Written by:	Jeff
Published:	March 15, 2009
Event:	Lordi: European Tour
Location:	Havana Café, Toulouse, France
Galleries:	Lordi + Fatal Smile + Brandon Ashley & The Silverbugs, Toulouse, France, 24/02/09 by Moocher (50) Brandon Ashley & The Silverbugs, Fatal Smile, Lordi - Toulouse, France, 24.02.09 by FreakyMarge (61) Brandon Ashley & The Silverbugs, Fatal Smile, Lordi - Toulouse, France, 24.02.09 by Jeff (26)

"Would you love a monsterman bla bla bla ta ta?". Hum wait am I singing or what? Let's be honest one more time, yes, I sang a lot during the show of Lordi haha. But you know what, I like to have fun really and it was fun! Oki Lordi, musically speaking, is maybe not the most structured band, the best Hard Rock band of the universe but this is fun and that's what I want to see some time. Though before their show, we had fun too, but not really in the same way than the Finish monsters?

The first band was a big mistake, or a big joke maybe? I don't know where the bookers found this Brandon Ashley & The Silverbugs but it was simply terrible for my ears. Between Goth, Indus and Emo, the music of Brandon Ashley & The Silverbugs was just boring as hell. The band even needed to put a female dancer on stage to give some more animation to the whole show. Maybe that some people found it "hot" but I just found it ridiculous and uninteresting as hell? Oki at least the guys did their best to create a fun atmosphere in the venue but it was simply to repetitive to be interesting.





The second band was the famous (in Sweden only yet) Fatal Smile. I didn't really know this combo but I understood why they are so popular in Sweden: they play Sleeze Hard Rock, the most popular Rock/Metal genre in the country. The band has a lot of technical issues, especially their singer with his micro and unfortunately the crowd was not really receptive to the numerous speeches of the singer.





It was maybe a bit too classic for the French people but it was good show nonetheless with a band which obviously believed in what they did this night. It was not a revelation for me and I found their Hard Rock a bit unoriginal but the guys were honest and gave all what they could to the audience. A good thing definitely?





Finally the monsters came on stage and it was extremely cool and funny. Lordi is not a serious band, really and the guys like to play their theatrical show. I heard that they were not so good on stage in the past that the shows were a bit simple etc, but obviously now they try to do shows a la GWAR and Alice Cooper and even if the Americans are still invincible in this category, Lordi is really good to do that too now. We saw zombies on stage, some kind of chirurgical interventions, and the band even found the cadaver of a missing little girl (a lot of poster with a picture of the girl were posted in the venue before the show?) and showed her (animated) discomposed head to the audience. This cool show full of degrees was fun as hell and of course even if they didn't have the right to use all their fireworks, we had some explosions, and weapons with fire. Every "characters" played a little scene. The drummer cut the head of a zombie samurai, the "mummy" guitarist opened an ancestral book full of mystery (and green smoke) and of course Mr Lordi play the roles of the characters of his lyrics, like a crazy evil doctor, the sandman etc?





The music, even if it was not outstanding was cool. It was good Rock, good Hard rock and even if it sounded a bit kitsch sometime, some hits like "Would You Love A Monster Man", "Blood Red Sand Man" or the ballad "Snow I Hell" were really funny and cool. The crowd liked it a lot and "danced" a lot during the show. Of course the encore was "Hard Rock Hallelujah" and it was the best moment of the evening! Everybody was crazy during the song, it was funny to see real metalheads having fun like kids?





Lordi is maybe not the best band on Earth but they were fun to see and I passed an absolutely good moment at the Havana Café. No need to tell more, just have a look at the pictures to understand how it was and if they come to your city, go to the see the monsters, I'm sure that you'll like what you'll see.





Thx to Julien of KProd for the accreditations!