SRB @ Razzmatazz, Barcelona

Posted on September 30, 2024 by Diana

I don’t need a better reason for a trip than attending a concert. Put it in a place I want to visit and there I am once more, on my way to the airport. This time around it was Barcelona and Steve Rothery Band. If you read this and you get surprised by the fact that I didn’t write Marillion, well, please find out that Steve Rothery is their guitar player, and he has his own project: SRB. If you are familiar with this detail, carry on. I’ve seen this formula live for the very first time about a year ago, and with a great deal of nostalgia for that concert, I decided to fly to Barcelona and enjoy some old Marillion tracks (Fish-era – Google it). But I didn’t get to enjoy only that. What came our way went beyond anyone’s expectations. Or hit right on target.

After a few days of soaking up the sun and walking (ehem… getting lost) on the streets of Barcelona, it was time to go to the 1st night of the event. Yes, there were two. Queued early enough to get a good spot close to the front, and when the time came the man walked on stage with part of his band: Leon Parr, Yatim Halim, Dave Foster and Riccardo Romano. Good sign to know that they were going to start with an instrumental piece. And also warm welcome on stage from us all. The gig kicked in with Morpheus and Old Man of the Sea. Such good way to immerse in the evening.

Things got really, really loud when Martin Jakubski walked on stage, and as everyone expected and knew, Misplaced Childhood started. Now there was a bit of drama around the set-up of the two gigs, as organisers initially announced that the whole Misplaced Childhood would be played on night 1, and Clutching at Straws on night 2. A while after the announcement came out and people started buying tickets, there was a correction that mentioned that the setlists would be split: side A of each of the albums for the first evening, while sides B would be heard on the second night, and some Fugazzi, Script for a Jester’s Tear and h songs. And somehow this got some people really upset, mostly because they wouldn’t be hearing the entirety of Misplaced Childhood on the first night. Anyways, going back to the moment, after Heart of Lothian we were spoiled with some h songs. I’ve never heard any of these songs sung by anyone else than Mr. h himself, so it was strange to hear them in this set-up. One thing’s for sure: Mr. h makes singing Afraid Of Sunlight sound like a walk in the park. Hearing and seeing Martin Jakubski sing it made me realise what a vocal piece that song is. Martin slayed it. And that’s how we slowly slid towards Clutching at Straws that left us hanging after White Russian. The encore meant I got to hear a song that was on my wish-list for the evenings: Cinderella Search, and the first show ended with Forgotten Sons.

For the second night, an early time in the queue meant a place even closer to the stage. Now Razzmatazz 1 holds close to 2000 people and it has decent visibility. But if one can get a spot in the 3rd row, why not? There were two tall guys in front of me who tried their best to be really really close to the separating fence, breathing down the necks of those in the 1st row. Due to their height and attitude, nobody got in between me an them, so I had plenty of space in front, next to the guy who stood by my shoulder and benefited from the same conditions.

Counting out h Natural gigs, I’ve only been this close to the stage at a K’s Choice concert some many years ago. Being in that location is a totally different experience than what I am used to which usually is side stage, middle of the venue. And this changes the perception of the music. While in itself, the music is the essence and the reason why so many of us are there, it is a totally different experience when you are this close (note to self: buy a front row ticket to Marillion at least once). To clearly see Steve’s fingers sliding down the guitar strings, to observe if he and Dave play in sync or to realise, based on the movement of their hands, which sounds come from which guitar. It is incredible to see so clearly how Ricardo’s fingers move so flawlessly on his keyboards, or to notice the inner comms between the band members, how they gaze at each other counting tempos, showing non-verbal appreciation for a bass line, the reassuring they give each-other, and to catch glimpses of all the inner jokes and spice.

But going back to the second concert, we were once again delighted by Morpheus and, this time, Summer’s End, as well as by a short anecdote Steve told us while his guitar was at the doctor’s (re-stringing). And probably just to tease us by not jumping directly into the rest of Misplaced Childhood, Script for a Jester’s Tear was the first track where Martin, introduced this time as William Shatner’s younger brother, entered the stage. The Trekkie in me was happy. And that was about the time when my sense of observation got lost and I got engulfed by the euphoria of the moment. One after the other song, I found myself singing and dancing (more like swaying a bounce) but to my defense, it’s close to impossible to stand still and keep your mouth shut on Childhood’s End? and White Feather.

The h era songs were The King of Sunset Town, Cover My Eyes – which got us all singing and clapping under the guidance of Martin and Riccardo – and Hooks in You – which is a total banger. And then we jumped directly into Incommunicado which is also a banger but this one has blazing keyboards. I like Clutching at Straws and I enjoyed hearing it live again. Funny enough, I had The Last Straw/Happy Ending on repeat a few months ago so it was very cool to sing along to it. The evening ended with Incubus and Fugazzi.

Now, there are very little words that can be used to give justice to a live gig. The enthusiasm of the moment fades as soon as the adrenaline rush disappears. In the end you are left with a bitter-sweet memory that last a lifetime. And a desire to do it again, in another place, or maybe the same one, surrounded by the same type of people, chanting, clapping, singing, smiling. Looking at the artists on the stage, hearing their music, singing their lyrics and dancing to their tunes. In this situation Marillion tunes brought together in front of us by a guitar magician under the embodiment of Steve Rothery and the people he gathered around for this project. Leon is to me the invisible man, sitting behind his drum kit, I know he is there but I get to see him only when he walks on and off the stage. Yatim is focused, facing his band mates and in tune. He seems to be the quiet one. Dave is simply amazing, disappearing from the stage when a second guitar is not needed for a track, I often found myself looking for him and confused by this absence and the emptiness he left behind. His smile and good mood are contagious, he’s a spot of colour even when he’s wearing black and even more with a pink/purple shirt and orange shoes. Riccardo Romano is a presence in itself. Both a performing artist and a fan, playing his keyboards and singing along with a burning passion that overtakes the whole audience. That man’s heart and soul are all about the music. And those dance moves. Martin has a remarkable voice. Playing in his own Marillion tribute band – StillMarillion, the Fish-era songs are his forte. His singing is intense and he easily connects with the audience. He brings to our ears something that many old-school Marillion fans want to hear, and sometimes even some newbies like me, or like that kid in the front, barely in his teenage years, singing his heart out on Childhood’s End?.

And I am sure that during the concert I heard, saw, noticed, felt and lived many things that I would have liked to put in words, but they’ll just have to remain in that venue in Barcelona.

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Keane x 2, Back Pain and Happiness Is the Road

Posted on July 7, 2024 by Diana

I’ve attended a few concerts since the last time I stopped by to share some thoughts around here. The biggest one was Taylor Swift which I would go see again. The biggest surprise was Keane. Once in London and once in Stockholm. Other things have happened in the meantime too but let’s take them one by one.

Keane in London. Well, London first, Keane a bit after. Phantom of the Opera x 2 as well, because seeing it once felt insufficient. London, still one of my favourite cities for things to do, places to see and just breathing in the extraordinary vibe of it. It so happened that a thing to do this time was to attend a Keane gig at the O2 Arena (my old tennis house). Though I was surprised by how many songs from them I actually know, impressed by their live performance, the audience, and seeing a live gig in such an amazing arena, I can’t say that this was the highlight of my trip to London. I would say that the highlight is hard to chose between going to a West End play, visiting the Science Museum (the geek in me was so, so happy), the concert, catching up with friends or Buns from Home. The whole trip was a high, in the end. However, a month later, Keane played in Gröna Lund in Stockholm. It was a rainy day and it literally poured until two hours before the show. Then the Sun came out and, even though it was cold, there I was seeing Keane again. And I enjoyed them so much that now they’re my month’s favourite artist (most listened to) on Spotify, dethroning Marillion (though I presume this won’t last long – read the last part of this post’s title). The guys were so happy it stopped raining and people actually showed up at their gig, and they interacted with the (somehow still) Swedish audience to the point where everyone was dancing and singing. Not a lot of artists can get that out of Swedish crowds. And they gladly shared with us the memory of their first gig abroad: opening for The Ark (very good Swedish band, favourites of mine) in Malmö.

As much as a surprise Keane were, I was kept away from other concerts either by the bad weather, or by a dreadful back pain that I get to treat with strong meds, rehab and medical massage. And though I don’t want to talk about it, because it is annoying, the good thing that came out of it was lying on a yoga mat in the middle of the living room, with the cat by my side, and the TV on, randomly playing Marillion songs on YouTube. And that’s how I got my new Marillion fix: Happiness Is the Road. Cause that’s how Marillion and me work. But when you can barely move, see or hear because of the pain that goes through the roof, when just simple rehab exercises take all the effort and the courage in the World, listening to this song’s live version on YouTube was soothing. And that’s how Marillion will surely shift back to the top of the list of my most played artists on Spotify.

And now, of course, I’ve started missing both London and live gigs. Both will have to wait for a while, as now I am on an intense rehab & chill program and enjoying the Swedish Summer and filling up with vitamin D for the long Winter ahead. But long story short, a surprisingly good live gig in a fabulous city or a wonderful song randomly hooked on a rainy evening are just some of the little things that make me smile.

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Ville Valo @ Berns, Stockholm

Posted on April 30, 2024 by Diana

When Ville Valo (VV) dropped a new release during 2020, listening to the new songs while spending most time indoors, due to very obvious and not soon-to-be-forgotten reasons, brought back memories. Though I doubt any clarifications are needed, Ville is the former singer of the Finnish goth rock (or love metal) band HIM, which I stumbled upon 25 (!!!) years ago. They instantly became my favourite band, opening the doors to goth rock, goth metal and heavier stuff, and to a lot of other Finnish artists that I still listen to this day. I can fill in several posts on this blog just by reminiscing those times and the impact the music had on me. But I won’t. Because this is not about HIM (which were the headliners of the first ever festival I attended), this is about last evening’s concert. So let’s take a short detour from memory lane, for now, and focus on the present, though it will be hard to separate the two.

So after 2020, VV started teasing us with singles in 2022, and released a full album in 2023. To my delight, he also chose to tour, and included Stockholm in his stops. The tour arrived in Bucharest at the beginning of the month, and I read a few reviews and followed the event as, just like everywhere else across Europe, Ville and his music are very loved and appreciated by quite a large audience in my home country, and yes, mostly due to his former band. So I went to this concert with what I had already read at the back of my mind, without checking the setlist, and just knowing that he alternates his new tracks with HIM classics. The venue: Berns. Lovely location, been to a few concerts there before, and somehow very fitting for a goth rock evening. The opening act: Zetra. I would have loved them 20 years ago. Unfortunately for them, the sound was poor. Don’t know if it was because of where I was standing (middle back), or because the sound engineer didn’t care much, but it was quite unfair to them and to us. And again, unfortunately, the sound issues continued a bit into Ville’s show too.

Around 9 pm the man made it on stage to the delight of a sold-out venue. He started the concert with Neon Noir, the title track of his first album, and immediately after jumped into Right Here in My Arms. And the audience exploded. And I am going to say it now so I get it out of the way: never in my several years of attending concerts in Sweden have I seen the audience having such an intense reaction. There were no moments of patiently and quietly waiting for the next track, no awkward silence, but a continuous thrill. I’ve never seen people dance the way they did, singing along every verse, reacting after intense lyrics or highly anticipated guitar solos. It left me bedazzled. But this only enhances the value and the appreciation of the man that was standing in front of us on the stage, a man, an artist, whom even if he didn’t share many words, let slip more than words can say: our reactions, our singing along made him glance back at us and smile. Really smile, clearly happy for what the music was bringing his way from us. And on the opposite side there we were smiling and happy for what the music was bringing our way from him.

But it took up to the 6th track (Kiss of Dawn – not a favourite, probably the only song of the evening that I could have been without) for the sound to settle, for the drums to stop sounding like they were stuck on the bottom of a plastic barrel, for the guitars to blend and for Ville’s voice to sound as it should. That was also about the same time the sound engineer sat down and allowed me to have a first class view of the stage.

The evening beaded for us a string of new songs intertwined with HIM classics, one of each. People went crazy on Buried Alive By Love and sang along to the new music, proving again, without it being necessary, how much it was missed and needed. Gone with the Sin was an amazing display of a goth ballad, allowing Ville to showcase his low and deep voice. But while it was a bliss to listen to all of these tracks, I was surprised by the fact that the new songs sound better live than their recorded versions. Which is exactly the opposite of HIM songs. Maybe I want to read too much into this, but also maybe it shows a sign of musical maturity from the melancholic Finnish musician. While HIM albums are all very well produced and a pleasure to listen to, full of hooks and addictive sentiment, the new tracks didn’t strike a chord in me until I heard them live, and I also heard things I didn’t catch while listening to their studio versions.

Join Me (in Death), still one of the most beautiful songs ever written and one of my favourites, if not even the one, was sung by everyone, and if it had been a seated venue, it would have gotten a standing ovation. It’s timeless. But the biggest shock of the evening for me was Saturnine Saturnalia, a new one. I had it on repeat all day today. Hearing it live was such a beautiful moment.

The encore had three songs: two HIM classics (the first one being Killing Loneliness) with the new Baby Lacrimarium in between. After taking us all the way back to 1997 with the beautiful When Love and Death Embrace ballad, Ville bowed his head to all parts of the audience, smiled and walked off stage in the frantic clapping and screams of the audience. His live band ended the show with an instrumental postlude and that was that. But there’s more to Ville Valo and HIM than what this post can talk about and in the end some things are better left unsaid, as they need to be listened to.

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The 69 Eyes @ Fryshuset Klubben, Stockholm

Posted on March 23, 2024 by Diana

I wish I had seen the 69 Eyes when I was 20!

Going to this concert was like going back in time, feeling 20 again, when I was a goth with studded bracelets, chokers, long black skirts and black eyeliner, nervously hiding the chippy black nail polish on my fingernails, staying up late to lisen to the music in the dark. Dreaming to see the Northern Lights. And my favourite Finnish bands playing live. While most of them I’ve seen at least once, The 69 Eyes were a first for me. I had no clue what to expect from this concert. So here it goes.

I went to the venue without really thinking much about it. I was expecting to be greeted by a crowd of goth girls, ready to scream and faint at the sight of the dark-haired Finns. I was greeted by a crowd that was at least 15-20 years older than my expectations. While the set-up of the event was a minus, what happened after the show begun was an unexpected surprise. They started playing with no delay, being greeted by a somewhat passive crowd that needed to get drawn into the action. And boy, how we were drawn into it! Jyrki 69’s presence on stage is hypnotic, his charisma and stage persona make it impossible to take your eyes off him. He practically hooked us all and took us down memory lane while the band were playing some of their best known tracks, going al the way back to their melancholic goth days and returning to their more recent goth’n’roll sounds. One after the other, the old and new music was warming up the crowd. But nobody was more pumped in that venue than the drummer. Jussi 69 is phenomenal! His drumming, his energy, the way he was standing up and scrutinising the crowd, everything was a treat from his side. And the guys playing their guitars… I can’t put it in words how magical the intro to Wasting the Dawn sounds live, or how well and in tune with each other they all are.

My favourite song from them was the 3rd in the setlist (Betty Blue), but surprisingly, it was Dance D’Amour that made my heart skip a beat and Gotta Rock that made me dance. Around me, the crowd gave the warmest greeting to Gothic Girl and The Chair. There was singing and dancing, cheers for new songs and applause for the golden hits. There were people knowing the lyrics to their new music that acted unimpressed by Feel Berlin. And people who knew every lyric and danced and sung to every tune. And this only made me think that The 69 Eyes seem timeless. That they are and always will still be here, a genuine band, writing music, playing it live, enchanting with both new and old music. And I wonder again why it took me so long to see them live.

And if you managed to read this far, I have to make a disclaimer and say that most of this post, and the pleasure of having seen them live, are enveloped by melancholia, the cold and dark type that they so wonderfully blend in their music. And by a lot of memories of moments when I heard one of their songs for the first time, when I saw their videos on TV late at night on VH1’s Friday Rocks, of places I’ve been or moments I lived while listening to their songs on my mp3 player, my iPod or my Spotify. A walk through time with music. There are a few bands that stuck with me along the way, they are one of them. Kiitos!

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A Naturally Peculiar Evening with Steve Hogarth and RanestRane

Posted on February 7, 2024 by Diana

This gem of a concert and trip to Rome (maybe I will write about Rome later) were planned well in advance, sometimes during the Summer when the gig was first announced, shortly after my attending two of Mr h’s Holidays in Sweden concerts. I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into, besides the fact that they played together before and it sounded good. Who are they, you ask? Well, Mr h, of course, the singer of Marillion, no need for an introduction anymore, and RanestRane, Italian progressive rock band, another “why haven’t I listened to this before” kind of situation.

After getting lost in the Roman public transport transfer from metro to train, and ending up staring at a sign on the wall pointing to Auditorium Parco della Musica, the venue of the concert, my excitement for the upcoming event grew even stronger. I only had to wait two more days and I filled those with walking around the city with an utmost desire to go in three directions at the same time and see everything. But the evening of the concert, so longed for, came up at the right time, and the walk to the concert hall (named after the Italian composer Ennio Morricone) fell into the usual ritual that such events lock the audience under. Merch secured, seat taken, phone on silent and that was that. 9 pm sharp Mr h stepped onto the stage with his usual grin, cheeky mood, scrutinising the audience, taking the time to say hello, joke a bit, and get right into the music with Thank You Whoever You Are. It didn’t take long and the piano beginning of Afraid of Sunlight rang throughout the hall, followed by White Paper and Leonard Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat“. One after the other, the songs were flowing by our ears, while in front of us was just a man and his piano. Not the usual set-up for a h Natural gig, which, we were explained by the singer himself, was not going to be a usual gig at all, and things were carefully planned and plans needed to be respected.

The four members of RanestRane (Daniele Pomo, Riccardo Romano, Massimo Pomo and Maurizio Meo) stepped on stage during The Deep Water, and joined in playing their instruments (drums/percussion, lots of stuff but mainly the keyboards, acoustic guitar and bass). They played three more songs together (Sounds that Can’t Be Made, Waiting to Happen and Estonia – which I really wanted to hear in this set-up, and which was dedicated to a late fan), before they were joined on stage by the Flowing Chords Choir, who took backing vocals to the next level and completed the sound in a very unexpected way (though the audience was teased with their presence several times before the concert). They swirled through several more songs, with my heart skipping a beat for Nothing to Declare, they nailed Man of a Thousand Faces and left us wanting more with Easter.

Though I missed the usual and rather intimate connection that Mr h manages to establish with the audience during his solo gigs, the interactions and the laughter, I can’t explain how excited I was to see the band at work on stage, and to discover the surprises that they had in store for us, the audience, for the evening. Now anybody that did their research or has knowledge on who was going up on stage in front of them that evening, knew that no less than excellence was aimed to be delivered. And the delivery itself was to be made with passion on the part of everyone performing, from the focus of the guitar player, to the perfectly timed clinks of the bar chimes, from the rhythm of the bass and the joy of its player to the refractive arrangements of various musical instruments and the glee of singing along each lyric that Riccardo Romano doesn’t shy away from, to the harmonies that the choir scattered on top of it all, and above and beyond to the voice, the presence and the performance that Mr h brings with him in his shows, either individually or as the lead singer of Marillion for 35 years (and one week at the time of the concert). Totally different than a usual h Natural show, unlike the artistry and sound of Marillion, unusual, unexpected, naturally peculiar, as the name of the event announced it while playing on a word game merging the worlds of those involved. In other words, I liked it.

Even though I’ve been to many concerts, and I know that they can’t go on and on, as much as I want to sit and listen for hours in a row, the final moments always leave a void in my stomach and the excited butterflies that flutter around the moments before the shows start are long gone. A meet-and-greet, a thank you, a word of appreciation shared can lift spirits and make dreams come true, but can’t match the magic of the moments when the music is live and loud and flowing.

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