Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Solkan (Nova Gorica) / Mostovna / Slovenia
Concert date: 25.11.2015
Attendance: 550
Ticket price: €15.00 (presale) / €20.00 (day of show)
The arrival of one of Finland’s biggest metal exports, melodic death metallers Children of Bodom, and British death thrash metallers Sylosis at Mostovna in Nova Gorica nicely livened up a somewhat sleepy autumn gig scene in Slovenia this year. The Mostovna show was confirmed only five days earlier. On the European tour, Chidlren of Bodom and Sylosis were playing alongside Lamb Of God, and in England even as openers for Megadeth. After 13.11.2015, though, especially among bands from the North American continent, skepticism over security kept growing. Lamb of God got spooked about continuing the tour too and preferred to head back to their »safe homeland«. All of this shook up the tour dates quite a bit and even put the rest of the run in question. The show in Oberhausen, Germany, on 19.11.2015, for example, was cancelled outright, and Children of Bodom and Sylosis fought to save the tour and bring it home. As late as 19.11.2015, a big gap in the schedule was still aching between 24.11.2015 (Milan) and 29.11.2015 (Kortrijk, Belgium), but the two bands urgently managed to plug it with three shows on the Mostovna (Nova Gorica), Vienna and Geiselwind (Germany) route.
Already at half past eight in the evening, Sylosis were thundering on the Mostovna stage. The turnout was great. A sold-out show, really. This truly tight British quartet delivered an excellent death metal overture. Sylosis are full of dark, doomy drama, and the songs are built in a traditionally British way, since there’s no denying that distinctive atmosphere. At the same time, Sylosis are a touch more complex, with songs woven from multiple motif and atmospheric shifts, backed by sudden rhythm changes. The vocals were in top form. A piercing, relentlessly merciless growl flayed the last sinners on the road to hell, while the guitar riffs often follow the old British thrash metal school (Onslaught come to mind). Elsewhere in Europe fans would be breaking their necks to music like this, quite likely even 100km inland in Slovenia (at some gig at Metelkova in Ljubljana. Well, the crowd was pretty reserved during Sylosis’ 45-minute set and calmly waited for the guys, who put on a truly beautiful show and more than convincingly confirmed their unique musical nature with a ton of heart, to leave the stage.
Half an hour went by. The hall packed out to the last corner. As much as it could, anyway. The first few rows were entirely Italian, let’s say the front third of the hall. The tension in the air kept rising, and at a quarter to ten in the evening the Finnish children of Lake Bodom came crawling onto the stage through thick fog. With no special theatrics, fierce and under the baton of eternal leader Alexi, they tore into the poisonous Are You Dead Yet?. The picture in the room flipped completely. People scattered, and a real »void« quickly opened up in the middle of the floor, where hot-blooded young metal hopefuls, average age somewhere between 19 and 26, went through their delirium in a wild mosh. The turnout from the female crowd was solid too. Alexi is Alexi. This time too he didn’t forget to line his eyes and blacken his nails with paint. With a grim stare he eyed the crowd as he raged with his brutal vocals through the web of the band’s entire discography. It felt good that the band balanced the set and by no means overdid the promotion of the more than solid new record I Worship Chaos (2015Repertoar The set was nicely spread, with a hefty bunch of songs from the albums »Follow the Ripper« (2000) and “Hatebreeder” (1999), while from the debut »Something Wild« (1997) the famous and obligatory Lake Bodom rang out.
As expected, the band confirmed their enormous experience and excellent tightness, and showed incredible form and compactness, proving the guys are still driven by huge enthusiasm and a big desire to play live shows.). Janne Wirman and Alexi Laiho remain an outstanding solo tandem, which they showed with a fresh web of crossfire from plenty of soloing escapades.
The revival of the terrifying night at Lake Bodom, with swirling wisps of fog, was reinforced by the play of spotlights, and as for sound, the result was perfectly solid. The only problem was the audibility of the keyboards. In the first third of the show they were practically inaudible, and later the picture improved somewhat.
Just for this tour, the band decided to bring on an extra stage helper. That’s additional (rhythm) guitarist Antti Wirman, younger brother of keyboardist Janne Wirman. For a good hour and a half Mostovna was boiling, the crowd and band alike completely drenched and bordering on true fanaticism. All in all, as expected, an excellent performance from the band, backed several times by Laiho’s thanks to the audience for all the support. The crowd gave the show a thorough workout and, despite the short obligatory encore, in which Children of Bodom could have played at least one more song, left the thoroughly steamed-up venue of Solkan’s Mostovna happy.
Setlist
CHILDREN OF BODOM:
1. Are You Dead Yet?
2. In Your Face
3. Morrigan
4. Halo of Blood
5. I Hurt
6. Everytime I Die
7. Bodom Beach Terror
8. Hate Me!
9. Lake Bodom
10. Blooddrunk
11. I Worship Chaos
12. Angels Don’t Kill
13. Silent Night, Bodom Night
14. Hate Crew Deathroll
15. Bodom After Midnight
—encore—
16. Downfall
SYLOSIS:
1. Dormant Heart
2. Teras
3. Fear the World
4. Leech
5. Mercy
6. Stained Humanity
7. Servitude
8. All Is Not Well
9. Altered States of Consciousness
10. Empyreal
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