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Children of Bodom / Decapitated / Medeia

A beautiful hot and sunny day makes it easy waiting for this evening, especially when you don´t really want to share it with a lot of fellow homo sapiens. And rather spend all autumn and winter in a solitary hut in Finland – just nature, peace, freedom. Let´s see which effect the mere sight of some Finns will have. A long queue at Z7 proves that you can still fill halls with Children of Bodom.

Medeia
The Alternative Death Metal Band Medeia from Tampere, Finland, found their way to Switzerland for the first time, and then it´s even the legendary Z7. They manage to take over right away with their sound and singer Keijo Ninimaa. Somehow he seems familiar, and then I realize he is also the front man of Rotten Sound. As usual, the first band has no easy job, especially when the audience takes a while to warm up to them. Maybe because they had to wait for such a long time in the queue, or they don´t have enough alcohol yet. But Medeia pull it off and slowly they conquer the crowd despite the short set – a good show with great music.

Decapitated

This Polish band is dedicated to Technical Death Metal, and they have a blast. Singer Rafal bangs his long dreadlocks around, also towards photo pit and fans. As a photographer you rather be careful not to get whipped. Would be a weird newspaper headline, „photographer knocked out by singer´s dreadlocks“ … Also the headbanging fans seem in danger to crack their heads open at the iron bars. But it all goes well and everybody has fun, including the guys on stage. Great sound, good vocal performance and the audience is into it, I already wonder what it will be like when COB are on stage.

Children of Bodom

Finally the men from Bodom enter the stage and their fans are screaming on top of their lungs. You can see that this band has a lot of experience, everything seems so easy. Although mastermind Alexi has just been at hospital, he is standing tall, giving everything on vocals and on guitar, with a lot of passion and devotion, just like a real guitar hero. But also the others are awesome instrumentalists. Yet sometimes Roope gives you the impression that he is tippling over soon when he rolls his eyes during his headbanging. Three flat screens in the background show e.g. Scenes from the European Tour 2011 with Pain, and there is this massive light show with some Disco effects, plus those huge COB letters formed by red spots. All those who have never seen this band are surely overwhelmed. It was beautiful but for me maybe a bit over the top, because those are still Metallers and not a Boy Band. The set list contains some new songs that sound pretty much like Pain, which might be the result of the band´s cooperation with Peter Tägtgren. Naturally those songs are great, but where is the COB element? There´s another encore, and then they are gone. Overall impression, a great evening with 3 interesting bands and good music.

Sandy Mahrer

Fresh Act editor, reports, reviews, photos - - - Favorite genres? - Hard Rock, Heavy Metal and Pop-Rock etc. Less Death, Black, Grind Core