10-08-2007 Brother Firetribe

Venue: Virgin Oil Helsinki (Finland)
By: Nina Mende

Tonight was the night that Brother Firetribe were playing their last show together for now because Emppu (the guitar player) will go on tour with Nightwish soon.

Brother Firetribe are 5 guys from Finland who are proudly taking a bow to their influences from the ’80s in the form of Van Halen, Whitesnake, Iron Maiden,   Journey and other chart busters of old, Brother Firetribe’s sound is built on a plethora of melodies that most composers wouldn’t dare to dream of. In true ’80s fashion, all of the required tools are applied; killer vocal harmonies and airy keyboard lines that get stuck in your ears easily. The smooth and dreamy voice of Pekka Heino and Emppu Vuorinen’s guitarwork, with his immaculate sense of style, rich tone trademark their sound so can’t be mistaken.
They have 1 album and 3 singles released so far, the next will be released in early 2008.

Brother Firetribe were playing at Virgin Oil tonight. Virgin Oil is a club located at the center of Helsinki which reminded me of a bigger version of On the Rocks, which is another rock bar in Helsinki.
On each side of the stage are huge Adam and Eve statues and it looks loke an old theater, also because of the balconies, but I got told that it used to be an old movie theater. There are bars on both levels, couches in the back and tables to sit on everywhere.

The club filled up quickly and the audience was getting eager to finally see Brother Firetribe. The guests were in the age of 25 and older, only a couple were younger, and that was not only because the age limit was 20, but because, as I said, the music was 80s style, meaning pure rock’n’roll without any influence by other music styles. But that isn’t a reason to rock less, only to rock even
more since you don’t find pure rock’n’roll that often anymore nowadays, do you?!?

Brother Firetribe entered the stage with a big boom around midnight. The big boom was coming out of the canons located on each side of the stage, shooting paper ribbons into the audience. The audience went wild, ready to rock their minds out for the next hour. They sang along with every song and closed every song with standing ovations what the band really appreciated.
Pekka was talking to his fans quite a lot and got really close to them as well, shook hands and gave away some water. Jason (the bass player) was singing the backing vocals while picking the bass like he never did anything else. Somehow Jason reminded me of James Hetfield of Metallica with some of his motions and facial expressions.
Tomppa (the keyboarder) was rocking behind the keys without any break, only to take a sip of water every once in a while and Kalle (the drummer) was playing strong. Emppu is also playing guitar for Nightwish, he didn’t try to put himself into the spotlight or anything, no, it more seemed like he’d avoid being center of the attention which was really nice I think. He was just doing his part of playing
the guitar without any rock star attitude what so ever…
Brother Firetribe got the crowd (and the canons again) all fired up at the song “I am rock”. Everybody at Virgin Oil just went insane, jumping around, shouting along, having their hands up and just rock. What an amazing atmosphere.

They played 3 songs as encore because the audience insisted on that. What a pity that they won’t have any live show for a little while. It was a really great rock show. Brother Firetribe are definitely ROCK!

Links:
Brother Firetribe official
Brother Firetribe Myspace