The Cable Factory
The 18 – 19th of February 2011
Helsinki, Finland
The annual Finnish Metal Expo was arranged in the old ancient Cable Factory in the heart of Helsinki. Even though the winter wind was blowing in cold from the open sea, thousands of metalheads were crawling to the FME event. Once again the roster of the FME event offered plenty of interesting names. The purpose of the event is to offer a good chance for young and talented Finnish bands to perform in front of a critical metal audience. Besides new talented bands, known and classic names were at present at FME. The Metal-Rules.com squad was, as usual, at the annual Finnish Metal Expo to feel what’s up in the air of the metal world.
On the first day when the doors had been opened the Finnish deathters Deathchain conquered the stage to unleash the hate and anger. But the timing and being the first opening band of the event wasn’t justified for Deathchain. The next band called Zeroscape offered reggae metal(!?!) from Canada(!?!). Another totally unknown compo was Dreamshade from Switzerland. Both the bands were quite horrible to be honest.
MyGrain’s career has been into the heavy upstart during the past few years. The recent self-titled album has received positive feedback amongst the press. Therefore, the band’s gig at FME was an obvious one. The band was very active on stage. The frontman gave an intense stage performance – raging as a manic. The tight playing by the six piece has put the band on the map in the Finnish metal world. The band deserve to have a major boost outside Finland as Finnish Metal enjoys massive success in several countries.
Finally, the band that most of people had arrived to see on the first day. Triptykon led by Mr. Thomas Gabriel Fischer. The four piece made their debut performance at the Jalometalli festival up in Oulu and did an unforgettable set and show leaving thousands of people gasping for the air. As normal, the set was kicked off by the massive Crucifixus intro followed by both the classic Celtic Frost and of course Triptykon material. It had been guessed if some certain Hellhammer song would be played in the set, and yes, it truly it was played. Messiah sounded brutal and heavy in the catacombs of the Cable Factory. Triptykon was merciless and heavy indeed. Thomas G Fischer hasn’t given up in his musical crusade, just pushing forward with the ultimate revenge. With Triptykon, Fischer has created an entire new way and world to unleash the anger and darkness.
Procreation (of the Wicked)
Goetia
Circle of the Tyrants
Messiah
Synagoga Satanae
The Prolonging
The Swedish Sabaton concluded the first day by offering power metal warfare in front of an enthusiastic crowd. Joakim Broden has turned out to be a real strong frontman; able to control and encourage the audience go crazy. The show was a full filled turbo with the massive explosion and pyros.
The Man- Eating-Tree has been advertised as a new band of ex members of a few essential Finnish bands from the past. But which band, well some good guided metal sites may give more than a few tips. The soft and even poppish sounding rock with the melancholic grip appealed to the audience watching the six piece.
After the Finnish metal awards, which was entirely ignored by the Metal-Rules.com, as the bar and the restaurant appeared to be more tempting than the boring, having a good deserved break was right on time to have a tasteful meal.
Battle Beast is kind of interesting act playing the traditional metal heavily influenced by Priest / Maiden and other classic metal bands. The front-lady, which the staff writer of BraveWords described as "Timo Kotipelto as a woman", appeared to be an utter dominating one on the stage. Their melodic metal stormed around the hall of the ancient Cable Factory. Seriously the band’s material sounded such powerful and catchy catching the ears of every metal fan for sure.
The Norwegian Kvelertak has been hyped on Finnish Radio Rock stations for a while. Therefore a number of people had arrived to gather near the security wall to testify the Norwegian power squad in action. The group appeared to be extreme relentless and powerfully insane on stage. None of them were standing in one spot for nano second, instead raging and swirling like maniacs. The music played by Kvelertak hadn’t been aimed for a band to stand and wonder. Brutal live act for sure and worth to be checked out.
The legendary German metal outfit Accept visited with the new singer Mark Tornillo last summer. The club was entirely packed and the audience went totally nuts. The five piece unleashed an appx. 90min metallic maelstrom by starting off the show with "Teutonic Terror" followed by "Bucket Full Of Hate". After the newer material the band returned to the very early 80’s and did a couple of brutal tunes from the BREAKER album. All in all the set was nothing but blazing of both the old and new songs. Of course it would easy to point out and criticize some certain songs were missing from the set. But hell it is quite obvious that newer material needs to be added to the set along with the mandatory classic ones. The Cable Factory is known for having extraordinary awful sound quality. Accept came and conquered by offering Teutonic Metal heart to the Finnish audience. The band will be seen at the Sauna Open Air next summer and the same kind of restless and wild show will be experienced again.
Teutonic Terror
Bucket Full Of Hate
Starlight
Breaker
New World Comin’
Restless And Wild
Son Of A Bitch
Metal Heart
Neon Nights
Bulletproof
The Abyss
Aiming High
Princess Of The Dawn
Up To The Limit
Burning
Fast As A Shark
Pandemic
Balls To The Wall
The Swedish mysterious band Ghost sealed the last night as the last band of FME 2011. The nameless and soulless group of six masked persons delivered a rather mysterious gig. The band has arisen in tremendous speed to the next level of success and gained a massive cult following. Six hooded guys arrived at the stage. The frontman’s look reminded slightly of the pope with long a cloak. No spoken words were uttered during the show. The magic and the occultism of Ghost could be felt when their occultism and spiritual feeling was spread around the venue.
Once again the annual Finnish Metal Expo has been witnessed. Some of those bands on the FME Roster will be appearing at the upcoming Tuska Metal Festival such as Ghost. The legendary German metal force Accept will be at the Sauna Open Air festival. Of course, critical things can be pointed out in the FME event. First of all, most of bands were quite awful such as the Canadian reggae band. Then the ticket price has gone up to the air. However the next FME event will be arranged in the next year for sure.
The Official Finnish Metal Expo site :
