Sunrise Avenue / Jim Kroft
That was indeed a warm welcome for the Finns Sunrise Avenue in Switzerland: +18 C and a day off in Bern, before they played 3 sold-out shows. Their last visit at Pratteln was 4 years ago (Stalker reviewed the concert here ). In comparison to last time they had much more male visitors, and also older people seem to enjoy songs like „Hollywood Hills“.
More band photos in the gallery, link in top section
This time the support was the band around singer/songwriter Jim Kroft from Berlin, whose Pop/Brit Pop did not quite fit to Sunrise Avenue, but the fans in the front rows seem to enjoy it anyway. The high-pitched vocals were not quite my cup of tea, but this feeling of optimism that was spread by the band was a nice warm up for the headliners. http://jimkroft.com/
Sunrise Avenue didn´t keep people waiting for a long time, so there was only a short break to the fan screams and the first song „Out of Tune“.Samu, Raul, Riku, Osmo and Sami could not have wished for a better audience, because everybody followed instructions immediately and turned the show into a real spectacle. Many cover or famous theme songs were used in the program, e.g. „Ghost Busters“; and „Destiny“ – which sounds a bit like Reggae – was intertwined with lyrics and melody parts of hits by Rihanna, Bruno Mars, Robbie Williams, Lady Gaga´s „Poker Face“ and „ Edge of Glory“. Just like four years ago, the song „Fairytale gone Bad“ caused some goose flesh. Because after Samu just started with the „This is the end..“ part, it was then the audience who sang the whole song, the vocalist came in only during the chorus. This must be an incredible feeling for a band on stage.
Rather melancholic moments were provided with „Sweet Symphony“, which was introduced by Samu´s speech, „he´s always so afraid that nobody comes to the concerts, because this is what happened when they played their first gig in Finland“ and so on. Well, I cannot quite believe that, so he shouldn´t mock Finnish fans too much if he doesn´t want to find himself a new home country… All in all the concert was good and the guys surely impressed their audience. But I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed about all those cover songs. Why? It seems they don´t trust the power of their own songs too much to keep the mood in high spirits throughout their show. http://www.sunriseave.com/
Some remarks regarding the audience – I don´t attend Pop concerts that often, but it seems that people there have lost their manners. Maybe because they do not visit concerts that often and don´t know the rules, unlike Metalheads? But it should not be a problem at a sold-out gig that people request to pass by, or that you have to wait a little bit longer at the bar – at least that should be no reason for freaking out and becoming abusive. They should learn their lesson from Metalheads – something like that hardly ever happens at their events.
