Tocornal, from Kuopio, took their heartbreak rock music to Helsinki and stopped over at On The Rocks to celebrate the release of their latest album “Before The Satellites”. Together with the heartbreak rockers, a little piece of the United States, Bullets and Cotane, came to visit Finland to play rock out with the audience.
After reviewing their album and interviewing the band, it was only natural for me to go check out their show. I think during the interview I was promised a very energetic live show, according to singer Lotta Ruutiainen and that is precisely what I got. The band played songs from their debut album “Before The Satellites” while jumping around on the stage and totally destroying it there.
A Wednesday evening at On The Rocks with two kind of underground bands, doesn’t really draw that much of an audience. This can be explained by the high ticket prices, which mostly caused a hesitance to come out to see both bands play. However, there were surprisingly many faces attending the show and Tocornal definitely managed to warm up the crowd quite will with their contagious energy on stage.
Like the guys mentioned during their interview, even though the thematics around the music are sad, in the end watching them play live leaves me with a happy and pumped up feeling. I highly recommend going to see a show of this band, hopefully an agency will pick them up in the near future, as they have a lot more to offer!
The next band of the night, Bullets and Octane, was a big mystery to me. I went to the evening without knowing their songs, without knowing what to expect and what I experienced was something that I have not yet encountered. I have to say I have been to concerts ever since I was 14 on a regular basis. Only this fall I’ve been to about 50 concerts, start counting back and we can say that I have seen quite some shows. This, however, was something special and it leaves me with a lot of confusion about what to write.
So, you may wonder why I am so speechless? Bullets and Octane kicked off the show quite energetically and in a very traditional manner. They seemed to be an energetic band, but after the first song, that’s when things became interesting. The band kind of took the whole venue as their stage, the only person who was always at the same place was the drummer, safe behind his drum kit.
Personally, I like watching shows, but I don’t like participating in them, and I think the Finnish audience is a bit like that. The first reaction of the crowd was thus to step back from the situation, however, as I marched my way upstairs to hide away from the social awkward situation, I soon noticed that most of the people completely let go of themselves. In fact, they started to enjoy.
This band may not have been the best live band, consisting out of the best technical musicians, but they sure knew how to put up a show. In the end, they came to party and rock out with the audience, and that is exactly what they did and why they probably get booked. And if you think about what the American stereotype of a rock band is, then we sure got worth our money for. The sensation this band left me with is a lot of confusion, but in the end I feel intrigued by this concept. This is definitely something a lot of bands can learn from, especially the ones that are stuck on the stage, staring at their shoes. And all-in-all found myself to enjoy the show a lot!
