Even though myGRAIN ended their activities already in 2015, the band released a new EP “III” with the announcement that the band would do some additional shows. Since they made it very clear that this was not going to be a regular thing, and I had not seen the legendary melodic death metal band before, I decided I had to attend Metal Crane Festival. Moreover, the festival offers nice grounds for smaller bands and showcases young talents in their lineup. The lineup 19 January 2019 consisted of Callidice, Everwave, Medeia and myGRAIN.
The first band to dominate the stage was Callidice, a melodic death metal band from Jyväskylä founded in 2014. Even though the audience only started to come in a bit later than their show, the five-piece delivered a dynamic set and engaged with the audience.
I hadn’t listened to the band’s music yet, so I was pleasantly surprised, especially by the vocal performance of Jarkko Liimatainen. Definitely a band I would like to check out in the future. The audience definitely had heard of the band before, during one of the last songs, a fan was allowed to growl some words in the mic.
The next band on the schedule was Everwave. Again, I didn’t know what to expect from this band. At this point, more and more people filled Nosturi. The audience already warmed up from the previous act, agreed with the music. A lot of fans were singing along with the songs and dancing or headbanging to the beats.
The band discovered every inch of the stage and even though they were moving around quite much, the managed to play a very heavy and solid set. I hope to discover more of these guys in the future, as I enjoyed their show quite much.
The next act for the evening, Medeia, had just released their new album “Xenosis” one day prior to Metal Crane Festival. Reason the more to celebrate, and that’s precisely what the band did on stage!
With aggressive movements, the band played their alternative death metal tunes to the audience. The whole atmosphere of the concert, as well as the atmosphere in the audience, was vigorous. Only having seen their latest music video “Insectia”, I didn’t know what to expect from this band, but they managed to convince me with their energetic attitude, from headbanging to kicking, to jumping on and off things, I’m surprised that Medeia didn’t destroy the stage.
Even though myGRAIN hasn’t performed in 4 years, from the moment the band marched their way to the stage, up until the end of the show, I had a constant feeling that these guys are meant to play together.
I had never seen myGRAIN live, so hearing their legendary melodic death metal tracks for the first time live, was a very emotional moment for me. I also have to say that the vocal performance Tommy Tuovinen was extremely impressive today. I have seen Tuovinen sing with other bands on other occasions, and this was perhaps vocally one of the best shows I have attended of the singer.
The band looked like they were having a blast on stage, and took the audience from iconic old material, such as “Dreamscape” to a new song such as “Lifeless”. I paid attention from the first up until the last minute and it left me with a feeling of deep happiness. I really was amazed with how tight their playing is. The sound was good, the only thing bad I can really say is that I wish the setlist had lasted longer. The audience had a lot of fun, were singing or grunting along, headbanging and just seemed genuinely happy to see myGRAIN once again. Hopefully, this can mark as a new start for the band because it would be wonderful not to wait 4 years again for them to release new material or do some live shows.
