The Bullet Music Reviews

Live review: Apocalyptica - Amsterdam & Groningen NL

This complete weekend has been mind blowing! But we’ll start at the beginning. We had tickets (bought in May this year!) for both the Melkweg gig in Amsterdam on Friday and the Oosterpoort gig in Groningen the following Sunday. We thought it was slightly overdone to go to both, but were we ever wrong on that one! Especially after Imre arranged an interview Paavo Lötjönen on Friday!

The interview went great! You’ll have to be patient and wait till the next issue to read that. You might want to sign up to The Bullet Reviews’ mailing list [see front page], so you won’t miss our awesome chat with a very flirty Paavo!

Support act: Lacrimas Profundere

The German band Lacrimas Profundere surprised us. They were quite good at what they did, however that included major stealing of HIM, Charon and Sisters of Mercy. Lacrimas was founded in 1993, but has had some changes in their line up since. A recent change of singers the most significant. They play gothic rock and when you close your eyes you can get confused and think your at a HIM gig from the past. Rob Vitacca (Lacrimas vocalist) imitates HIM’s frontman Valo in both singing style and stage manners. It’s a good rip off, but maybe something more original would be better.

Apocalyptica

It seems so strange to write about Apocalyptica again, seeing how often they have already appeared on The Bullet. And after every gig we say: “There’s no way they can get better than this”. But they do with every album and tour. One massive difference was that they were having so much fun on stage, we hadn’t seen that before. They were joking amongst themselves and playing with the crowd. Want some examples? Alright then: Perttu Kivilaakso started to explain that ‘vittu’ was the word you had to learn if you ever wanted to speak Finnish. Useful to say in fun situations, when you first met someone, when you’re complimenting a person… No one reacted other then the band members and those of us who happened to know it’s meaning, including yours truly. Before you say this one to a Finn, find the translation on google or something. Then Eicca Toppinen started apologizing for not having Cristina Scabbia on stage for S.O.S. (anything but love). He had a solution though: “Fortunately we have the amazing Antero Manninen!”. The man in question was in shock. In Groningen, Perttu referred to Paavo as Fat Sporty Spice. And even the no-nonsense cool northern Dutchies went wild in the Oosterpoort, which almost never happens!

The guys having so much fun really had an impact on the (mostly male) crowd. During all Metallica and Sepultura covers, and tracks with vocals (on the albums), the gig seemed an enormous karaoke show. Unfortunately, this was also the case during Bittersweet. Awful awful song. We ended up in a laughing fit with tears in our eyes. The result: angry looks from the rest of the crowd and a laughing band member. The rest of the set list was awesome, but when will they cut Bittersweet of it? Should we mention the quality of sound, light and music? They were all great! Really, there’s nothing else to say about that.

Verdict: Lacrimas: fun for once, extremely boring the second time. Apocalyptica, however, is a completely different matter! They rock and they get better with every album and tour. We can’t wait to see them again! And again! (and again...) *sighs*

Annika & Imre