25-09-2008 Stam1na

Supports: FM 2000; Venue: Nosturi, Helsinki (Finland)
By: Nina Mende

The side effect of being in Helsinki is seeing good shows. So it happened that the very week I was there Stam1na was playing at Nosturi. Opening act was FM2000.

Long queues in front of Nosturi and the big signs telling “Sold Out!” could already be seen from afar as I walked towards the concert venue. Nosturi is one of the biggest halls. Next biggest is Jäähalli I guess, which is the ice stadium. Two floors full of metal fans wearing mostly Stam1na shirts from various tours or just band shirts not related to any tour.

Actually I am not a metal fan at all. But Stam1na is always great to see and every once in a while I can take some metal. Anyways, let me continue with the gig.
So opening was FM2000, a Finnish metal band founded in 1999. They started blasting out with fast and harsh metal riffs and shouting. The audience began with the wind milling, so did the band. In between the harsh music there were also some funky beats and some funny singing. Somehow the Finnish metal bands don’t take themselves too serious and keep that straight face like others do, but they really enjoy their stuff and have fun. So even though it was more shouting than singing the performance itself made it worth seeing for me. It was not too crowded yet but already quite full. Especially the bar areas were getting crowded. FM2000 only sang in Finnish. The audience downstairs was cheering more, maybe because the upper audience was busy drinking. During some songs there was even a moshpit going, downstairs of course. FM2000 played for 30 minutes plus an encore.

Now it was very crowded and everybody was ready for Stam1na to begin. Stam1na is a Finnish metal musical group native of Lemi founded in 1996. They only sing in Finnish. The fans were shouting for the band to begin, and they did. Now the cheering was big. As Stam1na began playing everybody sang along, sometimes the crowd as one was louder than the band themselves. The light was great and so was the music. Sometime during the gig the singer talked some German instead of Finnish, but as he didn’t know how to continue he went on in Finnish. Everybody at Nosturi was going along as Stam1na performed their songs, singing as loud as they could, dancing, moshing, banging, whatever you can do to music like that. The metal shouting was combined with nice singing. Pekka (the guitar player) had a pink plush guitar strap. Between two songs the tech came running on stage shouting something in the microphone, just so. Although I am not a big fan of metal I always enjoy Stam1na shows, so did I enjoy this one. And I am very sure that everybody else who was there did enjoy it as well.