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MyGrain / Medicated

Lots of birthday celebrations in recent 2 weeks (including my own) kept me busy, but of course this one in Helsinki’s Bar Loose you simply could not miss – MyGrain´s official party gig for turning 10 years!

Arriving a bit earlier, my first impression was that
Medicated

might gather more people on stage than in front of it … but the club started filling up quickly right before showtime. Those guys from Helsinki really know how to entertain a crowd – besides the appealing mix of Melodic Death and Thrash, diversified song structures or cheerful lyrics like “God Hates You”, singer Aleksi Sihvonen delivered some witty remarks now and then that made you smile. The full concept of his joke about “warming up – literally” for the headliner, I did not quite understand right away… Well, summing up, if you get a chance to see this band live, just do it, you won´t regret it.

By the end of the Medicated set, the club was so full – I heard later it was actually SOLD OUT! – that I decided to secure a front spot during the break, as I did not want to get into Kamikaze-photographing again (see Shade Empire concert report) … And then I understood the joke. Even “only” near the stage it was damn hot already, ON stage it must have been hell … the stage /event managers tried their best, adding all fans/ventilators they could find to the outfit, but I don´t think that helped much…

MyGrain
entered the stage punctually, and I have to repeat what I wrote about Shade Empire – a triumphal reception, the audience went nuts even before they had played a single note. And then they started playing… well, let´s define it as “a bunch of maniacs going wild”. Which describes both on and in-front-of-stage scenarios…

The band unleashed a tsunami of pure energy sweeping across the room, captivating everybody, even those in the very back (which I witnessed after I had taken some shots and fled hell-central…) What to say, this band has always been a lot of fun, you simply have to like them, and this celebration show seemed to motivate them even further into crazy stage action and entertaining / silly interludes. For example later in the set, those who moshed best to “no music at all” won t-shirts, enriched with the sweat of all band members …

Tommy Tuovinen proved himself once again as versatile front man / entertainer with a sense of humour. The new dude in the band, “the viking” Joni Lahdenkauppi (git) could celebrate a successful “first gig”, and I finally got some nice shots of Eve (keys). Later I could not resist to enter the “sauna zone” once again, to actually see the band (which further back was possible only via screen). Well, lets put it like this, when you felt you got hit by flying drops of some liquid, you were HOPING it was a spilled drink…

The set list naturally focused on the recent release, the 4th album “Planetary Breathing”, but for the 10year gig they pretty much covered the entire band history. Another one of my faves (Trapped In an Hourglass) came up, and then suddenly the show was over…. time flew by, just like those 10 years, and as this show was such a blast, a 10/10 and all the best for the next 10 years!

Setlist
Waking Up the Damned
Shadow People
Mechanimal
Of Immortal Aeons
Alienation
Downfall
Into the Parallel Universe
Xenomorphic
Dreamscape
Black Light Supernova
Ambivalentine
Rats in the Cradle
Trapped in an Hourglass
Final Frontier

Klaudia Weber

reckless and merciless dictator, so KNEEL! In other words, editor-in-chief, translator, website and ad admin, "Jane of all trades" - - - addicted to books (everything between Lord Of The Rings & quantum physics) and music, mainly Metal made in Finland. Furthermore, there's painting, drawing, movies, theater... so you can expect some variety on this website too. MA Master of Arts, English and American studies & Media communication = completed two full studies parallel within 5 years; very proud of my achievement - a bit later in life thanks to a scholarship - as a working class girl in a highlyconservative-romancatholic nation...