Retrospective time: live reports of Blind Channel's gigs in Turku & Tampere (2019)
Note: these reports were written directly “in hot pursuit”, a day or two after the concert, and mostly as a memory for myself, so there is no special literary component in them.
Turku, Finland, 31.05.2019
My acquaintances Vagabond Hearts were the opening act, and I stood alone by the stage when they were performing, just to somehow support the guys. There was not a very big audience in the club.
Then more and more people began to come to the club, but not very actively. I chatted with a girl, she asked how I knew about BC, and said that this is the first time she saw so few people at their concert. Apparently, because of this, the guys delayed the start of the concert by 15-20 minutes.
Their intro was very short: they just flew out onto the stage like a bullet and then everything was as quick as a breath… They jumped, ran around and had a hell of a time, and us too. The energy just sparkled from them, and it was perfectly transmitted to the audience in this way.
These guys were absolutely crazy, jumping all the time, although, to tell the truth, the stage was quite small, even if only the vocalists were taken into account. With my “skills” it was almost impossible to catch them on stage in the lens. I can say that there are no normal concert photos, just a couple of some more or less acceptable images of Niko and Joel, and that's it.
On one song, Niko and Joel rushed into the crowd, and there a mayhem was “started”.
There was also a competition between Tommi and the sound engineer to see who would drink beer the fastest, and Niko was nickering, saying something like “the drummer drinks beer, how rare”! In general, they diluted the entire performance with jokes, and the audience also supported this clowning with might and main.
Niko at the end of the song fell on the stage and didn’t get up. Dramatic whisper from the audience: “Don't die...”.
There were few people, but they were terribly running around. On one of the songs, the guys told us all to squat, and in the end the jump turned out to be gorgeous. Actually, it’s impossible not to jump at their concert, they really don’t know what gravity is.
They also performed a new song (“Snake”) for the first time, although they promised to do it at Rockfest. In general, their music shook me so much and just dragged me through that I almost sobbed with delight there. Epic gig band...
In a couple of songs after the start of the concert, Niko looked at me and smiled, and then one more time. And at the end of the performance, he took my hand. I knew that he would do it, somehow subconsciously I was sure.
When the guys left, I grabbed the setlist, drank a lonkero [Long Drink], and once again turned to the girl with whom I chatted before the concert. She said that they always come out to the fans, and yes, the guys really came out very soon and Joel was the first to come to hug me. Then he, along with Niko, moved to the merchstand. I approached Joel while Niko was “occupied” by the fans and told him that this was my first BC concert and I was from Moscow. He was very surprised by this. He signed the setlist for me, then I went up to Niko, hugged him, told him the same thing as Joel, he was also very touched and thanked me. Then I stood next to the guys to take a picture, and while we were waiting for the fans to let Niko go, Joel put his hand on my shoulder and said how cool it would be to come to Russia. They really appreciated the fact that I traveled so far for them. However, unlike the first meetings with some other Finnish bands, none of the BC tried to switch from Finnish to English, after hearing that I was from Russia. This is a plus! And I told Joel that I would also come to their gig in July in Tampere and I was very glad about it!
Finally, Niko came to us, we took a picture, and somehow I myself didn’t notice that I clung to Niko so close that it was a bit awkward in front of Joel…
Then I told Niko how cool it was and that I'm so glad that I came and I just don't have enough words to express my feelings. He smiled, thanked me for coming, and said that it was great that we would see each other again soon.
Then I caught Joonas too; I also told him who I was and where I came from, he appreciated and signed my setlist. Then I caught Olli for a sign. It wasn’t clear where Tommi went, I didn't see him.
I had to leave, but I couldn’t leave just like that: I went up to Niko to say goodbye, we hugged, he said: “See you soon!” and I left.
Tampere, 20.07.2019, club festival (Blind Channel, Stool, Beast in Black & someone else), Pakkahuone\Klubi
On this day, the heat exceeded +32 degrees, which is completely unusual for Tampere, so this concert was really hot, in every sense.
When I approached the club, I was surprised that there was no queue. Then four girls, all in BiB logos, moved to the entrance, and I stood behind them.
Standing in front of the entrance, I realized why there was no queue. It was like an oven in there. We were waving with our tickets, searching for the shadow, plus a security guard warned us that they would let us in later, because someone hadn't tuned yet.
Well, they finally let us in! The girls in front of us rushed to the main stage, and me, Henna and the girl behind us settled down at the Klubi stage. It was a bit bigger than in Turku, but not that much.
And exactly at 8 P.M. our violent pop revolution blasted. The guys jumped as usual, running around, sometimes crashing into each other, Niko showed off in a couple of moments, stopping right in front of me, atmospherically dropping on one knee over the setlist. This time it didn’t lie on the floor, no!
Actually, I got one of the best spots, Niko was right in front of me, and Joel was also nearby. Joonas jumped out on the monitor right in front of me once. The stage was small, you could see everyone well, but it wasn’t that small that the guys would’ve been very uncomfortable.
At first I thought that I wouldn’t be able to shoot a thing in such a light, but Joel turned out good in some pictures. Niko also turned out not bad, but I giggled a bit because of his slippers and panama!
The audience was notably having fun too: they yelled so that from time to time the guys didn’t have to sing anymore, they also jumped like clockwork. Well, again – I don’t remember which song – the guys told us all to squat and our jump turned out awesome as usual. There was a lot of energy from them, I didn’t even notice how quickly time flew by...
On “Snake”, I was in such a mood that I didn’t know whether I should yell, cry, howl, get crazy, what to do?! Makeup and rhinestones didn’t let me cry, I was actually afraid that from the wild heat and my kangaroo jumps they would slide down on my eyes! For it’s impossible not to jump at BC’s concert.
And when towards the end I realized that that’s it, it’s impossible, my face is all wet (no one canceled the tropics, even inside the club!) and I’m breathless to hell, I stood and sipped lonkero, Niko came up and took my hand in his typical manner – covers my hand and flexes my fingers. And we bumped our fists at the end. Once again, he extended his hand only to me.
And when they finished, Joel personally brought me a setlist that they didn’t trample on. Although they didn’t give trophies away. I didn’t ask, but he still brought it, it was nice.
The boys left, I, purring their outro, packed a clean setlist. Henna and I went out for a smoke and then went back to Klubi. I saw the rhythm section and Joonas were taking the equipment out. They disassembled everything quickly!
And then I saw Niko, he had already changed his clothes and tied his hair. He was talking to someone there, and when I approached, he turned to me with that awesome smile of his. We hugged, took pictures, Niko thanked me for coming and said that it was very cool and he was glad to see me. We chatted a bit more and hugged goodbye.
The guys at the concert said that this was the last concert before leaving for the studio, and the next ones would be only after the release of the album.
People ran back and forth there, but I never saw Joel. Then I realized that it was somehow depressing and hot, I had to wait for BiB for a long time, as a result, I sat down to finish my lonkero and then left.
Nowadays…
I knew about Blind Channel back in 2018, because they were friends with my previous favorite band, Shiraz Lane, whom I constantly followed around Finland and the rest of Europe. But since I was into such genres as glam rock and AOR, BC seemed so “out of my league” that I didn’t even try to listen to them until the spring of 2019 when my friend said that I am missing out a LOT. I decided to listen, and on the second or third day of listening, I looked through their tour schedule and immediately bought a ticket for a concert in Turku. It was completely unexpected for me, I have never made a decision to go to any gig so quickly, given that I was traveling from Moscow. But when I saw them in person, I was amazed at how strong this live band is.
But still, in 2019, I didn’t really distinguish BC from other young Finnish bands, at that time there were about four teams of equal popularity: my Shiraz Lane, Lost Society, Arion and BC themselves. In 2018, according to the Soundi magazine, Shiraz Lane was named the most promising young band in the country, and if someone asked me in 2019 which of these bands has the greatest chance of success, including abroad, I would definitely say “Lost Society”. The position of BC in Finland at that time wasn’t really clear, primarily because other bands played in more or less understandable and traditional genres for Finland: classic thrash metal from Lost Society, classic hard rock with a light mix of glam from Shiraz Lane and still the same classic power metal from Arion. And BC with their own style, which could only be described as “neither a mouse, nor a frog, but an unknown little animal” [quotation from Russian fairy tale “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” – translator's note], back then it wasn’t that easy to find exactly the right recess for them.
And then 2020 came and everything collapsed... Even before the famous events, I had a ticket for their concert, which was supposed to take place at the end of April 2020, and I was shocked that the venue for this gig changed several times and eventually reached On the Rocks. For those who don’t know, I’ll explain: OTR isn’t the biggest club, and by that time BC had already gathered the legendary Tavastia more than once, which is many times larger, so the announcement of OTR as a club for the presentation of the album drove me into dreary thoughts about how bad things must be for guys... but this concert didn’t take place for obvious reasons. I remember swearing at Joel when he wrote on Instagram something like “Well, I wish at least in ten years we will be able to go on stage again”. Depressive thoughts then were everywhere and no one believed in a quick restoration of the musical sphere, neither the musicians themselves, nor we.
When I found out that BC were announced for UMK, I just waved it off. For me, as a dinosaur, who started listening to rock in 2001 (yes, babies, I'm a superstar :) [wordplay: “star” in Russian translates as “old” – translator's note]) Eurovision has always been that “nasty thing where everyone wears pink tutus and sings something like “la-la-la”. And there is BC! Who’s gonna let them into this pop hotbed?! Arion was at UMK in 2013 and, of course, they didn’t pass, and I was sure that the same fate awaited BC.
But somewhere in the forest the last mammoth died and they went to Eurovision. From that point on, I grabbed some popcorn and got myself comfortable, watching what else “ma boyzzz” were up to.
The results of the Eurovision itself didn’t please me much, primarily because of the completely unfair judicial voting, but I was very happy with what happened in Finland after that.
Since 2021, BC have already become “band number one” for me, since I stopped listening to Shiraz Lane for personal reasons, and they somehow got lost and still haven’t got back to the “pre-Corona” level, but Blind Channel began to illuminate the severe Finnish vasts so brightly that I was naturally delighted, constantly repeating: “Hey, these are my boys, I still remember how they gathered 100-200 people, and look at them now!”
It was this band that helped me to get through the hardest years of 2020-2022, and became an incredible source of motivation to move forward.
So, now I have no doubt that they can handle any achievement, and if someone in ten years tells me that Blind Channel are preparing a concert for a million fans on the moon, I’ll say: “So what did you expect, these are my boys, this is what they are!”
Live reports by glammetalbuzzard
Translated specially for Blind Channel Russian News by Diana "Di" Chekanova
Русскую версию лайв-репорта вы можете найти здесь.