URBAN TALE

It is with much embarrassment that I have to admit we totally missed the set this band performed a few years ago at an earlier Gods festival. The reason being we’d peaked too early on the beer and were tucked up in the back of the venue having a feeding frenzy trying to sober up. I remember when the band came on at the time we all turned to each other and gibbered … damn these sound good, wish we were sober enough to venture to the front to watch them.

Knowing what we’d missed last time was a cracking performance that had impressed our more sober pals, who had made it down the front to see them that time, we were careful not to make this year a repeat performance of that sorry occasion. Last time I remembered seeing the band wandering around the venue and thinking … oh what funky little hair cuts, they look like a load of hairdressers. Today however when they took to the stage it was more … just how big do you need those sunglasses to be?!?

Mind later in the set this turned more to Phroaw! when lead guitarist Erkka Korhonen started stripping off his clothes. Yes indeed, call me sexist but there’s nothing quite like a tasty looking bloke taking his clothes off to perk the day up.

The first couple of songs didn’t sound like they gelled as much as they perhaps could have. I wasn’t entirely convinced whether they were supposed to sound experimental or not. The sound production again was a bit of a let down and it was hard to make out just what the lead singer Kimmo Bloom was singing for those first couple of songs. Thankfully things soon settled down and the band went on to do a set which seemed to really set the place alight.

Indeed all five musicians are quite a powerful force to recon with once they found their feet and really got the show on the road. The whole room was clapping away when they played the newbie ‘Son of a Gun’. Its rousing anthem like chorus, together with its gentle melody really seemed to appeal to the masses and soon had us all joining in and singing along.

Kimmo Bloom’s strong yet finely tuned voice lifted up the songs to higher levels that saw them swoop and soar. ‘Open your Heart’ was a typical example of this. Truly beautiful to hear performed live. Similar to the way people used to say Journey’s songs always sounded much heavier live, I think Urban Tale fall very much into the same bracket, but in a good way, not a bad way. Stripping and early problems aside, the band did a very impressive set which saw us hurtle towards the CD stall to snatch up a copy of their new album. Given that a large proportion of the songs they played today were off it we knew it would be money well spent.

Trying not to be cruel, but at the same time being brutally honest, I would have to say that Urban Tale brought so much more life into the days proceedings than some of the other better known bands. Dare springs to mind as a big name band that were originally billed as headliners, but later moved to second slot. They were one of the most boring and tedious acts of the whole weekend and compared to the likes of Urban Tale, Talon and Evidence One, they should have been ashamed of themselves.

Forgot the egos and the past conquests of some of these bands higher up the bill on both days. Surely the whole point of a festival is to promote the here and now. Urban Tale gave a performance that was very popular with a huge percentage of the crowd who came along to watch the weekend’s performances. I’m sure a lot of people would have liked to have seen some of the older, perhaps tired bands moved down to make way for these newer bands. Perhaps next time they play the Gods we’ll manage to shunt them up the bill a bit more?