Written by:	Chamelion
Published:	December 04, 2006
Event:	Helsinki Halloween Festival (Website)
Location:	Cable Factory, Helsinki, Finland
Organizer:	Wishmaster Production Ltd
Galleries:	Helsinki Halloween Festival 2006 by Unknown user (38)

HELSINKI HALLOWEEN FESTIVAL

Kaapelitehdas, Helsinki
04.11.2006


Author: Marina Sidyakina
Photo: Julia Sheremetyeva


Revolution!!! The country that has by far produced the most soundtracks to European Halloween parties has, until this year, never celebrated this dark holiday itself. In the most metal country of all, Halloween was never any big deal in the heavy music scene. Apparently Jyrki69's birthday is sometime around this holy day for all goths but that is about as exciting as it gets in Finland. Of course, all the stores have some theme going on, various decorations on sale and kiddies' lollies in ugly skull and witch shapes but that is it. But now something else took off and I am guessing Lordi's victory earlier this year has something to do with much more sound celebration of the darkest holiday there is. Metal Storm is proud to present the first ever Halloween festival in Finland!

The night was served by zombie waiters and the whole venue was beautifully decorated with coffins, crucifixes, spider webs, spooky ghosts and glow-in-the-dark ornaments were all done very tastefully in darkened lights; Morticia Addams would have surely approved. There even was a miniature cemetery with opened graves, tomb stone ruins, and skeletons.

Although there was no dress code as such, it was understandable that at least for Halloween some creativity was expected. And I was surprised to see a lot of very different costumes, although Finnish creativity still has a long way to develop, but at least this festival put a start to it and I am already eagerly awaiting the event one next year. Among the most identifiable characters were angels (previously seen so holy in her white costume among the other monsters, was at the end of the night doing dirty in the middle of the bar area) and horned devils (behaving naughty throughout), zombies and pirates, although on the whole, almost everyone had something weird going on in their outfit.
Obviously this attracted a lot of media attention, so numerous cameras, local celebrities, reporters and other VIPs were seen around.

The first booth at the entrance was a professional makeup service. Between 5-20 euros you could have gotten anything your dark fantasy could crave: bloody scars, black/white vampiric or fantasy fairy impression, anything, the beautiful Frankenstein's bride being the artist was able to recreate any look you would ask for!

A very good and practical addition to the festival were food and sweets stalls. Food just like those kebab stands, which are usually way overcrowded by the late hour on Helsinki streets, now was serving all inside and decently, with a place to sit and even clean napkins - what a joy for hungry and tipsy party-animals at the end of the night. The sweets stall on the other hand, added more of a family-like warm fun-fair atmosphere to the night, like a traditional way of celebrating Halloween, with sweets and pumpkin heads.

Special bus services and good promo of it - "don't freeze!" - for 2E everyone was safely delivered to the main railway. From 3.45 to 4.30 every 15min departure time; a very smart move by the organizers. Hopefully this tradition will be maintained for all events at the Kaapelitehdas (dysfunctional cable factory) in the future, as the venue is located far from the center, so it is not convenient to travel and to walk it is way too far.

The only flaw in organization was the time schedule. Firstly, the starting time of the first act was set too close to the main doors opening hour, so naturally the evening took off very empty. Kaapeli is a very spacious place for large event, but that night it was never filled, sadly, but still enough to spread the word, so next year we can surely expect a lot fuller attendance. Then breaks between each act were too long, and it was getting tiring and boring almost to wait around for the next artist. It also stretched the time-set of the whole event, so the last band finished just before 3am - quite a late tiring hour for the Finnish tipsy party-Vikings?



- SARALEE

Ville Valo is not getting any younger, or prettier, but at the same time someone has to fill his place to keep the tourism branch going. So this young, dark, stylish and elegant band stepped in. Sound-wise there was nothing new at all, all the same old love-drama-broken hearts. Looks-wise a complete early Valo rip-off: Jack-Sparrow-moustache, wavy dark hair, fingerless gloves, whole stage behavior, microphone handling, etc - everything was just screaming "Ville is the king!" This band by all means will be a huge success in winter and in a couple of Finland's neighboring countries. On one hand I felt bad for them coming on stage to the empty hall with less than 10 people in front of the stage, but on the other I was saved a big embarrassment for a lot of people having seen me there right from the start at this act. By the middle of the show some more people came, yet still very poor attendance Admit it guys, love metal died when Ville Valo met Bam and migrated over to the US; love metal is no more and please stop this ridiculous re-incarnation.



- KIUAS

So, name your band "hot sauna rocks" and it cannot not rock! Also young, cheeky, heavy and very catchy, the warrior souls most always do a great concert. Especially after such a lame warm-up act the guys had a lot to give to the audience. Kiuas are now among the most wanted acts in the Finnish heavy scene. Their songs are in top 10 in HeviKaraoke, their t-shirts are many metallers' second skin, their sound is unmistakable. Now their confidence is on boarder-line with arrogance, yet every time they deliver a show impossible to criticize. As many in the audience that night, the guitarist also had a pirate's outfit, which stayed on throughout the show, except with the hat and bandana which came off in passion after the first couple of tracks. A lot more improvisation on guitars and vocals, the now classic collaboration with Niko Kalliojärvi on beautiful "Black Wingged Goddess" like a duel who can win, growling or clean vocals, when both are so strong and voluminous. The "Goddess" was adorn with an artistic laser show, only Niko's voice seemed to be not in such good shape as always? Either way, the song is an absolute hit and beautiful; all musicians are skillful and very individual, great show, awesome lights - on the whole, very high-class performance.

The singer Ilja is also in a very good physical shape, has either cut on beer a lot or have spent a LOT of time in the gym, either way - the look totally lives up to the northern warrior image! If it is possible, Ilja's voice only gained more strength and capacity, it is magnificent. Seems everyone in Finland can growl, but how many voices are capable of such melodic and harmonic sound? And so his passionate performance is now also with a pinch of arrogance and self-admiration. Music-wise, the boys have really achieved their perfect sound. Guitar execution really took off when a blonde mop of hair "Rapu" of Bleak ("Mr. Crab" in English) came on and really spiced up the already hot stage lineup: the actual band, Amoral singer Niko and now the blonde Crab too, one thing missing were the Irish dancing ensemble. As the band's confidence grows, there is noticeably more free-styling and Mikko Salovaara (guitars) on additional vocals and the guitars were more vivid that night than all the previous times I've seen them live. Enhanced with a very good light show and fireworks, which were very appropriate for this act, made the Kiuas even hotter. They really did not deserve to be the second, should have been at least the third act.



- TO/DIE/FOR

Maybe to some, To/Die/For is actually for love or whatever so soppy, but my ears weakened listening to this dying-cat-parade. Maybe as five individual musicians those guys are skillful players; maybe as five individual persons they are interesting people and faithful friends; as five different men - great husbands; but as one whole band on stage it should not exist. How on earth they have got signed to Spinefarm?! I think my mother can do much better at a local karaoke bar. This is just sad. The only bonus I can assign to T/D/F is their honest passion to play on stage, who cares that most of the set was a playback and the singer Jape could not even follow his own voice on the tape, so what?! They gave so much energy, so much enthusiasm, that perhaps in this case the effort can earn more points than the actual act. It is fun to jump around, headbang to pseudo-heavy-very-cheesy love songs and see the girls drooling all over, rock on? Embellish all this drama with pyros and fireworks and enjoy the most tasteless performance of the night. So much dramatic expression, so much lame dancing with throwing the microphone-stand to the air - another song and the singer would have taken his shirt off, only damn, the set time was over, what a shame?



- LULLACRY

The angry girls' music, which after few songs is seriously getting on your nerves, like scratching glass or something. The act was well done, nothing to say about their professionalism, but the overall impression is still neutral. Very average performance, a lot of notes missed and played wrong. There are bands which are great live, but others are for home listening only. Lullacry is definitely a band best on cds, but live it is just not working, even those who do like their music generally were commenting that studio versions of those songs sound much-much better. (Not a big surprise anymore, Norther's un-sober Petri Lindroos headbanging in the front row, but this sight everyone has seen already very many times everywhere.) I have been coming and going throughout their set, as I could not endure continuous forty minutes of this art but every time I came back it sounded like the same song just going round.



- TAROT

Perhaps the only good enough reasons to tolerate all the previous jokes were classic Tarot and Kiuas, because in any circumstances, the grandfathers of Finnish heavy-metal always deliver the best quality. They do not need any fancy stage costumes, loud pyros or high-tech light-installations, Tarot are high-class professionals. The act gathered all the people in five seconds, even when they came on stage so suddenly and a lot were caught in the remote bar at that moment. It takes Marco's move of a single finger and the entire floor explodes in cheers. The new album being a great success, Tarot's career is blossoming like Japanese cheery trees in spring. Janne Tolsa having now a lot more parts to sing, so he kept on jumping from behind his keyboards, forward to the microphone. Smiley Marco was in a great mood, as always, playing, joking, simply enjoying and there was so much warmth coming from the stage, creating a very comfortably cozy and friendly atmosphere - understandably there was the most audience before the stage, cheering for more. So cheerful and natural, without any headbanging or growling at all, Tarot has its own way and even if you do not know most songs, you watch and swallow them all breathlessly like they are all your favorites: now THIS is quality! The sound and vocals were flawless, Hietala brothers and Tolsa are simply genius.
The new Tarot's child "Crows Fly Back" came with so much new energy to win new younger listeners and surely to shake-up the older ones, Tarot simply never ages, it is within time. Among the older hits, "Pyre Of Gods," "Wings Of Darkness" (current HeviKaraoke hit) and "I Rule," which used to open the show and now it is among the headliners. The irreplaceable purple round glasses on Zach, Marco with his blonde mane, the whole band is the jealousy of all L'Oreal hair models, with the vocals to deafen the entire Lordi through their foam latex costumes.



- LORDI

What is Halloween with no Lordi? This band IS the Halloween during all 365 days a year.

The stage set up beautifully as a haunted castle was so harmonically continuing the general theme and decoration of the entire venue, so it made the stage and five musicians one complete whole with the venue. In the castle the windows at each side (2 altogether) are in fact digital screens in the castle with different videos going on at every song, stylish at some songs, useless at others. Even the band's technicians and assistants had special robes for when appearing on stage to give out the next prop or change the equipment, every single tiny detail was carefully thought through and had a Lordi trademark "stamped" on it. The show of course also was planned down to the last spark in monster's chainsaw. Lordi is not Lordi without pyros and fire, let it be inside or outside, boiling summer or freezing winter, with or without photographers in front of the stage and all the explosives.

Before the current hit "Who's Your Daddy" bassist Ox came on stage alone with a bomb-gun. After every song there were some re-arrangements, new props and special effects. Every step of each character is a part of the pre-planned rehearsed show.

"My Heaven Is Your Hell" is reasonably heavy, but it is impossible to concentrate on the music when there is so much other action going on at the same time: change of costumes, each character playing some solo in between, explosives, fireworks - and at this late hour, just too much. Lordi is already quite a bold act, but with all those additions it is now fast approaching one big tasteless mesh. If earlier it was only Mr. Lordi with various gadgets, now every character has a smaller show of its own. The keyboardess Awa has a cute umbrella with sparkling fireworks coming out like a shower. Kiita puts on an impressive lengthy solo on drums. Mr. Lordi's wings were one really an impressive trick, one with taste actually, was sadly left out for the Halloween performance. Instead a lot of new props were brought along. Among the most disgusting, a dead cheerleader's rotten body was first just in Lordi's hands during one song and during the next it was hanged and tortured, way too much already! What were people cheering and clapping for?! Perverts!!! And just when I thought it can not get any more revolting, Mr Lordi brought some other corpse's head, which looked a lot like the sick girl from "the Exorcist." The singer was addressing to the dead thing in one of the songs, by the end of which the thing was vomiting and then just exploded in Lordi's paws - which special effects did this band NOT use in their show?!

Nonetheless, the audience adores Lordi, cheering ecstatically for more and more, only that night with much fewer kids in the audience, thank God?

Towards the end of the show smell of pyros was making me dizzy and a bit high, I was already totally overwhelmed with this freaks' perverted circus. The band took off the show but only to make the moment before The Song last longer, so after a LOT of teasing the audience was granted the new Finnish national anthem. Lordi is not Lordi until they have performed "Hard Rock Hallelujah," which thankfully ended the endless show with a now classic shot of colorful confetti.

Afterwards I couldn't figure out where was I, metal festival or a freak show? Although the rumor has it that this was the last performance of Lordi until next year's Eurovision, after which supposedly the monsters will be disbanded. In this perspective, I can understand why all the pompous set up and all the over-done exaggerated stage action. Those creatures are really making sure to leave their footprints in all our memories before becoming extinct, only is it ever possible in their case?



Conclusion:
In my opinion, as well as judging by the comments in the audience, the bands' lineup could be improved, although others appreciated the diversity and these days, Lordi is always welcome everywhere. Finnish music culture is flourishing and the rainbow of various music events is only growing bigger. I hope that this event will become a regular festival for many years, as it certainly has the potential to attract a lot of attention and visitors. Between Spinefeast, Helldone and FME this can really be a worthy reason to haunt Helsinki.

Many thx to the organizers of the Halloween Festival