Review: Santa Cruz & Cinderella

When Bon Jovi arranged a competition where unsigned bands could win the position as the support act at their open-air show on June 17th, 2011 in the "Helsingin Olympiastadion" (in English: "Helsinki Olympic Stadium") as the main prize, the whole music scene in Finland was turned upside down for several weeks. Bands everywhere were promoting themselves to emerge as the winner of the competition whose odds-on favourites were Santa Cruz. Though they made it to the finals, the main prize went to another band. A big surprise, indeed, but there was not much time to be sad for the hard rock quartet: Only four days after the Bon Jovi concert, another hard rock legend wanted to see Santa Cruz as their opening act on the stage of "Nosturi" - Cinderella. Frankly speaking, the only "Cinderella" I knew till that concert evening was the one from the eponymous Disney fairy tale and as my humble self isn't into Bon Jovi, I almost appreciated it to discover another band who used to be big in the 80s by this way...

Shortly after our our interview with Santa Cruz, they entered the stage of "Nosturi" which was bathed in blue light. After a highly dramatic intro which was accompanied by strobe lights and an instrumental composition from the "Kill Bill Vol.2" soundtrack (Ennio Morricone - "A Silhouette Of Doom"), they guys from Helsinki started to rock right away with the grandiose "Over The Limit". Already at that time, "Nosturi" was filled with people and sooner or later even the coolest glam kids in the audience were seduced to rock by songs like "Let's Get The Party Started", "Sweet Sensation", "Anthem For The Young'n'Restless", "Let Me Lay My Love On You" and "We're Aiming High".
Although: Santa Cruz are not that unknown anymore and so it wasn't a big surprise that the audience recognized the newer song "Hostile Shakedown" before its intro really had begun. Singer and guitarist Archie - who was vocally supported by guitarist Johnny, bass player Middy and drummer Taz - was all smiles and it must have been the same for Cinderella as they couldn't have chosen a better opening act than Santa Cruz...

However, you couldn't see any smile on the faces of Cinderella: After the audience had lured them on stage by enthusiastic applause and the lights in the pitch-black "Nosturi" just turned on again while the brilliant intro of "Once Around The Ride" started, you initially got to see some older, very experienced musicians at work.
After seeing Santa Cruz who were all smiles and headbanging during their whole gig, you definitely had to get used to the not so passionate performance of Cinderella, especially because the audience went wilder while the headliner played. Nevertheless, the distinctive routine didn't damped the headliner's show at all, thanks to the performed songs like the already mentioned "Once Around The Ride", "Shake Me", "Somebody Save Me" and of course their so far biggest hit "Gypsy Road".
Amazing that I didn't knew Cinderella before this gig! Another thing you have to give the band around frontman Tom Keifer credit for: They grow old with style, so they don't squeeze into tight spandex clothes just for image reasons. Even wearing a top hat seems to be too ridiculous in Tom's opinion and so it flew into a corner no sooner he had put it on. The same happened with the cowboy hat of guitarist Jeff LaBar.
The only longbreathed moments were those when smoother compositions like "Coming Home" were played but I have never been a big fan of "wave the lighters!" songs - which seem to be obligatory for the 80s hard rock - anyway so it's more a matter of "personal preferences" - or rather a matter of "personal dislikes" in this case...

Conclusion:
A very felicitous concert evening! Whenever Cinderella will come back to Helsinki: We will attend their show again! In terms of Santa Cruz, we went to "On The Rocks" the very next evening. In the framework of their own events series "Santa Cruz Rock Nights", they played two cover versions of Cinderella: "Shake Me" and "Gypsy Road". And maybe that tribute was able to raise a smile from Mister Keifer & Co. finally...

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