Review: Vanity Beach & The 69 Eyes
After the long "Dark Decadence" tour with the Swedes from Hardcore Superstar and Crashddet all over Europe, The 69 Eyes decided to give a present to the fans in their hometown Helsinki by playing a live show during the Easter holidays.
A wonderful idea as Finland was unfortunately completely neglected within the "Dark Decadence" tour. The spectacle took place in the framework of the "Sonisphere Pre-Party" at "DOM", formerly known as "Dante's Highlight", and so first we had to have a look-around after the doors were opened at 8 p.m. ...
Whether the name is "Dante's Highlight" or "DOM": In both cases, the canned music is dominated by Metal tones, so probably I will keep it like before and visit this actual cool venue for concerts only. After a while, the competition started where you could win tickets for the Sonisphere festival in Finland. The host was quite talkative and as the volume wasn't lowered and thus as loud as the Metal music before, it was still impossible to have any conversations with your friends. We soaked up spring sunshine and we were full of pleasant anticipation for the Helsinki Vampires but nevertheless the atmosphere became more and more annoying and with growing impatience we hoped that the support act Vanity Beach would enter the stage soon, to jolly us along. Everything was behind schedule anyway...
Well, Vanity Beach... I only knew the band from hearsay and through some recommendations and after a terribly long intro, they entered the stage and opened their show with "Bitch In A Body Bag". Also everything that followed after the first song couldn't convince me at all; quite the contrary: It really confused me as the band was even recommended to me. It must be something to do with the singer Jonas Karsten who has some optical similarities to The 69 Eyes frontman Jyrki69.
An attractive appearance, without question, but looking good and making good music are two very different animals. Neither the voice nor the performance of the frontman were able to delight the audience. The performed songs from the album "A Life Of Vice" ranged somewhere between a bad version of Lacrimas Profundere and Punk. A strange mixture. Also the sound didn't play along but at least this fact was not the fault of the band...
Bitch In A Body Bag | Diving In Together | Clear The Entrance | Love Me Like I Love You | Garden Of Cruelty | Batcave | A Life Of Vice
Unfortunately, the keenly awaited show of the headliner will be accompanied by the same lousy sound but while the stage has been prepared for The 69 Eyes, the music at "DOM" was changed from Metal to Rock. The first ray of hope after 4 1/2 hours of waiting with loads of annoying factors...
At around half past midnight, any resentment was forgotten: The 69 Eyes captured the stage of "DOM", "to do bad things with you", as the intro "Bad Things" by Jace Everett revealed. The show was opened by "Devils", followed by "Ghettoway Car", a song from their very early days when the quintet used to play dirty Sleaze Rock instead of Goth'n'Roll. Actually today's setlist was a nearly perfect mix consisting of songs of their albums "Blessed Be", "Paris Kills", "Devils", "Angels" and "Back In Blood". And with the original version of "Velvet Touch", there was even a second song from the record "Savage Garden" in the setlist. May we hope that the new album will go more "back to the sleazy roots"? Already their current opus "Back In Blood" is the perfect foundation for it... Also the performance was excellent: The string instrumentalists changed more than usual their positions on stage so the show became even more dynamic. During the first encore "Feel Berlin", singer Jyrki69 asked with explicit gestures who would like to feel and taste Helsinki tonight. It seems that spring and thus spring fever has arrived even in Finland... Finally!
Devils | Ghettoway Car | Dance D'Amour | Wings & Hearts | Christina Death | Still Waters Run Deep | Kiss Me Undead | Crashing High | The Chair | Lips Of Blood | Perfect Skin | Velvet Touch (Original Version) | Sister Of Charity | Never Say Die | Dead Girls Are Easy | Feel Berlin | Brandon Lee | Lost Boys
Conclusion: I could have saved myself from everything that happened before The 69 Eyes' gig at "DOM" 'cause it was nothing but a waste of time. But if you want to rock along with your absolutely favourite band in one of the first rows, you have to be present a bit earlier. And at the latest when the band appears on stage, any resentment should be forgotten. That was the case tonight, on the so far most rocking Good Friday of my life...
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