Written by:	Ivor
Published:	December 13, 2009
Event:	Metsatöll / Ajattara (Website)
Location:	Rock Café, Tallinn, Estonia
Organizer:	Muldonn ja Viisud OÜ
Galleries:	Metsatöll / Ajattara - Rock Cafe, Tallinn, 11.12.2009 by Ivor (42)

There are times when you wish the running order of the bands was different. So that you could just come in later, right after the lamest band has had the misfortune of not being able to perform for you. This was one of those times, the one where bad luck is on your side and you have the misfortune of not being able to avoid seeing the lame band somewhere in the middle of the evening. How unfortunate, how unfortunate.







However, it's also rare that the opening act of the evening is so good that it leaves the rest in the dust. On this particular evening it was Zetod who, in my personal biased opinion, owned the evening. Zetod is a band consisting of guitar, bass, drums and accordion. That's not the fun bit, though. They play something that can be described as Estonian ethno/folk rock/metal. That may be the fun bit. However, it's the sound and instrumental side of their performance that grabs the attention. The four guys are really talented and it shows live in every aspect, studio versions that you can hear online aren't close enough to describe the live feeling. I've seen them a couple of times already and it gets better and better each time. Plus it seems that the band may have gone prog with their instrumental interludes. That's the fun bit.







Last time I saw Herald, which may have been some three years ago maybe, they were still performing with Mart Kalvet as their singer. It came to me as a surprise that he is not with the band anymore, the new singer and bass player having joined the band in April. Herald being what it is, though, a classic heavy metal band, didn't really grab my attention three years ago and it sort of failed to grab my attention this time either. Although, I'll admit that they sounded quite good. Maybe it can be attributed to the pretty atrocious performance of Blaze Bayley that I saw this Spring. In any case, Herald was quite okay as far as I'm concerned but nothing more.







I had an impression that Ajattara was to be the main act of the evening. However, they were not. Can't say if it was a good thing or not, though. If they had been last, I might have walked out of the venue. They weren't last, so I didn't. In short, though, Ajattara's performance was downright bad. I listened to Ajattara on MySpace when I did some scouting prior to the gig. Unfortunately what could be heard there was some slower semi-acoustic stuff and not the black metal what they played live. Live Ajattara sounded as if they played a one very long boring song. Or, as a friend of mine put, they played the same boring song many times over. If you are debating whether to see Ajattara live or not, I say don't, you won't miss anything.







This gig was a celebration for Metsatöll, a passing of 5 years since the release of Hiiekoda. How to describe a performance of a band I've already seen over 10 times? Not because I immensely like them but because other people so immensely like them that the band have happened to perform at more or less every bigger event of interest around here. Although there was a time I had a serious overdose of them, I kind of have to agree with the general feeling that besides the fact of being a local musical phenomenon, Metsatöll have something in their music that is so very Estonian. Some of you have seen them abroad, you comment how they sound to you. I can only say that this time they had a pretty good gig, I've seen both, better and worse, from them.





In conclusion I can say that the evening had it's ups and downs. I think that if the evening had consisted solely of Zetod and Metsatöll it would have been quite a bit more enjoyable. Plus Zetod would have gotten a longer set which would have been fine with me. As it was, Herald was the forgettable one, and Ajattara was the lamest band of the evening.

Zetod: http://www.zetod.ee, MySpace
Herald: http://herald-metal.com, MySpace
Ajattara: http://www.ajattara.fi, MySpace
Metsatöll: http://www.metsatoll.ee, MySpace