Show Overview: CHILDREN OF BODOM @ the Multi-Purpose Centre, Halifax, NS
Overview & Photos by Stan Béland
PRESENTED BY LIVE 105's LOUDER
Up first, and sadly missed by yours truly due to a scheduling conflict, were Last Call Chernobyl. By all accounts they played great and the crowd was heaping praise on them when I arrived at the Forum. I owe you guys a review.
When Orchid’s Curse came on stage sporting matching beards and t-shirts, you knew things were about to get really real. Frontman Josh Hogan looked like a man possessed, running around the stage, belting out everything from growls to screams. The boys were tight, focused and still looked like they were having a blast. Delivering a set of excellent metal that fused thrash, hardcore, and death metal together, OC had the crowd revved up by the time they left the stage. Everyone was sweaty, angry and ready for more.
Up next were A Sight For Sewn Eyes, local math metal rockin’, blast beat havin, prog ninjas who were relentless as soon as they hit the stage. While certainly a different vibe then Orchid’s Curse, and definitely completely different from Bodom, ASFSE still had the crowd bouncing. The ease with which these guys throw a jump-up-and-down breakdown together is terrifying; in almost every song they played, the crowd moved as one hulking entity, hell bent on catching the rhythm being laid out for them. Despite the lack of sound separation in the room, ASFSE still managed to eke out the different tones that you can hear in their recorded music. These guys are about to set off on a Canadian tour and if you’re in one of the cities that they’re visiting you best get your ass out to see them. These guys put on a great show.
And then, after the local boys got us warmed up, Bodom.
During sound check, the keyboards were being sound checked, I gotta admit, I was skeptical. Orchestral blasts we’re floating over the PA. “Really,” I said aloud to the people I was standing with “Dude is rocking 1980s Korg sounds? Ooooookaaaay.”
But then the whole band got on stage and things changed.
Children of Bodom aren’t so much a group of men, as they are Finnish cyborgs specifically designed to annihilate the 5 senses that humanity possesses. These guys got on stage and IMMEDIATELY broke into the most disgusting thrash/euro metal I’ve ever heard. The sound, while almost embarrassingly loud, was perfect. You could hear every note from every player and it was blindingly obvious that these guys were not in town to fuck around. Even the lighting guy back by the sound board was rocking mechanical precision.
According to some chatter I overheard at the show, Bodom had been touring for almost a year straight, but you wouldn’t know it. After seeing them live and comparing that against a live DVD, you couldn’t tell the difference; the band was tight, into it, and didn’t miss anything. They were here to destroy, and the small crowd (500-700 is my best guess) didn’t throw them off at all.
I’ve decided that lead singer/guitarist Alexi Laiho is a dirty mouthed, long-haired, Finnish Mozart. Honestly, this guy has prodigious talent and made scream/singing while playing redonkulous guitar solos look less difficult then a frat boy playing Wonderwall to a bunch of first-year girls. The complete lack of visible effort is scary at first; you think “Well, he’s just not that into it I guess” But then you realize that he’s doing two completely different things at the same time, and doing them phenomenally, like….PHENOMENALLY. From the information I can find, Alexi is 32, formed Bodom when we was roughly 14 years old and hasn’t looked back since.
32 and one of the fastest, most accurate, most recognized guitar players in the world. Foolish.
During a particularly wicked part of the performance, Alexi and keyboard player Janne Wirman put an arm on each other’s shoulders and proceeded to just…shred for 30 seconds. With one arm, while smiling and carrying on a conversation. Ridiculous.
The rest of the band were also extremely talented. The aforementioned Wirman was matching Laiho’s solos for most of the show, adding an extremely “euro” element to the music, but showing that he was just as fast, if not faster then Laiho in some parts. Drummer Jaska Raatikainen is probably a late model murder-droid, wrapped in a Finnish Viking exterior. If you’re familiar with the thunderous sound that the double bass pedal adds to metal, you need to check this guy out. During a particularly fast part of the song, Jaska was hitting the double bass hard and fast, then, out of nowhere, he doubles his speed. Doubles it. Like that’s the most natural thing that he could have done. Bassist Henkka Seppälä was a tone monster, holding down the lows with authority, and rhythm guitarist Roope Latvala looked like an axe murderer with an axe instead of an axe (little guitar humour for you there.) They were both frighteningly good.
The upshot of this review is that if you weren’t at this show, you missed out. We don’t get this kind of raw, off-beat talent in Halifax often and when we do, you have to get your asses out to the shows. These guys were monsters and we’ll be lucky to get them back again.
PRESENTED BY LIVE 105's LOUDER
Children Of Bodom
w/ Obscura, A Sight For Sewn Eyes, Orchid's Curse and Last Call Chernobyl
@ the Forum Multi-Purpose Centre
Thursday, July 21, 2011 · 6:30pm - 11:00pm
Tickets: $32.50 ADV / $37.50 DOS Tickets (including tax) PLUS service charge
The forum multi-purpose room has seen some big names in the last few years; everything from Modest Mouse to Alexisonfire, this room has played host to a fair amount of important artists. Cue one of the biggest death/euro metal bands in the world, Children of Bodom. Where do they play when they visit our “weird and remote” city? That’s right, Forum Multi-Purpose Room.
Opening up for Bodom were a few local bands that have been getting hype for a long while now: Last Call Chernobyl, The Orchid’s Curse, and A Sight for Sewn Eyes.
Up first, and sadly missed by yours truly due to a scheduling conflict, were Last Call Chernobyl. By all accounts they played great and the crowd was heaping praise on them when I arrived at the Forum. I owe you guys a review.
When Orchid’s Curse came on stage sporting matching beards and t-shirts, you knew things were about to get really real. Frontman Josh Hogan looked like a man possessed, running around the stage, belting out everything from growls to screams. The boys were tight, focused and still looked like they were having a blast. Delivering a set of excellent metal that fused thrash, hardcore, and death metal together, OC had the crowd revved up by the time they left the stage. Everyone was sweaty, angry and ready for more.
During sound check, the keyboards were being sound checked, I gotta admit, I was skeptical. Orchestral blasts we’re floating over the PA. “Really,” I said aloud to the people I was standing with “Dude is rocking 1980s Korg sounds? Ooooookaaaay.”
But then the whole band got on stage and things changed.
Children of Bodom aren’t so much a group of men, as they are Finnish cyborgs specifically designed to annihilate the 5 senses that humanity possesses. These guys got on stage and IMMEDIATELY broke into the most disgusting thrash/euro metal I’ve ever heard. The sound, while almost embarrassingly loud, was perfect. You could hear every note from every player and it was blindingly obvious that these guys were not in town to fuck around. Even the lighting guy back by the sound board was rocking mechanical precision.
32 and one of the fastest, most accurate, most recognized guitar players in the world. Foolish.
The rest of the band were also extremely talented. The aforementioned Wirman was matching Laiho’s solos for most of the show, adding an extremely “euro” element to the music, but showing that he was just as fast, if not faster then Laiho in some parts. Drummer Jaska Raatikainen is probably a late model murder-droid, wrapped in a Finnish Viking exterior. If you’re familiar with the thunderous sound that the double bass pedal adds to metal, you need to check this guy out. During a particularly fast part of the song, Jaska was hitting the double bass hard and fast, then, out of nowhere, he doubles his speed. Doubles it. Like that’s the most natural thing that he could have done. Bassist Henkka Seppälä was a tone monster, holding down the lows with authority, and rhythm guitarist Roope Latvala looked like an axe murderer with an axe instead of an axe (little guitar humour for you there.) They were both frighteningly good.
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