29-04-2016 Korpiklaani

[schema type=”event” evtype=”Event” name=”Finnish Folk Metal Mafia Tour” description=”Co-headlining : Korpiklaani & Moonsorrow” sdate=”2016-04-29″ stime=”07:30 pm” street=”Matrix” city=”Bochum” country=”DE” ]

Finnish folk metal mafia Moonsorrow and Korpiklaani have been on the co-headlining tour recently and one of the stops was Bochum. Both bands are quite known in the folk/pagan metal scene so a dedicated audience was there!

Moonsorrow was the first band to play. The band’s latest record “Jumalten Aika” has been released last month and they have been touring to promote it. You could tell that the band had been tired but they were definitely in the mood; all in all, there was a passionate fanbase who could sing along and headbang to the songs! They thanked the crowd again and again between the songs. Vocalist Ville Sorvali also made some “finnish” jokes to warm up the crowd, leaving a smile in everyone’s face!

Besides playing almost all of the songs from the new album – hey, we are talking about a typical Moonsorrow album!-, the band also played some classics like “Raunioilla”, “Sankaritarina” , “Jotunheim” and the first song “Ukkosenjumalan Poika” from the first full-length album. As a die-hard Moonsorrow fan, I can say that I enjoyed both the old classics as well as the new, kick-ass songs that the band presented. The fans also got to see and hear Jonne in guest vocals during the new song “Ruttolehto incl. Päivättömän päivän kansa”. Surely, even a co-headlining tour is not enough for a band like Moonsorrow since they mostly have long songs but the audience was more than satisfied and ‘warmed up’ for Korpiklaani.

Korpiklaani on stage.. The Finnish folk metallers have released their latest record “Noita” last year so this tour was more of a ‘best-of’ rather than an album promotion. I could see that the venue – and especially the area of the mosh-pit- was getting more crowded as fans were getting ready to hop, dance, headbang and create a happy-folkish chaos in the middle! Throughout the gig, there was not one single moment to pause as the band kept on playing song after song; it didn’t matter if it was a favorite song or the ‘least favorite’ ones, everybody seemed to have a good time!

The band had a mixed set-list for the night and as with all Korpiklaani gigs, some songs were celebrated more than the others. In this sense, the second half of the gig was more fun for the audience! That’s when the people in the mosh-pit lost control and went crazy! Some favorites like “Vodka” , “Beer Beer”, “Wooden Pints” were also in the second half of the gig.
A highlight of the evening was a temporary line-up change in this tour. Since the original violinist/fiddle player Tuomas Rounakari could not join the band for this tour, the replacement was Olli Vänskä from Turisas! Seeing him on stage with Korpiklaani felt like all the audience as well as the bands were like a huge family and nobody had any difficulties fitting in. I could also see that Olli was enjoying the whole atmosphere considering that he had to learn the setlist in 1 week!

At the end of the night, the band left everyone sweating, some injured – and maybe bleeding? 😀 – and everyone had smiles on their faces. During the last song, Moonsorrow members also came on stage and added some extra awesomeness with some extra drumming skills, which was definitely a great moment!

As a fan who have seen both bands several times, I can say that this was probably the best gigs of both of the bands. Such a great night for pagan metal fans!

Links:
Moonsorrow Facebook
Korpiklaani Facebook