26-09-2008 Joensuu

Supports: Spartaco, All On Black; Venue: Waterfront Cafe, Rotterdam (Netherlands)
By: Sabine van Gameren

Tonight Joensuu was having their EP release party in Waterfront. They brought two supportacts: Spartaco and All On Black. I planned on missing the first one, since I saw them before and did not like their music. I succeeded.

The first band for me was All on Black. They make pop rock with melodic vocals but enough power in the music to rock. The sound was quite bad in here, but that is not really up to the band. The band was very enthusiastic on the small stage and their vocalist always stood on the front of the stage to keep the connection with their audience living. During the last song he even stepped of the stage and sung right in front of people. During the set the band dedicated almost all of their songs to some random person in the audience: “That chick over there”, “This lovely couple” and “The girls over there” were all granted with a song. That makes it all a bit more personal. Nice band to see with a very sympathetic, charismatic front man.

On Tempelores we already reviewed many Finnish bands, also we were many times in Finland to review bands for you, but now we have variation on this theme: Joensuu. It is a Dutch band, but their singer Bjarne has his roots in Finland. Tonight it was their EP release party. Music wise they are comparable to the Finnish bands Rubik and Lost Soul Division. On stage maybe a little less active than the band before them, but the show wasn’t less. The three men showed their audience to be a good trio which perfectly cooperated.
Because not all of the audience knows how to pronounce the band name (which is a place in Finland) correctly, the guys taught us how it should be pronounced.
I liked the emotions shown in the music, though somehow it lasted a bit too long. Some songs could have been ending a little less abrupt as well.
Overall a nice show, but I hoped for more variance in the songs.