|
|
|
Therapy?
Therapy? ended their Scandinavian tour in Tampere in a small club that suited the gig really well. The opener was a Finnish band called “Blake” that played a bit heavier stuff than Therapy? and had bit more scary looks too [first pic on the left]. Blake did by far the heaviest version of Neil Young’s “Rocking in the Free World” that I’ve ever heard and that along with the rest of their set got the crowd going really well. After a while Therapy? started. Maybe the Scandinavian tour had exhausted the crew but the sound in the first song was terrible. Bass drum was all over the place and the lead guitar was nowhere to be found. Gladly that was soon fixed and the gig could really start. The band was extremely relaxed and nothing seemed to spoil their good mood. Not even a half empty pint that was thrown to the stage just missing the singer/guitarist Andy Cairns. They took it rather positively: “If you have to throw a pint make sure it’s empty. Only a wanker throws a full pint to the stage”. Hmm, I wonder what Axl Rose would have said in a similar situation. The men were enjoying themselves and the crowd appreciated that. I have never seen so many crowd surfers in such a small club and for a moment I was sure that at some point they’d have to call the paramedics. Stage diving got really wild at one point and the organizers were obviously not expecting that. Again the band handled it cool. They stopped just once and said “if you want to stage dive knock yourselves out but mind our equipment. If you break it we’ll have to sell our ass in the streets to buy new ones and you don’t want that.” At times the band was outnumbered by the stage divers but in the end it worked out really well. Therapy has had a reputation of doing what they wanted. I’m sure that most of the people there knew the band from “Troublegum” and “Infernal Love” but the band didn’t play many songs from those albums. The set list was more for the die-hard fans but the more familiar songs like “Screamager” and an excellent version of “Diane” had the warmest reception from the crowd. When the band got their sounds right they showed that in addition to having fun on the stage they can also play. The gig didn’t last much more than an hour and myself like many who were there to refresh the memories of the mid nineties were left missing some of Therapy?’s more famous tunes. Nevertheless one of the most fun shows I’ve been to. You can’t get much better atmosphere to a club than that in Tampere and I left home smiling. Until I noticed that my car stereo had been stolen during the gig. But that’s another story… Petri Kautto, |
|
