Finnish Metal Festival: Swallow the Sun, Moonsorrow and Finntroll rock the Palladium! (04/09/2010) Apr 11 '10 (Updated Sep 19 '10)     Write an essay on this topic. Tweet The Bottom Line The Finnish Metal Festival was awesome! Swallow the Sun, Moonsorrow and Finntroll all put on excellent shows.  \m/ Friday night was fantastic fun with Finnish Folk Metal band Finntroll.  Yes, Friday, April 9th, 2010 was a night that I had waited a long time for. The Finnish Metal Festival came to Worcester, MA with not one, but three of my favorite Finnish Metal Bands. Headlining the show was Finntroll one of the most original and creative Finnish folk metal bands that mix Finnish humpa music ( a sort of polka), folk and melodic death metal.  Also on tour was Moonsorrow a progressive Finnish metal band and Swallow the Sun, a Finnish doom metal band.  My son and I drove out in the rain to be at the Worcester Palladium when the doors opened at 7:00. The show was upstairs in the club room, which holds about 500 people. First my son and I went to the balcony to check out the merchandise.  He picked up a new Finntroll T-shirt and Finntroll hoodie featuring album art from Finntroll's new album Nivlund.  I got a new Swallow the Sun Tour shirt, featuring the album art from their latest album New Moon and tour dates on the back. I also got a Moonsorrow T-Shirt featuring a Viking swinging a battle ax at a Knights Templar Crusader and the Finnish Metal tour dates on the back.   We went downstairs and ran into my friend Mikko (who first introduced me to Finntroll years ago) and his friend, a young lady who had never been to a metal show. (she enjoyed it)  The crowd was already gathering by the stage. Infinite Descent  The first band on stage hailed from the distant shores of Taunton.  Is Taunton a small village in the northern shores of Finland?  No, actually Taunton is about a forty five minute drive from my own town, in southeastern Massachusetts. This local band got to open the show for the Finnish Metal Festival.  The band featured two guitarists, one bass player and a drummer. What made the band stand out was the lead singer of the band was a young woman who delivered both death vocals in the style of Angela Gossow (Arch Enemy) and clean vocals like Simone Simmons (Epica).  Although my friend Mikko didn't care for her clean vocals, I thought the young woman did a good job on both. (She was pretty too!)  Infinite Descent sang mostly in the style of Danish bands like Epica, After Forever, Within Temptation and Nemesea.   This was one of the first times that I have really enjoyed the first opening band of a show, and it seemed that the crowd had quite a good time too. Even though Finntroll would not be on until 10:45, upstairs at the Palladium was already packed with metal fans. Aside from their great set, Infinite Descent did something else to change the atmosphere of the evening.  The lead singer announced that they had T-shirts for sale and ... inflatable swords, maces and dragons!  I think that these inflatable medieval toys were the hit of the show. Soon my son came down with a sword and morning star.  As the night progressed, a number of fans waved swords, morning stars and warhammers in the air.  Several inflatable dragons also took flight during the Finnish Metal festival. Swallow the Sun  My favorite death/doom metal band from Finland would have to be these guys. They just released New Moon (not to be confused with the vampire film) which was excellent.  The singer, Mikko Kotamaki (not to be confused with my Finnish friend Mikko who also attended the show), hit center stage. In the back was Kai Hahto on drums.  I was right up next to the front stage monitors to Mikko's left, so guitarist Markus Jamsen was right in front of me. He looks extremely pensive as he plays guitar.(he is also as bald as I am!) Bassist Matti Honkonen was right next to him slamming out the low brooding bass of the bands tunes.  To my far left (stage right) was Aleksi Munter on keyboards and Juha Raivo on guitar. Swallow the Sun mostly performed from their new album, started their set with These Woods Breathe Evil then Falling World.  These Hours of Despair was performed from Hope.  Sleepless Swans was as huanting as it sounded on New Moon. From the album Plague of Butterflies, they performed the title track.  They also performed the title track of New Moon. Swallow the Sun's final song was Swallow from The Morning Never Came I was pleased to be able to get my photo taken with singer Mikko Kotamaki (red shirt drink in hand), bass player Matti Honkonen (in back at right of photo with black hat), guitarist Markus Jamsen (in back of me with glasses doing metal yell) and keyoard player Aleski Munter (fist raised in photo to left) between sets, as the band was hanging out by their merchandise stand upstairs. They are a nice bunch of guys, and were pleased to be touring in the United States.  They were also glad that I was wearing a Swallow the Sun T-shirt! Moonsorrow  Moonsorrow is an incredible Finnish folk metal band on the Spinefarm label that write songs based on Finnish mythology.  Ville Sorvali plays guitar and Janne Pertilla plays bass guitar. Both sing. Mija Harvilahti also plays guitar, Marko Tarvonen plays drums and Markus Euren plays keyboards. Although Moonsorrow only played five songs for their set, you have to realize that the average Moonsorrow song clocks in at over 10 minutes each! They played Jumalten Kaupunki/Tuhatvuotinen Perinto, Koylionjarven Jaalla (Pakanavedet II), Tulimyrsky, Pimea and Aurinko ja Kuu.  Of course the songs were all sung in the bands native tongue, Finnish. By this point of the show, I was pressed firmly against the stage with crowd surfers flying over head and landing on the stage. The downstairs at the Palladium has a barrier between the stage and the fans, but no such barrier exists Upstairs at the Palladium. The stage is about three feet above the floor, so we are literally right next to our metal idols. I held onto the guitarists monitor speaker for support to keep from being moved from my spot.  I was happy to only get kicked in the head once by a crowd surfer, I was able to spot and deflect the rest.  Of course, I had to help pick up a number of stage divers who ended up on the floor after being dropped.   It amazes me that the band members have no problems playing as audience members regularly land on the stage to either walk off exit stage right or dive back into the crowd.  Nick stood safely to one side with his back to the PA system, looking down the stage from the right, safe from the surfers and the moshers. Finntroll At 10:45, Finntroll hit the stage! By this time, everyone was really pumped up. The mosh pit was in a frenzy of circular motion, fans held up their inflatable war hammers and swords and green plastic dragons were flying back and forth.  Mathias "Vreth" Lillmans took the stage to sing. He asked if we all had Finntrolls latest album Nifelvind, (released earlier this year).  Guitarist Samuli "Skrymer" Ponsimma and Mikael "Routa" Karlbom flanked his sides, while Finntroll's live show keyboardist Aleski "Virta" Virta and drummer Samu "Beast Dominator" Ruotsalainen filled out the stage.  (Henri "Trollhorn" Sorvali only does keyboards on the studio albums) Finntroll opened the show with Nedgang.   Lillmans announced the title of each song with a throaty rasp so that the song titles sounded more like grunts and growls than the Swedish words that the titles are in. Finntroll sings in Swedish. Some of my favorite songs like Nattfodd, Trollhammaren and Svatberg were performed. At one point Vreth even dived into the crowd and surfed amongst the fans before returning to the stage.  He also caught one of the flying green dragons and sent it flying back into the crowd.  The band uses the keyboards for much of the other instrument sounds that are present on the album, giving Finntroll their very distinct melodic death/folk metal sound. The encore performed well after midnight was Jaktens Tid and Sergersang. We headed out into the crisp night air, our ears still ringing, carrying our inflatable viking weaponry, and wearing our Finnish Metal concert T-Shirts for the long drive home.  Finnish Metal Festival was incredible. \m/ If you would like to see photos of the show, the website returntothepit.com regularly has excellent photos of almost every show at the Worcester Palladium.  You can see me near the front for most of the Swallow the Sun and Moonsorrow set.  We had moved a bit to the side by the time Finntroll was on stage. Other metal tales from the Worcester Palladium! Ensiferum, with Ex Deo and Blackguard Korpiklaani and Tyr Arch Enemy and Exodus Devil Driver, Behemoth, Suffocation, Thy Will Be Done and more Epica, Blackguard and Threat Signal Atticus Metal Festival with Unearth & more New England Metal and Hardcore Festival 2010 Hypocrisy, Scar Symmetry, Hate, Blackguard and Swashbuckle Fear Factory, Silent Civilian, Prong, Thy Will Be Done and Acaro Dream Theater Transmission Festival Hell and other places Mayhem Festival 2010 - Korn, Rob Zombie, Lamb of God & more OzzFest 2010 - Ozzy, Motley Crue, Rob Halford & more Rush - The Time Machine Tour

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