Nu Nation, Diablerie, Evestus @ HRC Helsinki
Hard Rock Cafe Helsinki, Finland; March 24th, 2017
guest author: Grit Kabiersch
Since the club on top of Bäkkari bar changed the owner, Findustry presenting Evestus from Estonia (Industrial/Rock), Diablerie from Finland (Death/Industrial Metal) and Nu Nation from Russia (Metal Core) moved to Hard Rock Café.
Hard Rock Café is divided into a restaurant and a bar section. After 10 pm guests were placed to the bar section. Thus the restaurant part with the stage was more or less empty when it was separated by curtains. Well, it was not completely empty. Hard Rock Café has no backstage area for the bands, thus non-playing band members remained as audience. Or you could have a chat at the smoking balcony with them, for example with the drummer from Evestus, who is a really remarkable woman.
Evestus started their gig with some delay. Actually the concert just followed after some sound checking. Probably they also did not play through their whole play list, at least the organizer gave some unmistakable hand signals towards the clock. However, they handled this unusual situation and scantly present audience very professionally. I liked the sound and especially the passages in which the keyboard was used. And no one from the audience was running away – one could also listen the concert behind the curtain from the bar section – everyone returned with the beer.
Diablerie played next and had some more audience as they were locals. At first, there were some synchronization problems between digital and hand-played music (drums were created by the computer). Later there was also a better interaction with the synthesizer parts from the computer and the rest of the band. Diablerie sounded like a Deathmetal version of Rammstein. Some songs were catchy although still underpinned by growls. Diablerie felt the need to talk about themselves, but every chat round was hand-sign commented by the organizer. The delay was already more than half an hour.
Nu Nation needed a bit more time for equipment change as they had a real drummer. Also the soundcheck was conscientiously performed, so they eventually started at 1:30 am. They played very classical Metalcore and very precise. Also their show was very classical. Bassists and guitarists whirled their long hair completely synchronised, suggesting enormously strong neck muscles and extremely efficient squat training. Unfortunately, Hard Rock Café is not a night club. Thus, precisely at 2 am, hall lights were switched on and staff was prepared with cleaning rags to wipe everybody away.
PHOTO GALLERY photos: K.Weber