Sept 10: Review from Jaakko Suominen (jaakko@tuug.org)
We arrived to Areena at 5pm and we had to wait one and half hour
before the doors were opened. Everything went ok without a big rush. We had plenty of time
to eat and buy stuff off course too.
We managed to get standing places about 20 meters from the stage although we didn't hurry
at all. At least one of the Bongster's, Thomas, managed to get to the front row.
Purity started at 8pm, which meant half of hour quite noisy and monotonic drum'n bass
music. It was necessary to put something onto ears, because otherwise there would have
been big risk of ear damages. So, be careful on the concerts :)
After Purity, Tim Simenon was dj:in to 9:15pm or something. He played very good trip hop
music, but if I can see, not anything of his own stuff. He also was on the stage at least
during 'I Feel You' in the end of the first encore. The set started with Painkiller.
Martin wore nice silver overalls, Dave (something striped on) and Fletch (something black
on) had more conventional dressing. Backup singers (2) had two different clittering
dresses, one blue and one silver with pinky boas during several songs. They were on stage
three different times, first time from Question of Lust to Comdemnation if I remember
right.
About the songs: The audience started to sing more loudly when It's No Good started. IYR
was little bit like Zephyr mix but much more groovy linking nicely to Useless. Enjoy the
Silence had a new bass-line and spanish-like quitar solo, but unfortunately I missed the
rest of the song due to a fight nearby the place we stood. Fortunately nobody's really
hurt :)
The audience went nuts at the latest when Personal Jesus started: you know the "Reach
out and touch faith" -sing-along. Other my favourite were the songs mentioned earlier
and Walking in My Shoes, Barrel of a Gun and Just Can't Get Enough!
The stage was decorated mush alike earlier. There were D and M letters arounding with
light bulbs, which went on in Personal Jesus and later also. Behing them was a red
curtain. In between the letters, there was a 3-sided videoscreen, which was on sometimes,
for example: Question of Lust: faces of the band member and the naked female body. My
favourite was morfing effect from the female body to Fletch's face. Walking in My Shoes:
as earlier mentioned members of DM dressed up as various pop stars. I regognize at least
Elvis, Krafwerk, Queen and Beatles parodies and my favourite was Martin dressed like Slash
from Gun's Roses.
Great gig!
It was after eleven when we left Helsinki to Turku, my home town, which is located about
160 kilometres west of Helsinki. Unfortunately, I had arrived with a car full of friends
and I had no possibilities to meat other Bongsters on the city centre of Helsinki then :(