25.9.2018 Leaves’ Eyes, Flat Earth & Kamelot @ Nosturi, Helsinki

As the fall season has begun, many bands make it to our favorite venues, one of those is Kamelot, who released their “Shadow Theory” in April. The band would celebrate the release with us at Nosturi, together with Leaves’ Eyes and Flat Earth.

Leaves’ Eyes used to be one of my favorite bands when I was a teenager. I kind of lost track of them, without any apparent reason. After the split with Liv Kristine, they chose Elina Siirala as their new frontwoman. The band recently released “Sign of he Dragonhead”, where we get introduced with Siirala as a vocalist.

The band kicked off the wonderful evening with “Sign of the Dragonhead”. I’m immediately impressed with Siirala’s voice, as well as her stage presence. She has an energetic attitude and her smiles are contagious. The band played in total 8 tracks, both some new songs and some classics like “Hell to the Heavens”, which also was my highlight of the show. Liv Kristine often did costume changes, so someone had to take over that torch. Alexander Krull seemed to gladly fill out that position, as he changed outfits during “Edge of Steel” only to become a knight waving around with a toy sword. If this really added anything to the show, is questionable. All-in-all the band sounded great live, had the right energy and managed to convince and warm up the audience as supposed to.

Setlist

1. Sign of the Dragonhead
2. Across the Sea
3. Swords in Rock
4. Edge of Steel
5. Riders on the Wind
6. Hell to the Heavens
7. Beowulf
8. Blazing Waters

Flat Earth was scheduled next. This was a moment many fans had been looking forward. No, it’s not exactly their live debut, but at least to me personally, it was. I had never been able to catch the band play live, in their short existence. Flat Earth has released two singles “Cyanide” and “Blame”, which both were well received around the world. The band played in total 9 tracks, highlights for me were “Limelight”, “Noble Swine” (which was dedicated to Anthony Bourdain) and of course, “Cyanide”.

The amount the gigs the band has played so far can probably be counted on both hands. But that wasn’t noticeable at all. It seemed like the guys have been doing this a long time already. Of course, all of them are well-established musicians. It’s really great to see them out there and play again. The music itself has a lot of different elements in there, the riffs Linde Lindström plays are definitely recognizable, but be not mistaken. This is not HIM or not another version of the love metal band. Flat Earth has often a grungy sound, especially because of the vocals by Anthony Pikkarainen (Polanski). Altogether the band sounds like a great alternative rock band, with a great live attitude. The audience seemed to really like the sound and the performance.  I’m looking forward to hearing and seeing more of this band!

Setlist

1. Subhuman
2. Blame
3. Limelight
4. None For One
5. The Glow
6. Noble Swine(Dedicated to Anthony Bourdain)
7. Freedoom
8. Blunt
9. Cyanide

Finally, it was time for Kamelot to arrive on stage. The band made an entree… Actually, they did it twice. As always, the backing track turned demonic on the band and some technical difficulties kicked in as the band was supposed to enter the stage on the first notes of “Phantom Divine”. As that didn’t happen, the band was forced to play a part of their intro track all over again. Luckily, the backing track understood that it’s showtime and the first notes of “Phantom Divine” soon swooped in, when the band entered on stage.

Kamelot played a long and intensive show of 17 tracks in total. The tour was in support of their new album “Shadow Theory”, of which they played a couple of tracks. Most of the tracks, however, were a mix of newer songs and classic Kamelot songs. All-in-all the setlist was well-balanced and it seemed like all the fans knew all the words to the songs. Unfortunately for the photographers, the band built an aisle to get closer to the audience. This seemed to work well for the audience, as it built a perfect atmosphere for the show. The whole performance basically was one highlight after another, which made us forget the technical difficulties in the beginning. I couldn’t possibly tell you which my personal highlights of the show were, but it was nice to see Noora Louhimo appear on stage to sing a song or two with Tommy Karevik and Lauren Hart. Hopefully, in the future, the band will work with her as a guest vocalist on the albums, because their voices sounded great together.

The band ended their set with “Forever”, but then came back one last time for the audience to sing “Liar Liar (Wasteland Monarchy)”, where again Noora made an appearance.

All-in-all the three bands combined their forces to make sure we would have a great evening, and I didn’t see anyone without a smile while going home.

Setlist

1. Phantom Divine (Shadow Empire)(with Lauren Hart)
2. Rule the World
3. Insomnia
4. The Great Pandemonium
5. When the Lights are Down
6. End of Innocence
7. Veil of Elysium
8. Here’s to the Fall(Only Oliver and Tommy on stage)
9. RavenLight
10. March of Mephisto(with Lauren Hart)
11. Karma
12. Amnesiac(with Lauren Hart
13. Keyboard and Drum Performance
14. Sacrimony (Angel of Afterlife)(with Lauren Hart) (with Noora Louhimo)
15. Burns to Embrace
16. ForeverEncore
17. Liar Liar (Wasteland Monarchy)(with Lauren Hart) (with Noora Louhimo)