08-10-2016 Insomnium

[schema type=”event” evtype=”Event” name=”08-10-2016 Insomnium” description=”Supports: Pressure Points, Swallow The Sun By Laureline Tilkin-Franssens” sdate=”2016-10-08″ street=”The Circus” city=”Helsinki” country=”FI” ]

Imagine a dark and rainy autumn evening in Helsinki. Autumn has slowly begun and the general mood and atmosphere in here can be described as gloomy. What better way to experience that basic autumn sensation than to schedule both Swallow The Sun and Insomnia at The Circus in Helsinki?

The first band to play and most likely the biggest surprise for me was Pressure Points. They’re a Finnish progressive metal band, founded already in 2004 in Heinola. The band has two album releases on their plate, of which their latest album “False Lights” was released in 2015 and very well received.

Before the show a friend recommended me to check them out. I was promised a great show and that is precisely what I got. The band’s play time was pretty early, but yet they didn’t have anything to worry about: the venue was already quite packed when their show began. What was especially great to see is that from the start they made it very easy for the audience to engage with the show. Even though it was quite a short set (around 30 minutes filled with only 3 songs) they seemed very passionate and that had a powerful effect on the audience as well. Stage presence is something that can make or break a performance, in their case it provided that little something extra that some concerts just miss. They had such a good and professional energy on stage and this definitely resulted in an overall positive atmosphere amongst the crowd, setting the mood for later that night. I mean it when I say that I wish they had more time to play to discover more of their material, what I heard really made me curious. I hope to someday see them play at least a one hour long set. To those who did not make it to the venue in time for Pressure Points, I recommend going to see this band some other time, it’s definitely worth your while!

The somewhat unfortunate downside of Pressure Points playing first was perhaps that it was such a contrast with the beginning of the show of Swallow The Sun, which felt like more kind of a monologue in comparison. The Finnish doom metal band released their newest three-part album “Songs from the North” in 2015 and the show was mostly dedicated to those songs.

During the first part of the show we saw a very concentrated and calm, even stoic band in very low light. There was not much action. However with these kind of complex songs they were performing, that seemed like the right choice as well. The audience didn’t seem to mind. After the very calm and relaxing part, the tide turned when the more heavier songs came and provided us a climax. The shift from the very moody, long and complicated songs, to the other part of the set, was a powerful moment for me to witness. At least that’s when I felt that the crowd was able to release the different kinds of energies and emotions they felt during the first half, which also shifted the band’s activity on stage. This is something that I really enjoyed myself. As mentioned before most of the set was dedicated to the newest album, the last couple of songs however were older ones and seemed to work very well within the setting of “Songs from the North”. The last song “Descending Winters” was a perfect ending, the crowd really loved it and seemed to be warmed up enough to welcome Insomnium on the stage.

More and more people were getting into the venue, Insomnium was finally about to play their show. The melodic death metal band released a new album “Winter’s Gate” just some days before the show. The new album, which basically is like one very long song, made me very curious about how the show is going to be.

They opened up the show with Winter’s Gate – the entire thing, yes. Because they had just released the new album, I was wondering if the crowd would receive the opener well, but that didn’t seem to be a problem at all. The song serves well as an opener for the concert and the audience seemed to love it too. I saw Insomnium about 10 years ago for the first time, their performance struck me then. I guess some things never really change. They still have this incredible, relaxed stage presence, which endures throughout all of the songs, even during the solos and more ambient sections. They have the power to make every single individual person shout along and move with them. Moreover they always seem like they’re having a blast up there. Vocalist and bassist Niilo Sevänen is a great front man for the band, and was very grateful for the good turnout, yes the venue was really packed. Guitarist Markus Vanhala his energetic self, running around on the stage, while also playing very masterfully. From the reactions of the crowd I could also tell that everyone in the venue was having a great time: headbanging, moshpits, shouting along showed their excitement. The setlist except Winter’s Gate, was focused also on their 2006 release “Above The Weeping World” (like for example “The Gale”, “Change of Heart” and of course my personal favorite “The Killjoy”) which is celebrating its ten year anniversary at the moment. The last song of the evening “Weighed Down with Sorrow” concluded in my opinion a successful evening.