Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz seems to be quite in popular in Finland in the hard rock scene. Since their formation in 2007, the band has become more and more popular and successful and will release their full-length debut album “Screaming For Adrenaline” on April 26 this year via Spinefarm.
I had never seen Santa Cruz live before; being pretty familiar with their two first Eps, tough, I was really curious to see the Finns on stage in the legendary Tavastia.

As far as the set-list is concerned, the songs played were mainly from the upcoming debut album. I couldn´t enjoy the songs as much as if I had known them before, still the crowd got an insight of what Santa Cruz album will sound like. And it´s promising – very promising ! The new songs are again restless, filled with catchy choruses and mind blowing energy. Plus those kind of songs work even better when they´re performed live.

It´s a shame there weren´t more people who showed up to see Santa Cruz that night. The pit wasn´t very crowded indeed, but that didn´t prevent our rockers to deliver an amazing live performance. All the band members gave 100 % of themselves, trying their very best to make the show enjoyable for the crowd. And it was ! All the four members were undeniably happy and they played as if to a stadium with thousands of people, releasing all the energy they had.

Okay, now I´m not going to refer to the young age of the band members (20 years), because I personally think age doesn´t matter as to compose great music and delivering good live performance – still I need to admit I was pretty surprised to see such young musicians being so self-confident on stage and capable to deliver such a great show. They seemed like professional musicians who have done dozens of tours already. I was surprised in very positive way. Santa Cruz is the living proof that you can rock no matter how old you are !The Finns mange to gather all the successful elements : a great energy and dynamics, catchy tunes… and those guys have the attitude, you know.

Even if the comparison with hard rock/glam bands from the eighties is quite inevitable, the band is still not a copycat of its main influences and favorite bands. You can find that touch of modernity and spontaneity in their songs but also in the live performance itself. Unlike many new and young bands in that genre, I didn´t get a déjà-vu feeling. Santa Cruz just shines on its own.

When leaving the venue after the show, I cannot help thinking that if the band seems to be quite popular in its home country already, Santa Cruz would definitely deserve more credit abroad as well. Of course it´s still the early days in their career, no doubt Santa Cruz could gain loads of fans abroad when reaching the potential audience!

In a nutshell, people who didn´t show up missed both a powerful performance and the new songs. We´re looking forward to their next show in Helsinki!