I have never seen or photographed a gig at Bar Loose before, so there were plenty of reasons to go see JÄSTINFEKTION and BOB MALMSTRÖM‘s performances at the venue on December 1st, 2023. As a venue, I can understand the appeal for certain music genres that work well with tightly packed crowds. The place is suitable for smaller shows, but the majority of larger crowds won’t get to see much due to the very narrow space and shallow ceiling. I’m fairly tall, but when I tried to snap a few shots from the back of the room, I could barely see anything even with the camera held above my head, arms fully extended. So, I do recommend arriving early if you really want to see what’s going on.
The night was kicked off by JÄSTINFEKTION. Their name was completely unknown to me before, so I had no idea what to expect. The live performance was surprisingly engaging and felt reminiscent of some of the old punk shows I attended over a decade ago. Because I’m more accustomed to the industrial/EBM scene, most of their songs felt extremely short, being only over 1 minute or barely over 2 minutes long. Somehow, it still felt quite refreshing.
The evening’s “bättre folk metal” headliner was BOB MALMSTRÖM. I was supposed to shoot their show at the Hellsinki Metal Festival earlier during the summer, but I barely missed it, and I made a promise that I’d try to shoot their next possible show. So, this was also me fulfilling that promise. The show was energetic and humorous from the beginning to the end. I really enjoyed the little engagement with the booze-fumed fan calling himself Conan the Barbarian, whom the vocalist Carolus Aminoff promised the stage after they were done. Unfortunately, we never got to see his performance. However, we did have another guest on stage as local rapper JAG joined for the song “Sälj Åland.” Check our photo gallery here…
Jästinfektion
Bob Malström
Photos by Richard Forsman
