17 August 2019 will go down in history as a big night for all metalheads, especially in Lahti. PROFANE OMEN has always been a big name in the metal scene Lahti. They decided to call it quits a month prior to the huge party to celebrate their 20-year-long career. So, the celebration for their long journey, at the same time, was also a farewell party. The atmosphere, however, was still joyful and people were having fun from the very start of the evening. The band wasn’t alone to celebrate with them… They took DEATH MEX, MEGAHAMMER, and FINNTROLL along with them.
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The first act of the evening was DEATH MEX – who came straight from Lahti. There was a competition on Facebook to win a slot as the opening act which they won. Their fast and super energetic proggy thrash was a nice slap in the face. Even though the guys are still young, they had a really tight sound and they played well together. They took over their audience like pros and kept a consistent performance throughout their set. No useless speeches, just plain ass-kicking, and the music spoke for itself. They ended their act with a classic “Sharp Dressed Man” from ZZ Top and the audience loved it. The stage was warmed up for the others to play.
The next band was a mystic electro duo MEGAHAMMER,you guessed it right… From Lahti! Their 80s inspired synthwave was so groovy that you couldn’t help it – you just had to dance. With a Korg mini synth, electric drums and Epiphone Flying V guitar nothing could go wrong. If you haven’t heard of them, now it’s the time! At the end of their show, Batman Steele joined to sing ROBBERT TEPPER‘s huge 80s classic “No Easy Way Out”.
After that, it was time was the main act of the evening. The curtains dropped. And suddenly a man with black hair entered the stage: Kjell Simosas from Bob Malmström. He introduced the next band: PROFANE OMEN. Before the show would start he told the audience to look up to the screen, where they played a piece of stand-up from the famous Bill Hicks about how rock ‘n’ roll is the devil’s music. After that, the curtains opened and the band was there standing in a circle. After a quick chant, the show could start.
They started with the strong opening song “They Came For Us” from their latest album “Ooka” and followed up with another great song from that album “White Noise”. The audience was right away full-on party mode with the band. Everyone was having a great time and the mosh pit kept on going strong. It was so great to see a club in Lahti so full of people seeing a metal show. PROFANE OMEN played a long set with all of the greatest songs including “Information”, “Wastehead” and “Painbox”. They took their time to enjoy this farewell party. Many people got mentioned and thanked during the speeches. One of the loveliest events of the evening was when their guitar player Viljami brought his little daughter on the stage to say hi for all the fans.
They too had some guests on the stage during the show. Sami Helle (ROOTBRAIN, ex-DAUNTLESS) came to sing “Disconnected” with Jules Näveri and Tommy Tuovinen shared the stage with them during “Bound To Strive”. After all the headbanging, moshing and fist-pumping, long speeches and thank yous there was nothing left to say. They truly gave everything and so did the audience. A spectacular show, again!
PROFANE OMEN wasn’t the last act for the evening. After their set, Kjell Simosas came with Jules Näveri on the stage and introduced the last band of the night: FINNTROLL.
FINNTROLL had their first show in a long time in Finland. With their troll ears wabbling, they kept the party going on right away. Somehow the audience had still some energy left to dance to the tones of troll metal. Shout out to Heikki Saari‘s outstanding drumming. Sometimes you just realized your was mouth wide open, marveling at that superb talent.
When “Trollhammaren” started it was a complete mayhem again. We wouldn’t be surprised if the trollhammaren-shouts could’ve been heard on the other side of the town. As their set was ending with “Under Bergets Rot” Mathias Lillmåns asked PROFANE OMEN to join the stage and dance with them. With that final dance, the night was over and we finally had to say goodbye to PROFANE OMEN. But like they said “Just stopping and letting go. Stopping. We will never quit.”. Let’s hope we meet again in the future!
Article and photos by Juho Jokimies
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