25-09-2010 Matthau Mikojan

Supports: Eve’s End; Venue: Kulturbahnhof, Bochum (Germany)
By: Nina Mende

Tonight the German-Finish Community in Bochum called DFG arranged an event nobody would forget that easily: They invited Matthau Mikojan to Germany to play a show in the Kulturbahnhof of Bochum. As support act they had the German band Eve’s End. Many Finland fans were at the show and rocked with the two bands.

The show began at 9pm in the cozy little Kulturbahnhof which was filling up quickly and ended up being pretty crowded and full of people that love Finland and Finnish music in general. On almost everyone you could find a patch of a Finnish flag and of several Finnish bands. Many people even wore merchandise of Finnish bands. The first band tonight was German though. Eve’s End from Darmstadt/Germany was founded in 2006 and played with acts like Tarja Turunen. Their music reminds a lot of HIM which might be the reason why they were picked as support act for tonight’s event. Eve’s End played many songs of their latest album called “Frozen Heart Philosophy”. The singer reminded a whole lot of Ville Valo of HIM, not only with his looks but also with his great and very clear voice. The music was gloomy and melancholic, about joy and sorrow, love and hate. The audience loved the mostly slow music of Eve’s End and cheered for them loudly after each song. The band was very thankful for that and talked a lot with the audience in return. Because of the great feedback the band received, they were allowed to play more songs than originally planned. And even as they left after the extended set, the audience was shouting for more. This could not be granted though since there was yet another band to play and the venue was only rented for a limited amount of time.

Matthau Mikojan from Tampere/Finland was up next. Matthau Mikojan is probably still known by many people from back in the day when he was the singer of Bloodpit. Now, or rather since 2008, Matthau Mikojan has his own band. Along with musicians Simo Stenman (drums) and Janne Sundvall (bass) he is performing throughout Finland and Germany. He never lost his unique sound though. As the band entered the stage the audience was cheering out loud full of excitement. Everyone could sing along to the lyrics, no matter if it was old songs or new songs. Matthau Mikojan even played some brand new songs that will be on the upcoming album on which they are currently working in the studio. The band talked a lot to their fans as well as to each other, joking around and giving the entire evening a familiar touch. Everyone was laughing along to the jokes, sang along to the lyrics and moved along to the music. The catchy tunes didn’t allow otherwise anyway. The unique style Matthau has in his music is hard to describe but it gets you in something like a trance, letting you forget everything around you to just float along in the here and now. The lyrics to the songs become your thoughts and you get one with the music. It sounds a little bit like a hippie experience from the 60s or 70s but that is how I would describe the music and their shows and I am sure many fans agree on that. Matthau Mikojan as well played an extended set as well as an encore before the great show was over.