Recently the Finnish monster metal sensation LORDI welcomed the whole world to Rovaniemi, the city in Northern Finland that is home to Mr. Lordi himself. This was no ordinary gig for the masked rockers, however. No, it was a massive three-hour-long spectacle, streamed worldwide. Due to the restrictions put in place to stop the coronavirus from spreading, the Nordic metal beasts opted to have a big show live streamed in Paha Kurki, a local rock-themed venue.
As many may have heard, the stream didn’t go entirely as planned. As a huge amount of people gathered in front of their screens around the globe, the stream appeared to be working but was running very slowly. Complaints of lagging filled the chat and some were worried this would last through the whole experience. For me personally, this was the first live streamed concert and lag was something I feared from gigs like these, because there is nothing worse than a lagging video in 2020, right?
The band managed to get through two songs and a couple of inserts before the stream crashed. A lot of people voiced their disappointment and anger on social media. Me and many others could not log back into the stream and worries of the stream not coming back up filled the atmosphere. The band’s official Facebook account informed people soon after that the stream was under a denial of service attack and that they were working to fix it. After 30 minutes of the stream being silent, the monsters returned to the screen and everything went smoothly for the rest of the show.
Where do you even begin with the setlist? When you get past the obligatory tracks such as ”Devil is a Loser,” Would You Love a Monsterman,” and the historic hard rock anthem that froze hell over, 2006 Eurovision winner ”Hard Rock Hallelujah,” LORDI offered a night filled with catchy choruses and rocking riffs. The band played a lot of rarities that haven’t been played in a while, such as ”Hulking Dynamo,” ”Evilove,” and ”Beast Loose in Paradise,” which were sure to fill the fans with joy. Some other rarities and absolute surprises were ”Kalmageddon,” ”Shotgun Divorce,” and DINGO -cover, ”The House,” which made Mr. Lordi very nervous since it’s not the easiest song to sing. Talk about a special set!
Despite the problems, LORDI managed to keep the show going and give maybe one of their most memorable performances ever, which is admirable since they didn’t have any of their stage effects, pyrotechnics, or other flashy elements such as Mr. Lordi’s signature wings. Instead of having a rock show filled with fake blood, skulls, and flames, the band offered people something they might not have even realized they needed: a concert full of nostalgic songs that all sounded just as good in 2020 as they did back in the 2000s. I have said it before and I will say it again: LORDI is criminally underrated in Finland and they are truly one of our flagship bands when it comes to hard rock and heavy metal.
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Setlist
- Get Heavy
- Hulking Dynamo
- Blood Red Sandman
- Evilove
- Let’s Go Slaughter He-Man (I Wanna Be the Beast-Man in the Masters of the Universe)
- Kalmageddon
- Who’s Your Daddy?
- Shotgun Divorce
- Beast Loose in Paradise
- Hard Rock Hallelujah
- The House
- Cutterfly
- The Riff
- Hate at First Sight
- Supermonstars (The Anthem of the Phantoms)
- Not the Nicest Guy
- Icon of Dominance
- Like a Bee to the Honey
- Biomechanic Man
- It Snows in Hell
- Devil Is a Loser
- My Heaven Is Your Hell
- Would You Love a Monsterman?
