Jalometalli 2010 Part 1 - World Wanderers for Winterwolf
The 26 hours it took to get to Oulu had me wondering what it was I was doing. I'd already had a meltdown on a bench in Stockholm’s Arlanda airport. Hyper-fatigue had me in a wired, twitchy state, this time made critical because I hadn't slept at all on the Newark to Stockholm flight. I was convinced I would never sleep again. Bizarre Eurofashions trotted by, while I miserably tried to nap. My eyes remained darting and open. The sun came out, rays slotting neatly through one of the many skylights to shine directly on my head.
In the Russian Gulag prison camps, prisoners were kept awake to break their will. I wouldn't have made it one week.
We arrived in Oulu, Finland at 4:30pm. The baggage claim was so small and my fatigue so great I almost staggered bagless out of the airport. Realizing my mistake, I executed an oval about-face and stood mutely stupid at the claim, intensely aware of Mike and Schmier from Destruction standing to my right. At that point I was so tired I could not have named a Destruction song if my life had depended on it.
Oulu is a small, picturesque, postcard-perfect place. Quiet. SLOW. The taxi ride to the hotel was, in a word, sedate. Most European taxi rides are to be experienced with a last will and testament combined with a five-point harness; in Oulu, you resist crawling over the seat to jam your foot on the gas. I found myself looking for traffic jams or herds of cows crossing the road to explain the speed. After 26 hours in one type of vehicle or another, I was done with traveling at someone else's pace.
We’d booked a hotel room for the first night, knowing uninterrupted sleep would be essential after the preparty. The Demilich/Winterwolf crew had kindly set aside space for us in their campsite cabin – of that we would partake tomorrow. Tonight: bed.
The hotel receptionist expressed doubt over our choice of the economy room. “It is very small,” she said in her careful English. “I have a bigger one if you would like.” Yes, we are Americans, where everything has to be HUGE to be good. Not needed for us. We’ve stayed at The White House in the NYC Bowery, a human chicken coop where a two-person room was exactly six feet by ten and the ceiling was open decking lattice. Any space with six solid planar surfaces joined by 90º angles is a step above.
Plans for dinner at the nearby Indian restaurant were made then immediately dashed by a text from a friend. The Jalometalli preparty was underway and Winterwolf were going on stage at 7:30. The clock read 6:20.
Nope, can't eat. Gotta see Winterwolf. Mandatory.
We followed the reverberations of bass and drums through the city park to the preparty. It was one thing for the show to be on a grassy little island, surrounded by a picturesque pond and flowers, quite another to discover the stage was in a large blue and red circus tent. Seriously.
In the States, a metal show in a tent would be, at best, embarrassing. In Finland, with a finely appointed stage, two giant videoscreens and a light rig to put most high-end Austin clubs to shame, it was simply “metal where it is able to take place.”
We arrived in time to catch the last half of Napoleon Skullfukk’s set. Unfortunate name, not a bad band. They exuded a slight Cannibal Corpse feel, promoted by their thickset vocalist's windmilling. My rapidly progressing jetlag turned the machinegun double bass into a dreamy hypnotic. I found myself staring upwards, blankly registering the stars painted at the apex of the big top, whilst rocking back and forth to the beat like an autistic Emperor penguin.
Getting barrier space for Winterwolf was easy; only a few dozen people were in the tent, the rest drinking outside in the endless Far North sunset. At this point, I had no idea of how large a part drinking would play into the ensuing hilarity of the weekend. All I knew was that in the land of the large and tall, this very small girl got herself a prime spot to see a great band.
Winterwolf, for those who do not know, combines Boltthrower and Entombed-worship into a beast with qualities of both but a unique snarling visage of its own. Most impressive was how drummer E.R. Insane conjured Nile-sized sound out of his tiny kit: bass drum, snare, one rack tom, one floor tom, maybe 5 cymbals total. Proves the relationship of quality play to number of drums is not 1:1.
Finns are a staid people. Each grinding song was met with polite golf claps and a couple inebriated bellows. I'm used to howling between songs, channeling demons within while trying to out-guttural the men around me – I let loose with a “RRRRAWWWWRrrrrrrrrr” after “Phantoms of Madness” that trailed off into a dampened, embarrassed finish when I realized I was the only one screaming.
Dorothy, we’re not Texas anymore, that's for sure.
Winterwolf's brutal set was short but left me drained and dizzy. We staggered across the uneven canvas flooring to the beer garden, scored some very tasty Indian food (dinner plans reacquired!), then set to eating our first real meal in 10 hours.
The chicken korma revived us. Sacreligious Impalement had taken the stage. After a few songs, we tired of their campy and overdone stage presence. Two Les Paul-wielding guitarists flanked a slender, tall vocalist. The 8-foot inverted cross planted off-center on the stage nor the vocalist's blood invocations compensated for SI's unmemorable Mayhem worship. We laughed against our better judgment when the vocalist began to dramatically anoint his bandmates with blood, carefully avoiding dripping too much blood on the bookish guitarist on stage left. I could hear the previous gig’s conversation: “Dude, next gig I forbid you to drip blood on me – it ran in my eyes and I couldn’t see what I was goddamn playing!”
Between sets, we caught up with our friends in Demilich/Winterwolf who thanked us for our efforts in the front row. It’s always good to know losing your shit gave energy to the band in an otherwise vacuous room. Very quickly I found myself falling into my “Europe” speech pattern: speaking slowly, not using contractions and altering my tone to match the musical quality of Scandi-spoken English. Part of me wishes I could permanently adopt this mode, as I believe I sound more calm and intelligent. Unfortunarely, 30 seconds after I set foot on US soil the word “douchebag” is out of my mouth, and I need my nasal Northeastern accent for full effect.
Horna was up next. I like the idea of them more than their actual music. Less campy than Sacreligious Impalement, I still couldn’t get past the incongruity between the vocalist’s screeches and the bouncy, Swedish-death style riffs. One particularly melodic song inspired me to begin quietly singing nonsense operatic vocals ala Nightwish. The result was surprisingly catchy and good. Perhaps Tarja Turunen is missing out on an opportunity here.
The highlight of Horna's set was a song off their first album – no idea of the title, but it contained the sawing, straight-ahead traditional black metal guitar work which, for a few short minutes, brought everything on stage firmly into focus.
The set ended abruptly and without fanfare. The audience, quite drunk by now, bawled for Horna's return to the stage. House lights did nothing to still the boozy, garrulous din. We debated finding friends and socializing more but gave up quickly. Fatigue nausea had us firmly in its queasy grip. The Finnish night, deep only for a blink, followed us with cool breezes back through the empty Oulu streets. Unshowered with teeth barely brushed, we fell into bed, our very un-metal sleep masks guaranteeing unbroken dreams of metal adventures to come.
Part Two coming in a few days!
In the Russian Gulag prison camps, prisoners were kept awake to break their will. I wouldn't have made it one week.
We arrived in Oulu, Finland at 4:30pm. The baggage claim was so small and my fatigue so great I almost staggered bagless out of the airport. Realizing my mistake, I executed an oval about-face and stood mutely stupid at the claim, intensely aware of Mike and Schmier from Destruction standing to my right. At that point I was so tired I could not have named a Destruction song if my life had depended on it.
Oulu is a small, picturesque, postcard-perfect place. Quiet. SLOW. The taxi ride to the hotel was, in a word, sedate. Most European taxi rides are to be experienced with a last will and testament combined with a five-point harness; in Oulu, you resist crawling over the seat to jam your foot on the gas. I found myself looking for traffic jams or herds of cows crossing the road to explain the speed. After 26 hours in one type of vehicle or another, I was done with traveling at someone else's pace.
We’d booked a hotel room for the first night, knowing uninterrupted sleep would be essential after the preparty. The Demilich/Winterwolf crew had kindly set aside space for us in their campsite cabin – of that we would partake tomorrow. Tonight: bed.
The hotel receptionist expressed doubt over our choice of the economy room. “It is very small,” she said in her careful English. “I have a bigger one if you would like.” Yes, we are Americans, where everything has to be HUGE to be good. Not needed for us. We’ve stayed at The White House in the NYC Bowery, a human chicken coop where a two-person room was exactly six feet by ten and the ceiling was open decking lattice. Any space with six solid planar surfaces joined by 90º angles is a step above.
Plans for dinner at the nearby Indian restaurant were made then immediately dashed by a text from a friend. The Jalometalli preparty was underway and Winterwolf were going on stage at 7:30. The clock read 6:20.
Nope, can't eat. Gotta see Winterwolf. Mandatory.
We followed the reverberations of bass and drums through the city park to the preparty. It was one thing for the show to be on a grassy little island, surrounded by a picturesque pond and flowers, quite another to discover the stage was in a large blue and red circus tent. Seriously.
In the States, a metal show in a tent would be, at best, embarrassing. In Finland, with a finely appointed stage, two giant videoscreens and a light rig to put most high-end Austin clubs to shame, it was simply “metal where it is able to take place.”
We arrived in time to catch the last half of Napoleon Skullfukk’s set. Unfortunate name, not a bad band. They exuded a slight Cannibal Corpse feel, promoted by their thickset vocalist's windmilling. My rapidly progressing jetlag turned the machinegun double bass into a dreamy hypnotic. I found myself staring upwards, blankly registering the stars painted at the apex of the big top, whilst rocking back and forth to the beat like an autistic Emperor penguin.
Getting barrier space for Winterwolf was easy; only a few dozen people were in the tent, the rest drinking outside in the endless Far North sunset. At this point, I had no idea of how large a part drinking would play into the ensuing hilarity of the weekend. All I knew was that in the land of the large and tall, this very small girl got herself a prime spot to see a great band.
Winterwolf, for those who do not know, combines Boltthrower and Entombed-worship into a beast with qualities of both but a unique snarling visage of its own. Most impressive was how drummer E.R. Insane conjured Nile-sized sound out of his tiny kit: bass drum, snare, one rack tom, one floor tom, maybe 5 cymbals total. Proves the relationship of quality play to number of drums is not 1:1.
Finns are a staid people. Each grinding song was met with polite golf claps and a couple inebriated bellows. I'm used to howling between songs, channeling demons within while trying to out-guttural the men around me – I let loose with a “RRRRAWWWWRrrrrrrrrr” after “Phantoms of Madness” that trailed off into a dampened, embarrassed finish when I realized I was the only one screaming.
Dorothy, we’re not Texas anymore, that's for sure.
Winterwolf's brutal set was short but left me drained and dizzy. We staggered across the uneven canvas flooring to the beer garden, scored some very tasty Indian food (dinner plans reacquired!), then set to eating our first real meal in 10 hours.
The chicken korma revived us. Sacreligious Impalement had taken the stage. After a few songs, we tired of their campy and overdone stage presence. Two Les Paul-wielding guitarists flanked a slender, tall vocalist. The 8-foot inverted cross planted off-center on the stage nor the vocalist's blood invocations compensated for SI's unmemorable Mayhem worship. We laughed against our better judgment when the vocalist began to dramatically anoint his bandmates with blood, carefully avoiding dripping too much blood on the bookish guitarist on stage left. I could hear the previous gig’s conversation: “Dude, next gig I forbid you to drip blood on me – it ran in my eyes and I couldn’t see what I was goddamn playing!”
Between sets, we caught up with our friends in Demilich/Winterwolf who thanked us for our efforts in the front row. It’s always good to know losing your shit gave energy to the band in an otherwise vacuous room. Very quickly I found myself falling into my “Europe” speech pattern: speaking slowly, not using contractions and altering my tone to match the musical quality of Scandi-spoken English. Part of me wishes I could permanently adopt this mode, as I believe I sound more calm and intelligent. Unfortunarely, 30 seconds after I set foot on US soil the word “douchebag” is out of my mouth, and I need my nasal Northeastern accent for full effect.
Horna was up next. I like the idea of them more than their actual music. Less campy than Sacreligious Impalement, I still couldn’t get past the incongruity between the vocalist’s screeches and the bouncy, Swedish-death style riffs. One particularly melodic song inspired me to begin quietly singing nonsense operatic vocals ala Nightwish. The result was surprisingly catchy and good. Perhaps Tarja Turunen is missing out on an opportunity here.
The highlight of Horna's set was a song off their first album – no idea of the title, but it contained the sawing, straight-ahead traditional black metal guitar work which, for a few short minutes, brought everything on stage firmly into focus.
The set ended abruptly and without fanfare. The audience, quite drunk by now, bawled for Horna's return to the stage. House lights did nothing to still the boozy, garrulous din. We debated finding friends and socializing more but gave up quickly. Fatigue nausea had us firmly in its queasy grip. The Finnish night, deep only for a blink, followed us with cool breezes back through the empty Oulu streets. Unshowered with teeth barely brushed, we fell into bed, our very un-metal sleep masks guaranteeing unbroken dreams of metal adventures to come.
Part Two coming in a few days!
posted by Skullgal at 6:41 PM
1 Comments:
Awesome write-up! Makes me feel and wish like I was there.
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