HAGEN - 04.04.2006

text by Grave Sista
photos by Grave Sista & Socke

I was actually planning to go to a different concert of a Finnish band that night but they unfortunately had to cancel their show, so it seemed to become an average day. However, browsing the Korpiklaani homepage brought up the very spontaneous decision in the afternoon to go to their show in Hagen, as this city is only half an hour away from me by car.

The venue, “Kultopia” is held by the city council of Hagen for the youth and embedded by a kindergarten, a public playground and a swimming pool. Nevertheless, it's a nice place for small events up to approximately 150 people. An estimated 60 –70 people showed up for Korpiklaani, which isn't too bad for a tuesday night.

The support band - shame on me, I can't remember their name - brought up a full contrast programme compared to Korpiklaani with calm songs interpreted by female vocalist Manu. At least one common feature of the two bands is the fact that both have a violinist. "The Letter", "Differences" and "Oceans" were some of the songs this support act played.

A short break for rebuilding drums and line check followed. While waiting one had the opportunity to listen to Korpiklaani's new album Tales Along This Road - if noticed.

Korpiklaani started with the same intro as on their tour last November. To my surprise the audience was quite calm at the beginning of the first song "Journey Man" and it seemed that it took a while until they were at 'operating temperature'. Thus to me, Korpiklaani spread their high spirit feeling just as great as I had experienced it in Arnhem and Cologne last time. Continuing with songs from their new album, namely "Väkirauta", "Happy Little Boozer" and "Korpiklaani", the small crowd finally went wild during "Happy Little Boozer". Hagen was ready to follow the clan wherever it would take them!

After one had seen the other band members around frontman Jonne only on smaller club stages before, at the Kultopia it was nice to see Juho, Jarkko and Cane running around as if they got paid for kilometres. Especially Juho was surprisingly often to be seen at the front of the stage this night while Cane seemed to be almost everywhere, using the complete range of the scene – cool to look at, only a bit sudorific for him. ;-)

Among further new songs like "Spring Dance" and "Tuli Kokko" they played "Cottages & Saunas", "Wooden Pints" as well as "Juokse Sinä Humma" and -almost mandatory of course- "Beer, Beer". During this song, after Jonne had spit some beer into the audience and spilled some onto the floor, he was running towards Cane and Hittavainen on the right side of the stage, and suddenly slipped on a beer slop, that he had caused himself, and fell. This just happened only within the blink of an eye and it turned out later that this involuntary stunt had torn a hole into his leather pants. After the encores "Before The Morning Sun", "Pine Woods" and the Shaman song "Il Lea Voibmi" there's only left for me to say that another nice and remarkable Korpiklaani gig ended way too fast.

COLOGNE - 06.04.2006

text & photos by Socke

Same place, same band, just four months later. Korpiklaani's excessive touring through Europe led them once again to Cologne, and even if I myself curse that city almost every time I have to go there (which necessarily is pretty often in case you started your studies there by some strange mistake), I must admit that the “Underground” is one of my favourite venues for gigs. Of course there isn't much space on stage for bands with more than four members, and of course it isn't made for stage diving as most people would get stuck between audience and ceiling but due to these things it just creates some kind of cosiness and reduces the distance between audience and band, an important thing in case of Korpiklaani.

I arrived at the Underground sometime after 5 pm because I wanted to catch accordion player Juho for an interview after the soundcheck (check the Falchion interview in the interview section), succeeded in that and caught the last songs of Dark Art who marked the support act of Korpiklaani on this evening. Actually I can't say much about them as I wasn't really listening, so let's say that their music at least wasn't disturbing in any way :-P

Finally it was time to get a place for the Korpiklaani show that was to follow. From the first notes of "Journey Man" it all was there again: A grinning and jumping Jonne, a concentrated Hittavainen, a hardly to be seen Matson (which is the inevitable faith of a drummer), a solid Jarkko, an hiding-under-his-hat Cane, a diffident Juho and an audience that couldn't stand still for just one moment. Even the five new songs from Korpiklaani's (at the time of the gig) upcoming album Tales Along This Road were received as if they had always been in the set. Well, they have already been in the set in November with the exception of "Väkirauta" but actually I think most people in the audience didn't give a damn about if they knew every single song because they wanted to have the folk metal party they just expect from a band like Korpiklaani. I'm pretty sure they didn't suffer a disappointment ;-)

Even Hittavainen seemed to get his extroverted moments on this tour sometimes, showing his own idiosyncratic style of head banging. Any other changes compared to their last gig in Cologne? Indeed. Cane/Hittavainen and Juho changed the sides on stage. Jonne's beer didn't topple down and flood the stage this time. I had time (and the mood) to check out the mosh pit during the encore. Jonne wasn't wearing his strange shoes. What didn't change was the fact that you again never reached the point to think you got enough now, quite the opposite, I guess most people at the Underground would also have listened to four hours of Korpiklaani (well, maybe your body would have given up after three hours already ;-)). However, no one should complain about that, they are one of the bands that already have a pretty long playing time at gigs and with all that jumping on stage it's incredible anyway how well the band members survive every gig!

The end of this show fortunately didn't mean the last Korpiklaani show of the tour for us (Grave Sista, Sankarihauta and me) as we still had the Ragnarök festival ahead, which started the next day.

Setlist at both gigs:

Journey Man
Väkirauta
Happy Little Boozer
Korpiklaani
Pellonpekko
Spirit Of The Forest
Cottages & Saunas
Spring Dance
Wooden Pints
Tuli Kokko
Fields In Flames
Juokse Sinä Humma
Hunting Song
Beer Beer
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Before The Morning Sun
Pine Woods
Il Lea Voibmi