BLACK LABEL SOCIETY

22.11 2008

House of Culture, Helsinki

FINLAND

A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since Zakk Wylde made a debut visit to Finland, as a new axe man of Ozzy Osbourne on the NO REST FOR WICKED tour, almost 20 years ago. During these years since the first visit, the man has become the well known and adored name on the lips of several young guitar players around the world. His Black Label Society has been cllimbing the ladder of success during the whole decade. That can be noticed as venues have become bigger and the attendance of audience or so called “family” has grown tremendously as well.

Review by Marko Syrjälä and Arto Lehtinen

Pictures by Marko Syrjälä

The Black Label Society’s European tour kicked off in Helsinki where Zakk and crew got on the stage to perform the southern rock influenced metal at the sold out House Of Culture, with over 1500 people in the audience. When the curtain was dropped the whole packed house of culture welcomed Wylde with massive cheering. The show started with “New Religion” from the bands latest SHOT TO HELL album followed by two MAFIA tracks: “Forever Down” and “Been A Long Time”. The first three-four songs were hammered down with the rolling massive heavy sounds. However Zakk didn’t communicate that much with the audience which saved the time for the playing time. Instead the soloing and showing his guitar playing skills played an obvious important role in the set. Frankly it was a mandatory part of the whole gig anyway.

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Though Zakk is known for having a tough guy reputation, when he dedicated “In This River” to the late Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell, it was lucky he didn’t burst into the tears when playing the touching parts of the song on the piano. To emphasize the remembrance of the late Pantera axe man, a couple of huge pictures were dropped to upholster a few amplifiers.

Black Label Society has a strong and passionate support amongst the metal and rock fans as several flags, caps and patches with the BLS logos on the back were the correct “dress code” at the gig. BLS appeals especially to bikers as there were at least a few bikers having attended the show.

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Although the whole band performed and played extremely tightly and well it was obvious that Zakk Wylde’s charisma is so tremendous huge and dominating on the stage, leaving the rest of the band; drummer Craig Nunemacher, bassist John DeServio and second guitarist Nick Catanese into the shadow to handle their own job on the stage. It can be even said that if some of the other guys had pulled out of the stage it wouldn’t have been noticed as everyone kept staring at Zakk Wylde’s with eyes wide open.

As for the set list, it consisted of great selection of BLS tracks including: “Bleed For Me”, “Fire It Up” “Suicide Messiah” “Spoke In The Wheel” and “Stillborn”. This time they didn’t play anything from STRONGER THAN DEATH and HANGOVER MUSIC VOL 6 whereas all other BLS albums were represented.

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As stated the audience enthusiastically welcomed the BLS doom crew, but kept the same intensive up thru the whole gig, even though the overlong guitar solos literally calmed people a little down. The House of Culture is nothing, but a horrible gig venue for any kind of metal or rock concerts in general. Frankly the sounds were more or less horrible and sounded distorted on the floor level. But instead they sounded rather bearable in the rear of the venue. All right the Helsinki gig was the first one on the short European tour; therefore there were obvious things which hadn’t clicked to right places yet. When the tour has started rolling over Europe, presumably the whole four piece will be in the vicious strike on the stage.

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