Headliner: Turisas
Location: Islington Academy, London
Date: Wednesday 19th September 2007
Rating: 3/5
Second albums make or break. But the success of a debut album can ride a crest for a fair while… Following numerous European festival performances of the usual high quality, Turisas’ army has vastly increased in size. Now, the Finnish six-piece has advanced from playing Camden’s legendary Underworld to Islington’s Bar Academy and alongside an augmented crowd comes a wealth of weirdly wacky costumes trailing closely behind. Faces saturated in red felt tip pen (good luck explaining that to the boss the next morning) dot the crowd and London’s discount 99p shops must have raked in a fortune from plastic armour and weaponry. And to top it off the Siniristilippu (yep, that’s the Finnish flag – this isn’t just an entertainment site, y’know…) is flying as Warlong Nygard – in upgraded war wear – and his fellow Finns stomp onstage, demanding attention.
Classic opener ‘As Torches Rise’ sets the pace before ’To Holmgard And Beyond’ – the icebreaker in their latest offering, ’The Varangian Way’ – wallops ears. ‘One More’ has become somewhat of a landmark tune for the band and goes down better than that first pint on a Friday evening. A warrior’s version of ‘Happy Birthday’ is sung to one of the sound technicians, but the newly acquired Turisas soldiers in the audience are paying little attention; it’s all just an excuse for a circle pit and flopping your Emo-fringes around, right? This new breed of faux-warrior impresses no-one…
Newbie track ‘In The Court Of Jariseif’ sees frontman Nygard and guitarist Georg Laakso link arms and swing each other round. “We don’t care what John-Ray we are!” grunts Warlord Nygard. “We don’t care if our music is classified as Country-Punk! But this song is ‘Battle Metal!’” Cue: screams, roars and more circle-pitting… Latest single ‘Rasputin’ – a cover of the Boney M classic! – is introduced with part singing split by the proclaimed “magic disco ball” which divides the venue. “Don’t lose your pants over this one!” Nygard teases as the fiddle solo begins. With such stage presence and skilled song writing, it really is no wonder these Finns have progressed as far as they have with such niche genre (or John-Ray..). Whether their sudden popularity is their making or breaking, though, remains to be seen…
- RED
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