ONE DESIRE have been on a hiatus since June 2023, and it looked like they might be over and done. Last summer they regrouped and played one gig in Vaasa, and things started to look brighter. Now there’s been talk of new material, and the three gigs on this small tour with Eclipse will be followed by at least one festival appearance in April at Wings Of AOR festival in Sweden.

The band played a good-spirited, fun show, even though they had to suffer some technical problems. The PA died a couple of times, but vocalist Andre Linman said that ”I’m not just a singer, I’m an entertainer” and showed some dance moves. ”Dancing With The Stars” next year?

Songs in the setlist included ”Hurt”, ”After You’re Gone”, ”Apologize”, ”Never Gonna Stop”, ”Whenever I’m Dreaming”, ”Shadowman” and ”Buried Alive”. No new songs, but then again, One Desire have always kept their cards close to their chest. We will have to wait for the new album!

ECLIPSE, the hard working and productive Swedes are somewhat regular visitors in Finland. They have a solid fanbase here, and according to the organizers, this gig close to being sold out. We were in the third row, and once the headliners started the next rows seemed to get closer and closer.

The band has a rather huge catalogue of songs to choose from - 10 albums and a few stand-alone singles. The first two albums have been ”forgotten” by the band for the last 20 years or so though, but still, a lot of choices. It’s a good thing that they’ve rarely released any clunkers, so although not all the songs in the setlist were among my favourites, they were still pretty good!

This was the last time we saw the band with their new drummer Adde Moon, formerly of Hardcore Superstar. He’s a seasoned pro and a showman with the required chops, so he fits in very well. Bass player Victor Crusner seems to have taken a bigger role in the band, singing lead vocals on one of the songs (”High Road”) and being a very lively performer. The founding members Magnus Henriksson (guitar) and Erik Martensson (vocals, guitar) have always been fun to watch, and this gig was not an exception.

The technical problems One Desire had made a comeback and at some point half of the PA died. So we got to hear Eclipse in mono… like real troopers the band didn’t mind, they just played us some ”mono” music from the 60’s, some ”Daydripper” by The Beatles and ”Runaway” by Del Shannon. The roadcrew brought in a ladder to the stage to fix the problem, and during that little break Erik performed ”Battlegrounds” totally unplugged for us, which was quite impressive.

The highlights for me were ”The Downfall Of Eden”, ”Falling To My Knees”, ”Saturday Night” (works on a Friday as well!), ”Runaways” and ”Viva La Victoria”. During the last track, a fan called Jenny was brought to the stage to celebrate her 100th Eclipse gig - I guess she kinda likes the band!

Review by Kimmo Toivonen, photos by Mira Suutari-Toivonen